ComeBackZinc

I'm with the new president of the MLA, Michael Berube: departments aren't taking too few candidates, they're taking too many.

Do you doubt that there are too many applicants for him to be able to tailor feedback to individuals?

Ha! A little search engine optimization perhaps?

I don't know if this is at all in the cards for you, but some people have reported success in taking an continuing ed class or two after getting their BA and bringing their GPA up that way. It also might be worth emailing and asking the programs you applied to whether your grades were a significant detriment to your application. It might be useful.

Grades can certainly be overcome, and they often are. The only sticky thing is that some universities or graduate schools have cut-offs below which you won't be considered for admission, so even if the department wants you, they can't take you. That's rare, though.

If this was the rest of the Internet there would be somebody saying "you know, affirmative action is the real racism."

While that map is useful, it isn't giving you the context. Remember, there are 8 million permanent residents in New York City, and a vast number of visitors at any given time. Compare that number of people to the homicide numbers listed and think of the odds.

NYC is in fact an remarkably safe city, for its size. The drop since 08 is just part of a general, giant reduction in crime in New York since the early 90s, which is an extreme case of a general national trend. (My favorite theory is that the Clean Air and Water acts reduced childhood exposure to lead. It's a serious theory with a lot of evidence going for it.) Unfortunately, the NYPD also has a habit of shooting unarmed black men, beating undeserving suspects, and using illegal surveillance on Muslims.

I'd advise anyone who is interested in crime in any area, for whichever school, to do a reality check by investigating the local statistics supplied by the police departments. Advice about crime and "sketchiness" are so colored by bias and anecdote that they can be pretty close to useless. I know people mean well, I'm just saying.

Real post from the board, for a Rice English rejectee: The email said I had a "very immature vocabulary" in my personal statement. I have no idea what that means but it's pretty gay. GAY AS BALLS.

Your instincts are right, Dorinda-- you shouldn't listen too much to the innuendo. It's not that people are trying to do harm, of course. But the simple fact of the matter is that you can't possibly know what your individual experience is going to be like. And it's not like it can or should influence your behavior in the long run. You've worked hard for acceptances at great schools, and you got them. Beyond that you can't control, and it's no use fretting about it now.

Here's a way to really drive yourself crazy: many/most PhD programs have a "current grad students" section where you can read about the people who are currently studying. After you make your choices, you may find yourself looking at the departments you turned down or didn't get into and thinking about what life would have been like.

It's alchemy, it truly is. Congrats hedgerows.

In fact, the write-off for relocation was increased in the last stimulus package, I believe, in an effort to get people to relocate for jobs. I gave recommenders cards and small gifts depending on their personalities/our relationship: a framed picture of Virginia Woolf with my favorite quote of hers, a bottle of sherry, a Blu-Ray.

They say Storrs is the safest place in the world when it comes to avoiding natural disaster.

I take it that'll be a tough choice, if it comes down to those two, eh?

I know that they have an excellent rhetoric and composition program, with a very strong hiring record. http://graduate-school.phds.org/university/uc/program/outcomes/rhetoric/9302 That hiring percentage certainly isn't unheard of for R/C candidates, but still! If you're interested in lit, I'm afraid I don't know much.

Harvard Sociology is to today as Brown English was to yesterday.

A thousand times. For what it's worth, I adore Providence, and it's you can make the drive to Boston in less than an hour.

Alright, I'm gonna cheer you guys up. Please, if you haven't been accepted anywhere yet, don't read. And keep the faith-- it only takes one. Some highlights from the last week or two. In the student union here, one of those wonderful old grand collegiate buildings, with dusty paintings of past presidents and fancy old stone arches and a flag room, where in the holiday season they get this giant Christmas tree and the local elementary school kids come and sing carols, they keep a fire going in the winter. It was snowing out. I sat in a chair next to the fireplace, facing the window, and just read what I was interested in reading for hours. No purpose, not for a class, not stressing out taking notes, just reading in front of the fire. I got an email from one of my students. She's one of our brilliant engineering students. The first couple years of engineering are hell, here. They come right out tell the students: we're trying to get you to quit. You're not going to make it. She was looking to see if I would write her a letter of recommendation. She said that she had gone into the semester expecting my class to be a drag, but that it ended up being her favorite class. She told me that I was the only instructor who knew her name. Yesterday, I got lost in a research spiral for four hours. In my building, there's the Purdue Online Writing Lab, there's the journal Arthuriana, there's an Indigenous and Endangered Languages lab, there's an audiology and phonology clinic where little kids run around with diodes on their heads so we can do brain scans, there's an Xbox hidden in a room undergrads don't know about, if you need to blow off some steam.... Our offices are mixed between the different programs and subdivisions. In mine, we've got people doing rhet/comp, ESL, SLS, lit and philosophy, theory and cultural studies, getting their MFA. Sometimes I just sit around and listen to them gab about their projects and research. Wherever you guys go, you'll be surrounded by brilliant people doing amazing things. Forget imposter syndrome. People are doing real research, right next to you-- you can't help but feel inspired. Sometimes my students come to my office hours just to hang and gab about music and movies. I put my feet up on the desk and joke about how hard engineering is. There's never any money, and the car broke down again, and I can't afford to fly home for my best friend's engagement party. But even in Lafayette, IN, there's a bunch of cool bars where you can get cheap hoppy beer and good pretzels. My girlfriend and I go to concerts and see free movies on campus. Yesterday I helped some brilliant young students carry their solar electric car into the union. We just built the world's fastest campus supercomputer and an electrical wire only four atoms thick. That stuff moves me. There's a farmers market, April through October, just down the street from our house. I try to bike to school twice a week. The secretary will let you sneak some free printing if you're nice to her and I order free books from publishers all the time. Tomorrow I've getting together with some people in my cohort so we can write a panel proposal for the Watson conference. My curriculum design class is putting together an IEP that's actually going to be implemented; you can get cheap milkshakes at the convenience store in the Stewart center. I'm growing a big bushy grad school beard, because why not? The director of my program is brilliant and caring. She's on leave this semester, so she wrote us a letter. She ended it by saying "I love you all," and she really meant it. On Fridays, I can sleep in as long as I want. You guys are gonna have everything you wanted. This is just the bullshit you have to put up with for just a bit longer. In 8 months, you'll be ensconced in your programs, and the idea that you could care that some other program rejected you is going to seem like an absurd dream. All of this will be worth it the moment you're writing and researching and you get there and say, yeah-- that's what I want to say. Just hold on.

1/1, although here Intro to Comp is a 5-day a week teaching requirement.

Good on you, for making this thread. Seriously. You've said it yourself-- all about fit.

What's the cost of living like down there? I mean, I only make about $13K for a half time assistantship, but then our giant two bedroom is only $750 a month. Context is key.

Probably best to say "who cares" either way-- you can't get caught up in individual acceptances. That way lies madness.

I've been fighting every impulse to say that getting rejected everywhere the first go-round was the best thing that could have happened to me, even though it's true. Nobody wants to hear that shit.