OnceAndFutureGrad

I'm sorry, I should have explained this within my post. We've been together 4.5 years; the first year we were a few towns away, the second year I was in Ireland while he was in the States, the third year I was in the north of the state while he was in the south (1.5-2 hrs apart depending on traffic), and for the past year and a half we've been in separate states (4+ hrs). We've been okay with a long distance relationship for years. But we are sick and tired of it now, argh! The grad school mentioned above isn't nearer or further than any others. It was just a hypothetical scenario that popped into my head.

false belief

Oi, this is a soft subject for me! I've been dating my man for more than four and a half years now - we're definitely talking the M-word, and even the K-word! eee! - and the geographical restrictions of my search are partially due to his location. (He's required by his state job to live in New Jersey, and also owns a house, so moving for a few years is out of the question.) About six months ago, I was praying that I would do almost anything to get into a particular grad school, and it popped into my head - I blame Loki, Norse god of chaos - would I be willing to lose my man for an acceptance there? The answer is no...but...now I'm scared that if I DO get in, my man and I will break up! Oi! Fortunately this grad school is NOT my top choice any more, so I'm not as obsessed with an acceptance as I was then. Hearing from them will be a win-win situation...either I get into a very good school, OR I'll know for sure that my man and I will stay together! Ha ha ha! That goofy story aside, though, I've been struggling with the relationship v. education tension throughout the grad school process. What made me finally come down in favor of the relationship is that, when I think really far in the future, like my 50s and 60s, I'd rather be with my man than still plugging away in academia. I can imagine getting into curatorship, or law school, or personal training, or overseas tour guiding, or a million other occupations, but wherever I see myself, I see myself with my man. As #$%&ing difficult as it is to make it in academia, there's no shortage of people who can do it. I'm certain, though, that there's only one person in the world who can love me like my man.

I haven't heard anything from any schools yet either. I would just like to point out, however, that judging yourself on the basis of your peers can backfire. (I know, you're too stressed to take anecdotal advice from a stranger, but...) I psychologically beat myself raw that a friend of mine from the same school got snapped up for a PhD program right out of undergrad while I only managed to get into an MA program by my fingernails. My friend, however, quickly found him/herself way over their head, depressed and angry and completely out of place, and s/he is cutting and running with a terminal MA from the program, never to return to this subject. I truly wish that things had worked out for him/her, of course, but it just goes to show you that comparing yourself to your peers during the application process can be misleading and a waste of valuable head space.

Thank you! Me too. I began lusting for this position in 2009 but was afraid to apply until this year. Just being a semifinalist is a great honor. You don't say! That is very good news indeed.

Ooo congratulations! I hope to spend the summer living between my parents' house and my boyfriend's house while commuting to NYC for a Met internship. I'll also be running a western martial arts class for my Viking living history group, and polishing my written and spoken German.

That. Is. Ridiculous. Wow. I almost did a backflip today because I got a voicemail from Yale's area code. Then I remembered that it's MY area code too, and it was a call about my town's high school. Poo.

no problem

I sent an email asking my status at 3:23pm EST, and at 6:18 EST I got a message (not a reply) that I had been selected as a semifinalist. Hopefully you got the good news in your inbox after business hours, too.

While I concur with other posts about watched pots never boiling (potted watches don't either, btw), I will submit that last time around, after a slew of rejections, I got an email from my (now current) MA's program assistant asking me to clarify something on my application. I freaked out, thinking that I had ruined my chances by misreading a question on the application. But then it occurred to me that if they were asking, my application was on someone's desk instead of the trash can. Sure enough, I was at the top of the waitlist and then accepted (they only took one person!). So while I stand by others' suggestion not to think too hard about it, I know you will anyway (we all do...) and I just wanted to pass that along.

Katerific wins A MILLION INTERNETS!!!! I actually might print that out and use that. Damn useful!

watch dog

We really should provide the community with a pamphlet, "When Someone You Love is Applying to Grad School". We can include sections like "Just Because Your Loved One is Smart, Does Not Guarantee Acceptance" and "How Adcoms Hold Your Loved One's Future in Their Hands" and "Why Telling Your Loved One to Look at the Bigger Picture is Frankly Insulting (No One Goes to Grad School for the Lulz)".

I should have specified, I applied to Yale Medieval Studies. I know from previous experience that they send an email in the second week of February to check the updated website, but that's for Medieval Studies. That being said though, I can't imagine that they would get a voice mailbox and say "Uhh, this is Yale, and uhhh, we were gonna accept you, but because you didn't pick up your phone, well, never mind...". When my MA program called, I was in Ireland, so my mother got the information for me and I called my advisor on my return. The programs have 'til April 1st for you to make a decision; the delay of a few hours or days while you are in Europe shouldn't be an issue!

What is tha... I don't even... I see your Hot Chip and raise you the Rubberbandits. Either you know them or you don't, and if you don't know them you might hate them so I'll leave that Google search up to your discretion... Anyway for the medievalists and early modernists, I suggest AncientFM commercial-free radio.

The Tenth Doctor must investigate this wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

*raises hand* Um, er, that would be me... I'm used to being the odd one out in any situation, though. The medievalist in a medieval lit seminar of English majors...the medievalist in a historiography seminar of art history grads...and so on. 'Tis a lonely life. (Well, it was before coming to UConn, but that's because our medieval studies department is this incredible melting pot of interdisciplinary medievalists that is quite hard to find elsewhere, but anyway, I've thrown my lot in with art history.) I like to tell myself that having an uncommon interest and specialty is an advantage. As long as I find someone in the department who does what I do and will take new advisees, then I think I'm a pretty good applicant to the program. How many people with six years of medieval studies do they get, y'know? I would rather be one of a dozen people applying for a single medieval art history PhD spot, than one of two hundred people vying for five PhD candidacies in modern art. Of course I get the endless petitions of "what are you going to do with that?" but it's inevitable in graduate school. Unless you are going for a degree in Specific Thing with a minor in Even More Specific Thing and an internship at Specific Thing Institute, with a guaranteed mid-level post at Specific Thing Corporation upon graduation. Follow your interests and do the best you can, never mind what's fashionable. My poor great-grandmother went to millinery school and finished just when those crazy big hats went permanently out of style. From that I've taken to heart that the job market is too vague to stake your education on.

I haven't heard anything, but as of posting, the acceptances were all out of state schools like Illinois and Ohio; hence, IF I had applied there, then I might have gotten an acceptance already. Thanks for the well-wishing, though! Penn and Yale get back soon, though, so I could be in the clear by early next week. Good luck to you and the rest of ye!

Gotta get some love from the Faroese víkingar! Hopefully this song will get you riled up for victory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5zNK--DUDg

Booyah! That most grievous of Facebook insults! I have no idea what to say to the OP. I'd say that that's good news...but...grad schools seem to live on giving false hope to applicants. I have many friends in the department of one of the schools where I've applied, which means that my POIs keep showing up in the "People You May Know" sidebar. They know me well enough that sending a request wouldn't be TOO weird (well, maybe a little, in this scary in-between period). But when their faces pop up I want to shout, "X! Y! I am merely on Facebook to share scholarly information with my colleagues! Stop looking at me!! Okay, I will go back to reading now!!!"

I'll know this Friday if I am short-listed for the Metropolitan summer internship program or not. Looking back in my journal, the second week of February was when I got my first responses. They were both rejections, though, and I have re-applied to one of them, so hopefully it is not a repeat! I seem to remember getting a lot of rejections quite early on. I think that's when the adcoms brushed off their first big batches of applicants. I tell myself that the rest of the rejections drifted in after I made the first cut and then was ultimately denied. That might be a coping mechanism, though!

Why didn't I apply to a central state school!? (Oh yeah, I refuse to move out of the mid-Atlantic.) But maybe I'd already have an acceptance! Hm, living far away from my family, friends, and all that I love, in exchange for knowing before February that I was in somewhere....hmmmmmm....!! Anyway, I'm glad to see new activity almost every time I type in "Art History". Congratulations on your acceptances! May February be just as fruitful for us all!

In 2009, I was called about being on a waitlist for my MA around March 17th and then I was accepted by e-mail a week later. That was after six solid rejections. The program where I was accepted had a very late application deadline though (Feb. 1). This year, I should know on Friday whether I've been shortlisted for the summer internship, and I was told that I should start hearing from Penn and Columbia next week. (Edited for clarity)

"I like you, but as a friend."

I thought you guys would benefit from a piece of wisdom I received from a professor in my department. I'm not a Chaucerian or even really a literature person, but even I appreciate C. David Benson and his extensive contribution to Middle English scholarship. He is in the long slow process of retiring and as the department librarian I've been accepting, valuing, and cataloging his book donations. A few weeks ago, while going over his collection, I spoke to him about my anxiety concerning the application process. I said, "I applied to a lot of really great places but I'm still not sure if I'm at that caliber." He replied, "Oh, but you have to have some faith in yourself." "Oh, I know. Just sometimes I don't know if I'm good enough." He laughed, and said, "I feel the same way! Some days I think I'm so accomplished and brilliant, and there are others when I'm absolutely sure that I've been fooling everyone and someone's finally going to notice what a dummy I am!" So remember, when you're not sure whether to think you're smart or stupid in this wait for validation, even an accomplished Middle English scholar at the end of his career wonders too....