nada.am

CONGRATS! best of luck

I just checked online and, no, the status hasn't changed yet. Best of luck to both of you!

Minnesota has started notifying!!! I had my phone on silence during class and missed the call, but I found an acceptance on my voicemail!

Thank you and congratulations to you as well!! I'll definitely take you up that offer later on

I applied to the Critical and Cultural Studies PhD in the English Department.

I've been traveling the last couple of days and haven't had much internet access, so my post here is a little bit delayed. Anyway to sum up my weekend: By Friday I was feeling pretty down (I had one acceptance in January which feels so long ago that it seemed like a fluke/dream/hallucination, especially with all the implied rejections going around). So, I decided to treat myself to a night out to take my mind off of things and then came home to two emails: acceptances to Boston College and Pitt! Then yesterday I got a letter with an acceptance from Temple. I don't have many details on Temple or BC, but Pitt offered a fellowship for year 1 and then a TAship for the following years. Super super excited !! Moral of the story... no matter how bad things look, you never know when things are going to completely turn around. Best of luck to all; hopefully this coming week is full of good news!

I can't speak to the PhD, but I did my undergraduate at Chicago and had somewhat of a love/hate experience with it. It's certainly a challenging place that can sometimes feel a bit isolating or cold (literally and metaphorically ). That said, I wouldn't trade my experience there for anything; I am very happy with the education I received and, although it took me some time to find my place and get comfortable, once I did I felt completely supported. It's an intense environment for sure and a lot of your experience will depend on your personality. Some people thrive in it and others really suffer. If you can visit before you make your decision, I would just see what vibe you get and go with your gut feeling about it. Congrats, though, and good luck with your decision!

ahhhhhhhhhh....yeah, there's gonna be some anxiety in my world today.

Thanks... that logic exists somewhere in my head, it's just not processing right now

Congrats bluecheese! you must be doing something right

Ahhhh. I've tried not to post much here for fear of addiction, but the stress is getting to me! The people around me have been very supportive, but clearly everyone (except those applying for phds) has limits, so i need an outlet! i have one rejection and one acceptance (but with funding still pending, so not very helpful in terms of alleviating anxiety) and the slowness of the past week is so stressful! I've lost all perspective in terms of my chances and i have a feeling that february is going to be one terribly neurotic month! Let try to stay as positive as physically/emotionally possible..!!! Here's to hoping next week brings an influx of good news to everyone here!!

Yeah, an email notification would've been nice to avoid the refreshing compulsion. Maybe it's a good sign for you if there's no decision yet?...best of luck! Thankfully I do have one acceptance already, which helps take the sting out of rejection at least a little bit.

Northwestern has posted some decisions on the website. I didn't have an email from them, but after seeing some rejections on the board I decided to log in and check. Rejection #1 out of the way. Lovely way to start a Friday morning...

Congrats to both of you! Adding to what is hopefully positive energy in the coming weeks for all, I got an email this morning saying that I've been nominated for a fellowship from UCSB's comp lit department. Before I get too excited...fellowship nominations seem to be like unofficial acceptances or something of the sort, right?

Thanks guys. I'm going to try emailing them and see if I get any clarification. If not I might have to rethink it a bit.

Fabulous...everything is entirely clear now!

The Temple English Department website talks rather vaguely about funding: "Students are encouraged to apply for teaching awards, which include a tuition waiver and a stipend for the nine months of the academic year. Conditions of the award are determined by the graduate student union (TUGSA) contract with Temple University and currently require recipients to teach either as an assistant in a large lecture course or as the sole instructor of composition or literature courses. Applications are submitted along with admission applications." I can't seem to find this funding application that's supposed to be submitted. Can anyone help?

I am applying as well, so I'm basically in the same boat as you in terms of information. From what I can gather statement 1 is the traditional personal statement/ statement of purpose and statement 2 is just a glorified species of diversity statement. If you hear anything back with more specifics or if anyone else has any comment I'd definitely be interested as well!

Thanks for sharing; that definitely helps give me an idea.

I think these are the pros and cons of mentioning it. It is something that has definitely influenced my experience with other cultures and my perspective as a whole, but as Phil Sparrow comments I certainly don't want to be defined by someone else in my app. I guess it's probably a fine line that depends on how much I can focus back on myself as I'm writing... Thanks for the responses.

Hi guys, I haven't posted much before, but looking at these forums has been really helpful throughout this whole process so far. I have a quick, rather specific question and was just looking to hear some of your thoughts. I'm working on a diversity statement (which 2 of the universities that I'm applying to require). I know I want to write about my experience living abroad in Spain for the last couple years, but I'm not sure whether it is a good or bad idea to mention my Spanish boyfriend of 4+ years. On the one hand it makes it a lot easier to talk about having roots,"family," and strong connections in another country without sounding like a trying-too-hard tourist, but on the other hand I'm worried that it might not be appropriate to mention. Has anyone had experience mentioning a significant other in a diversity statement? or is anyone else thinking about doing it? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

I also took the test on Saturday; I went in pretty positive after months of studying and scoring pretty well on my practice tests and went out in a mix of shock/panic/depression feeling like all the time I spent studying hadn't paid off at all. It's almost as if ETS looked at the study material online and wrote a test that avoided it. Such a frustrating experience, I'm just hoping I did well enough not to have to retake it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Even if I have a good relationship with a professor I still obsess about what I should say in emails. I don't even want to think about how painful it would be to try and make academic small-talk via email with professors I don't know. Anyway, I'm also applying for the 2013 cycle and thought I'd finally get involved in the forum. I finished my MA last year and am spending this year and next year teaching English in a high school in Spain. I actually really love teaching, but definitely know that ESL is not my life's calling and am looking forward to hopefully getting back into the university setting. I've been out less than a year and am already in withdrawal! I'm taking the GRE subject test in 2 weeks to try and get it out of the way. I've been studying for a couple months but still don't feel prepared and am getting progressively more and more stressed out... I'm also trying not to think about everything else I have to do for the applications until this is done, but it is all a bit overwhelming.

Just to add to some of the US v. UK discussion... I'm applying to Phd programs this year and finished an MA in the UK last year. For me it was a really worthwhile experience that helped clarify my interests a lot and gave me a lot of great research experience. UK programs give you a lot more independence than US programs and, at least in my experience, you are very much on your own to develop and carry out your research. On the one hand this is great practice and you learn a lot, but on the other hand I think it's harder to really find a mentor and establish a close relationship with them. For example my dissertation advisor was not allowed to read my dissertation to give me feedback on it...so obviously I think my letters of rec might be hurt a little bit by this. Also, the grading system is quite different, so I'm not sure if that will have a negative impact on my applications this year... In terms of doing a Phd in the UK, I would say don't do it unless you want to stay in the UK. Also, funding is hard to come by and, even though university is cheaper there, if you're a foreign student it's a lot of money to pay just for the privilege of writing your thesis and occasionally meeting with an advisor. You wont be getting teaching experience and you will be spending a lot of time on your own. Feel free to message me if you have any more specific questions and I can do my best to help...