TripWillis

Yeah, I try to avoid hyperbole if I can help it. Except I use it like a million times a day. (har har... no? okay) Sam Delany is some good gay black people. He is also currently dominating all academic conversations. Beware the BQS hegemony!!

I love how this post bolsters my point a little, but forgive me for being oblique. Black Queer Studies. IT'S THE NEW HIPPEST THING.

As someone who studies B.Q.S. (see my avatar) at one of the top programs for B.Q.S. in the country, I can assure you that you're overstating things.

The most inconsequential "mistake" of all time. Don't lose one wink of sleep over this.

Echoing what others said, apply to a couple PhD programs and Fulbright at the same time; see what happens.

SERIOUSLY. 30 is WAYYYY too many. I'd say 10 is a good number, maybe even fewer.

You can get caught in a Room k-hole on youtube if you're not careful. They're wonderful stress relievers. I think I'm going to write an article on this movie using Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Every time I got rejected last year, I did something like this. So prepare a new furniture budget:

CUNY -- 300 applied; 28 accepted (but only about 19 with Fellowships) Rutgers- 400 applied, and I think their final cohort was like 16? All funded. UMass Amherst -- 180 applied, 18 accepted (not all with funding, apparently)

CUNY Graduate Center is a great place to do gender and Af-Am, which is what I'm working on.

Could you possibly do your first year on loans and apply for external/alt. internal grants and fellowships for your remaining years? Sometimes there's attrition, grant money becomes available. It is a great school, depending on what you want to study, so it couldn't hurt to ask students and other POI how they've navigated the funding issue.

I'll add this: don't think of schools in terms of tiers. It's too broad. Grab a handful from across the top 75. Start with region, because chances are you don't know much else about any given school. Then once you've filtered it that way, check their course websites. If you know scholars you really like, figure out where they teach and look into their programs. The tier thing will cause you to end up applying to a lot of programs that won't suit you or your interests.

I went to registration today and got all the classes I wanted. Cohort is great. Got along famously. Yay!

We're getting close, boys and girls. Are y'all going to the mixer next week? I hope I get to meet some of you there! PM me if you're going to so we can coordinate.

I have to say that this is such a generous thing to take the time to write to people applying to these programs, given the incredible amount of nervousness and stress surrounding the process. Even though I already went through it, I thank you.

How are you guys approaching first semester registration: go for all stuff in your field, or fill in the knowledge gaps? I'm pretty torn.

I got a 26th percentile score. I got into 4 schools. Quant probably doesn't matter.

It's good to see all you guys again. To give a more thorough answer than my earlier one, I've been having an interesting summer. I tried to find a steady job to slam away some money, but failed miserably. So, I've been turning my thesis into an article and I'm in the final editing stages before submission. Not too many more global revisions, just fixing odds and ends. I've been trudging through a long summer reading list, which has been great -- been a while since I've had a chance to do so much self-directed reading. I've been tutoring creative writing to a kid, tutoring college students, tutoring a fifth grader... basically lots and lots of tutoring. I'm presenting at a conference in September on what I just found out is a VERY intimidating panel of scholars (I'll just say that none of them are first year grad students and one of them is a kind of famous academic). I've also had very little money, so I've been kind of a shut-in. Not much in my non-scholarly life is changing, since the school I'm going to is about a 40 minute subway commute from my apartment (hooray!) and I know that makes my boyfriend really happy. I definitely understand what a lot of you are probably dealing with in that regard. Three years ago I followed my boyfriend to NYC while he was getting his MSW and the adjustment was not easy for either of us, but we figured it out. When I was going through my options (Buffalo, Amherst, New Brunswick, and here), I know he was getting pretty nervous that I'd move somewhere else, even though none of the places I'd move were so so terribly far away (except Buffalo, which, in the words of Louis C.K., "sucks shit"). We got really lucky that CUNY ended up being the best fit for me in the end. I'm incredibly excited to get started. GRR! Still one more month! I'm having so much trouble narrowing my classes for the fall down to three. So many of them look so amazing. The faculty and my student adviser have all been incredibly welcoming and nice and there are a number of orientation and mixer events at the beginning of the semester. CUNY is doing a really great job of making sure we form a community. I've even had professors reaching out personally to welcome me and invite me to take their courses based on my interests. But, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, mostly about what I assume will be a pretty insane reading/workload (but I know I'll handle it, I just know I'm going to be tested early) and also about my fellowship, which is good, but on the low side for NYC cost of living. I'm up for two supplemental fellowships which I've had radio silence on, but I supposedly shouldn't hear about until Aug/Sept anyway. If I get either of them, it will make things way way way way easier for me. If not... well... I could look into freeganism. I've convinced myself that continuing to tutor this fall and spring would be a really dumb move and that I should just bite the bullet, but I don't know. I guess I'll see how poor I am and whether I can deal with it. <--------- sunglasses to hide geeky excitement to read books, nervousness over my impending Ph.D.-er lifestyle, and anticipation for the start of 5-7 years of scholastic immersion. Whew. Here we go *takes deep breath/holds nose*. (Copyright 2012, StatelyPlump)

I'm good. I'm kinda broke.

Amherst accepted me and I have an M.A. Seems like they have no bias against people with a master's. BC is also a very small cohort -- like 6 people, but have no idea if they have an M.A. bias or not. Amherst takes like 18 people, btw, but TAships are not guaranteed for everyone. They highly value teaching experience, so if you've taught, I would definitely apply there.

This is hilarious, and also well done. Note about BU: do you already have your master's? If so, I would just throw that one out altogether. They take like 6 people a year and usually only one person with a master's. I consider my applying there last year a huge mistake.

yeah, seconding lolo's sentiment. Stratify between mid-tier programs you like/love and top-tier programs you love/love. Focus on the best fits between 1-60 in the rankings. I'm not sure I'd apply any lower than that though -- I know a lot of people who got into schools who were lower in the rankings and were not offered funding. I'm not exactly sure what the correlation is, but there you have it.