Grunty DaGnome

Thanks to whomever is calling all the Grad departments and posting on the boards when decisions are expected this year

I was thinking this myself. There's all this defeatism that the humanities are dying, but those of us who get in to an English department this year or next should keep in mind the 500 or so people who didn't get in to the department. Those 500 or so people a year who are excluded represent a demand for what you/[we?] do. Thinking about how the scholarly community can engage these people over a lifetime, even after they go off to different careers, different lives, well, I think creative solutions to this problem could really transform the role of "scholarship" in American society.

I have to agree. I had a friend who worked in the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Admin. Office specifically working on the "initial cut" committee and there is a huge population of candidates who were just totally uninformed about what applying to graduate school entailed. I mean, if you consider that many of the people on these boards spend maybe YEARS trying to get information about the process, editing writing samples, etc., and still get rejected, you can certainly imagine that people with very little information would not produce great applications. Ironically, my friend said, Harvard probably gets some of the worst applications on the low end. It makes sense, really. If you ever caught a rerun of Goodwill Hunting on cable during the past 15 years, you might convince yourself that Harvard is the place for you. But that same person probably wouldn't even think of applying to the English Department at Minnesota U, because how would they know Minnesota has colleges? That wasn't in the movie.

I'd say it depends on whether your program has just started making decisions or if they are typically done by now. English Department's for example, haven't even announced wait-listed decisions, so it's definitely too early to call them.

Are you in Comp Lit or English vordhosbntwin? If Comp Lit, what are your areas?

Indeed.

In my case, I think my stress level comes from wanting to move on, change jobs and the like. Becoming a professor would be my first choice, but I need to wait, basically 2 application cycles to find out if that might ever be a reality. I could just leave and find some other job, but not really until I know how the first plan plays out.

I keep getting spam from BC's psychoanalysis program and random MBA programs. They all start with something misleading like "congratulations" or "admissions."

Yeah, too bad 2/3 of all forum users don't get in to NYU On the bright side, I had TWO new messages waiting for me when I got home. On the dark side, they were both telemarketers/fake "update your insurance" calls.

I feel about 20 years older than when this process started.

I think you definitely win the prize for caring the most about grad school, if 36 weeks pregnant is having trouble competing.

I'm making a list of programs where I should have applied but didn't. It will be my silver lining when my rejections start to roll in.

You can take my whiskey, but you better leave me my grad cafe.

On the one hand, I feel the same. On the other, I wonder if some of those posts aren't true and are posted by trolls of this thread, just to make us crazy, especially the last one, claiming acceptance via email.

I recieved an email entitled "IE Admissions" but it was a bogus spam mail from someplace called the "IE business school" inviting me to an informational seminar on getting an MBA. Thanks for the heart attack. Yeah, thanks for nothing.

I recieved an "invitation" email today from some fake place called "ie business school." I hope the Attorney General shuts them down, because I am COMPLAINING!

F*&^% Amnesty International!!!! They just undid years of good works in my eyes!!!!

I did mean Cuny Grad. Center / English. I'm not going by their web site, rather the date of posted Grad Cafe results from last year. I realize that's not the most accurate predictor since things change from year to year, but I too find their website confusing. It's hard to tell what applies generally and what applies to certain programs sometimes.

The worst part is that, if last year is any indication, it may take them a month to getting around to formally rejecting the rest of us

My mother never calls me in the middle of the day when I'm working, but don't you know she calls right in that hour that NYU starts notifying people...to tell me something I already knew, of course. Thanks for the infarction, Mom.

Pretty much. They have 500 applications and a dozen or so spots. This process is therefore not set up with the individual applicant in mind.

I don't want to go too far, past the point where all rejections have come in. I want to live forever in that moment of knowing and yet still hoping.

Coincidence! I just had all the same thoughts and reached the same conclusion!

Now there are 2 acceptances. MUCH earlier than last year. Congrats to whomever it was, who said they could "throw up" know that we are all right there with you, but for different reasons.

I am trying to astrally project my consciousness to the end of next week, when I expect to hear from 2-3 of my schools.