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blackshirt

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Everything posted by blackshirt

  1. This is their attempt to get plenty of people to take the GRE right after its big change, so that they (and grad schools) can have enough data to get used to it/iron out the bugs/what have you. So I'm pretty sure there's no catch!
  2. This is good to know, and I am now even more convinced that those of us (ME TOO) who haven't heard from Chicago yet are going to be offered "consolation" MAPHs in the next week or so, especially since this appears to have happened last year.
  3. I'd like to add a new layer to the question: I received an acceptance by mail, and included in it was a little half-sheet with check boxes: if yes then great, if no then please tell us where you're going instead. After that, I'm given the address to mail it to. Should I include a separate letter, or is the little half sheet sufficient? (Just not sure about the etiquette here, and I do want to be as gracious as possible.)
  4. Yes, I was accepted by mail a few days ago. I know that some rejections also went out (see results page) so I'm guessing you're waitlisted? Good news is, I will be declining the offer, so don't lose hope!
  5. I'm bumping this thread because I *still* haven't heard from U of C, and it's the only school I have yet to hear from. The results page shows a wave of rejections over the past week...Anyone else still in the dark? I'm thinking this may mean I/we will be receiving a "consolation" MAPH?
  6. I believe 7 or 8 of us were accepted; 5 attended the recruitment weekend. I've accepted their offer, and one other attendee seemed pretty certain she'd be accepting the offer...3 were still waiting to hear from other schools before they made a decision. Hope this helps! Good luck!
  7. I don't have much information for you, as I didn't actually do the program, but 2 acquaintances of mine did. One is now a PhD student at Stanford; the other is working in arts administration, though I believe she plans to reenter academia in a few years. The former of the two spoke to me a bit about her MAPH experience, which she definitely enjoyed and was thankful for; she found it to be fast-paced but good for her, and she thought it did a good job of helping her further develop her interests. I believe there have also been a few other threads about the MAPH here on gradcafe; you may want to comb through them for a wider variety of perspectives. Good luck!
  8. So I noticed on the results page that there were 2 Harvard Film & Visual Studies admits on Saturday. Congrats to you both! Anyone wanna claim them? Also, do either of you have any word on whether they've already contacted all the admits/how many they're taking this year? Or perhaps, were you invited to an admit weekend? I'm starting to consider this an implicit rejection...
  9. I know I haven't! I'm thinking we should really be hearing next week...or at least, the admits should be. Especially if the visitation weekend is in early March...
  10. Bahahaha, that was me . I was inspired.
  11. Abolitionista, does your last name start with K or L? Because mine does, and my email was not BCC'd either. Well, congrats to the apparently-absent-from-gradcafe admits. But ALSO, congrats to the one waitlistee. We're all pullin' for ya! And finally, big ups to the fellow reject who wrote "Fuck it, dude, let's go bowling." Favorite movie of all time, and the sentiment is extremely apropos.
  12. Me three! Haven't heard a peep from Duke Lit yet. And, unfortunately, I think weatherwax is right: we're probably rejected, given that the invites to the interview weekend have all gone out. I have a feeling waitlistees will come out of the interview weekend, not the rest of us. Also, on the results page, all the rejections are from English, so I'm guessing they're just taking their time sending out the Lit rejections.... I'm not going to contact them either; I don't want to rush them because I'm sure they have a lot going on. Who am I to demand my (already implicit) rejection notification before everyone else? That said, good luck to us all anyway!
  13. Dreaming the same dream, as I also applied to Literature. But wouldn't they invite us to the interview weekend if we were waitlisted? I am going to assume rejection, I think...
  14. CONGRATS, OUTOFREDINK!!!!! Very happy for you, especially given how anxious you were/since it's one of your top choices! I haven't heard anything from them yet, but to be honest, I'm really expecting a rejection. You can't win 'em all, I guess; it's not one of my top choices, so I won't be *too* bummed when the rejection comes. =) But you should definitely fly to the interview weekend. As others have said, THIS IS YOUR FUTURE! But you're right--the weekend is earlier than expected. You barely have time to get work off, book a flight, and pack! ...Don't they pay at least some of the travel costs?
  15. THIS. I gained a lot of respect for Duke the minute I saw this. There's something to be said for honesty and demystification (however minimal) in regards to this whole process, and I really appreciated this data. I have most often heard Duke Literature associated with Modern Thought & Literature at Stanford and Rhetoric at Berkeley. I tend to classify it as an Interdisciplinary Humanities program, theory heavy to be sure, and recently very much inclined toward new media and literature & technology stuff (from what I recall). I'm actually mainly a Visual Studies person, but at Duke Literature was more logical for me than Art, Art History, & Visual Studies because of the above-mentioned emphasis on theory and interdisciplinarity. My interests are a little all over the place, but it all leads back to preoccupations with the audience/reader. Well, interview invites should be coming out any day now. Good luck, everyone!
  16. I am embarking on the self-teaching process for German myself (I learned French in HS & college), and a friend at Columbia recommended Jannach's German for Reading Knowledge, which is fantastic so far. It's directed specifically at those of us who are learning the language for academic/research purposes. Of course, it won't help you much with speaking or conversation, but I already read a passage about Faust at the end of the first chapter!
  17. I applied to one pure Art History PhD program and one joint Art History and Film Studies program with a an undergraduate major in neither. (In fact, one of my undergraduate majors was literally called "Interdisciplinary Studies"). Of course, the jury's still out on my acceptance, and it's very unlikely that I'll get in. Regardless of my own chances, I think one way to deal with your situation is to check the backgrounds of current students in the programs you're interested in applying to. Also, if you scour the websites, especially FAQ sections, you can generally find a little something about what kind of background they're looking for. Both of the 2 programs I listed above either explicitly encouraged applications from non-major/minors or enrolled several students from related disciplines. As the above poster points out, though, it really depends on what your specific interests are; depending on those, you may want to apply to some uncommon or nontraditional programs, like visual studies.
  18. This happened to me at a few schools where my recommender couldn't get her online app-interface to work. She grew frustrated and just sent the letters to colleagues instead. I hadn't had very positive experiences when I'd called admissions before that, so I chose to email the profs directly. I was a little tricky with the email, though; I wrote it as an apology for inconveniencing them...but ended on a sort of "thank you for making sure this gets into the proper hands!" note. (I suspect the profs are all on the adcomms in their departments so, ironically, "the proper hands" probably includes them in the first place!) I'd definitely try contacting the secretaries first, as that is safer, but if that doesn't work out very well, I'd suggest emailing the profs individually. Just be very careful with your tone! Good luck!
  19. I'm one of those crazies who writes a whole new SOP for every single program (of which I have 8--see signature), although my work and thus the departments i'm applying to tend to be non-traditional, interdisciplinary, etc. and therefore pretty much necessitate that. So, all of mine are much like yours, and I quite like it that way. I think it shows not only that you've done your homework, but also that you really care about this particular application--to the extent that you're crafting an entire statement JUST for them. They know how much effort that requires and should appreciate it, or at the very least, take you seriously as an applicant. As for the argument that "they already know how awesome they are," I agree, but I also think you can phrase your "fit" in such a way that you point to more subtle things. Like, say you're doing gender in Shakespeare and you talk about the Shakespeare Research Center affiliated with the department, but then you also mention the Center on Gender and Sexuality that may be less affiliated but that the prof who does gender stuff will definitely know about. I think this is less "you are awesome at what I want to do" and more "these are the various resources that I will be drawing from--look, I'll be taking full advantage of all you have to offer!" I dunno, I can see the arguments going both ways but I lean toward this side because it's a more logical adcom preference than the vagueness that would probably result from avoiding "telling them what they already know." Another way to look at it: make sure tell them HOW their resources help you, not simply THAT you know they have them.
  20. Hey, all. As I'm working on my SOPs, I'm realizing that I address my writing sample very explicitly--to the tune of an entire paragraph explaining how my writing sample evolved, how it fits in with my other work/research interests, and the ways in which it's a jumping off point for my potential graduate work. Is this too explicit? I know that it's important to present our applications as a cohesive, focused picture of our academic selves, but I'm wondering if I need to be more coy about the WS, if I shouldn't need to talk at length about it/it should be self evident. On the one hand, I feel like it comes out pretty naturally as I'm describing my academic path or what-have-you, but on the other, I've noticed that no SOP prompt mentions it at all. I've heard of applicants including a little paragraph-long explanation of the WS on its cover sheet--should I do that instead, and will it factor into my WS page count? For background, my WS is an independent research paper that evolved out of a class. (I did write 2 honors theses in undergrad, but both were for interdisciplinary departments and thus a little tangential to the type of work I'm proposing to do in an art history department.) It's 24 pages including title page and works cited, although the text itself is 20 pages almost exactly. Most of my programs ask for 20 pages, so would it be pushing the envelope to include a cover sheet on top of all this? Should I break style rules and combine the cover sheet & title page? Or is it that I'm being silly and I can keep the explanation-in-SOP approach? Thanks for your input!
  21. I also haven't heard that you should NOT mention your teaching experience; you definitely shouldn't focus on it exclusively, nor should it seem to be the main reason you're interested in a PhD, but I think the line of reasoning you propose is fine. Makes for a good narrative, I think.
  22. I think it's also important to distinguish between the 4 schools you designate on test day and the additional score reports you order later--if all of your Dec. 1 and Dec. 15 schools total to just 4, then you're fine; you can order the later score reports for January schools. I'd be worried if you have more than 4 due in December, but as everyone else said, check with them!
  23. I'm in a pretty similar situation--just graduated from a top school, high GPA, good GRE scores, ...but no research or publishing. Well, except for the whole honors thesis thing. Are you writing a thesis? That helps. If not, no real worries. Just play up the research you did for seminar papers or whatnot. The point is to prove to them that you've had enough exposure to research to know what you're doing when producing an academic paper (as exemplified, hopefully, by your writing sample), that your topics of interest are cool and fit in with the program & professors in question, that you're a mature enough scholar to survive in a grad environment, and ultimately, that you'll make good contributions to academia on behalf of their school/program. This doesn't necessarily mean being published in journals and having attended conferences already, especially for you and me, who just completed our BAs. Remember that most of the schools you/we are applying to are just as interested in people with BAs only as they are in people with BA+MAs, so I'm inclined to think they almost expect us to lack the research experience and publishing that many people with MAs will have when applying next to us. As for the "safety schools" issue, I'd say you're being pretty reasonable with your choices (more so than I am, certainly), in that you're applying to both PhDs and MAs. You should only bother applying to places where you'd not only go but be happy if you got in. As many people on these forums have stated...there's almost no such thing as a safety school since almost all departments, especially in the humanities, are highly competitive and nothing is guaranteed; even if everything about you is objectively amazing, the adcoms may simply agree that despite your awesomeness, your interests just don't quite fit in. (And this could happen over and over again, with every school--eek!) I will say that the acceptance rates of unfunded or partially-funded MA programs tend to be higher than fully-funded PhDs or MAs, for obvious reasons, so I suppose those would normally be termed "safety schools" but unfortunately, the MAs you're applying to are among the most popular ones so their "safety"-ness just flew out the window. Thus, I understand your concern and share your desire to find some "safety schools" for peace of mind... But as I said, I can't even come up with a program I could comfortably classify as a "safety." My opinion, in sum and fwiw: stick to this list, add more schools if you find more that seem to really match your interests, but don't stress too much about your lack of research experience, especially since there's nothing you can do about it now. Again, you'll just have to play up what you did do (i.e. your great work experience--it's all pretty academic and impressive), and wow them with such a strong SoP & writing sample that they don't notice or care about your meager experience. At least, that's my plan? Maybe we'll get lucky, or maybe we'll follow in the footsteps of many others on this forum and be forced to apply again next round with a completely different/more effective approach...not that I can afford it... Phew, sorry this was so long. Good luck!
  24. I also took courses at a local university during high school, but have decided not to include transcripts from that institution. I asked some schools/departments directly, and most agreed that they didn't need to see a transcript. The transcript from the institution where I received my BA makes mention of those courses (because it gave me half credit for them) but they're not strictly related to anything I'll be doing in grad school (with the exception of a French course...but I've taken much more advanced French classes since then so it still isn't very crucial) so it's not really a big deal, you know? I guess you could send the oldest transcript anyway, but if you're worried about overwhelming them, it couldn't hurt to ask if they actually want it. I wouldn't worry about the multiple transcripts making you seem "unfocused;" in fact, you could easily couch your "non-traditional" path in terms of your determination to seek out what fit you best, challenge yourself, blahblahblah.
  25. I took it yesterday and got an identified AW section at the end as well. No way in hell was I going to write more, despite the enticing possibility of winning the award, so I couldn't tell you much about it. It did look similar to the argument essay.
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