Homeless

Haha! Yes, and no. It's a wonderful program and I'm really excited. Just having trouble believing I'm going to get paid to study English! But, as anyone here'll tell you, applying to grad school is full of angst and disappointment (and "what if's"). So, sure, I can still gripe about not getting in everywhere I applied, or not applying to certain schools I might've, but that wasn't what I meant.

I'll be heading off to Brandeis. I actually made the decision awhile ago but am only just now starting to get used to it. Well, not really.

I'm a little tired, so forgive the mistakes that follow. I just wanted to say that we really shouldn't give that much weight to the US News Rankings. Their helpful in determining a department's reputation, but only a little bit. For one thing, they're based on four year old surveys, and for another only 31% of those sent surveys (they don't say how many, or at least I couldn't find it) actually responded--compare that to around 60% for the Philosophical Gourmet report. Now, this doesn't mean your school is actually better or worse than US News says it is (although I wouldn't be surprised, and I say this not know where most of you are going) but it does mean that they are at best taken with a good amount of salt. Plus the specialty rankings are just not that helpful (18th through 20th Century British Literature? That's a specialty? Just one?). I should probably say more, but for now let me just say that I'm glad I'm not the only one whose ego gets in the way of accepting a great thing for what it is. (Don't forget, even at schools that are low on the list a lot more bright and hard-working students were rejected than let in.)

pinic_lightning, I'm in a similar situation, only one PhD offer (actually, I've only got one offer, and I'm on the waiting list for a master's program...in another field), from a top 50, but not top 20 school, and am dealing with similar worries. Leaving aside the statistical atrocity that is the U.S. News Rankings (and hoo boy, don't get me started) one thing I would say is that, as far as I can tell is that the school's reputation is only as important as who you're working with, who's writing your letters of recommendation and will vouch for you on the job market. Of course the two are seriously related (that's why the PGR has been so successful in philosophy, in my opinion anyway) but as long as your self-esteem doesn't depend on the ability to immediately get a TT position at an Ivy (or Ivy-like) school, being in the top 50 is already pretty good. And the thing about a terrible job market is that everyone is feeling it. All that being said, I spent about a month or so thinking about all the ways I would fix up my application to do better next time, to the point that I didn't actually know how to feel when I was actually admitted somewhere. It sounds crazy (because it is) but that desire to do better is part of what makes me a good academic--and my ability to procrastinate is what made me a bad applicant, but I digress--and I'm beginning to see why my professors think it would be a mistake to pass up a good offer because, what? I want to impress people even more at dinner parties? I mean, I certainly feel the temptation, but I think my reasons are...not so good. Maybe a calmer head (than mine) is needed.

ahembree, another thing to think about is the MAPH program is only a one year program, so it would mean either spending a year outside of school so you can use Thesis (and, hopefully, Chicago connections) for your grad apps, or, I guess, apply while you're still in your first semester. There's nothing wrong with taking some time off before starting a phd, but that really depends on your priorities and how much debt you'll be looking at (and if you have loans, when they need to get paid). Just my thoughts.

Julianne, just to be clear, I sent an email asking for advice about my application after the rejection emails. I got the same mass email as everyone else.

The turnaround was surprising, and really nice. Plus it was pretty clear that she actually looked over my file and didn't just send out a form. Here's what she wrote about the link: I must also say in all good faith that the job market has been difficult for entering PhDs over the past twenty years and the number of good jobs (that is, tenure-track jobs has been narrowing over the same time period.) Both of these trends have accelerated notably during this recession... I do want to indicate that getting a PhD takes up a big chunk of time and that the promised career may well be harder to achieve than getting into our program All of which seems pretty much right to me. P.S. Hope it's okay that I posted that.

She also sent me this link: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/07/19/what-if-college-tenure-dies

Stanford (though I can already guess) Brandeis and Rutgers. I applied to a couple of MA programs too. By the way, I just got a very charitable email from the DGS about my application after I asked for advice. It basically confirmed my suspicions that I wasn't a great fit and that my SOP wasn't as focused as it should've been. Something to keep in mind for next year.

That's too bad Marlowe23. I liked them, but I could see how I wasn't a great fit. Of course, it would've been nice, they seem like a great program. Now it's back to waiting.

Were your rejections cc'd to a professor from the department to? She (who'll be nameless for the moment) doesn't seem to have been head of grad admissions or anything,so does anyone know why? And yay, I finally heard back from a school. (Guess I'll try getting a TEFL degree...)