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Tybalt

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Everything posted by Tybalt

  1. A one year masters can allow you to make those kinds of professional relationships, but you have to approach them in a different way from a traditional two year MA. Rochester has a one year MA, and year after year, I think the biggest mistake people make is trying to apply for PhD programs in that first semester. When that happens, not only are people overly stressed during a semester that, in the best of situations, will be stressful (the first year of grad study is, in my opinion, the hardest as far as overcoming imposter syndrome), but they are also missing all of the things that the MA is supposed to teach. If you want to do a one year MA, my advice is to go into it with the understanding that you will be applying for PhD programs during the fall AFTER you finish the MA. Use the MA itself to make your contacts and develop as a writer and a scholar. Use the "gap year" to stay involved--stay in the area of your MA. Sit in on a class with a prof who you connected with (lots of times, those profs will let you sit in unofficially--ie--for free). Go to a couple of conferences. Get feedback on application materials. Get a job and put together a savings bundle as an emergency fund for those lean years as a PhD student. Doing that will make you a stronger candidate on the application market, and you will surely enjoy the program more without the added stress. As a side note, I've been at this school for three years. I only know of one person who was accepted to PhD programs after applying during their first semester. I know of at least five who got into excellent programs (CUNY, Rochester, Indiana) after taking a gap year (and doing intelligent things with that time). Take it with a grain of salt (I did a 2 year MA myself), but from what I've seen, a one year MA has its benefits, and it can be just as effective (and somewhat less expensive) when approached the right way.
  2. As I said, that's just the sense that I get. Not based on 100% knowledge of how things work in the faculty offices. You might want to get some firmer evidence before considering murdering your way to an admit, haha (scholasticide?)
  3. Hi all, I'm a current Rochester student, and while we don't really have any inside info on how things work, my sense is that they offer the MA option to people who made the "final pile" but weren't offered PhD admission. We seem to have about 12-15 MA students each year, and I know for a fact that they don't offer that to all the applicants (I know people who have been straight rejected). Let me know if you have any questions about the program!
  4. A monograph is a book, generally. Some conferences will publish selected papers from the proceedings of a conference, either in monograph form (the Australia and New Zealand Shakespeare Association has done this a few times before) or in their organization's journal (the College English Association does an annual proceedings issue in their journal, the CEA Critic). You should most definitely NOT do this. Frankly, I have serious questions about the legitimacy of any conference that would A- "publish" proceedings on a CD, and B- charge for the privilege. Not only should you never pay to get something published, but there may be issues you are unaware of (concerning the future rights to your work, which are sometimes signed away to a publisher). Also, a non-peer-reviewed publication, even if it is legitimate, doesn't count for much among adcoms or hiring committees. It sounds like a massive scam to me.
  5. I went to the same MA program as MuchAdo--they have a pretty good track record of getting their MA students into PhD programs (my year, three of us applied, and three of us got in. The year before that, three applied and two got in.) It's rigorous, but I loved my two years there.
  6. Rochester and Buffalo are both great programs! Two of my best friends are at Buffalo, and I'm in the second year at U of R. If either of you have any questions, just let me know (I can answer some of the Rochester ones, and pass along the Buffalo ones). Congrats!
  7. Visit. All of your admits have tremendous reputations and name recognition for the job market. Regardless of your final choice, all of those names will ensure that your job application materials are taken seriously. That means you need to figure out which school will allow you to create the very best materials that you can (diss, cv, publications, etc). The only way to find that out is by meeting the people you will potentially be working with for the next years of your life. Maybe you learn that a POI is actually a HUGE jerk and would stress you out too much. Maybe you find out that one of your options has departmental benefits that the others don't (like being part of the Folger Consortium, having a guaranteed spot at the Cornell School of Theory, having publication/editing opportunities through an in-house journal, etc etc). Long story short--you apply based on rankings and what you can learn from their official materials. It's like looking at a dating profile. Before you propose (ie- attend), you want to go on at least one serious, in-person date with your program to learn the things that won't show up on a departmental webpage. Best of luck with your decision making process!
  8. I have nothing to add to this, but you mentioned a couple of Victorian writers and used the word "shenanigans" so I felt compelled to post the following:
  9. If you do need to re-apply, it might be more beneficial to find schools/potential mentors that really fit your interests. Have you thought of applying to Columbia? They have plenty of folks there who do the kind of theory you seem to be interested in, and you could probably make a strong argument for why James Shapiro would be beneficial for your work as well (he's early modern, but absolutely brilliant--and he's written a very well regarded book on a topic somewhat similar to yours).
  10. Last year, on April 13th, I got one of the happiest phone calls of my life. I was able to celebrate that call on last year's version of this thread. I'm holding onto happy thoughts for everyone still waiting, and I hope that y'all get good news on 4/13 as well. Good luck! It DOES happen!
  11. I was there, but I'm en route back to WNY now. What panels were you guys on?
  12. It should factor into the equation, but it shouldn't trump everything else. If the two schools are even in your eyes, then such a stellar placement record could be enough to put that school over the top. I would probably include it at the same level as something like climate, city/rural campus, etc. Fit is key, funding is just below that and everything else tends to work itself out. If the higher ranked program is a better fit with better funding, then it doesn't make sense to decline it for the school with the better placement record. At the end of the day, professionalization is something you can ultimately figure out on your own if you absolutely have to (Greg Semenza's book is a great starting point if you haven't already read it).
  13. I would recommend more of a middle ground. The program accepted you, so you have no reason to think that they don't want you/only communicate grudgingly. If they had any misgivings about you personally, they wouldn't have made you an offer. While there are many things that could be going on in your situation, two flags go up immediately to me (and these are general flags--I know nothing of your schools): 1st- I'd be concerned if anyone wasn't forthcoming with the funding information. I had an offer from a school last year and they were just the same. Nobody seemed to know the funding information. One contact told me one number, and another gave me different numbers. There were a lot of e-mails that were not returned. At the time, that was my only offer and the shady funding info had me thinking about just declining and reapplying to schools next year (Thankfully, I got in off of the wait-list for the program I'm currently attending). It could be nothing, but I always question any program that isn't forthcoming with its funding info. 2nd- It could just be a personality thing. Some people are just curt by nature, and don't do the whole warm fuzzy thing. If that's the case, then you need to question whether or not you can work with someone like that (if that person is the one you want to work with. If it isn't, contact your POIs and see how they come across). Rankings are important, but the work that you do in your program is crucial. If you think that personality conflicts or funding issues will interfere in your ability to do the best work possible, then you need to factor that into your decision making process. I lucked out. I ended up with two choices and, by the time the 2nd option presented itself, I wanted nothing to do with the first option.
  14. The best answer we could offer would be "possibly." The best thing to do, in my opinion, would be to contact the two departments. For example, send an e-mail to the lower ranked school saying something along the lines of "One of the things that really impressed me about your program is your record for placing graduates in tenure track positions. Could you possibly give me some information on how you've achieved that success? Is there a particularly effective job market program at X University, or is it something else?" Their response can give you plenty of information--if they blow you off or give you a curt/pat response, then that tells you something about the way they might interact with you as a student. If they have a slamming professionalization program, that's something to add to the "Pro" column for that school. I was just saying to be careful because I've seen schools that included non-tenure track positions in the "employed" percentages and (more often) schools who just list the names of the universities that have hired its graduates (when some of those graduates were hired 10, 15, sometimes even 20 years ago). IMO, even 10 years is going a bit too far back. The last 3 to 5 years will be the most telling as far as how well this program will help you to get a TT job in this market.
  15. Don't put too much value in the placement record unless the school lists/is willing to give you specific numbers (ie- how many recent grads had TT jobs and where those jobs are). From what I've seen/heard, placement records are notoriously doctored (graduate gets an adjunct job? Goes off to teach at a private HS? Gets a job outside of academia? They are on the "full-time employed" list!).
  16. I've dealt with departmental politics at the high school level (I taught for a few years before starting grad school). The best bit of advice I can offer isn't to stay neutral, but rather to stay professional. If one professor is bad mouthing another and looks to you for a reaction, all you have to say is something like "I've heard Dr. Your Nemesis is a good prof, but I haven't really had any interactions with him/her." It's bland and it doesn't actually say anything, but it keeps you from becoming snagged as a participant in the drama. Plus, the more often you return a bland response like that, the less often Professor Chatty Britches will look to gossip with you about personal issues in the department (since you won't be feeding his/her need to vent emotionally). I can't stand departmental politics. If there's a war between two faculty members, there is zero reason for that war to spill into the student population.
  17. I'll be at CEA as well. Last year's CEA was SO much fun.
  18. I'll be there. I'm presenting in a seminar on Sunday on peer review (my sole foray into the world of Comp Theory, haha). I'll be around for the whole conference though (it's not as expensive for me, seeing as how I live down the road from the conference site).
  19. Definitely. It's all down to those goofy Victorians (you should check out the Shakespeare Jubilee that was put on by David Garrick in the mid 18th C. A three day celebration all about how Shakespeare was the best writer ever, and they didn't perform ANY of his plays, haha. Bardolatry at its finest).
  20. You would prefer the mischievous musings of Puck and the mechanicals to the hilarious belly of guts that is Sir John Falstaff?! Sacrilege, sir. Sacrilege.
  21. I was waitlisted at UMD last year (notified on 2/21/11). I had assumed it was a straight rejection until I got that wait list e-mail. In other words, don't give up hope quite yet.
  22. I know I mentioned it last year, but my MA school (St. Bonaventure University), while not well-known, has a strong track record of placing its MA students in PhD programs (last few years, Bonaventure MAs have gone to Rochester, Buffalo, Hopkins, Penn State). They have a Learning/Teaching Fellowship that offers some tuition waiver and a small stipend. I don't think the deadline has passed yet, either. It's worth looking into if you're looking at re-applying for next year. http://www.sbu.edu/artsandsciences.aspx?id=15818
  23. It could be worse, people. I was a child of the late 80s/early 90s. My first cd's (I got all 5 at the same time I got my first cd player) were: Will Smith's "I'm the Rapper, He's the DJ" Kriss Kross's "All Crossed Out" The Snow album with "Informer" on it 10,000 Maniacs' "Blind Man's Zoo" and The Pretenders' "Last of the Independents" While I'm still proud of my pre-teen self's musical judgement on the last two, the first three are a tad humiliating.
  24. [morbid] That stat would probably cheer up the waitlisters moreso than the non-accepteds [/morbid].
  25. Yup. I'm a first year in the Ph.D. program. I don't mind, but I'm not sure how much I could tell you. All I know about Rochester's process is what I saw from the applicant side of it. We really haven't heard anything about it from this side of the equation. I've really been enjoying the program so far, though, and both the people and the resources are outstanding.
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