Deleuze

UC Santa Cruz was one of my top choices but I ended up not applying because of this reason. The housing cost is outrageous because the landlords there don't like college students, they want to appeal to Silicon Valley employees who have a six-figure salary. 
I totally support the students there. UC Santa Cruz was having this problem for too many years and the admin did not even attempt to find a solution. Last year they even sent out an email to faculty asking if they can let students stay in their spare bedroom, since 6,000 students could not find housing. And Janet Napolitano and her team is trying to get an extra 20,000 students next year. This is BS. 

Even though I'm yet to hear from NYU and UPenn (I mean, who HAS - both are implied rejects I suppose (congrats to the admits)), I'm considering the rejection I got from Columbia today as the final nail in the coffin for any further good news. Thinking about this as the end of my application cycle, I can't help but feel relieved - I have one solid acceptance to what has been my dream school since finishing my MA in 2018 (and my dream city since visiting in 2012). Now all I've got to do is visit next week, soak it in, and say yes. Not being Oxford or Cambridge educated, from a failing state secondary school, a "first generation scholar," I was convinced that this application cycle would be a complete bust for me. It turns out that all it takes is one offer to make the whole thing worth it (despite the imposter syndrome I have as a constant companion at the moment). Despite feeling crushed by all the rejection (my supervisor once told me that the experience of working in Academia is the experience of rejection, and keeps a stack of every rejection they ever got in their office), I feel like the luckiest little queer scholar who could. And it really was luck; I hope that you all get just as lucky very soon. x

On the day before my first campus visit to WashU, a conspicuous pimple decides to appear on my face. Love that for me. ?
 
 

Are any schools pressuring you to commit? Do not accept an offer if you have decisions pending (unless you know you would not accept, but even then, you could leverage the offer). Moving on and starting the process is enticing, but you don’t want to have any regrets about this situation. 

FYI, I'm going to go ahead and email the Boston U DGS.

Wow this implied rejection feeling really ... sucks doesn't it.*
*Please please no one jump down my throat for saying this—I realize I'm incredibly lucky with the options I have; my only point is that as a feeling it manifests no matter the surrounding context and sucks no matter what!!

HELLO, FRIENDS! I just received word that I'm on the waitlist at UNC Chapel Hill!! I am so excited and so flattered that they are seriously considering me and I would absolutely die if I got in! The DGS sent a very kind letter and he sounded positive about the likelihood of admission! Still, I know I shouldn't get my hopes up too much, but I really am extremely pleased that it wasn't the rejection I expected. I had thought I'd have my decision made by the middle of March, but it looks like I'm going to be in this for the long haul! 
(Also, I sure wasn't expecting an email from the DGS at 10:59pm.)

SAME. My fiancé trying to explain what I do to her family always says something like “she reads English..... but old.... like Shakespeare.... but less English..... and more old..... also she likes old books..... and libraries....” Needless to say, they’re baffled. 

I just want to thank everyone for their kind words after my last post. I spent an hour or so today talking with one of my professors in my MA program and she really made me feel a lot better. Like...yes, the tenure track job is a nightmare, but it's not the only option for folks with a PhD. I can teach at a private high school, work in publishing or grant writing, etc., and that to me would by no means be the end of the world. I'm also in game studies, so there's a chance I could end up with an industry job. (Of course, I'd love a tenure track job, but more than anything I want to make sure I can provide for my family first and foremost.) And I have options internationally, too; my partner is from Korea and we've talked about opening an English academy over there, which of course we'll have better prospects in doing if I have the PhD. Stony Brook has a fairly sizable Korean community and a developed Korean Studies program, too, and so my son will get to grow up exposed to that culture (we're already planning to raise him bilingual). 
Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know I'm doing much better now. Thank you again, and I wish everyone here the best of luck.

This was precisely what I'd experienced, because my research interests, as well as the project that I sketched out in my SOP, are rather interdisciplinary and theory-heavy (i.e. if language requirements weren't a barrier, I would've applied to comp lit programs instead). In that sense, to my professors and the POIs who've kindly reached out to me (they were, unfortunately, not on the adcomms; they also, and not by any coincidence at all, tend to hold joint appointments in comp lit departments), my ideas might've made perfect sense within particular theoretical contexts. But in my broader period/subfield, I'm not really sure how well my research translated. If I had to do over this process, I suppose I might've applied to more interdisciplinary departments with my present project (I thought it wasn't sufficiently "out there" for places like Stanford's MTL, but clearly, the feedback I'd received about it has proven otherwise), and perhaps applied to some of the schools on my current list with a more "traditional" set of application materials. Mais on verra... 
And ha! Another Deleuzian on here? It seems like there are a couple of us on these forums now!!

One of my cats went on a massive puke parade this morning, and as I looked down at a large expelled hairball, I could not help but identify with the hairball. Same, hairball. Same.
Tomorrow is going to be an anxiety filled dumpster fire. 

Hi everyone!
I just discovered this site about a week ago and am wishing I knew about it much earlier. I'm the first person in my family to apply to PhD programs, and I've felt lost a lot of the time. Anyhow, I'm glad to be here now, and I've sympathized with so many of you reading through the posts here.
I applied to 14 schools this cycle. I've got a BA and MA from a good-sized Midwestern state university, and didn't expect too much from applications, even though I took shots at a few major programs. So far I've got 5 left pending (including Penn and Columbia, which I don't expect to happen), 7 rejections, and two acceptances: University of Oregon and Stony Brook, both of which I think will be good fits for me because they have professors working in my areas, even though they're I know they're not top schools or anything.
I really wish I'd had a better sense of how things worked when I applied, because I think I could probably have saved myself at least a good five application fees--I see now that I applied to programs that probably weren't the best fit for me--but oh well. I don't really think I'll wait around 'til next cycle, but I do have a few regrets. And there's also that fun thing where my favorite professor at my top choice decided to jump to a new department after I'd already submitted my app (and had been in communication with them).
Anyways, hi friends! I'll be happy to anxiously wait with you for the next few weeks.

What will the day bring: more Harvard acceptances? Columbia responses? Some news from the infernally silent realms of Princeton or BU? Another Friday of no responses leading up to a weekend of silence from admissions? Pls give me something gods of academe \(0.0)/

WHAT IS HAPPENING! WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE?

Pants are definitely fitting tighter from all the stress eating. 

What will the day bring: more Harvard acceptances? Columbia responses? Some news from the infernally silent realms of Princeton or BU? Another Friday of no responses leading up to a weekend of silence from admissions? Pls give me something gods of academe \(0.0)/

What will the day bring: more Harvard acceptances? Columbia responses? Some news from the infernally silent realms of Princeton or BU? Another Friday of no responses leading up to a weekend of silence from admissions? Pls give me something gods of academe \(0.0)/

Just got another Ma/PhD offer which I am thrilled about ! Nonetheless, seeing Harvard on the board is making me a bit frantic. I have this strange recurring feeling where I want to get into one of the truly "elite universities" of academia more so as a perverse practice in self-affirmation than to even definitively attend. I feel a bit as if imposter syndrome is getting the better of me or something. Any who, this whole process makes focusing on my undergrad assignments hellish!
congrats to everyone whose had good news recently, solidarity with those still waiting.

Just got another Ma/PhD offer which I am thrilled about ! Nonetheless, seeing Harvard on the board is making me a bit frantic. I have this strange recurring feeling where I want to get into one of the truly "elite universities" of academia more so as a perverse practice in self-affirmation than to even definitively attend. I feel a bit as if imposter syndrome is getting the better of me or something. Any who, this whole process makes focusing on my undergrad assignments hellish!
congrats to everyone whose had good news recently, solidarity with those still waiting.

Amen! I can NOT wait for February to be over. Everyone said January was neverending, but good lord in heaven is this dragging. This leap year malarkey is for the birds.

Just got another Ma/PhD offer which I am thrilled about ! Nonetheless, seeing Harvard on the board is making me a bit frantic. I have this strange recurring feeling where I want to get into one of the truly "elite universities" of academia more so as a perverse practice in self-affirmation than to even definitively attend. I feel a bit as if imposter syndrome is getting the better of me or something. Any who, this whole process makes focusing on my undergrad assignments hellish!
congrats to everyone whose had good news recently, solidarity with those still waiting.

I've also been dreaming these bizarre dreams about having an apartment alone, for the first time in my life. (I mean, in my case, I might be moving closer to my partner, but we wouldn't live together at first.) I'm just so ready to get to work. I'm going to miss my friends and family terribly, but I just want to be an unrepentant workaholic with few social ties for awhile lol

Do you know, (since we've been discussing relationships) my first rejection of the season was from a school that I really, really wanted to attend, and when I received the rejection email, it truly felt as if I had been dumped. Many of the same emotions surfaced and I found the similarities rather odd. So, I went to Target and bought an entire cheesecake and binged shitty reality TV (Vanderpump Rules, fyi) and cried my heart out for about a week. It was awful but cathartic in a cliche way.
So, if going for a walk, run, making something creative, or focusing on school/jobs doesn't work for distracting oneself from the shit show that is waiting/deciding, I highly recommend cheesecake, Vanderpump Rules, and crying. 

Hello! Current first year Columbia student lurking on these forums... I thought it might be helpful to clarify to all that Columbia narrows down its applicants by subfield and then basically they all have a big meeting to negotiate how many students they want/are able to accept from each subfield. Whether they want to use interviews to help narrow down their list of finalists is up to the individual subfield, and plenty of people got in who were never interviewed. I will say, at risk of disappointing, that subfields that do interview will interview *every* finalist, so if someone else interviewed in your subfield, that unfortunately isn’t a good sign. Also Columbia does not give merit money. The standard fellowship is a named fellowship so it may look like it’s “fancy” but the graduate school clarified that it’s the same for everyone. 

I'm in the same situation; my SO and I are serious, but he isn't really willing to consider long distance or relocating. However, he's always said that he wants me to make the choice for my career that I need to make, and although I hope we can work something out, he understands that if I get into a program I'm going. This is such a tough field (as we all know) that I always felt like if I turned down an opportunity now, I'd really regret it later on.
Best of luck to you guys ❤️