jprufrock

First, all rankings systems are completely limited by their methodology.

For USNWR - They go around and ask 2 members from each English graduate program to rank schools; they then compile all the answers and you have a giant list of completely subjective and statistically irrelevant rankings. That said, this list does represent some sort of 'brand awareness' which has some sort of effect on getting noticed when you get out on the job market.

For NCR (phd.org) - The list is outdated because there were significant setbacks and stalling. This ranking system is actually based off of 2005-2006 data and contains some very statistically incorrect methodology. Search around and you'll find that some departments were completely misrepresented and not all programs were measured with equal metrics.

For the ranking list above re: placement - It means absolutely nothing because it only uses raw data. It does not account for the size of a program (of course Berkeley has more people placed in schools--it admits 3 times the cohort of other schools!). It also does not account for the age of a program. It doesn't account for upward or downward shifts nor gives credits to programs trying to improve their clout.

This is all to say that one's efforts shouldn't be directed toward picking a 'better' school than another--such distinctions are arbitrary or subjective and will lead to a vicious cycle of unsubstantiated metrics. One, however, should be wary of picking an "unknown" school, or a school with a bad reputation--since there are so many "good" schools to choose from, you shouldn't waste your time on schools even slightly suspect.

In the end, you should be picking between great programs. The most important variable is you. Where will you do the best work; where will you fit in; which program plays to your strengths and needs? Of course, a counterpoint could be made that the only constant is you--if you're going to do great work where-ever you go, then you should simply disregard rankings and focus on where you'll be happiest.

First, all rankings systems are completely limited by their methodology.

For USNWR - They go around and ask 2 members from each English graduate program to rank schools; they then compile all the answers and you have a giant list of completely subjective and statistically irrelevant rankings. That said, this list does represent some sort of 'brand awareness' which has some sort of effect on getting noticed when you get out on the job market.

For NCR (phd.org) - The list is outdated because there were significant setbacks and stalling. This ranking system is actually based off of 2005-2006 data and contains some very statistically incorrect methodology. Search around and you'll find that some departments were completely misrepresented and not all programs were measured with equal metrics.

For the ranking list above re: placement - It means absolutely nothing because it only uses raw data. It does not account for the size of a program (of course Berkeley has more people placed in schools--it admits 3 times the cohort of other schools!). It also does not account for the age of a program. It doesn't account for upward or downward shifts nor gives credits to programs trying to improve their clout.

This is all to say that one's efforts shouldn't be directed toward picking a 'better' school than another--such distinctions are arbitrary or subjective and will lead to a vicious cycle of unsubstantiated metrics. One, however, should be wary of picking an "unknown" school, or a school with a bad reputation--since there are so many "good" schools to choose from, you shouldn't waste your time on schools even slightly suspect.

In the end, you should be picking between great programs. The most important variable is you. Where will you do the best work; where will you fit in; which program plays to your strengths and needs? Of course, a counterpoint could be made that the only constant is you--if you're going to do great work where-ever you go, then you should simply disregard rankings and focus on where you'll be happiest.

I was rejected and no update on the app website.

Good thing it was free! (for those who submitted before Nov 15th)

If you get into your top choice: Accept by April 15th and be done with it, even if other schools haven't notified.

If you are waiting on your top choice but have been accepted elsewhere: Decide from your current accepted list where you'd like to go by April 15th. Contact the other schools and decline their offers. Contact your best accepted choice and request an extension beyond April 15th (maybe a week, maybe a month), explain some reasonable circumstances, and wait for your top choice to notify. This also may work if you're on a waitlist.

Do not: Accept a school's offer only to renege later; it could result in a revocation of both offers. Even if not, you may be burning bridges in a niche field which will hinder your career down the road. However, if you do this, you usually must get written permission from school A to be able to change your choice to school B. This is the most diplomatic way to do so, but it still seems wrong; one must remember that the acceptance of an offer acts as legal contract.

In the eventuality that I don't get into any grad programs, I am going to smother my depression by finally getting the dog I always wanted.

bump for 2011

Thank you for sharing! I have lower stats in the GRE Verbal Quant section, and if those matter, then I can see why I got the rejection.

I'm currently in the MA program at OU. One of our professors mentioned today that decisions will be made by the end of the week. Hopefully this tidbit will help someone's stress level drop a notch or two.

Again, your overly long and pompous post does nothing but further evidence your ignorance of the humanities and their impact.

I'd like to spell it out for you, but if you honestly think the fine arts are reduced to reading, writing and communication, then I doubt any rhetoric in the history of the world could convince you otherwise.

EDIT: And I do not even believe the humanities exceed science--I'm firmly affixed to a middle where both are fundamentally and differently important. Your scientific metrics are simply insufficient and inapplicable to judge the humanities.

This is perhaps the most contradictory statement about so-called 'respect' for English as a field as I've heard.

Did you know that science, as you know it, was condemned to mostly bullshit and stones until literacy flourished? I am sure you're making a point for others and not necessarily yourself, saying that some 'general population' doesn't recognize the equality of fields, but if your goal is to counter such sentiment then your statement fails. Hard.

English and the Humanities in general have applications just as varied, pressing and significant as the hard and soft sciences. Just because you know little about such fields and by extension are unable to see their effects, doesn't diminish their importance and prevalence.

Again, your overly long and pompous post does nothing but further evidence your ignorance of the humanities and their impact.

I'd like to spell it out for you, but if you honestly think the fine arts are reduced to reading, writing and communication, then I doubt any rhetoric in the history of the world could convince you otherwise.

EDIT: And I do not even believe the humanities exceed science--I'm firmly affixed to a middle where both are fundamentally and differently important. Your scientific metrics are simply insufficient and inapplicable to judge the humanities.

Again, your overly long and pompous post does nothing but further evidence your ignorance of the humanities and their impact.

I'd like to spell it out for you, but if you honestly think the fine arts are reduced to reading, writing and communication, then I doubt any rhetoric in the history of the world could convince you otherwise.

EDIT: And I do not even believe the humanities exceed science--I'm firmly affixed to a middle where both are fundamentally and differently important. Your scientific metrics are simply insufficient and inapplicable to judge the humanities.

Given a choice, I would prioritize rank over research fit for grad school. (I don't mean the specific US News et al rank, I mean general reputation in/out of the field.)

This is because, as grad students, people change their minds about what they want. Maybe you will stay in the sub-subfield you picked as an undergrad. Good for you. Maybe you'll do something else entirely. If you chose an obscure school with a good reputation in some field, you're fine within that field, but you'll generate some head-scratching if you leave it. This is even more true if you go for the one star professor; outside that very specific research area, people won't know Prof. Star from Prof. Schmuck. And besides, as a grad student, you may not have anyone else to go to if Prof. Star doesn't have room / is hit by a bus / is a raging psychopath / etc.

Conversely, a big-name school will leave your options open. The name will get you the benefit of the doubt; IIRC, one of those ranking surveys a few years back put Princeton Business School in the top 3, despite the fact that it doesn't exist.

For a postdoc, the reputation of the specific professor is everything. But for grad school? I don't think I would choose on that basis alone.

Of course, productivity trumps all...

Again, your overly long and pompous post does nothing but further evidence your ignorance of the humanities and their impact.

I'd like to spell it out for you, but if you honestly think the fine arts are reduced to reading, writing and communication, then I doubt any rhetoric in the history of the world could convince you otherwise.

EDIT: And I do not even believe the humanities exceed science--I'm firmly affixed to a middle where both are fundamentally and differently important. Your scientific metrics are simply insufficient and inapplicable to judge the humanities.

Came through for me! I'm in! I'm in! I got an admit to a program I can actually go to!

No word on funding yet, but hopefully there will be some. If not - I'm not proud any more, I will just beg my mother. She's looking for places to throw her investments anyhow.

OH MY GOD(DESS)(E)(S), FINALLY!

I hope everyone in Gradcafe gets to feel this way at least once this go-around. Because DAMN, it feels good!!!!!!!

This is my golden boy, Mr. Bear. He loves people...and who could resist a smile like that?

I'm not sure if I can help much, as I'm in a similar situation, except I guess I already picked a side when I chose not to apply to places more than 3 hours away from where my boyfriend/fiance works (I do regret it a bit; I should have just applied and decided later!). We've been dating long distance for 2 years after only a year of dating and being physically together, and while it's not terrible, it's not fun either. Not because I want somebody really intimate - besides normal friends- to hang out with all the time (theres part of that, too), but also just...it feels right. Being with this person is so much fun, and I can see myself with this person in the long term, us being together in the future, that's why I chose to stay. If you can say the same about your boyfriend, and if you have some reassurance that this is THE relationship, then you may be happier if you stay (are you guys going to get engaged soon? and even if you're engaged, would you be ok with living apart, or would you rather be together?)

Another factor was, I liked the (very few) schools I applied to, and where I got accepted, even though it's a small department and the professor is young and only semi-famous/established, I really got the feeling that she'd be an excellent mentor (after talking extensively with her and her students, of course), and I am excited about the research she's doing and what I can do with her. So another question you should ask yourself is, if you stay at BC, will you truly be excited about the research and do they have the resources to support you to the fullest? Of course, a top program is always gonna help you in the long run, but the advisor/department is important, too. People can become well-published even if they're from smaller schools, although it might take a lot more efforts. So if you think you're self-motivated and that BC seems like a good place, I don't think going to BC would be much worse than going to UIUC.

But then again, it depends on what you value more, and it will take some time to really know that. Talk to your boyfriend, your friends, and your family, people who know you best. It's a hard decision! I'm still changing my mind every few days lol I even thought of re-applying next year to more prestigious programs, I really don't have a problem with that. I was hoping to take more time off anyway. But I keep coming back to my original decision (stay). I do feel like I'm making a bit of a sacrifice, but my boyfriend's job is too good to quit, which means we'd have to be apart for 5 years if I went to school elsewhere. I'll just wait until I have to move for a postdoc or a job to do the long-distance again lol And you can already tell that I'm a hedonist and family-oriented person ^^ Are you that type of person? Or are you really ambitious and view work as the ultimate means to self-fulfillment? You're right in that either way, you will be giving up something - but either way, you will gain something, too. Think about what would make you happier that's what I did.

Good luck!!! Life can only be understood in hindsight, someone said, so I'm sure whatever decision you make, it's gonna be alright

Don't give up hope. Only 1 acceptance has been posted which could mean a number of things. Firstly, often times applicants who are considered for university-wide fellowships are contacted ahead of the rest of the accepted pool. That is probably the case with the Berkeley acceptance and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case for UChicago.

Secondly, there was only 1 acceptance and it was posted after this thread "Gossip Re U Chicago" was created. Malicious intent may be involved since no other results entries have appeared.

Lastly, barring the last two scenarios, UChicago may not send out acceptances all at once. Even if they do, wait-lists are always a possibility.

Implicit rejections, in my opinion, are nothing but pessimism. Be proud of yourself and just take things as they come; that's the way to not panic.

Yes--I've learned that my proposed question in this thread is overly reductive.

The conclusion I've come to is that funding is invariably linked to many other aspects of potential programs, such as fit, climate, happiness, stress, living situations, etc. To pit money against ranking is thus impossible because too many variables come into play and our 'hypothetical' loses its utility in reality.

What I've gathered is that one should not give up a higher ranked program solely for money, and contrarily, one should not at all dismiss another program based on rank. This has been said many times before. Perhaps something new to say is that money and ranking are not mutually exclusive; schools should be judged holistically and in regard to your own personal inclinations.

I've also learned this: ask everyone about everything. callmelilyb has given me excellent advice which has subsequently made decisions[, decisions] even more difficult. And grad school choices should never be an easy decision.

Yes--I've learned that my proposed question in this thread is overly reductive.

The conclusion I've come to is that funding is invariably linked to many other aspects of potential programs, such as fit, climate, happiness, stress, living situations, etc. To pit money against ranking is thus impossible because too many variables come into play and our 'hypothetical' loses its utility in reality.

What I've gathered is that one should not give up a higher ranked program solely for money, and contrarily, one should not at all dismiss another program based on rank. This has been said many times before. Perhaps something new to say is that money and ranking are not mutually exclusive; schools should be judged holistically and in regard to your own personal inclinations.

I've also learned this: ask everyone about everything. callmelilyb has given me excellent advice which has subsequently made decisions[, decisions] even more difficult. And grad school choices should never be an easy decision.

I've already sent some of my thoughts on this issue to jprufrock in a personal message but I'll add some of them here for others to consider.

When one thinks about "funding" it is important to consider things outside the personal funding package that you receive.

Considerations of funding should also entail how much work the program will require of you to receive your stipend (teaching two courses of 20+ students a semester is not the same as teaching one course a semester that is capped at 12).

Funding also means the amount of additional monies that will be available to you for: research and conference travel, attending summer institutes, dissertation research, archival work, etc. All of which arguably have as much of an impact on your ability to get a job as a program's ranking.

Lastly, funding structures have undeniable effects on department culture and environment.

Granted, if you are talking about programs whose rankings are wildly disparate then these things becomes less important. If you're talking about programs in the top 25-30 range then all of these considerations should play a larger factor in your decision.

I've posted here before with my thoughts about choosing graduate school. Seeing how so many of you are in the middle of this supremely stressful time, agonizing over admissions and deciding where to go, I thought that I would let you all have some insight into what the process looks like from the perspective of an admissions committee member. I do this for three reasons. First, some of you could use the distraction. Second, many of you are facing the prospect of asking "why was I denied at school X" and should know how difficult this process is. Third, this is the first time that I've served on an admissions committee and I frankly was surprised at how hard this was, so now that it's all over I want to record my own thoughts.

Some background: I am an associate prof at a large department that is somewhere in the 20-40 range. We're good, not great, and we place our students fairly well. We admit an average sized class for schools at our rank. We have somewhere between 30 and 40 times as many complete applications as we have spots in our program. Another 50-75 every year are incomplete (missing GRE scores, something like that). We do not hold it against you if you are missing one of your letters of recommendation, but if you are missing more than one your files goes into the incomplete pile and is not reviewed.

From there, the process works like this. Every candidate who submits a complete application is given an anonymous number. We then do an initial pass through the applications to eliminate students who are simply unqualified based on test scores. The bar for this is very, very low, but if you cannot score at least a 100 on your TOEFL and a 500 on each of your GRE sections you are eliminated at the very beginning. This doesn't cut a lot of people, but it does have the benefit of eliminating students whose English or basic math skills are not up to snuff.

From there, the files are divided randomly into piles, which are divided up across the members of the admissions committee without regard to subfield or anything like that. Each file is read carefully by a committee member and assigned a numerical score from 1-10. Anyone who receives a "1" at this stage is automatically forwarded to the final round.

The remaining files that receive a 2-10 ranking are then given to another member of the search committee, who re-reads them and rescores them. Any file that receives a "1" in this second stage is automatically forwarded to the final round.

The remaining files from this stage (meaning that they received "2" or lower on both initial reviews) are then divided up based on subfield and given to the member of the admissions committee who represents that subfield. That committee member then ranks the files a final time. Any student that receives a "1" or a "2" at this penultimate stage makes it to the final round, regardless of the earlier scores from the first two reviews.

The point of doing it this way is to ensure that we give every student a fair shake. Each student receives a close read from three separate faculty members, each of whom can advance a student to the final round.

We end up with around four times as many files in final round as we have available spots. Each committee member then ranks these students, and we have a big meeting where we decide who to admit and to waitlist out of this group. We then bring our proposal to the subfield representatives who are *not* on the search committee, and they have the ability to lobby for different choices from the final round (although they tend not to do this). From there, the department votes on the proposed list of admits and waitlisters.


***********


So that is how the process works in terms of procedures. I suppose that all of you are probably wondering how we decide who gets one of the 1s. The answer is that it is supremely difficult to do this. We make mistakes, I am sure of it. Our goal is to find people--and this is important, so read carefully--who can successfully complete our program and secure a tenure-track job. That is the outcome that we are trying to achieve; we are not trying to admit the smartest, the most unique, or even the most interesting students (although we do want these people too!). It's possible that other departments that care less about placement are more interested in just admitting smart people, and I bet that for schools like Harvard and Princeton, that's probably true. But for us, we want students who will succeed.

The challenge is that it is really difficult for us to tell what kind of applicant will be able to do this. We know that you will have to be bright, you will have to be creative, and you will have to be highly motivated. But trust me, anyone who has gone through a PhD can tell you, it's not like anything you've ever done before. Unless you already have a PhD, there's nothing that you could write in your application that will convince us that without a doubt you've got the chops. We have to make a bet based on imperfect information (and in fact, we probably are facing a game of incomplete information too, at least about your own objectives). It takes a special kind of person to do this, and I'm not certain how much we learn from pedigree, letters, grades, and test scores, but that's what we have.

What I can say for sure is that even if we only based our decision on pedigree, letters, grades, and test scores, that wouldn't be enough to whittle down our choices to a manageable number. We are dealing with a massive oversupply of qualified candidates. In my first round alone, at least 20 students were Ivy League grads with 3.7+ GPAs, 700+/700+ GREs, and glowing letters. We could have populated an incoming class with these alone, yet each other admissions committee member probably had the same number of people with similar backgrounds. Then you dig deeper and you realize the number of people with incredible life experiences, great grades, great letters, and all the rest, but from other schools. Or they have great writing samples that make it clear that they know what a political science PhD is all about, even if they don't have the very best grades. Or you get a student who has worked two jobs to pay for an education at a regional state university, someone whose drive and motivation clearly signals his/her ability to bring a project to completion even if s/he does not have the best pedigree. Or someone who's at the top of her class at a top-rank Indian university. I could go on. There are simply too many of these people for us to admit all of them.

So what does it come down to? At the end of the day, it's seemingly minor things like "fit," or "interest," or "promise." Most of these are beyond your control as applicant. If you don't seem to have a good idea of what graduate school is all about--many applicants, unfortunately, do not--you don't make it. If you make a big deal about how you want to work with Professor X, and Professor X is considering a move to a different department, we don't accept you. If your writing sample doesn't show that you can express yourself clearly, there is little hope for your application. If your application emphasizes grade/scores/letters/pedigree, but doesn't convince us that you have what it takes to succeed in the PhD, you're not going to be admitted. If you've gone straight through from undergrad, without the sort of life experiences that convince us that you know why you want to go to get an advanced degree, the bar is a lot higher (but not insurmountable). And these are very fine distinctions, and again, we definitely make mistakes.

There are two things that you should take away from this. The first is that, at least this year, admission to my department (admittedly, not the best one) was fiercely competitive. Unbelievably so. I have never served on an admissions committee before (my department only allows tenured professors to be on this committee) but I get the impression that it's gotten much harder since I got my PhD. The second is that you should not sweat it if you don't make into the departments of your dreams. I'd say that at least 80% of the total applicants in our pool this year were plausible candidates for admission, meaning that I would have been happy to admit them. We end up making a lot of hard choices based on imperfect signals of future professional performance, and to reiterate once more, we definitely make mistakes. Nothing makes me more frustrated than when we admit a dud (it happens). I am always happy to see a student who didn't make it into our department succeed somewhere else.

Best of luck to you all.

Dear All,

This might be kind of interpersonally hideous to share, but at the end of January, feeling like crap, I decided to do something about it.
I wrote my own damn letter and emailed it to myself. It might seem weird, but having this in my inbox really helps. Feel free to copy and paste/modify as needed. (It works!)



Regarding Your Applications For Admission to Graduate Study
27 January 2011

Dear [You]:

This is a letter from yourself. In the next month, perhaps two months, perhaps three, you will be receiving or not receiving emails, phone calls, and postal mail from eleven institutions scattered throughout the contiguous United States.

You sent in some (a very few) materials to these institutions. Fully half of these materials are composed of numbers (and we must remember how we feel about numbers). The remainder of the materials are 1) letters from three people who barely know you; 2) a statement of intent that could have been much much better, but wasn’t, possibly because you were lazy and intimidated and possibly because it's the best you had in you; and 3) a rather pathetic(ally abbreviated) semblance of a paper that traces out some extremely elementary ideas in a field that you are not wholly committed to studying exclusively and that you know fairly little about. We shall not speak about our syntax; no, we shall not.
It is true that you could have done all of this much better. The question of whether you should attempt to do so is not relevant right now, as is all anxiety about your non/acceptances. You must plan in the back of your mind to get on with things. That is, after all, what people do. You are a person. There are many things you can do with your life, time, and talent, and earning a doctoral degree in an esoteric field is only one of them.

You must remember that admission to all of the programs to which you have applied is not only selective—there are criteria for admission of which you are, never have been, and likely never will be aware.
You must recall that your identity is not at stake in this process. Period.
You must remember what is important: you have a darling cat, well-intentioned and loving family and friends, and the rich possibility of the unforeseen ahead of you. None of that is taken away if you are not “selected” for admission.



All the best,

Yourself.

Fair warning--This is not a "chin up, I got rejected by 5 programs before getting a funded offer" story.

We are officially halfway through February. There are those of us (like myself) who have received rejections but no admits. There are those of us who have heard nothing from any program at all. It's easy to stress out. It's easy to picture across the board rejection. We start to picture spending a year waiting tables. In horror, we see ourselves getting forced out of academia and onto the bottom rung of the economic world of "real life." We start to question our intelligence, our worth and our futures. I know. I've been doing it. Today I stop. Today, I recognize that going to work for a year is not a bad thing. Today, I realize that even if I never get a funded offer for a PhD, my life will have meaning because I will have a life. Before I started my MA degree, I spent four years as a high school teacher. I received an e-mail this afternoon, letting me know that two of my former students were in a car accident last night. Both of them graduated last year. Both are 19. One, Mark, is a United States Marine, and he is currently fighting for his life in a shock-trauma center. The other, Ashley, is dead. At 19 years of age. After receiving this news, my perspective on this whole process was forcibly altered. I still hope for a funded offer to continue my work on Shakespeare. I will still get a little goofy every time I hear the beep of a new e-mail arriving in my inbox. I will still check Gradcafe often enough to qualify as an addiction. I will no longer dread the notion of going 0-11. I will no longer get all dramatic at the concept of a year outside of PhD work. Whatever I do over the next 12 months, whether it's starting a PhD program, applying again, working a job I love or working a job I hate, I will be alive to experience the highs and lows of that year. Whatever happens, I will remember that. Our "worst-case scenarios" would look very enticing to Mark and Ashley right now. I intend to remember that over the coming weeks and months. I apologize for the depressing tone of the post. It doesn't make any sense to me when kids die. It makes even less sense when they're my kids.