TagRendar

I want to take a moment to lift a glass to the poor person who got six rejections this week. I am so sorry and hopefully you’ll have better luck upcoming soon.

If you applied to UChicago, check your portal. No email went out, but I got my “we regret that we cannot offer” notification this afternoon.

Academic twitter is really similar, but with more ups and downs in the assessments. Yes, the job market is shit. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was blessed to have one of my profs give me a speech on why I shouldn’t do a Ph.D not once, but twice (and I sat through it and smiled and he smiled because he knew me well—especially by the second speech—to know that it wouldn’t be something in discussion if I hadn’t thought all of that through). And yet, he still told me to go for it if it was what I wanted and has been endlessly supportive in between teaching and current-student advising duties. I have a friend who was doing her masters at the same time I was—different historical area (she’s history of science), different institution—and she ended up going on to her Ph.D straight from her masters (I went into the private sector for a few years, then back to school again for a second bachelor’s degree). She gave me similar advice, warned me about the job market. She also knows me and knew that I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t something in serious consideration. No matter what they tell you about the job market, you’re going to decide what you’re going to decide. And you’ll figure everything out for yourself later, one way or another.

@MatildaMedievalist These are usually done in rounds and it could be something as funny as them not doing that letter of the alphabet for your last name yet or it could be that they’re deciding between a few people in a sub field, checking on funding, etc. could be waitlist, too—there are any number of reasons why you haven’t gotten an update yet. Just hang tight, even though that’s usually the hardest part.

@MatildaMedievalist Just take a deep breath and wait. Do you have another offer in hand? (I don’t remember if you did or not.

Seeing some Princeton admits! Congratulations to them!

@charmsprof not necessarily. It could be that the English department got their batch of recommendations to the dean sooner than, say, the history department.

@ATAH last year they came out on the 15th.

I mean, if they’re taking more or as many as they did last year, that’s good news for folks who applied and are hoping to get accepted. It may or may not be indicative of other trends, but we will have to see how that all plays out. On the other hand, might not be so awesome given the job market, but that’s a whole additional can of worms, right?

Congrats to whoever our second U Chicago POI confirmed acceptance is! Just saw the second one this morning after @automatic_peas posted theirs Personally, I’m expecting not to hear anything until mid-month on my own app (U Chicago was a last-minute decision for me to reapply after last year’s rejection). Seems like we’re seeing a lot more of the history, humanities, and social sciences starting to roll in now (lots of English, lit, political science, and anthro popping on the results listing the last few days). Keep breathing and good luck to everyone.

@automatic_peas You are correct, U Chicago was one of the ones where you selected multiple fields. Congrats on getting word from your POI on acceptance!

I haven’t seen any emails from Northwestern yet—last year they sent emails to tell applicants that decisions had been reached. Last year, they were sent out on the 30th around noon eastern (I know because I still have the email—don’t ask me why I kept all of these rejection notices, but I did). I’d keep a loose eye on your inbox and try not to panic too much? It looks like the latest they came out in the past few years, looking at the results lists, was the end of the first week of February—which would be by the end of this week anyway.

@jpc34 That’s what I was suspecting, too, though it’s interesting that their acceptance notification came so much later than ours. Wonder if it’s also linked to field, though.

Is the other UWM admit (the one who just posted today with the note about MA at UWM and funding) on the forum? Just wondering how you were notified about funding. In my admit email, I was told that we’d be getting word about funding by February 1 and nothing’s come through yet. Just wondering if I need to be checking the portal/PAWS at this point.

@dr. telkanuru I can definitely see how that would be the case. Applying for jobs and interviewing for said jobs brings up a lot of the same kinds of anxiety that this process can bring up. You’re absolutely right—developing coping strategies is a must.