doxie-chan

Congratulations, yatto!

For what it's worth, two responses arrived by mail to members of my department on Tuesday (one rejection, one acceptance). I haven't heard anything yet, which is making me pretty legitimately crazy. Good luck to everyone who applied!

Okay, so I was in the same (more or less) position a couple of years ago. I finished law school without a huge desire to practice law. I do Japanese literature and law, but I had the same fundamental questions about the process, good fits, etc. I ultimately decided to go to Princeton, and I only have good things to say about it. That said, it was a difficult choice between programs like Harvard and Columbia, both with outstanding law schools. You are certainly going to find people who work on law-related issues at Princeton, but the approaches are going to be fairly different from the scholarship that goes on in law schools. You might not want to miss out on connections to this sort of research, or, you might not care. If you genuinely want to teach at a law school after graduating, my suspicion tells me that advice about "prestigious" programs is dead on. Law professors are all about credentials. Anyway, some things to think about... I have heard from some admissions people that it might have been difficult for me to get in to programs without an MA (I did a joint degree in law school). Does your school have any sort of joint degreem programs? Language--law schools aren't so concerned with language skills, but the grad programs you are looking at will definitely be interested (particularly if you are committed to doing such an extensive comparative project). Princeton for one is pretty invested in recruiting students who are far along in language study--I took a year at IUC to work on my Japanese before I started, and it definitely helped. If you need some language brush-up, I would highly recommend doing IUC or IUP (Beijing) before applying. Student debt--law students' debt is usually pretty terrifying, and going into a grad program will likely make you ineligible for any student loan forgiveness programs your school might have. And in terms of "fit," it will get easier if you can clarify a little more specifically what you want to work on. 16-19th century contract, tort, and criminal law in 3 countries is pretty...massive. In my experience, professors were a little hesitant about a law student's ability to establish a clear, tight research proposal, so the more specific you can make your plans, the better. And that is just what comes to mind right now. If you have more specific questions, feel free to pm me! Good luck!

Hey all! I was also placed in a single in the NGC. Just out of curiosity, what is it about the NGC that makes people want to jump ship to the OGC?

Good luck everyone! I applied for East Asian Studies PhD programs for the coming year, and after an indecent amount of hair-pulling and emails, I picked a program that fits well. Anyway, point being, any crisis that *could* happen while applying has probably happened to me, and I would be glad to give advice/words of sanity.

If I end up in Boston, I would definitely be interested! Good luck with your decision and let me know if you're heading out east...

I'm trying to decide between Princeton and Harvard. I know Boston is pretty fantastic for queer life, but frankly have no idea about Princeton. Does anyone have any idea?

That sucks, I guess I'm out too... Thanks for the info!

I know there had been some rumblings about this earlier, but has anybody heard from Columbia? (Specifically, EALC?) I haven't heard either way...

I'm doing an interview at Princeton on Tuesday (invitation came out mid-January), so hopefully I will know more once that is over! I am also wondering what's going on at Columbia, but I guess it's still early...

本当にありがとうございます！頑張ってね！

Thanks pudewen! How are you liking your time at Harvard? Hopefully I will get to meet you at the prospective student weekend! I just checked the results page again, and it does seem that acceptances went out on more than just one day. Obviously you would know better than I would, but that seems to suggest there is still a chance... Anyway, I should probably finish this MA thesis sometime this year--I hope everybody has a good night and lots of good news next week.

I posted the Harvard admit--I work in postwar Japanese literature. In terms of background, I am finishing a JD/MA, and I went to IUC for a year--nothing tremendously exciting. It looks like last year that Harvard was accepting people way after the beginnng of February, so I don't think not receiving an email today is any indication of a rejection. Best of luck!

I don't know mewiiwate, I still think it's way too early for anyone to feel like they're cut out of programs. Chicago has a such a significant modern Japanese literature presence, I wouldn't be surprised if they admitted a few of us modern kids. Plus, recruitment weekend isn't for another month, so don't give up! 頑張れ！

Hi! The Penn acceptance was me. Thank you for your congratulations! I don't know about other candidates, numbers, or anything like that, but I will say it was a strange process. I got a call about 2 weeks ago with an unofficial acceptance (kind of...) from my POI, and then just received official notice from the director of the department a few days ago. Point of story, I wouldn't be surprised if they were gradually letting out acceptances? Best of luck!