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anyone want to put a friendly wager on what major school comes next? I feel like Duke (english) will spill soon!

Let's not get too worked up....it's still very early and we've no concrete reason to think that the committee has even met! EDIT: Right? Someone help me not freak out.

Do we have any reason to think it'll be today? Oh god......

it's like a rorschach test...but one that costs thousands of dollars.

...as much as I dislike waiting, this is better than applying! At least now we are delightfully out of control.

Chapel Hill does indeed offer tuition remission! From the Chapel Hill graduate FAQ: We offer various funding opportunities for first-year doctoral students: merit fellowships from the Graduate School, departmental research assistantships, internships in our SITES lab for instructional technology, positions as graders, and (for those entering with prior college composition experience) teaching fellowships. In most cases, these funding packages offer a minimum of $14,700 per year as a living stipend and also include tuition remission and health insurance. After the first year in the program, all doctoral candidates are funded through teaching fellowships, which are renewable annually for at least five years, and in certain cases six years. Teaching fellowships also include tuition remission and health insurance.

There's a Northwestern admit up on the board. Whoever it is: CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm trying desperately to forget the three digit area code for stanford. And also regretting that I didn't apply to Northwestern. What's one more school when you've got 15 already on your list? EDIT: And it's now the 26th of January. We are in a realm in which it wouldn't be ridiculous to actually hear from schools.

So I've just setup my gmail account to forward a message to my (non-smart) phone every time I get an email from certain domains...like @ucla, or @unc, @stanford.... This has to end, right?

yes, please tell us about the Stanford skype interviews.

That's for the lit program right? I was under the impression that the English program didn't do interviews.

Indeed. It does a disservice to see think of ourselves too highly. Not that our work isn't good or worthwhile. But brilliant scholarship which isn't useful to the discipline--engaged and forward thinking--is not a meaningful exercise. Scholars produce a product. They are judged on the utility of that product. The utility is defined by the rest of the discipline--do they find it useful. A beautiful hammer (elegant, balanced, poised, original) that doesn't hammer nails is useless.

Not to defend the practice of MA prejudice (after all, I've got one!)...but yes, you have been molded by your professors. Originality is great, but if it exists in a vacuum then it's useless. I think the reality is that we are not artists: we write for the approval, satisfaction, and (with hope) edification of our professors; we do not for ourselves, or even an amorphous audience. If we can't satisfy our professors, those who should be our peers one day soon, then we should try doing something else.

Is anyone else checking the results survey every day?

I've also heard that UVA runs late. I guess they're in no rush. I've also heard that they don't give interviews. Other than Emory and Stanford, do any of the major programs bother with interviews? I feel like they'd be distracting. If you can't present yourself on paper, then no amount of presenting yourself in person can matter.

Pretty standard.

Wouldn't it be nice if instead of a slowly drawn out process ranging from January 25 to April, all the schools picked one night on which to contact everyone. Something like Feb 15 from 6PM-11PM EST. We'd all know when it was coming and could sit by our phones and computers and watch the results come in. In one evening we'd discover what the rest of our lives will be like. It'd be like an election night except without (much) network news coverage. Instead we wait. I'm dreading the moment when I've been rejected by 13 or 14 of my 15 schools and the image of my failure slowly comes into focus in front of my eyes. The slow extinguishing of hope is the worst. I'd prefer just to get it over with.

I'm always a bit mystified by the interview process for English Phds. I guess I don't see the point. For schools that do do interviews (Emory, Stanford), do they tend to interview everyone who they will eventually admit, or do they tend to interview people who they think need another round of vetting? Regardless, I guess I'm now hoping for a Stanford interview!

Laphroaig 10 year old, please. Also, I've got 15 apps out, so I may give you a run bespeckled!

That's horrifying. And I guess exciting.

A B&N gift certificate?

I've been looking at last years results surveys and it seems like there's no pattern for when people get in. Some schools seem to notify over the course of a month. Why? Are they offering admission to some, then waiting to here back, and then offering more based on if people decided to come? It would seem like they could notify all their admits via phone in a single day and all of the rejects/wait lists in a single email (bcc'ed please!). One more question: Am I losing my mind? Yes.

It also doesn't matter if you can't get hired afterwards with a PhD.

Profs in my department do mock skype interviews with job market bound PhDs to get them used to the process.

For people who've done this before, when say a distant school requests an interview, is one expected to fly out or are they done via phone/skype? I know a decent number of non-mla based tenure track search committees rely heavily on skype.