Rrandle101

Turned down my PhD offer at OSU, my waitlist spot at UT, and will be turning down my MA offers at TAMU's English program and Toronto's Medieval Studies program

Committed just now to Cornell's Medieval Studies PhD program, good luck to everyone else!

My school is debating on having everything taught online for the rest of the semester right now and I am shooketh to the core

I feel like this is important though and good to know when being on here just ain't it for you and when it is. Someone in another chat said that it was important to know when being on here was helpful for you and when it just made you feel worse and I cannot agree more. February is a super stressful month and I think that even for people who have really solid cycles you can still get the nagging feeling of "why was what they're delivering better than my best effort" and there usually isn't a clear cut answer for that. Some things that were helpful for me to keep in mind was that: 1. If they aren't in your subject area it's not as if them doing well affects you in any way whatsoever. 2. Even if they are in your subject area, chances are they aren't just "a better version of you" they're just out here doing their own thing and the admissions committee thought that they fit better with their program. 3. Plenty of current professors with tenure or on track to get it had to apply multiple times before getting in somewhere. 4. This process is hard on everyone and the amount of people who just destroy their application season are pretty low and even for the people that do have an amazing season, they can only pick one place, and all the other slots will be up for grabs to those on the waitlist.

Solidarity with anyone else trying to cancel their flights rn because their trips got cancelled because of Coronavirus but can't because that service isn't available online and the wait time to talk to a representative on the phone is 2-3 hours. I've already had the people at Expedia hang up on me 30 minutes into that wait for the first call and we are going in for round 2!!!

I agree with the post above about using personal anecdotes. I think 1,000 words seems like a lot but when you're trying to really hammer home on what you want to do, what you have done, why you want to go to that school, and who you want to work with you may not find room to include it in a meaningful way/the way you're envisioning it in your head. I started my SOP with a statement about Mussolini's appropriation of the Aeneid and connected it to the idea that the study of the transmission of texts from the Classical/medieval world is important in our society today and was told by all of my profs that it was the most powerful part of my SOP. There is a way to bring an anecdote in but it shouldn't be the focal point of what you're talking about or the thing that binds all your really important achievements and accomplishments together. It looks like you're doing all the right things though and pretty much anyone here can tell you about the insane number of times they revised their SOPs and writing samples (I certainly didn't end up with what I thought I would have going in). Best of luck and hope you kill your cycle though!

Accepted to Texas A&M's MA program in English and Toronto's MA program in Medieval Studies (rejected from their PhD program which I had initially applied to). Probably will be turning both of them down because of money constraints/an option I am really excited about but it was news that was nice to hear!

I asked my faculty mentor about this and this is what he said that I found super helpful, "First of all, you’re not necessarily expected to do anything beyond inform them of your decision. I agree that it would be nice to email the DGS rather than just checking the box in the online portal, but it can be short and businesslike. You don’t have to detail any reasons or tell them which schools you’re still considering at this point. “I’m writing to inform you that I have decided not to attend the University of X next fall. I wanted to let you know of my decision as soon as possible, so that you would have the option of opening the spot in your entering class to someone else. Thank you very much for your offer of admission and for the generous assistantship package you were prepared to give me.” Something like that." He went on to talk about how they might ask who you turned them down for but that's just something they do for their internal statistics and that emailing your POI is really optional but to treat it "almost like a breakup" if you do email them. Hope this helps!

One school I was looking at had student fees that were over $750 per semester (not counting leftover health insurance costs) and another just $42.50 so what the post above is saying is really important

Trying not be salty rn but the coordinator at UCLA got back to me and said that I, and everyone else still waiting, should have been rejected weeks ago but weren't due to a massive oversight ? Congrats to everyone admitted though and always good to have closure!

Their program sounded amazing but I was admitted to Cornell's Medieval Studies Program so I will be committing there instead because it was one of my dream schools

They aren't admitting everyone all at once so don't fret about that. I rejected my offer there yesterday but I have no idea who it would go to next (like if they'd try to find another Medievalist/Ancient Studies person or just go down to the next person on the list). Best of luck and I hope you hear back from them soon!

I think my one bit of sage wisdom for people coming straight out of their undergrad to try to do a PhD is to get involved with undergraduate research with a professor who can advise you well on what interests you as early as possible. I started my honors capstone my second year of college and then used that (after many, many, many drafts) and having that long time to revise what I had been thinking about for awhile was so incredibly important I think to the overall quality of my end product. If you plan to graduate early then it's imperative you figure that out sooner rather than later I'd say because you don't really want to take the chance that adcomms will be inclined to give you leeway for less experience/skills than someone graduating in 4 years (even if you did it for financial reasons like myself). Make meaningful connections with the faculty in your department and try to be strategic about the language courses you try to take (you should be applying with an advanced knowledge of at least one language) Because I'm a masochist medievalist I took Latin, Old English, and Old Norse courses and I have been told and personally think that doing so has helped make me look like I am super invested in the field of medieval literature rather than it looking like something I kind of sort of like. I'm happy to chat with anyone via email/DMs on here about stuff like this if you think anything I have to say would be relevant to your experiences as an undergrad/if our interests match! Hope y'all applying next year can get through it with more poise and confidence than a lot of us managed to have this year!

Turned down my Comparative Literature offer at Indiana. I hope this helps someone else out!

Not sure if anyone else is waiting on UCLA but I emailed the graduate coordinator there today (I had called this week and last week to no avail) so I'll let y'all know if I hear something pertinent to those who still haven't been contacted.