bdon19

Hey friends! Just wanted to throw out there, I heard rumors today that the adcomm here at UNC is finalizing decisions basically as we speak and will be starting to notify soon! I know I got my e-mail last year at about 8 pm, so keep your eyes out! I am crpssing my fingers for all of you!!

Hey friends! Just wanted to throw out there, I heard rumors today that the adcomm here at UNC is finalizing decisions basically as we speak and will be starting to notify soon! I know I got my e-mail last year at about 8 pm, so keep your eyes out! I am crpssing my fingers for all of you!!

Haha, as someone who went through all of this last year at this time, I can remember how awful this all was.  Keep in mind, you're almost definitely not going to hear anything for another month (I think my earliest notification was early(ish) February.  And you are going to keep getting those "we have received your application" e-mails the entire time and it's going to give you a heart attack each and every time.  One school (I think it was Duke) sent me one like every three days for over a month!  Good luck to you all!  Maybe I will see some of you around my neck of the woods in a few months!

Haha, as someone who went through all of this last year at this time, I can remember how awful this all was.  Keep in mind, you're almost definitely not going to hear anything for another month (I think my earliest notification was early(ish) February.  And you are going to keep getting those "we have received your application" e-mails the entire time and it's going to give you a heart attack each and every time.  One school (I think it was Duke) sent me one like every three days for over a month!  Good luck to you all!  Maybe I will see some of you around my neck of the woods in a few months!

Haha, as someone who went through all of this last year at this time, I can remember how awful this all was.  Keep in mind, you're almost definitely not going to hear anything for another month (I think my earliest notification was early(ish) February.  And you are going to keep getting those "we have received your application" e-mails the entire time and it's going to give you a heart attack each and every time.  One school (I think it was Duke) sent me one like every three days for over a month!  Good luck to you all!  Maybe I will see some of you around my neck of the woods in a few months!

Haha, as someone who went through all of this last year at this time, I can remember how awful this all was.  Keep in mind, you're almost definitely not going to hear anything for another month (I think my earliest notification was early(ish) February.  And you are going to keep getting those "we have received your application" e-mails the entire time and it's going to give you a heart attack each and every time.  One school (I think it was Duke) sent me one like every three days for over a month!  Good luck to you all!  Maybe I will see some of you around my neck of the woods in a few months!

Haha, as someone who went through all of this last year at this time, I can remember how awful this all was.  Keep in mind, you're almost definitely not going to hear anything for another month (I think my earliest notification was early(ish) February.  And you are going to keep getting those "we have received your application" e-mails the entire time and it's going to give you a heart attack each and every time.  One school (I think it was Duke) sent me one like every three days for over a month!  Good luck to you all!  Maybe I will see some of you around my neck of the woods in a few months!

Have you visited IU? I couldn't make it for the official visit day, but I was able to take a visit a few weeks ago. I did get a really great sense of the program and felt like I would have been really happy there. It just happened that UNC had all that and more to offer.

Side note: at both of my visit weekends I talked with fellow prospective students and current students about the insanity that is the GradCafe. Even if none of the regulars end up together, rest assured that just about everyone has been on here at some point or another.

The ending WAS very melodramatic, but, for some reason, that is what I LOVED about it. I think it's because I just spent the past term writing my senior thesis about whether or not the novel is "dead," and then there's this amazing novel that uses the 19th-century novel form and brilliantly transposes it onto the twenty-first century. I don't know, it was just kind of refreshing for me, in the way that Victorian novels can be refreshing. And in the way that, at least formalistically, it's not trying to DO anything other than be a novel (unlike something like Eugenides's The Marriage Plot). I haven't read The Corrections yet, but I'd be interested to do so now!

In the time after graduating, I finally got around to reading Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, and am now resisting the urge to specialize in contemporary lit. I've decided, in a final act of young rebellion against the academy, that my summer will mainly consist of me holing myself up in my room with Netflix, catching up on TV that I always was too busy reading to watch. I have all next year to read that theory stuff, anyway.

Hahaha I love this.

I'm kinda sorta having one of these days. I mean, not the whole genius thing, but I've been working non-stop on my writing sample for the past few hours, preparing it for my first deadline (tomorrow, eek!), and I'm feeling good about my application as a whole. I'm really happy with the way my writing sample has turned out, and I've gotten really positive feedback from LORs on my most recent SOP draft. So now all I have to do is crank up the guilty pleasure music (T-Swift gets me pumped to write about Samuel Richardson every time) and get this stuff polished!

In response to some of the points brought up by Two Espressos, I want to voice an opinion of mine that I wish I had more clearly formulated and been able to articulate pre-applying to grad school. Recently, I've been working on a project for my English major capstone course that takes up questions about the future of the novel. I have been discovering more and more that my (admittedly amateur) training in creative writing has prepared me to a huge extent to talk about a number of issues related to both the contemporary novel as well as the novel more generally throughout its history that I never would have gotten through my strictly literary education. I had the opportunity to attend the AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) conference a few months ago, and the experiences I've had with people who are active writers has really allowed me to open myself up to looking at literature outside strictly a theoretical or scholarly lens. I never in a thousand years would want to attend an MFA program (nor would my writing be up to par anyway), but learning the kinds of things that an MFA program teaches and participating in writing workshops has really expanded my views on the field of literature more generally.

In response to some of the points brought up by Two Espressos, I want to voice an opinion of mine that I wish I had more clearly formulated and been able to articulate pre-applying to grad school. Recently, I've been working on a project for my English major capstone course that takes up questions about the future of the novel. I have been discovering more and more that my (admittedly amateur) training in creative writing has prepared me to a huge extent to talk about a number of issues related to both the contemporary novel as well as the novel more generally throughout its history that I never would have gotten through my strictly literary education. I had the opportunity to attend the AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) conference a few months ago, and the experiences I've had with people who are active writers has really allowed me to open myself up to looking at literature outside strictly a theoretical or scholarly lens. I never in a thousand years would want to attend an MFA program (nor would my writing be up to par anyway), but learning the kinds of things that an MFA program teaches and participating in writing workshops has really expanded my views on the field of literature more generally.

Well, it's official. I just accepted my offer at UNC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!

Well, it's official. I just accepted my offer at UNC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!

Well, it's official. I just accepted my offer at UNC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!

Well, it's official. I just accepted my offer at UNC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!

One thing I haven't seen so far on this thread is simply that weird, elusive thing called the gut. I'm a big proponent of going with your gut, and already I'm leaning towards making a decision based on mine (though of course I'm waiting until after visits to do so). It's always worked out with me so far...hopefully it will this time, too.

One thing I haven't seen so far on this thread is simply that weird, elusive thing called the gut. I'm a big proponent of going with your gut, and already I'm leaning towards making a decision based on mine (though of course I'm waiting until after visits to do so). It's always worked out with me so far...hopefully it will this time, too.

Haha I came up with the idea to have a party like this last year, but after I saw Midnight in Paris, I knew it had to happen. I've already called dibs on Anais Nin (and am trying to get a guy friend to agree to be Henry Miller). Sadly, my roommate would prefer having an American historical figures party...she's big on Presidents. Hahahaha

So encouraging, ComeBack.

One of my favorites, especially in terms of literary studies:

"That would be a glorious life, to addict oneself to perfection; to follow the curve of the sentence wherever it might lead, into deserts, under drifts of sand, regardless of lures, of seductions; to be poor always and unkempt; to be ridiculous in Piccadilly."
--Neville from Virginia Woolf's The Waves

So encouraging, ComeBack.

One of my favorites, especially in terms of literary studies:

"That would be a glorious life, to addict oneself to perfection; to follow the curve of the sentence wherever it might lead, into deserts, under drifts of sand, regardless of lures, of seductions; to be poor always and unkempt; to be ridiculous in Piccadilly."
--Neville from Virginia Woolf's The Waves

So encouraging, ComeBack.

One of my favorites, especially in terms of literary studies:

"That would be a glorious life, to addict oneself to perfection; to follow the curve of the sentence wherever it might lead, into deserts, under drifts of sand, regardless of lures, of seductions; to be poor always and unkempt; to be ridiculous in Piccadilly."
--Neville from Virginia Woolf's The Waves

My final decision is to just show up at Yale and be like, "What." And they'll be like, "Huh?" And I'll go "Shiiiit, boy." And they'll go... "This kid is on point. Aiight -- $50,000 fellowship."