wild_rose

Thank you so much for this. Your response is what I was originally leaning toward. I feel kinda bad sitting on things like this, but I guess that's how it goes. ETA: I was thinking about asking the other schools about the possibility of moving to a PhD after finishing the MA and might still do this. In retrospect, I would have preferred to apply to just PhD, but I honestly wasn't expecting to get in anywhere. (I applied two years ago to several schools [six American Studies programs] and was rejected all around).

Sure! I think I fixed it. Indiana would be amazing (I think I'm waitlisted for first-year funding), though Purdue and BC both had really great funding offers. I just am totally clueless about this whole process and very, very few of my friends are humanities majors, so I don't really have anyone to ask for advice. Another thing that I'm considering is ranking--IU is ranked higher in most polls that I can see, but all of the schools I applied to were picked specifically for my particular areas of interest (environment lit /& American regionalist lit). From my sig, you can see I'm waiting for four other programs, but I feel like they're going to be rejects and that Indiana was a fluke, ha.

I feel incredibly lucky to have been accepted at all, but now the question that's on my mind is: When your Masters acceptances offer better funding and possibly insurance, is it better to take the Masters over the PhD? As it's been explained to me, I'd have to pay my way for my first year of the PhD before receiving funding. My gut says to go with the PhD because who knows if I'd get in during another admission year, but I was wondering if anyone had any advice about this. Thanks!

Agreed. I feel bad for not notifying schools that I probably won't accept, but I want to be able to look at them all, and make my little pros + cons list in an informed matter.

Sigh. No news doesn't feel like good news.

Same here. I feel like I have never wanted something so badly in my life.

I know there was at least one on 2/15.

Maybe they are the same two applicants?

Thank you for this. This is my first post, but I've been lurking for a while. I have an awful, morale-destroying job and waiting for graduate schools to get back to me is making everything worse. GAH.