Phil Sparrow

Perfect timing y'all! http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2013/ready-to-wear/alexander-mcqueen/full-length-photos/gallery/1 No, but seriously--you don't have to be overly dressy. In my experience, there's always one person in a suit at any given visit, and they always look and feel uncomfortable, not just because they're overdressed (and feel weird about it), but because visiting days are LONG and exhausting and one wants to be physically comfortable, too. You'll fit in fine with nice jeans and a dressy top. Nice shoes can help, too, but you'll probably be doing a lot of walking and will not want to destroy your feet. Just dress like an adult: be presentable, but be comfortable. Figuring out what to wear is completely stressful at the time, I know, but it really doesn't need to be. Remember you can always dress up a more casual outfit with things like accessories, jackets, etc. Throw a blazer on. Wear a nice scarf. Avoid the '90s grunge jeans. Wash your hair! Finally, if you're a fabulous fop, BE a fabulous fop. No one will think less of you for it, and if they do they should fly a kite. Though if anything, avoid flaunting a number of clearly expensive labels; academics will be much more likely to judge you for visibly spending a lot than for looking fierce (we love ferocious frugality!). That is, if you're lucky enough to have expensive stuff, don't carry/wear the pieces covered in labels.

Well, I suppose my joke didn't land as well as I had hoped. I was actually trying to be funny in order to register my dismay about someone (jokingly? seriously? probably both at once?) wanting to make anonymous strangers cry while indicating that there were no hard feelings.

Oh dear. Why? Furthermore, why not take a kickboxing class or something if you want to lay a smackdown? At least when sparring you can see someone cry in person, and they* have the opportunity to hit you back fair and square. *SingulartheyKABOOM.

It's a life of perpetual insecurity and rejection. Which we put up with because it is fun and wonderful and satisfying! Also, precisely what DontHate said about it being akin to teenagerhood! Man, that depresses me but it's accurate.

My answer to this is that one should probably spend at least a year doing something she don't want to be doing. The simplest reason, among many, is that grad school SUCKS even when it's wonderful (which is usually is, if it's for you and your program is not insane). It's extremely good to know what you're missing, so you can endure the suckiness without going nuts.

This is very, very true. There are a number of reasons why I (and many other people) share the belief I do, though. The main reason is that if you go straight through from undergrad, you are looking at a full 25 years or so of institutionalized education with no break, from kindergarten through grad school. This does not always make for well-adjusted people or colleagues, and, what's more, many people do not produce as strong a body of scholarship as they would otherwise because they have not stretched their brains outside of the institutionalized education tunnel. Think of life outside of the education complex as cross-training for your brain; it can be incredibly beneficial. One learns to think in new and different ways, and even if you don't use those ways, the intellectual muscle is still stronger for it. I know that this might bother some people because no one likes to believe they have a limited life experience. And of course it's not true for everyone! But the reality is one can walk into any seminar in a PhD program and know almost immediately who came straight from undergrad. It shows. (It should also go without saying that life and work merge strangely and inextricably when you're an academic, and it's beneficial to stretch your intellectual and emotional muscles beyond institutionalized education not just to benefit your scholarship, but to benefit your life, too.)

Chill, wait until you visit and experience in person the programs you were accepted into, then make a decision. Don't even think about this possibility until then or you'll make yourself completely bonkers. Once you've visited and seen how the programs operate and how you and your brains would fit (you honestly can't tell much at all from a website, you need to visit in person), then maybe give this idea serious consideration. Another possibility would be deferring for a year from one program while thinking this through. Out of curiosity, are you still an undergrad? I'm of the belief that most people--not all, of course, but most--who don't take any time off between undergrad and grad school do themselves, their scholarship, and their colleagues a great disservice. So that might change things. (My initial reaction to your question here, by the way, is that you would be crazy to go through another application cycle given the top-notch programs you've been admitted to--which, by the way, have great placement--but whatever! It's your life and career, and I'm sure you'd make some waitlisters very happy if you decided not to attend any of those places.)

UVa English always does this. They historically have trickled their acceptances out really slowly because they can't afford to over-matriculate, so they make a really small initial batch of offers and continue to take a couple of people at a time off the wait list* as (or if) the initial acceptees decline. Their funding is quite good but it is limited, so they have to be careful about the number of students they bring in. *As far as I understand it's not a "wait list" in the traditional sense, more an "acceptance-pending-space list," which is why they don't typically inform applicants they're on a "wait list." Any wait list notices on the board may suggest they're changing that policy to give people more information about their statuses this year.

It's 2013, and I presume you logged in to the site on a computer or possibly a smartphone. Hope this helps!

Yes, but even the newest NRC rankings use unreliably old data. [Read: years pre-recession; in some cases the data are at least 10 years old.] Your best bet for figuring this kind of thing out is to look at placement--not just the percentage of doctorates who get TT jobs, but where and, perhaps more importantly, how quickly. Where and when is incredibly important, as humanities programs, like our friends in business and law schools, sometimes fudge their numbers to make their placement rates appear higher. Also ask around among faculty in your field, especially junior- and mid-level faculty; senior faculty often remember what programs were great in the '70s when they were on the market, but can be a bit clueless about the hot jams of today. (Guess who fills out the USNWR rankings polls? The older cats, generally.) Edited for subject-verb agreement!

Address faculty members--and admins, for that matter--by formal titles until they indicate you should do otherwise. Closing salutations in an email using a first name are an indication if they are specifically typed and not just a part of the automatic signature. If you're unsure, err on the side of formality.

Not adding anything, just noting that Tybalt is spot on.

You may want to look into Northwestern. I happen to know a few people, grad students and faculty, doing Arabic and Persian lit there (mostly in comp lit, I think? You may want to poke around the various lit and lit-related department websites, though, to see who's where). Otherwise I've heard Stanford is good for those languages, as DontHate mentioned. Though I don't know the dynamics of the comp lit field as well as I know English, yours are relatively hot languages to be working in right now, so that could be a plus for you. There have been a number of US job postings (in English departments) in recent years for scholars working on Arab and Persian as well as Arab-American and Persian-American literature.

Not accurate.

Personally, I think emailing an advisor this question is probably just fine, especially if you have a good relationship with him or her. Asking for updates from folks you don't know as well or who have invested less energy into your academic development--not a good idea.

That's awesome about the article! Maybe get yourself back on the radar by mentioning something about that ("I just found out that So-and-so recently published a piece relating that I thought you might enjoy" or whatever). But honestly, if this prof helped you edit an article for submission, you're probably strongly bleeping on his or her radar screen already. ETA: That's a lot of radar in my last couple of posts.

No no no no no no no, do not do this. If you are just desperate want to get on the radar screen, drop an email to say hi or to send along something (an article, whatever) s/he might be interested in--IF you developed that kind of relationship during your correspondence. (That is, avoid just "saying hi" out of the blue.) Don't ask about your chances or status. It would be so tacky and would just put the prof in an uncomfortable position.

In the past, Penn State has made some initial offers as early as the end of January. I can speak from personal experience. They roll out their acceptances over a long while, and they historically have admitted relatively large cohorts, so there's nothing to worry over at this point in the game. They will almost certainly make many more offers in the coming weeks.

As others have said, it depends. Top-twenty or -thirty programs with more secure funding (I'm not as familiar with those outside that bracket) will usually admit about twice as many as they hope to enroll, give or take. Those that have to be more careful about how many students they matriculate will often admit only those they know they can fund, and work down a list of alternates as the original admits decline. With one exception a few of years ago (Penn, and it was a fluke because they WAY overmatriculated in the previous year), I've not heard of any program with really secure funding accepting fewer than twice as many or maybe a third more students than they're looking to enroll. ETA: I'm speaking about English PhD programs. Others may work differently, as may MAs.

I don't know about OSU specifically, but many programs trickle acceptances and rejections out over a period of several weeks. Generally it's because they notify the applicants at the very top and very bottom of their lists at once (for example, notifying their best candidates of fellowship nominations, etc., and cutting those they are certain they won't accept), and work their way to the middle. Sometimes it's because they need to be more cautious with their funding, and so only accept a couple of people at a time and wait for them to decline before making the next round of offers (this way, they don't end up with more matriculating students than they can fund). It's very common for programs not to notify all at once and is nothing to be alarmed about, especially this early in the season. Also, this may not be the best place to note this, but you all don't need to be so worried about your status pages on online applications. Many programs don't use them or even update them (again, not sure about OSU), and it doesn't necessarily mean that something is wrong with your application if they indicate it's incomplete or forever in review. The obsessive checking and re-checking of status pages (especially those that will never change): that way madness lies.

"Do you need to be published to get in?" For English or literary studies at least: absolutely, emphatically no. Don't let anyone terrify you into thinking otherwise. ETA: I use strong language to underscore my point because some applicants (or future applicants) occasionally try to get published somewhere, anywhere, just to have the line on their CVs. While different faculty members would tell you different things about when the best time to publish is, the conventional wisdom holds that you should not do so until you can publish well---that is, with a great piece in a highly respected journal (or, perhaps, an especially important edited collection). Publications follow you around forever; you don't want to have some embarrassing juvenilia dragging you down when you're on the job market or up for tenure.

Unfortunately, a line about one's "love for literature" is not terrifically valuable to an SOP for a traditional PhD program in literature. [Ed.: saw your reply after posting.] I can't speak with any authority to the benefit of directly addressing the adjunct rights movement/market (which, from your title, I surmise is what you're asking about, though I may be wrong), but unless it is pertinent to your scholarly interests, I am not sure how useful it would be. There are many other ways to demonstrate that you know the field. 1Q84 has a good take on how to address these in the SOP, though I would add that I was advised by several faculty members not to dwell for more than a sentence or so on my teaching experience, as an SOP should be focused on research. PhD programs, I was reminded several times, want to think (remain under the illusion?) that they'll be turning out R1 TT faculty, not teaching-focused or alt-ac doctorates. Things may be changing in academia in general, but adcoms change more slowly than the rest of us.

Sheesh. You've been in grad school for like three months. Stop lecturing everybody as if you're such an expert.

You are crazy! Season six is among the best. So many emooootions. Oh well, more for me, I guess! You can have season four.

Jesus H. Christ, you all. What has happened to this forum in the last few days? A friendly piece of advice: faculty and grad students read this website. You all are a lot more identifiable than you think you are, especially when you post stats, personal details, and the other bits of information that are often included in "What are my chances?"-type posts. And we recognize you when you come to visit or interview with our programs. It's easy. So, when you are a jerk on this forum, or you throw up red flags that you might be a bad colleague (like you divulge that you may be on the verge of starting an affair with a married professor, or display general and inexplicable belligerence, or are quick to judge/pile on other people), we are less likely to want to be your colleague, and therefore your chances of becoming our colleague diminish significantly. So be careful. This is not directed toward any one person. There have been a lot of folks being less than collegial around these parts in the last few days. Watch a movie, drink a beer, do some yoga. Whatever will calm you. Don't be a jerk on the internet, because we can see you.