Gauche

I know a lot of people in this same situation. Email Villanova and tell them your current situation. You have a moral obligation to accept, but schools understand that this process is crazy on both ends, and they should understand if you contact them early.

I don't know how people in Philosophy present at conferences, but in English we tend to read our papers aloud. If you do the same, you should fix your paper so it's readable, i.e. signpost and use simple, emphatic sentences not long complex ones. You want people to be able to understand your argument, so let them know what and when you're arguing. Don't be afraid to say "I argue." That helps a lot, seriously. Cut extraneous details if you can't explain them fully in your paper and think they will confuse your audience especially if you're close to going over the time limit. If you think your talk is too short, leave it all in. If your audience doesn't understand a point you're making, that's what the question session is for. Just remember that you wouldn't be presenting a paper at a conference if it was already good enough to be published in a journal. Conference presentations are supposed to be works in progress, so it's okay if it's not perfect.

Agreed. Teddy Roosevelt is certainly badass. But Benjamin Franklin comes second for me.

Never pay for graduate school in the humanities, and especially never take out loans. If Houston isn't offering any kind of funding including scholarships or fellowships, you can rule them out right now. The first option doesn't sound so bad, but it depends on how much that 20% of tuition costs. Ask them how long your GTAship will last. Do you need to reapply every year or will you remain a GPA as long as you remain in good academic standing? How much is the teaching load? How many classes do they expect you to take while teaching? Can they take it away from you if their budget looks bad? These are questions to consider for each of the programs if and when they offer you funding.

The OP might be referring to the dangers of the POI transferring schools, retiring, or dying leaving the student with no one to work with if there are no other faculty members he or she can work with. If that's the case, there are scenarios when professors ask their grad students to transfer schools with them. Anything else you can't prevent, so no use worrying about it. In my opinion, if there is a professor you really want to work with, then apply/attend that school. I personally wouldn't consider the POI my only factor for decision, however. If funding isn't that great (or in the worst case scenario, there is none), then I wouldn't go. If there isn't a real sense of community or it seems to be a cutthroat environment, I wouldn't go, etc. But these are all factors you need to consider on your own.

When you want to initiate a conversation: What are you currently working on? Also ask them what their worst experience was while in the program (i.e. professor sabotaging a student's research, etc.). Edit: And when I mean "them," I mean grad students.

I would do it. Just tell the professor that you were encouraged to reach out to him/her by Professor so-and-so that you know (that is, if the visiting professor knows the professor you know).

I applied to about eight which is a little low for my field. No regrets though. Everything worked out the way it needed to even if the results weren't as I expected.

Just for the record, I didn't get accepted into any doctoral programs, but I did get a fully funded offer for an MA program. The only terrible thing about my application was my GRE scores. They were abysmal, and I'm not just saying that because I'm hard on myself. Trust me, they were bad. I'm convinced that those scores were what kept me out of PhD programs. I applied with a GPA of 3.9, which slightly dropped after fall grades. My writing sample was decent, but of course I believe it could have used more work. My statement of purpose was the best I could have made it (especially after at least 8 drafts). My undergrad is a state school, so no prestige there. I have no publications to speak of. I don't believe any of my professors have connections to the MA program that accepted me, but three of them did have connections to a few doctoral programs I applied to. Probably the most outstanding part of my app was my letters of recommendation. I visited professors during their office hours as a freshman and so they got to know me early on as an undergraduate. It really helped knowing that I had quite a few professors to choose from if I ever needed letters of recommendation, but it was hard selecting only three. In the end, I chose two from my field, and the director of our university honors program (who also happened to be an English professor but not from my field). I also started presenting at graduate student conferences as a junior, which probably didn't count for much, but it does show initiative and a desire to contribute to my field rather than just write papers to turn in for a grade.

I applied to 7 PhD programs and my (soon-to-be) alma mater as a backup. I looked at literally every school on the U.S. News & World Report (though I researched some more in depth than others). I finally narrowed my list to 20 and then about 12 schools, and finally knocked off a few more that I figured it would be pointless of applying to especially since they were early deadlines (and I still needed more time to work on SOP and WS). I figured that it would save some money too since I didn't think I would get in during my first round. In fact, I resolved that I would stay at my alma mater for one more year in the MA program, and the only reason why I bothered applying to some PhD programs was to have the experience of applying. Anyway, my advisors all informed me of how competitive it is. I even had one advisor who would try his hardest to convince me not to go to grad school not because he didn't think I can handle it but because he wanted me to know the reality of the situation. He fully supported me decision to apply, however, and was one of my letter writers.

You have to physically be present at the conference and present your paper in order to record the conference presentation on your CV (without a guilty conscious anyway). There are a few conferences that may allow the presenter to have someone else read the paper in your absence but that's very rare in the Humanities.

Way to go! And I see you're a 19th-century Americanist. Good choice!

Can anyone recommend some areas that are nice and quiet? I'm not a party person at all, and I'd like to be in a quiet neighborhood with other serious grad students somewhere close to KU. I'm looking at renting a house or buying a fairly new one for a decent price. If anyone is familiar with the area and can offer recommendations, I would be very grateful.

I am not a McNair Scholar, but I know a couple of them at my school, and they are hard working individuals. Furthermore, they seem to be highly regarded at universities as I always see them offering McNair students a waiver for application fees.

What if you're assigned to teach your own class?

What do you let your students call you? Do you ask them to call you buy your first name? Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss so-and-so? Do you care? If you're a GTA, is it appropriate for students to use the title "professor"? I'm going to be starting my first year as a GTA, and I was wondering if it would be more appropriate for students to address instructors by their last names, but I know at my undergrad, there were some grad students who preferred to be called by their first name, and I kind of prefer this too.

This may or may not help, but remember, all you need is love one. Besides, it's their loss for rejecting you. Penn State clearly sees your talent, so they deserve you.

Read it in Dublin. Joyce famously said that if Dublin were every destroyed, you could rebuild it through Ulysses. Alas, I don't have money to go to Ireland, but everyone I know who did study abroad said this was true.

Old souls unite. My mind automatically wakes me up at 5 no matter how much sleep I get the night (or morning) before. It's rather inconvenient really. I'm 22, for the record.

It might depend on how long it takes for your waitlist to convert into an acceptance. If you were finally accepted some time after April 15, for example, you are probably not as likely to negotiate for better funding if you were accepted much earlier than that, I imagine.

First rejection from UCR is up. I just had to check the website too, and now I see that there is no longer a checkmark for "this app is currently under review," yet I'm sure there was one before. Still, they haven't made a decision yet. I wonder what that means.

Okay. Thank you all for your input. The DGS initially signed her name using her first and last name and then signed with her first name in subsequent emails after we chatted on the phone. I didn't know if that was an invitation to call her by her first name or not.

Do you guys tend to address the DGS by their first name or do you call them Dr. so-and-so? It's probably a stupid question, but I wasn't sure what the etiquette is for those kinds of things. I don't want to come off as too distant or presumptuous either.

You shouldn't count your app out of the running yet. One of my professors told me that there are generally three waves to the decision process. The first is done by the secretaries to weed out the less potential apps. I suppose this is when numbers make a difference if the school received lots of applications. The second is then decided by the admissions committee when they might decide on who they definitely want to admit off the bat and entice with fellowship offers. If you've made it as far as the last stage, that's when they are still trying to argue for the last few spots available. Even if you weren't made an initial offer, you would want to be at this stage because you still have a chance. Of course all schools are different, but some might follow this structure. All you got to do is just keep hoping. And that's easier said than done.

Sending you lots of good vibes!