HunkyDory

it's not fake! it's mine. I received an email that said "decision notification from UC-Berkeley" and it took me to the application website where it said I was admitted w/ a letter from the graduate division. I am obviously quite happy--but also weirded out that no one has heard yet, and I've heard nothing from the department. good luck to everyone else!

Just one Berkeley acceptance today?

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

Wow, you seem like quite the asshole.

Penn's strongest areas are medieval/renaissance lit, Modernism, and contemporary poetry. They used to have Stuart Curran running Milton and Romantic Poetry (and his specialty was female Romantic poets), although he left in 2008. Since then there's been a bit of a gap in that area of the department, mostly because Curran was so outstanding that nobody could replace him. They've got Lesser running Milton now, but he's a fairly young guy.

Because of this, if your research interests are outside of these areas, you've got a drastically reduced chance of getting in...I mean, it's pretty much a "fit" issue here, and you probably weren't applying if you were outside of this area. They'll usually take a gender studies person and race/postcolonialism person, both more often than not working in the 20th century forward. For contemporary stuff (and especially poetry) they look for much more unique research interests. There's a current PhD who got in with interests in recordings and methods of sound production--an issue that's very salient to contemporary poetics that a lot of the faculty has written on to some extent--but an area which less work is being done in.

Poetry-wise, they're the opposite of the canonical Yale/Harvard programs, and much more in line with Buffalo is this respect. If your poetry interests are Dickinson and Longfellow, you're quite divorced from a department that has a number of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and affiliates in it.

So yes, common sense tells me that if you're looking to write about Dryden, then you're fairly out of luck in the department. A fairly good predictor of whether or not you stand a chance at admission.

If you said your specific interests, I could have told you if there's faculty members to champion it, maybe even some you didn't notice going through the website. If you wanted to know more about Philly specifically, about the Writer's House specifically, I could tell you. There's stuff online but people always have questions they can't find the answers to otherwise.

I just don't know why you're being such an enormous dick about me offering to answer questions.

There's this crazy thing now where you can access your electronic mail on your mobile telephone! What crazy technological sorcery!

A scene that just happened:

Me, sitting at the computer, hearing my phone ringing from across the room.

"NYU!" I think.

I dart to it by the end of the first ring.

The name/number listed: Unknown.

Pause, wait till the third ring.

"Hello?"

*Click*

Silence.

DAMNIT!

A scene that just happened:

Me, sitting at the computer, hearing my phone ringing from across the room.

"NYU!" I think.

I dart to it by the end of the first ring.

The name/number listed: Unknown.

Pause, wait till the third ring.

"Hello?"

*Click*

Silence.

DAMNIT!

Congrats, Pinkrobot. Penn is an awesome program.

Cool story, bro. I'm curious, which professor? And I don't get why you're being so outrageously hostile.

I mean, I'm more than willing to be helpful and answer questions that people might have. I'm still more than willing to do that.

But I won't put up with entitled people who make snide/passive-aggressive statements about common sense.

I'm glad what I said was helpful. It's a shame you're not interested in history of the book--I know that that's Stallybrass's specialty...and that man is insanely brilliant. His story is one of my favorites too. He worked as a mortician for years, and is an autodidact...he would just sit in the morgue all night for years reading nonstop.

And I'm interested in Contemporary/Digital Poetics myself.

What do you want to know? I'm not going to sit here wasting my time writing what you could figure out if you just looked at the department website (and maybe it's because I'm biased towards it but http://www.english.upenn.edu/ is one of the most helpful straightforward department sites there is).

So if you want to know something specific, say so.

Wow, you seem like quite the asshole.

Penn's strongest areas are medieval/renaissance lit, Modernism, and contemporary poetry. They used to have Stuart Curran running Milton and Romantic Poetry (and his specialty was female Romantic poets), although he left in 2008. Since then there's been a bit of a gap in that area of the department, mostly because Curran was so outstanding that nobody could replace him. They've got Lesser running Milton now, but he's a fairly young guy.

Because of this, if your research interests are outside of these areas, you've got a drastically reduced chance of getting in...I mean, it's pretty much a "fit" issue here, and you probably weren't applying if you were outside of this area. They'll usually take a gender studies person and race/postcolonialism person, both more often than not working in the 20th century forward. For contemporary stuff (and especially poetry) they look for much more unique research interests. There's a current PhD who got in with interests in recordings and methods of sound production--an issue that's very salient to contemporary poetics that a lot of the faculty has written on to some extent--but an area which less work is being done in.

Poetry-wise, they're the opposite of the canonical Yale/Harvard programs, and much more in line with Buffalo is this respect. If your poetry interests are Dickinson and Longfellow, you're quite divorced from a department that has a number of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and affiliates in it.

So yes, common sense tells me that if you're looking to write about Dryden, then you're fairly out of luck in the department. A fairly good predictor of whether or not you stand a chance at admission.

If you said your specific interests, I could have told you if there's faculty members to champion it, maybe even some you didn't notice going through the website. If you wanted to know more about Philly specifically, about the Writer's House specifically, I could tell you. There's stuff online but people always have questions they can't find the answers to otherwise.

I just don't know why you're being such an enormous dick about me offering to answer questions.

Wow, you seem like quite the asshole.

Penn's strongest areas are medieval/renaissance lit, Modernism, and contemporary poetry. They used to have Stuart Curran running Milton and Romantic Poetry (and his specialty was female Romantic poets), although he left in 2008. Since then there's been a bit of a gap in that area of the department, mostly because Curran was so outstanding that nobody could replace him. They've got Lesser running Milton now, but he's a fairly young guy.

Because of this, if your research interests are outside of these areas, you've got a drastically reduced chance of getting in...I mean, it's pretty much a "fit" issue here, and you probably weren't applying if you were outside of this area. They'll usually take a gender studies person and race/postcolonialism person, both more often than not working in the 20th century forward. For contemporary stuff (and especially poetry) they look for much more unique research interests. There's a current PhD who got in with interests in recordings and methods of sound production--an issue that's very salient to contemporary poetics that a lot of the faculty has written on to some extent--but an area which less work is being done in.

Poetry-wise, they're the opposite of the canonical Yale/Harvard programs, and much more in line with Buffalo is this respect. If your poetry interests are Dickinson and Longfellow, you're quite divorced from a department that has a number of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and affiliates in it.

So yes, common sense tells me that if you're looking to write about Dryden, then you're fairly out of luck in the department. A fairly good predictor of whether or not you stand a chance at admission.

If you said your specific interests, I could have told you if there's faculty members to champion it, maybe even some you didn't notice going through the website. If you wanted to know more about Philly specifically, about the Writer's House specifically, I could tell you. There's stuff online but people always have questions they can't find the answers to otherwise.

I just don't know why you're being such an enormous dick about me offering to answer questions.

Cool story, bro. I'm curious, which professor? And I don't get why you're being so outrageously hostile.

I mean, I'm more than willing to be helpful and answer questions that people might have. I'm still more than willing to do that.

But I won't put up with entitled people who make snide/passive-aggressive statements about common sense.

I'm glad what I said was helpful. It's a shame you're not interested in history of the book--I know that that's Stallybrass's specialty...and that man is insanely brilliant. His story is one of my favorites too. He worked as a mortician for years, and is an autodidact...he would just sit in the morgue all night for years reading nonstop.

And I'm interested in Contemporary/Digital Poetics myself.

Wow, you seem like quite the asshole.

Penn's strongest areas are medieval/renaissance lit, Modernism, and contemporary poetry. They used to have Stuart Curran running Milton and Romantic Poetry (and his specialty was female Romantic poets), although he left in 2008. Since then there's been a bit of a gap in that area of the department, mostly because Curran was so outstanding that nobody could replace him. They've got Lesser running Milton now, but he's a fairly young guy.

Because of this, if your research interests are outside of these areas, you've got a drastically reduced chance of getting in...I mean, it's pretty much a "fit" issue here, and you probably weren't applying if you were outside of this area. They'll usually take a gender studies person and race/postcolonialism person, both more often than not working in the 20th century forward. For contemporary stuff (and especially poetry) they look for much more unique research interests. There's a current PhD who got in with interests in recordings and methods of sound production--an issue that's very salient to contemporary poetics that a lot of the faculty has written on to some extent--but an area which less work is being done in.

Poetry-wise, they're the opposite of the canonical Yale/Harvard programs, and much more in line with Buffalo is this respect. If your poetry interests are Dickinson and Longfellow, you're quite divorced from a department that has a number of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and affiliates in it.

So yes, common sense tells me that if you're looking to write about Dryden, then you're fairly out of luck in the department. A fairly good predictor of whether or not you stand a chance at admission.

If you said your specific interests, I could have told you if there's faculty members to champion it, maybe even some you didn't notice going through the website. If you wanted to know more about Philly specifically, about the Writer's House specifically, I could tell you. There's stuff online but people always have questions they can't find the answers to otherwise.

I just don't know why you're being such an enormous dick about me offering to answer questions.

I went to Penn undergrad, and I'm applying for PhD now, I can probably answer most questions about the English department that you have. Actually I could probably tell you if you even stand a chance by what your research interests are.

What do you want to know? I'm not going to sit here wasting my time writing what you could figure out if you just looked at the department website (and maybe it's because I'm biased towards it but http://www.english.upenn.edu/ is one of the most helpful straightforward department sites there is).

So if you want to know something specific, say so.

Also wasn't Kansas' app due on the 31st? How is the turnaround so quick on those?

Well...who wants to step forward and claim it?

Institution Program (Season) Decision & Date St1 Date Added Notes University Of Kansas, Lawrence English, PhD (F12) Rejected via Website on 23 Jan 2012 A 24 Jan 2012
No email or phonecall; just checked the web site and found rejection letter posted there!!!