vordhosbntwin

NYU or did you get in off the wait list at YU?

Hi folks, quick question: does the physical have to be completed four weeks from the original letter, or from the letter that specifies the terms of the award? I'm trying to arrange it so that I have a physical next week, but it's been a little difficult. I haven't seen anyone else mention it, so perhaps it's not as urgent as I am thinking it is... Oh and: my Fulbright is to Germany, if it matters.

fulbright in frankfurt for a year, then yale comp lit phd, which has authorized a deferral. peace out grad cafe.

probably not a good place to look. on my view, profs usually take their grad students more seriously, and i mean, i took a class with fredric jameson last semester, who was excellent, but of course some stupid undergrad left him a review on ratemyprof that said he was a "boring marxist dud."

Won a full grant to Germany! Yes! I was in shock when I first received that and subsequently posted, so here's a copy of the email, for those who are curious (and yes, it was indeed an email): Dear ---, Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected for a US Student Fulbright award for 2012-2013 to Germany. Shortly you will receive a letter from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board with further details of the award. This letter will be sent to the mailing address listed in your application and noted above. This address will remain your corresponding address unless you notify us in writing (via email to your IIE Program Manager.) In the meantime, be aware that this award is contingent upon your obtaining/receiving: satisfactory medical clearance; a bachelor's degree (if graduating this year); official research clearance from the host country, where applicable; and required visas. Please note that all selected candidates will be required to submit a Medical History and Examination Form before your grant can be finalized. The Form must be completed and signed by a licensed physician and reviewed by the U.S. State Department for medical clearance. This form, instructions and other information pertinent to your grant will be posted on the following webpage within the next few weeks. You may wish to consider scheduling a medical appointment within the next month in order to have these forms completed in a timely manner. We urge you to visit this page regularly for important Pre-Departure information and updates. It is your responsibility to keep fully informed of and to comply with all grant award requirements. Pre-Departure Resources: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/pregrantee_resources.html Your IIE Program Manager will be in contact with you soon with further information on grant administration and pre-departure preparation. If, at any time in the coming months, you determine that you will not be able to accept the Fulbright award, please be sure to notify IIE immediately. Again, congratulations on your accomplishments and we look forward to working with you. Sincerely, Theresa Granza Director, U.S. Student Programs Institute of Interntional Education 809 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017

That may be true for Duke grad programs, but certainly not for undergrad. Fucklist anyone? Shooters? Duke basketball??? Also, I understand that Durham isn't the safest place, but I think the bit about the laser is a gross exaggeration. I lived in Durham for a year, and that's just simply not true. Like any other city with a university that has thrived at the expense of the surrounding community (e.g. Yale, Chicago, Duke, Johns Hopkins, etc.), it has problems, but it has great riches as well, and the triangle area is in general quite excellent. The New York Times cited Durham as a top place to visit last year, fyi. If you're looking to party, there are plenty of parties in Durham. In fact, Duke made the cover of Rolling Stone for its party scene. But you will be getting a very specific kind of party... I know some Duke graduate students who are bored, but most of them are MA students who have been there for a year or less. The people I know in PhD programa have great social lives and love Durham. Having attended many UNC basketball games and grown up as a UNC fan, with several family members who attended the school, I still find it to be a strange claim that UNC is more of a party place than Duke... As for Chicago; people in Chicago like to say that the U of C is where fun goes to die. I lived in Chicago for a while, and the U of C was not a very fun place. My neighborhood, on the other hand, was awesome. I lived in the Ukrainian Village/Wicker Park area, and it was an excellent living experience.

i'm still trying to make a decision between yale comp lit and hopkins humanities center - i'm pretty sure at this point that i'm going to attend the former, but if anyone has any thoughts on either program, i'd love to hear. any thoughts from folks who've lived in new haven or baltimore would also be appreciated!

after having lived in both durham and chicago, i would definitely say that the latter is a better place to live. durham is nice for a bit, but you'll get bored.

i've heard similar things about yale. i was admitted to the humanities center at hopkins and visited last week - really loved the program. there are incredible faculty members in that department, and in the germans & romance language depts. the humanities center is very interdisciplinary, so it encourages its students to use the resources of other departments and to work with faculty in other departments. i don't know if the hopkins english program is at all similar, but if so, there are some really amazing people at hopkins and you should consider them as well. alas, i've decided to turn down hopkins, but best of luck to those who do attend.

i've already committed to yale. did you get into harvard? just out of curiosity, what's the funding there?

i don't think any comp lit people have received rejections, or at least not without soliciting them. we'll probably be receiving rejections soon.

looking at some of the posts about loans in "the bank" has made me realize how lucky all of us are who have gotten into fully-funded, stipend-granting programs... at first i guess i just saw it as affirmation that my work wasn't shit, but now it truly does seem like winning a lottery.

i've been accepted to hopkins, yale, and a few other places for comp lit, and i'm also having a hard time deciding. but i have to say, after having visited some programs, i have a much better idea about where i don't want to attend, and that has a lot to do with having met professors. if you talk to folks who are in programs, or who teach in them, in my experience they will tell you to go where your interests are best met. you could probably find something to do in most programs, but sometimes people get it wrong, go to places that really don't make sense, and consequently transfer. most of the programs i applied to accepted less than 5 people, and honestly, i doubt they accepted those five people just because they can write well. i have empirical evidence, in the form of emails from directors of graduate studies, that in some cases my interests were just simply too far from those of the program, they wouldn't be able to accommodate me. it's true that i am having trouble deciding where to go now, but knowing what faculty are doing and what students care about is certainly helping me out. and to thestage: you don't think that reading articles written by professors who are currently active in your field and operative in the greater academy is, um, academic? i actually did learn something and incorporated two of the articles i read into a paper that i'm giving at a major conference in germany. a necessity for being a successful academician, in my opinion, is curiosity, and i wouldn't have read those articles if i wasn't curious in the first place about what they had to say.

if you don't have some idea of what some professors are doing at each school you applied to, why would you want to go there? honestly, i spent maybe an hour looking at each school's website to identify POIs based on what their website blurbs mentioned and what courses they'd recently taught. for those professors i was especially interested in, i read an article or two that each had written, maybe even a book chapter, and for some schools, there were professors i already knew i was interested in. because i applied to 15 schools, that did take a lot of time, but i wouldn't say it was a waste. if i hadn't done so, i would have been hard pressed to give you a good reason as to why i would want to attend that specific program.

put simply, fit is to some extent your ability to write a proposal sure, but i mean, i really think it's not a very difficult concept: i was rejected from two programs because the professors i identified in my statements were no longer in the program. there could have been other reasons, but every school i have been accepted to did so because specific faculty members could do work with me. ability to write well and to articulate your interests is a prerequisite - i don't think i would bother applying if i couldn't do those things. i'm most interested in the relationship between modernism and 19th and 20th century german philosophy, and lo and behold - the programs i got into specialize in those things. fit isn't some inexplicable metaphysical concept; it's just how well you, uh, fit.