caffeinated applicant

Heart react for empathy, down arrow for Northwestern! Jeez louise, Northwestern, get it together.

Maryland rhetoric on the board.......... literary studies decisions, where you at?

This is so exciting and such good news that Yale declared interest!!! And put just like that, you've got a good reason for breaks--you were working full time during your degree, and at times needed to withdraw from school to earn enough money to keep going. (I suppose be ready for them to ask specifically about each leave of absence just in case, but I don't think you need to start with that.) The fact that you did keep going, kept coming back, and get your BA is a huge testament to your dedication, perseverance, and resourcefulness and is seriously so impressive. Wishing you the very best luck!

A bunch of places dropped general GRE and/or subject test requirements this year, which I think probably played a big role. There's also speculation that more people are applying because anecdotally the job market is actually pretty crappy in a lot of fields, whatever the Department of Labor statistics say, though personally, I don't think it's all that much worse in publishing or libraries or journalism or what have you now than it was two, three, four years ago. All those fields had really crappy job markets back then, too.

Okay, Chicago, you've notified your accepted students, can I please just have my rejection now and put it to rest??? Jeez louise, even when I'm quite confident of the answer, I crave that closure. Seconding this call for more insights! Especially would love to hear from people who got in off waitlists in prior cycles. The best I can tell from scouring past forums is that it depends on the program. It would appear to me that grad programs tend only to admit as many people as they can fund and waitlist the rest. It's not clear to me, though, if that means UT admits 14 people and waitlists 10, and each person who declines opens up a waitlist spot, or if it's more like, UT admits 16 and waitlists 10 in the hopes of ending with 14, and after the third person declines, the first person from the waitlist is given an offer, or if like, two medievalists decline do they admit one off waitlist even though now they're at 15 people... It also sounds like the waitlists at some programs are broken out by period (like, we admit 3 people for 20th century, then we have our #1 backup and our #2 backup), though I definitely saw at least one school in the results pages that explicitly said they don't rank their waitlist. And then it's all over the map in terms of timing. Could get word next week, could be waiting until middle of April. I agree with @Rrandle101 though that the language of the email makes it sound like they assume at least a couple people will come off the waitlist. My plan is to email in mid-March after I have the rest of my decisions to see if they can give me a sense of where I am on the list--especially if I can leverage it based on an acceptance ("I need to reply to this offer, so now that you have a better idea of what your cohort is going to look like, could you let me know where am I on your list?"). Past results pages indicate that's information that the DGS will give out, at least in some programs.

Duke literature: Does anyone have an inside scoop on what's going on there? The chatter on the results board appears to indicate only one round of interviews this season, but that they did two waves (the Jan 22 invites and at least one Jan 29 invite), and at interview time, adcomm was citing mid February as ETA on results. I assume I'm out of the running since I've only had radio silence from them, but of course, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised by a message, for example, that every year half the cohort is admitted without having to go through what sounds like the most painful interview in the business ?

I don't have much knowledge or advice to offer, but do keep in mind that as a general rule, you don't need a master's degree to teach at a public school, nor do you need an education degree. You do have to have pass some licensing exams and a teacher prep program (which includes student teaching), but the requirements vary a lot from state to state, and a lot of states have massive teacher shortages right now. I'm not an educator, so I know pretty little about all of this, but your BA university's career center probably can help you figure out a couple of options to obtain certification without taking on too much debt.

lol rest in pieces my heart, u gotta deal with the high latent anxiety for "the next couple of weeks" Thanks for letting us know what they said about timeline, @haleydanielle!

Double congrats!!! What a day!!

Congratulations!!

Congratulations!! Not just an acceptance but a phone acceptance--so exciting!

The caller totally would have left a message if it was business. Also, usually universities will buy up all of the phone numbers that begin with the same area code and first three or four digits, so that internally, you only have to remember 3-4 digits per number. With a quick Google, it appears that for Northwestern, all of the campus phone numbers are in the format (847) 491-xxxx or (847) 467-xxxx. Unless it's a Northwestern office number, since they didn't leave a message to identify who's calling, I'd assume it's just spam. (But I'm someone who hasn't answered a call from an unknown number that I wasn't expecting since like 2014, so. I guess I'm why telephone polls can't get a full sample for millennial voters, lol.)

Me: UT Austin is going to email when they post to the application status page. I don't have an email, so there isn't a decision. Relax, they'll most likely send something this week, but it might be early next week before I hear anything. Also me: *refreshes Grad Cafe results page to see if anyone else has UT Austin results, logs into status portal 5 times throughout an 8 hour workday*

It ought to be fine, because if you transferred the credits, they're presumably reported on your BA transcript. I'd imagine they would ask you about it if it was a problem. But you can always email the grad coordinator to check what the policy is, and if that would set your mind more at ease, it's probably worth it.

Finally had my first acceptance dream of the cycle. I dreamed that I'd been admitted to UVA, but funded at $11,000/year (an amount that would lead me to seriously question if I could afford to take it at all, and well below their actual funding). Even with the funding thing, it was very disappointing to wake up and realize I'd imagined it, I didn't have any results back... and that today is the first day when I might reasonably expect schools to start getting back to me, so I know I'm going to be sitting and hitting refresh on my email all day.

I told my office (five of us, most of whom are applying to grad school this cycle or the next in a variety of fields) that if I get a call ahead we're all getting a round of beer even if it's at 10am.

Monday, Monday, Monday! Opening of business is rolling around in the next 10 minutes for US Eastern time, and I sure am feeling that "the decisions are coming" anxiety! Here's hoping for a week of good news for all of us

Congratulations!!

Congratulations!!!!!

Yup--implied rejection from Chicago, another implied rejection from Duke Literature, and other than that? Nada. Based on past reporting on the results page, I expect to have 2-3 per week next week, though. All nice and spread out so I can worry longer, haha. I'm finding myself just desperately hoping that my first program comes through as an acceptance. Obviously I would be thrilled to go there even if it was the last program to report (otherwise I wouldn't have applied!), but if I get into that first-to-notify program, that means I'm going to grad school, you know? Whereas if I'm rejected from the first program, it means I'm stuck in admissions limbo for a while longer. (Lol, @ those of you who already have an acceptance--does the waiting feel easier afterwards??)

Congratulations on Wisconsin!

This is so, so helpful! A thousand thanks upon you! (Continuing fingers crossed that Duke/Chicago/Maryland are doing multiple rounds of interviews/that my lack of requests doesn't mean what it seems to mean... )

Congratulations!!! Truly the best first answer you can have!

Congratulations! I haven't done any PhD interviews so I'll resist the urge to launch into the tips I exchange with friends for jobs, but in the meantime, Duke of Bookingham (current UMD PhD student, in 3rd or 4th year) wrote up a nice tips post over here: https://dukeofbookingham.tumblr.com/post/190293342155/so-ive-been-in-the-room-for-prospective-phd

I've got two programs that used ApplyWeb (Brown and Penn), and both of them just say "submitted." I'm pretty sure all of the ones I've got that use whatever infrastructure that Chicago and Duke use also just say "submitted." UT-Austin's recently switched to a slightly longer message that includes "Forwarded to the Graduate Committee for review," but frankly I can't remember what the prior message said to see if that indicates "decision on the way"... I'm sure it's just a difference in what system the programs use. @Tessjane77's signature also says they're applying to MAs, not PhDs.