Two Espressos

$$, indeed

I'm glad you asked!  Here are placement rates from a few programs, more or less detailed depending on the particular school:
 
http://www.english.upenn.edu/Grad/job_placement_record
 
http://english.uchicago.edu/node/109
 
http://english.wvu.edu/gr/job-placement
 
http://englishcomplit.unc.edu/english/job-placement-record
 
WVU isn't a "top program" by anyone's metric, and over 70% of its graduates are getting TT jobs.  UPenn, UChicago, and UNC-Chapel Hill are all top-20 programs.
 
I can provide more placement stats if you'd like (really, they're only a google search away), but I'm short on time at present.  I stand by my earlier statement: attending a top program in one's field is not a death knell by any means if you're fully funded.  One may not find a TT job at the end (indeed, this is increasingly likely!), but there are much worse things to do with one's life than reading, researching, and writing about a field you love for 5-6 years.

I got a little misty browsing this document. Just last year, we were all freaking out together over letters of rec, statements of purpose, GRE's, and finances-- all while discussing such important issues as Doctor Who, Buffy, and Girls. We've debated, discussed, supported, empathized, cheered, advised, and shared. What an amazing community we have here, and now we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor in the fall! 
 
Go us!

I have made my final decision. I will be attending The Ohio State University for my PhD in English. GO BUCKS.
 
What a difficult decision. I LOVED everyone at Riverside, and Irvine is an amazing program, but in the end OSU is the place for me.

Here's my little buddy!
 

I just accepted Buffalo and turned down WVU.
 
Now I've got the blahs. I am very excited about Buffalo, though. Yay!

Could you say more about this?
 
 
No... just no.  Maybe if we're talking about lower-ranked institutions, but being admitted into a top program at a state university isn't any easier than anywhere else.  Think of all the insanely competitive and well-regarded Ph.D. programs in English; many of those are at state schools: UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-Irvine, Michigan, UNC-Chapel Hill, UT-Austin, Wisconsin-Madison, etc.

Could you say more about this?
 
 
No... just no.  Maybe if we're talking about lower-ranked institutions, but being admitted into a top program at a state university isn't any easier than anywhere else.  Think of all the insanely competitive and well-regarded Ph.D. programs in English; many of those are at state schools: UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-Irvine, Michigan, UNC-Chapel Hill, UT-Austin, Wisconsin-Madison, etc.

Just made it official: English at the University of Michigan!! So excited to be done with this never-ending application/decision process. And even more excited to get started with the fun stuff in the fall!

Just committed to the University of Colorado.  Huzzah!

I just want to say that I love being in grad school at UT. I am currently sitting in a house in Antigua, Guatemala, with my airfare, lodging, and transportation paid for by the university for a week. I saw a historic genocide trial, foresnic evidence that made me cry, and documents that few, if any people have seen. Where else could you make something like this happen in less than a month? I am not one to gush about much, but I don't believe that I could be happier doing anything else right now.

I think the problem is you're spending too much time thinking about them in comparison to each other, so here's what my advice is:
 
Tomorrow, spend all day thinking about going to Buffalo.  Think about every single good thing and every single bad thing.  Don't even let West Virginia cross your mind.
 
Sunday, spend all day thinking about going to WVU.  Think about every single good thing and every single bad thing.  Don't even let Buffalo cross your mind.
 
At the end of Sunday, think about which one gets you more excited and which one gets you in a better position for what you want to do.  There should be one that comes out on top, even if it's not by much.  That's where you go.  Then send off your emails, click "accept" for one, "decline" for another on the websites, drink a bottle of gin and go to bed.

Ha! The moment this forum has been waiting for... when fat studies and animal studies converge.

The article is hilariously melodramatic.  Here is terse and much better advice: only attend a well-regarded program with strong placement stats that fully funds you.
 
 
I'm calling bullshit on those stats.  Can you provide a source?  The 9.5 years thing is true at some places, but mostly at those schools that abandon you, like dazedandbemused notes above.
 
The ~60k debt and 5-15% chance of an academic job stats are simply false.  Look at top programs' placements.  And it's not like "average" humanities Ph.D.s--even from middling institutions-- aren't getting jobs: the issue is that they're getting non-TT positions.  But the best programs still place their best students in TT jobs.
 
 
Again, completely false.  UNC, for example, places a major emphasis on teaching.  Many other programs are similar.
 
 

 
I completely agree with Swagato's posts as well as dazedandbemused's: they're closest to reality.

Not the story being reflected via placement stats at the leading programs. (Not by rank, but rather programs that are both prestigious and successful at placing a sizable proportion of their graduates--eg., Austin, Chicago, UNC for English. Or Berkeley, Yale, Chicago for film studies. Etc.)
 
Other programs, bluntly, don't count. Don't go a middling program in your field and expect a tenure track job. Likewise, not every graduate from a top program can expect to land a TT position, obviously.
 
However, I've seen nothing to indicate that one cannot hedge one's bets by:
 
-- Making sure you earn your PhD at both a leading program and a leading program that has a good record of TT placement
-- Doing your due diligence to network, network, network. And publish, making use of those networks. And all the other things we're supposed to do.
-- Keeping one's senses about them. 
 
Now, you may be a very innovative scholar, but the brute reality is that if you earned your PhD at Flyover State, you're not likely to receive notice (barring an exceptional circumstance such as having a rockstar intervene personally on your behalf). Names matter. Equally or more than the work done. 

As an aspiring Lit PhD myself (though in English, not German) I can say that I found this piece ridiculous for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it does nothing useful; it doesn't begin a conversation about the issues of the Lit job market nor does it advice the hopeful Lit PhD student about the problems that will inevitably arise for them. It just reads like a bitter screed wherein the writer proclaims to have known what she was getting into, yet still feels justified in being angry at her failure. She also makes the mistake that a lot of these articles do in that they make it sound as though all Lit PhDs are created equal and thus are all bound to fail. I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that a person with a PhD in English from University of Nebraska and a PhD in English from Columbia University are remotely equal in terms of future prospects. Yes, there are great students everywhere, but the student in Nebraska probably has far fewer opportunities to meet influential people than the one at Columbia; that's just reality. If we seriously want jobs, we have to learn to stack the deck in our favor, and part of that means only going to a program that will do the best it can to get you in one side and out the other with no debt and, hopefully, a job. She also completely glosses over the ways that many forward-thinking departments have begun to make a conscious effort to help their students find jobs outside of academia when they're done; the idea that non-academic jobs are frowned upon is no longer alive or relevant at some schools, and I think it will become much more widespread as the market continues to stagnate. I agree with the earlier posters that it is extremely important for people to be aware of their chances for success, but her methods make it very difficult to take her seriously. I disagree with ZacharyObama's belief that you would be better served talking to your professors because many of them have no idea what the job market looks like now and as a result, they are counseling countless students across the country to enter PhD programs that pay very little, require far too much work, and have nothing to offer them once they've reached the other end of the tunnel, but they believe that being in the profession is all that matters. That kind of idealism needs to die, but I don't think this article is doing the job very well.

PM me

Geez.  Can I send you a fruit basket or something?  

Over a month later, my waitlist at the University of Minnesota just turned into an acceptance.  Holy everything, batman.  Fingers crossed for everyone still waiting.

Officially attending the University of Nevada, Reno!

I have accepted UCLA's offer, and that is my final answer.

Holy smokes, guys-- I just got the good word from UCLA! Can't believe it!
 
I'll be turning down an offer from UT Austin tonight. Hope that helps someone (I'm looking at you, ErnestPWorrell)! Keep your heads up!

UCLA and UC Berkeley officially declined. Thank you to everyone on the forum for your support of me and of each other! I am so happy for all the good news I've read on here in these past few months, and thoroughly impressed by everyone's intelligence and determination, even/especially those who may not have received good news (yet!). I am SO excited for all of our futures and I will be sending plenty of happy thoughts and good luck wishes to everyone from Irvine this fall!

I know exactly how you feel, dazedandbemused.  UNC couldn't be a better fit for me, and various faculty members, students, etc. said as much when I visited in March!  When you find a great graduate program like that, it's just beautiful.

I know exactly how you feel, dazedandbemused.  UNC couldn't be a better fit for me, and various faculty members, students, etc. said as much when I visited in March!  When you find a great graduate program like that, it's just beautiful.