Galoup11

Didn't receive an email, but checked the website and statuses have apparently been up since February 1st. Received a rejection, which is a pretty big blow as UD (Masters) was on the lower half of the schools I applied to. Hope others receive better news.

Very familiar with Canibus, but I'll take DR over his self-seriousness (and, frankly, poor musicianship) any day.

If anyone's interested in densely referential, postmodern rap, Das Racist are incredible: Chose their song that opens with a hilarious Angelou reference, for obvious reasons.

Only "got in touch" with one university, and that was because their website specified to talk to the DGS if applying without an English major. Not sure if that'd count for the purposes of your poll. Will try to update when I hear back from some places.

It's inevitable that I'm going to be checking my email and the survey results during the day, but after about 4 I realize I'm probably going to have to wait another day and so can focus more on work and such from then on. Plus I'm currently reading Gravity's Rainbow for one of my classes, which is as most people know demands a whole lot of concentration (and reference checking).

This is my first go-round, so thanks for clearing that up. U of M's application page didn't seem to have anywhere with an Application 'Status' so I'm guessing it's mail, email, or phone with them.

From Maryland's Application page: After the review is completed, you will receive a letter with the decision recommendation in the mail. Decision information cannot be given out over the phone or in email correspondence. Strange that they would break their own rule.

I've heard that some schools consider combined GRE score (verbal + math) for certain funding opportunities, and possibly as a cutoff, but even in those cases a high verbal could save you from any negative consequences. In terms of the test itself, the easier questions generally involve simple math, reading the question carefully, and knowing some basic equations. Getting these questions right, which don't take any exceptional quantitative reasoning skills, should ensure that you don't do ridiculously bad, even if you bomb a later, harder portion of the test (if you do well on first math section, the second will be more difficult). I used to be very into math in high school so I did pretty well in this section but much of it is truly a matter of reading carefully and using the calculator correctly.

I'm an applicant of the English Ph.D program as well, FWIW the first acceptance notification for 2011 (on the survey, FWIW) was Feb. 21st, for 2010 Jan. 24th. Hard to gauge from that when they'll start sending out acceptances. Chapel Hill definitely one of the harder programs to get in that I've applied to, and from what I can tell it's more competitive than many higher-ranked schools. That being said, I'm a huge Tar Heel fan and many of the professors, especially Dr. Flaxman with respect to my interests, seem like extremely interesting professors to learn from.