Romanticist

I was accepted to UC Davis. Was emailed January 31st to let me know of acceptance, received funding offer letter last Friday (February 7th). Still waiting for grad portal to be updated. Someone on a different thread said that some applications were still in review, but you could always email Graduate Studies for an update. My fingers are crossed for you!** OOPS! I am an idiot and just noticed you are not going for Literature! Just kidding. Disregard my comment.

Same. This was my top choice & not going to lie it hurts! Where else have you applied? Do not give up! I was rejected from many schools over the last 9 years and finally just got one funded acceptance (to Davis). Honestly Davis is a better fit for me than Berkeley anyway. Hope we cross paths at an MLA Conference one day because, based on your earlier post, your research interests sound fascinating & important!

I can relate to this anxiety. Such (seemingly) capricious, subjective, and opaque processes are engineered to engender existential dread, I think. But the wonderful part of this entire self-worth-through-a-cheesegrater game is that rejection results are never permanent. The no of today is a gilded yes of tomorrow. Like harsh peer review, it helps us hone our rough edges. I certainly learned a lot in my last decade of rejections. I was rejected from a ton of schools and accepted to Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Glasgow in 2012 but received no funding offers and had a family emergency which meant I had to temporarily give up my dream. I was later rejected from all the (U.S.) schools I applied to in 2013. It crushed my soul. Fast-forward to this year when my first rejection was from Texas Tech, the lowest ranking school in my application pool. At that point, I pretty much gave up hope since the other schools were top tier schools. Imagine my shock when I was accepted to a top 20 school last week! With funding!!!!! This is all to say: don't give up hope for this year. And even if this year is not your year, that does not mean it is the end of your aspirations. I'm actually very glad I ended up not taking out loans for Cambridge, and that I waited this long for a funded acceptance, as the school where I was accepted is a much better fit for me (financially, geographically, academically, socially, and in terms of my research interests) and the school I am waiting to hear back from (Berkeley) would likewise be an ideal fit for me. Anyway, glad we are in this anxiety-fueled pressure pit together, and I hope you receive wonderful news soon!

I was told by my connection at UC Berkeley that the English department graduate admission team met last week. This might mean Berkeley applicants will hear back sooner rather than later. Historically, the first two weeks of February have been the time when acceptance emails were sent out, though it could really be anytime between now and April. Trying my best not to compulsively check GradCafe & my email & my application portal every 3 seconds!