meghan_sparkle

huh! I'm also seeing nothing on the board so far which seems odd, if (at the v least) that email meant all acceptances had gone out... ignore me!

My official Brown email to check the website only just came in—maybe time to check those portals?

from the Shatner Chatner newsletter by Daniel Lavery, yr welcome. not quite the gawain i remember reading for my middle english exam but ... entertained all the same

Watching my inbox like a hawk and shaking my fist whenever an email that isn't admissions pops up. Just now got super excited when one came in but I opened it to find "The Sexiest Lines From "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" Gracefully Compiled For You", which .... (sighs reluctantly) okay I'm listening.

WELL THEY ARE. Thank you for the advice, btw—very pragmatic and logical and calm, three things I am not.

By them do you mean one of the schools, or like ... cc everyone on an email? (Omg the thought of that makes me sweat. It's like being in a polyamorous relationship and having to sit down all your girlfriends and be like, 'Ladies, you're all very pretty, my little harem of universities, mothers of my heart.' Obnoxious in the extreme.)

I mean, I really can't say which program rn is my top choice! It's definitely not the case that I'm uninterested in Chicago, though.

I have a slightly embarrassing logistical question regarding best practice and coordinating with multiple schools. Because I have several visits over the month of March starting with Yale on the 2nd and 3rd and Chicago on the 9th and others in the middle/end of the month, I decided it would be best (and most cost effective for all involved) to book the international leg of the trip from the UK to NY, February 29th to March 30th, and the domestic flights (or train, in the case of New Haven) for each visit separately. I'll crash on couches at my brother's/friends in NYC's places in between visits; it just would've been insane to take multiple trips from London for each one. I don’t expect of course any school to cover my accommodation on days that aren’t visit days, but as for the international flight ... I'm not sure who to give it to for reimbursement? Chicago has double the travel budget of my other programs (1k compared to 500 or 600), and both the international flight and the NY --> Chicago flight are not even close to all of it, so that's the obvious choice. But I wonder whether they might raise their eyebrows at the date on my itinerary (Feb 29th and March 30th -- aka a way bigger window than the couple days of being in Chicago). Should I ... just do it? Should I ... ask first and disclose all of my other visits? Should I ... email multiple schools about splitting the international flight equally? I really don't know what the most pragmatic, ethical thing to do here is, but I need to figure it out quickly. I know this is the epitome of first world problems but still, it's stressing me out. Edit: fwiw the international flight would have been the same price whether it was just to accommodate Chicago's visit or the whole month

also wait ... that would make their acceptance rate less than 2% ??? holy shit.

oh wow!

Do you know how many they admitted out of curiosity? (If this info was in any of the emails we've been sent I missed it)

Ha yes true, it's 7 PM where I am and I'm falling asleep on my couch so just felt like it.

In 2018 and 2019 they notified on Thursday (15th and 14th respectively) so tbh I thought it would be today! Ah well.

Though I would also say if I may: unless I'm mistaken no one is fully shut out yet! I've glanced at the signatures of a lot of the people worrying and seems like a lot of people still have places left to hear from. It isn't over until it's over, and I say this as a true pessimist/cynic. I can count on more than one hand the number of friends I have who either: 1. got in nowhere except their top choice, and that choice was one of the last, if not the last, to notify; 2. got off waitlists late in the game—either explicit waitlists or invisible waitlists! Making a plan B no matter what is great and can be a great distraction from decision season anxiety, but I wouldn't go into total fatalistic despair prematurely.

Am also available to talk about English major-adjacent jobs! Have worked in literary journalism, full-time as an editor, balancing several gigs as a research assistant, etc. There really is a lot to do, and in my experience rather than feeling like you're on the outside looking in (where "in" would be a PhD I guess) it's more like you've neglected to board as a first-class passenger on the Titanic. I mean first class is lovely and fancy and exclusive but, from a career/workforce perspective, it still is (or can be) the Titanic . . .

LOL. Not a triple air sign but I feel this.

you're killing it

Does anyone know why Harvard notifies so late? When I submitted in December, it was in my top 3 (not saying that it isn't anymore—on the wise advice of a couple people I've tried to wipe the slate clean so I can go into visits with a clear head and a lot of questions to ask; I've been warned that visits can end up changing a lot of preconceptions either way) but at this rate I'll know the outcome for Harvard maybe a day or two before I leave for my first visit ...

Agree on all of these fronts. On the last point it seems to me like departments have only cottoned on to the fact that they need to offer institutionalized support or training in pursuing alt-acc career paths in the last couple of years (a lot of debate in CHE and on Twitter about this, most notably around the time that article targeting Columbia came out—don't get me wrong, some people have been saying it for years and years, but I only noticed it in a more widespread way recently). Annoying as it is, a departmental shift that would funnel resources and faculty/administrative labour toward that area is likely something that has to go through a slow meat-churning process in committees—a bit like chipping away at e.g. GRE requirements, wide desire for change looooong prefaces it actually concretizing, simply because English departments are so unimaginably slow. And it's something I know there's a fair amount of disagreement about it, too—the main line of it I hear being that a doctoral program is 5-6 years of a highly, highly specific kind of specialized training—to be a professor. Faced with the reality of the collapse of the profession, does it make sense to keep the program and its coursework/training as is, and create side efforts for alt-ac tracks, rather than just whittle down cohorts, or change the PhD as we know it? Which, if fewer and fewer people can find meaningful academic employment, will just feel bleaker and bleaker? I know that sounds drastic and I don't think that would happen anytime soon, but the way the market is going, I'm not sure there's an easy answer, really.

Oh yeah—I've heard of other places doing this too. It's bad practice for sure.

Mood.

Well, one reason a lot of places might not be updating placement statistics is because there ... aren't jobs? Obviously this has been a problem for years, worsening ever since 2008, but it really struck me when one of my closest friends said "There was literally only one tenure-track position in North America in my field on the market in last year's cycle, and I know that because it was mine" (she was leaving for another TT position at an institution in another country). And her field is ... not super niche and obscure. I guess I can see in that sense why it might be ludicrous (more ludicrous than in 2012, or 2015) to compare placement data among top institutions for, say, 2018-2019. I mean, even with strenuous placement efforts, what can you do, really except place people in postdocs? I also wouldn't discount the possibility that some universities are just lazy when it comes to updating their websites—I know Yale's most recent year indicated is 2015-16 but they def have placed people since then, for instance. I wonder if we're much better off speaking anecdotally to current students and faculty at the institutions (and/or your mentors, if they have an idea of the place's placement efforts and reputation in that area) about their placement efforts: how seriously is this taken? Are there workshops about going on the job market, and if so when do they start and how often? Is there a placement officer, how good are they at their job, and how much longer are they planning to do it? Etc

I wouldn't give up on Brown just yet. I was notified by email quite late yesterday, and the DGS said it was meant to be a phone call (but I don't have a working phone and had alerted the department about this, since it stopped working after I submitted apps w/contact details). I have a feeling the letter via portal will come in the next week or so, and people will be notified by phone leading up to it!

Sure! I've said this elsewhere but 20th century.

would be happy to share were it in my power!