Submarina

Random, but Irvine emailed me TODAY with a rejection. I'm a little annoyed at the timing!

Me too. They said they're offering everyone a 50% scholarship and that 50% of their PhD students have MAs coming in. I think there are fully funded MAs out there too, which would probably be better. But I do understand it's tempting since you get to take the same classes and work with the same faculty as PhD students, which could certainly give you an advantage next year... but life in nyc + loans doesn't sound fun. Hope you figure it out! I also STILL haven't gotten the Irvine rejection... Not sure why all the West coast schools don't want me. I feel like there's another stronger applicant in my field who only applied to West coast schools. Or they just h8 me ?

This is my understanding as well. The only reason I can negotiate with Austin is because I have other substantially higher offers. With that said, some programs are really not flexible about money. Columbia, for example, is offering the specified minimum in the union contract that was just negotiated last month. If it took a year long + strike and a union to get them to offer just that, I expect that they don't have the resources to offer any more. Cornell also offers exactly the same to every applicant and they were pretty clear that they were offering all they could. It's complicated; departments don't directly have power to change stipends that are decided by the admin of the graduate school, but they can try to get you more fellowships etc. Austin seemed flexible to me because there were various fellowships they offered for some years and not others that were in addition to the base TA salary. But maybe it's not. I'll let yall know.

Yes, apparently they only sent out nine accepts. I likely won't be going, just so you know; I have to talk to the DGS about funding, but what they've offered me is substantially less than what I'm getting from other programs, so unless that changes I will turn them down.

Congrats on Princeton!! It's an amazing program! And your dream supervisor too! I was rejected a week ago! I would assume they have already sent out acceptances, but you never know! Also, I'm not sure if this info will be useful to anyone, but I heard from Austin that they put out "first round" acceptances which might mean there's more coming depending on what they hear from the admits immediately. I'm not sure what's up with the waitlist scenario though.

Yes, I'll be going, if time zone allows! I didn't officially hear back from them, but a friend of mine got in and they let her know that they'd sent out acceptances already, so I think it's just a case of rejections coming out late. Someone on this forum posted a similar thing for NYU - they've sent out all the accepts already. I'm also going to assume rejection from them. (goodbye new york dreams)! Let us know when you hear from Columbia! I wasn't interviewed, but I'm crossing my fingers really hard anyway.

A little spoilt - I have JHU, Brown, Cornell and Austin. Rejections from Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Yale, UChicago - all of which I'd have preferred, but happy w/Cornell. Have yet to hear from Columbia, but likely rejected since I didn't get an interview. Also likely rejected at Irvine. WLd at CUNY. I wouldn't be surprised if you got more acceptances Excited!

So all the PhD programs I was accepted to are asking me to commit by April 15th. I also applied to some non-PhD professional programs that I'm seriously considering. However the results for those may come out after the 15th. What is the protocol/accepted etiquette around this kind of situation? It probably wouldn't really affect me per se if I committed to the PhD and then chose another graduate program a couple of weeks later, but I'd feel awful doing it. Is there some way to communicate this to the school without jeopardizing my acceptance?

This is anazing, I am so happy to hear this! Congratulations! UConn is wonderful, I had some friends from there during my undergraduate years - much nicer than the snooty types at my CT LAC And Connecticut is beautiful, too. Crossing my fingers for the rest of your results!

I think we can assume that Berkeley is done sending out accepts, right?

Yeah, I think they have based on the graduate coordinator telling me that the cohort has been decided. Sorry about that Stanford, my top choice school and the place where my friends and college ex are doing English PhDs, rejected me. Honestly, maybe it's for the best because that ex sucked. But I was really hoping to go there especially because my recommenders are alumni and a lot of people from my undergraduate program get in, usually at least one per year! Oh well, guess it really is a very competitive year.

I'm giving up my spot on the Cuny waitlist! But postcolonial/narrative theory Yeah, I think that's true for sure. I guess I'm just looking for a justification as to why I didn't get in ? But yeah, it's clearly very competitive this year.

Congrats, that is awesome! I was accepted too, didn't apply to rhetoric but that's what got me interested in the English program. I am seriously considering it if they can match my funding packages from other schools (well, we'll see). Rejection from Yale. Man, all the rejections submitted seemed brutal. I don't feel terrible about mine because it wasn't a super great fit and I have other acceptances, but did yall see those rejections handed to people who had alumni write recommendations with perfect GPAs and fit? And also the person with the undergrad and masters ivies? Sheesh. Who on earth even got in?

Going to share what I know in case other people are interested. Don't take my word 100% - rules keep changing, I might have misinterpreted something. All this information is based on what I've learnt from the State Department's website. For the entirety of your PhD or graduate program, you will have a guaranteed student visa. After graduation is where this gets dicey. To stay in the US, you need to get a H1B visa. You'll have one year of "free stay" called Optional Practical Training. You get three years if you're in a STEM field. Ideally, this year should be spent trying to get a job which will sponsor your visa. The good news is that if you're working at a research institution - pretty much any big university - it's easier to get the H1B visa. That's because research institutions are considered "cap-exempt" - usually, H1B applicants have to go through a lottery process, where there's a 30-80% chance of getting a visa depending on your country of citizenship and your qualifications. At research institutions though anyone can get a H1B visa without going through the lottery. Now, the bad news is that getting you the visa is still a pain in the ass for the university. It costs them a substantial amount of money (about $6,000 minimum just in application fees) and could take many months to process. They're unlikely to do this, imo, for someone who they don't see as a long-term employee. So if you're working as an adjunct or such it will be very difficult to get them to sponsor you. Ideally you want to land a TT position ASAP because they will sponsor you. There's also a visa called the J-1 visa, which some universities might give you instead of the H1B for shorter academic fellowships and postdocs. This visa really isn't ideal because in some scenarios you may have to go and live in your home country for two years after the visa ends. (The requirements for this vary per country). In terms of longer-term immigration, if you land a TT job, it becomes very easy to get a green card (permanent residency). As long as your employer is willing to sponsor you, you can apply for a green card under what is called the "EB-1" category, which is used for specialized academic researchers. If you are from a country with a lot of green card applicants like China or India, getting a green card under the regular work category is practically impossible nowadays as there is a per-country cap on the number of green cards given out each year, which means the wait time for a green card for those citizens is around 50-60 years. The EB-1 (professor) green card is not included under that cap, so you can get the green card in as soon as 2-6 years after you apply for it. This doesn't confer an advantage to you if you're from a country with less green card applicants, because it would be easy for you even if you were doing a non-academic job. Finally, on Canada: I'm not an expert but I believe you can get permanent residency super easily while you're still a student. If your primary goal is to immigrate to NA, I'd pick Canada over the US for sure.

Thank you! Is that group on Gradcafe?

Yeah, seriously. I suspect it might have to do with the timing of my application (right before the deadline, as opposed to a month in advance like the person on this thread who was accepted). Could be a fit issue too, they don't have anyone in my precise area of research. Hmm, I can't glean any info from Austin's acceptance letter, but I suspect that they have not sent out all the acceptances yet, based on the fact that my funding offer was clearly tailored to me rather than generic (different funding for internationals, I guess). Also, some acceptances to the program were posted before mine.

Me too LOL. As much as I want to be in NYC I'll be letting them know I don't need my spot so that people further down on the list than me can be bumped up. I just got acceptances to Brown and Austin too! Hurrah!

Wow amazing, congrats! What was the interview like? And do you know if they interviewed everyone? Just wondering if they're even considering me LOL.

Don't take my word for this but that sounds kinda like a big deal?! I submitted an unofficial transcript to a school accidentally and when I asked them about this they were just like "we don't need your official transcript unless we accept you," uh, so..?!

Thank you! I'm not sure, but I definitely plan to ask when I talk to them. Will keep you in the loop.

Congratulations! I was accepted but likely will be choosing Cornell (though still have to talk to professors and waiting to hear back from other places), so they will likely be taking someone off the waitlist. Let me know if you have any more questions- would be happy to ask when I talk to the graduate coordinator. Additionally, for those curious, it seems like Cornell took 10 students this year, which I think is their standard cohort size.

Unsure -- I would assume this would be the case in most adcomms but CUNY acceptances do seem to be coming out in chronological order. I can't find it when I'm looking at the website, but I recall reading somewhere that they recommended applying early so they could get to your application sooner. If I find the info I'll edit this post. Don't give up hope yet - it's still early!

What an awesome area of research! (Big comics fan here). My research is critical theory focused too and I think they are very theory focused even across departments. Fingers crossed for you! This is super reassuring - for those of us who applied closer to the end, it probably means they haven't gotten to our applications yet? And thank you!!

Congratulations!! Thank you for this info; may I ask when you applied? Postcolonial lit! Pretty classic for international applicants I think. To be honest I was hoping to get a NYC acceptance as my SO lives there, but it might not happen for me. I'm still over the moon about Cornell though!

Oh no, I haven't gotten an interview request from NYU yet... Hope they are still sending them out. I submitted my application super close to the deadline, maybe that is affecting it? On that note, does anyone know what the CUNY situation is? I saw some people heard back. Again, hope this isn't a rejection. As a fellow Asian from Asia, I concur! But don't lose hope. I have one acceptance in hand and I'm sure you will too. It's rough waiting to hear back, especially knowing you're at a disadvantage re: funding and more generally too.