digitality

Well, I just got an acceptance, via email, to Rhet/Comp (my top choice) with 5 years of funding today. Judging by what's been said in here already, I guess I was pretty low priority-- but who cares! I'm in and funded!

It's a questionable but occasionally justified move to pay for an English MA, but paying for an English PhD is, in my opinion, unjustifiable. The one exception might be the odd very strong program that asks you to pay for the first year with guaranteed funding thereafter, as--if I remember correctly--Wisconsin-Madison sometimes does. And even that might be a tough call. But Wisconsin is a great program, and *potentially* worth paying for a year. I don't know much about ASU. How is their placement record in your field? Is funding guaranteed after the first year? It may be beneficial to see if you can defer one of these programs and reapply next year. That way you can give it another shot and still have a viable back-up. (This is my shot in the dark. Please, y'all, let me know if this sounds way off base.)

It's definitely not a good idea to go into debt, so I'd say wait and see if you end up getting a funded offer at either Buffalo or ASU. In case you don't end up getting a funded offer, I guess you'll have to decide whether or not to do an unfunded (or partially funded) MA. My own inclination would be to stay away from debt -- I'd rather wait a year and reapply to more programs and with a stronger set of materials than go into debt. Let's just hope either Buffalo or ASU ends up giving you a funded offer, and that'll solve the problem! I know it's nerve-wracking to be waitlisted, but definitely wait all the way till April 15 if necessary before making a decision. In the mean time, keep checking in with those programs and reminding them that you're very much interested in going there. Good luck!

Anyone accept at NC State yet, or hear anything on funding?

Can I add that I clicked on this post expecting (and hoping for) a thread about "real" Hogwarts' culture! LOL ehh.. what's happened to me...

Not being paternalistic and condescending, especially when you have no idea what you're talking about, is an even better first step.

I dunno. I'm inclined to give lots of points to folks to reference Harry Potter. I dressed up for the seventh book release and all that jazz.

Re: "Hogwarts; culture; awkward?"

yeah, your post about Hogwarts and culture is pretty awkward. I would worry less about the specific problem of answering where you've been accepted, and more about being social in a new situation in general and making first impressions. For one, laying off on the Harry Potter analogies is a good first step.

Thanks for your question, Eigen. It's a master's level program but the class isn't in my area of focus and the professor isn't a regular member of my graduate department's faculty, so thankfully I am less concerned than I would normally be about that. I'm a total goober when it comes to classes where the relationship with the professor is important to me, though. I once staggered across campus to my department's building with a skyrocketing fever and the stomach flu just to turn a provide a hard copy of my paper to a professor because I thought it seemed more professional than just e-mailing it as an attachment. Wah wah waaah

I decided to live in the dorms my first year of Grad School. I went for the cheapest thing on campus...

BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a freshman (yes, an undergrad freshman) roommate who loves to stay up until 4, playing WOW (including the night before I had a midterm), and the building smells like weed most of the time. I don't think it's until now that I realized how immature underclassmen are! So if you stay on campus, splurge a little bit for a graduate apartment, because this 4am World of Warcraft crap and the weed have got to go!

This happened during the weekend that I visited, and it still happens to this day: I stumble over my words, get tongue-tied, stutter a bit, misspeak etc, but rather than recover gracefully I do this weird Porky Pig cartoon over-exaggeration of my error with what has GOT to be a bizarre eye-rolling look on my face before continuing.

Currently trying to erase this from my repertoire of behavioral and verbal tics, but it's a tough one.

I also frequently forget my research interests after about three-quarters of the way through my spiel. Try to look poised when your interests seem to trail off, your face goes blank, and then the only words that come to mind are "...and stuff like that." Sip wine, look at how empty your glass is, and walk away after mumbling something about a refill. Repeat as needed.

I hear it gets better over time, but never goes away entirely.

On the bright side, everyone I've met in the department is human (no unforgivingly perfect borgycylondroidtrons) and everyone has some flaw about which they are overly self-conscious, even if everyone else thinks they're lovely and perfect. It sort of gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when I realize that we're all stuttery, inarticulate, sweaty-palmed, nervously loud-laughing, occasionally-too-chatty-because-of-coffee-or-wine-at-the-reception geekazoids at one point or another. Even the professors.

Comparing UCI students to CC students - expecting that, under normal circumstances, university students would be more intelligent than CC students - is incorrect and rude.

No, only to UCI students. I went to a community college for a year and currently teach at one.

What an odd and unnecessary insult to community college students and UCI students.

See my other posts. If the quality of UCI undergrads is any indication, UCI is not a good place to go for English studies. I don't know; maybe it's different for PhD students. But I know community college students who are brighter than UCI English undergrads.

And to the poster talking about the wonders of UCI English . . . fellowships, travel grants, world-famous guest lecturers . . . These are things any graduate program should offer. I agree that they indicate a finanically healthy program . . . but nothing more.

The UCs and Cal States are in a mess at the moment, and it's sure to get worse. My Cal State MA was de-funded at the beginning of year two. Bye, bye tuition-waiver, hello stipend reduction.

Why else would I (and many like me) be moving away from this beautiful weather to pursue graduate studies elsewhere? If the OP is legit, he/she is to be lauded for some honesty.

Meh, I do like picking fights with lit folks; no irony here. It's not a personal or vitriolic fight, though. I do this over beers with my literature friendemies all the time!

I do see some overlap between the two fields, at least in an ideal situation. But I can count on two fingers the number of literature students I've met who can discuss the most basic concepts of rhetoric, grammar, and linguistics. Hell, I work with a UCLA grad and a UCI grad, and neither of them can explain when to use "who" or "whom." They read plenty of literature, but they've never bothered to figure out what "generative grammar" means or who Kenneth Burke is or, for Christs' sake, why ethos shouldn't rhyme with Cheetohs.

But I do agree that, ideally, the fields would complement each other. From the analysis of phonemes to the analysis of poetry, it is a long continuum of language use. The best class I ever took was Rhetoric and Poetics, which was nothing but rhetorical analyses of literature. Great stuff. But I don't know a single program that invites this kind of study at the dissertation level. I'll glandly stand corrected, though!

No real animosity here. And anyway, rhet/comp is the underdog, remember? Just trying to keep it scrappy.

Hang in there. Your rejections have nothing to do with you or your application and everything to do with politics and bureaucracy. You're in a limited field as far as subject area goes. Every school has X number of funded slots. I would be willing to bet that you didn't receive an admissions offer because they couldn't fund you and didn't want to insult you with an unfunded offer, rather than because your stats weren't good enough. You have an MA/MFA and excellent board scores. You're also in a fairly limited specialty area. Adcomms aren't going to weigh your experience lightly, and they're not going to offer you unfunded admission at your level of experience. I have two suggestions:

A. Try again next year

and

B. Think about the rhet-comp path. It would be interesting to do the rhetoric of horror, no? How the author persuades the audience to buy the horror aspects of a work, the various forms and genres and sub-genres, the use of various literary techniques within the texts to enhance visceral reader responses. And it IS easier, with an esoteric subject, to get in through the rhet-comp path than traditional literary studies.

Last year I was completely shut out, and you can read my story in my blog. This year I have a fully funded offer to my top choice. I will be 37 years old next Monday.

''There will be time for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of (your) tea'. Dust yourself off and try again.

Easier to get in through the rhet/comp path to do literary work? Wow. This is why I can't stand you literary types.

I'd say about 2% of us have any interest in literature. If the OP takes your advice, she will be sorely disappointed. She should take the rhet/comp path only if she wants to do work that involves more than her, a book, and a computer screen.

I think an explanation that focuses on why the best offer can't be refused is not only acceptable, but expected. It's not just about politeness; these programs need as much information as they can get W/R/T student choices.

Of course, don't say anything negative about the schools you're turning down (I'm guessing you were on top of that part already).

After reading your blog, I'd say your proper home is with us rhetoricians, compositionists, and applied linguists. Ditch literature. Academic literary studies is nothing but a giant circle jerk. Do you really want to be someone who can crack a joke about "The Laughing Medusa" or talk for more than two minutes about post-colonial queer theory's relation to contemporary Caribbean poetry? Psh. Useless. The work you're doing has a place in the academy. Come on over to the rhet/comp pool. Water's nice and warm.

letting me pay the rest of the postage for an absurdly large acceptance letter to a program I did not apply for.



Sincerely,

Catherinian

3 of the dumbest things a human being can do:

1) Turn a hard right on the freeway while going 90 mph.

2) Swallow a poison dart frog.

3) Spend money on a humanities PhD.

If you're guaranteed funding beyond the first year, then it's worth it. But if the department is being iffy on funding altogether, I'd say roll the dice again next year.

The same way the universities phrase their rejection letters: be vague, impersonal, and feign gratitude and respect.

The University of Houston's economics Phd program made me an offer of admission. AFTER I HAD ALREADY MOVED TO HOUSTON AND JUST A FEW DAYS BEFORE CLASSES WERE TO START IN FALL 2009 IT REVOKED THE OFFER OF ADMISSION. I COULD NOT START IN FALL 2009 BECAUSE IT REVOKED THE OFFER OF ADMISSION BUT I HAD ALREADY MOVED TO HOUSTON AND PASSED UP OTHER OFFERS.

THE CLAIM WAS THAT THE DEPARTMENT HAD MISUNDERSTOOD THAT I HAD ATTENDED JOHNS HOPKINS ADVANCED STUDIES M.A. IN APPLIED ECONOMICS AS THE DOCTORAL TRACK ECONOMICS PHD COURSES. THE MISTAKE WAS COMPLETELY THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS SINCE I DID NOT MISREPRESENT MYSELF IN THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS. THEY DIDN'T CARE IF THE MISTAKE WAS THEIRS AND THAT I HAD ALREADY MOVED TO HOUSTON.

Would anyone accepted with funding be willing to share what the teaching load is and/or whether you are considering declining the offer? Thanks!