andsoitgoes161

Why haven't any programs contacted meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee???? I'm going insane. Sorry this has nothing to do with hair. Just some general grumbling.

I understand where you are all coming from, trust me I realize how awful ANY form of rejection feels and the way it makes you second guess everything from your intellect to your hair color...but as a "0 for" person I would be elated to get in anywhere at this point. I'm pretty positive this is going to be an across the board rejection season for me, and given that I didn't apply to many "prestigious" programs, the denials have been rough on my ego. I hope everyone can find a place of happiness and gratitude in where they are accepted because it means people WANT you and your intelligence has impressed a board of scholars in a field you're hoping to make your life's purpose...but I also know how much it hurts to want something that seems like such a far reach, so I hope everyone's dreams come true

The leaps of confidence we make, hahahaha. How amazing would it be to get a text letting us know we're in? I would undoubtedly attend any institution that communicated through text, just for the pure, unadulterated absurdity of it.

The show can surreptitiously cut to this image every so often, just for a brief moment...like a subliminal message of angst/euphoria/melodramatic instability in the way that the scary clown face in the Saw movie trailers pops up. I am also thoroughly impressed with Ablukhov and spasticlitotes' narrative voices. You're hired.

I am obsessed with this. I also truly, honestly believe that a reality show about the PhD waiting process would be a huge hit. It starts out strong and erudite, full of vibrant potentiality and perhaps ostensibly a bit "pretentious" (to quote another thread) to people outside the community. Then it slowly disintegrates into a bunch of highly intelligent people in their pajamas endlessly perusing online boards, crying over utter silence from schools when a new post appears on the Results Survey, blaming everything on ETS and an inability to downgrade to their crude Analytic Writing standards, checking our horoscope yet again to make sure we didnt miss any ominous subtext, drowning our anxiety in macaroni and cheese while drinking red wine, trying in vain to contextualize our apps by desperately reaching out to others in similar subfields, sharing elation when we receive an acceptance, self-medicating with whiskey when we don't receive funding, and then maybe submitting a drunk post or two about Downton Abbey or those idiotic Victorian women writers. I don't mean anything in that to sound negative at ALL, I honestly find myself totally amused by how neurotic I've become, and how, "Well when I was looking at these online blog things, I saw...." has religiously been a primer to most of my conversations (and mostly with people who could care less). I just think an unabashedly objective view of our emotional-trainwreck selves pouring our hearts out to our mothers/brothers/boyfriends/significant others/dogs and then paradoxically refusing their valiant attempts at sympathy by stomping out of the room to find *real* empathy in complaining online about how they "JUST DON'T GET IT!!!" would be both endlessly hysterical and intriguing. I hope I'm not alone in this. Or my despicable love for reality television.

Well said, and something I also failed to take into account/that was somewhat advised against when I was completing applications.

I'm really glad to hear someone else voice this opinion. I've been complaining to anyone who will listen how unfairly weighted this whole process seems in regard to SoP's, a la your point that if we already knew what exactly we wanted to study and had a course of action we could write dissertations or teach our interests effectively at present. Not that I am not totally impressed by the outpouring of precise academic courses of action and immense knowledge of scholars in our respective subfields that people on these boards voice, but I have to admit I've felt alone in the fact that my whole point in applying to a PhD program is to take my nebulous (but graduate-level) knowledge and expand it with advanced, in-depth study over the next 2-3 years IN ORDER to fine-tune my academic direction. I feel like this places me entirely behind in the game, and I'm weighted down by my how "vague" my purpose seems in comparison to others (as evidenced by zero current offers to programs). Maybe I am just delusional and I'm really not prepared to enter into a PhD program (most likely the case).

I just laughed out loud, and you have made me feel infinitely better. Yes. Immediately. I'm going to look into Dropbox, definitely. Given my luck overall, I bet my new Plan B of saving things into my email account will also somehow blow up in my face--I seem to be prone to compromise by everything from failing technology to identity thieving robots who think my GChats are worth perusing. I'm also hoping to get everything back, but the data recovery people I spoke to quoted me $700-$2700 for their services. Which just seems ludicrous.

On top of feeling completely dejected over being denied admission to two schools and then watching as first round admits pop up on the results survey for three of my other dream programs, I woke up to a crashed external hard drive and total loss of over 80 pages of my master's thesis. To those wanting to question, "Andsoitgoes, why didn't you save on both your laptop and your external drive?", I will preemptively address this concern: my laptop hard drive failed six months ago and I was wary of saving anything to it should that ever happen again, hence the external drive and my sole reliance on its implicit advantageousness. I'm frustrated. I want to scream. I want to cry. In fact I did: I had a public meltdown in the Apple store this afternoon when the Mac Genius peered at me with pitying, but wholly uncomprehending eyes and referred to me a data recovery service. My delicate, bruised, and undesirable-to-PhD-programs ego is toeing the line of nuclear meltdown mode, and if I don't get some good news this week I am going to be in a very dark place. EDIT: I make the situation sound utterly dire because I similarly want comfort and sympathy, but I do have a month-old edition of my thesis in my email somewhere. Still--in four weeks I had done a lot of work on it, and that version will nowhere near resemble what I had in front of me the last time I looked at it.

Hey...a little late, but I'm a rhet person too and also haven't heard anything. To be honest I wasn't expecting to get in, but I do find it odd that no rhet or linguistics people (that means you antecedent haha) have heard. Maybe their accepted rhet applicants were smart enough to stay away from these forums? Also, antecedent: CONGRATS ON MADISON!!!!!!!! That's so fantastic! I just saw your updated tagline!

Bahahahahahahaha. This is me. So me. Thank you for this.

Congrats!!!! But you also almost just killed me.

To the people accepted at Alabama--congrats!! I have a question about your notifications. When I log onto the myBama website to check my application status, I can't really tell what my admission decision is exactly. I'm sure the ambiguity either means my app hasn't been processed or that there isn't a decision ready, but it also looks like I might have been accepted? They have an old e-mail of mine on file and I don't seem to be able to update it, so I haven't received anything there. Can anyone give me any insight on what your myBama application status looks like, or how it looks once your app was accepted? I guess I could just e-mail the grad school and ask.. Thanks!

I know, it's ludicrous. I also find it somewhat irking that they wouldn't give everyone a fair shake...one of these programs sent out acceptances this past week, and when I contacted the grad secretary to ask if I should even bother having my letter writer submit her missing document, she wrote back "have letter from Professor x and Professor Y.if you have professor Z send in her letter I will make aure the graduate schools uploads it onto their site." The misspellings, and grammar and punctuation errors are the grad secretary's own. She couldn't even bother to spell check? Gosh, they must reaaaaaally want me.

Timshel: definitely sound advice, and thank you. I actually tried to contact a few schools when I heard about this, but no one ever got back to me--I imagine AdComs are in the throes of reviewing hundreds of apps and don't have time to get back to inquiries about incomplete dossiers so late in the game. I can only hope that the schools that contacted my letter writers would have alerted me if they were missing something on my end of things. Several of the schools I applied to aren't yet using any sort of online document upload, and I know they received hard copies of whatever they needed...so that puts my mind at ease a bit.

It's been brought to my attention that three schools are missing the required amount of rec letters in my dossier, even though my online app status pages have shown all necessary documents as received since the beginning of December! Rather than the programs letting me know about any incomplete parts, I had to learn this from two of my letter writers who have emailed me in the past week to say several schools had requested they submit their recs ASAP. Naturally I'm tormented by the thought that, unbeknownst to me, I have nine incomplete apps floating around somewhere that no one has bothered to tell me about, and they're all being declined as I type this. Kind of along the same lines of wondering if I even submitted any applications at all...sigh.

Ugh, I feel the same way about having a ton of writing done, insisting that it meet my high expectations, but no longer feeling totally pumped to do it; however, I don't (yet?) have the luxury of any acceptances. I know that when I start getting word back from schools though, no matter what the result, my motivation will completely peter off. Thank goodness I've only got half my last chapter and conclusion left, as I believe next week will finally be when I begin to hear back from schools. I find that I have to structure myself with time limits when it comes to wrapping things up: if I wake up and force myself to at least look at my project and try to work on it for two hours, even if it's only revising some part of it, I usually end up working longer and writing at least 8-10 more pages. This isn't always the case, but more often than not I'll produce more text if I resolve myself to just sitting down with it...and then I have a perfect amount to work on revising for a couple hours the next day. I've also allowed myself to work on it every other day at this point, since I've gotten so much done. Rewards are a big motivator too--I have told myself I'm not allowed to go to yoga if I don't work on the project for a minimal amount of time, and though I know not everyone is big into yoga, maybe you can find something else you like to do that can act as some sort of carrot. By the way, has anyone else started to dream that they're writing their thesis? For the past two to three weeks I have woken up every day in the middle of dreaming I'm writing lucid, viable material. If only I could remember what it was for longer than those first waking moments!

Just saw an Alabama acceptance--it seems like all the programs I am waiting on are starting to notify, and yet I've heard nothing. I have a feeling this might be an across the board rejection season for me. But then again, all it takes is one and I'm hoping something still comes through. I've got time. Though that sentiment should be uplifting in its possibilities, I'm getting scared. Oh and (duh), congrats to the Alabama acceptance recipient!

I think I've already died of waiting anxiety. My poor, withered soul. Ps. A TON of people I recently worked with got their rhet/comp MA's from SFSU. I know you said you were more interested in language/linguistics, but is that the program you're looking into? If so, I've heard nothing but praise for it from them, and they're all awesome, impressively informed, and extremely passionate people, so I can't imagine the program churning out anything but (unfortunately that's all I've got, sorry for the disappointing lack of deeper insight).

I love this! Hahaha, so awesome. I'll also propose that the student secretary in the Registrar's office is a fine, fine fellow to have on your side.

For all those who care about UT Austin--I just got an e-mail from one of my letter writers who said that UT had contacted her about a missing letter of rec, and that they needed to have it sent in ASAP. At the VERY least this suggests app review has just begun over there (and that we haven't been rejected yet!). It's impossible to gauge what it means, but I selfishly hope it indicates that they're past their preliminary round and getting down to the nitty gritty, given that they usually notify right after Presidents' Day weekend. I realize their app deadline was extended though, so it probably just means the AdCom also convened later this year. Either way, thought I would share

This oddly ignites as well as extinguishes my hope. On the one hand, hooray for less apps to be pitted against, and for the higher acceptance rate in general; on the other, the drop might bespeak an absence of those who were arbitrarily attempting to continue their education because of the dire job market, thus saving AdCom boards an initial rejection round as they may have not been the strongest applicants. The competition level then remains, or might even be a tad higher if applicant pools have returned to being comprised of only those really serious about a PhD. I'm not good at math, but if there is a smaller applicant pool, wouldn't the higher percentage rate still signify the same number of acceptances, but it just seems higher because of the smaller supply to begin with? Like accepting 10 from 600 vs. 10 from 300? Maybe? Either way, I suppose the acceptance rate has still risen considerably, and I hope to be in one of those 5-9%'s somewhere.

Oh, god. I took my LSAT four years ago intending to go to law school...then I moved in with a law student for three years, and started dating another one for two. Needless to say, the contact anxiety was reason enough to completely abandon that plan--and that was before they even started studying for their bars. Both would constantly complain about law school being a huge blow to the ego, and what a frustrating transition the first year and a half was because you have to completely rework your academic frame of reference and think in a way that is apparently excruciatingly unconventional. You're also taught to throw everything you know about writing out the window, another huge reason I didn't end up following through down that route. If you think this process is miserable, from what I'm told the law school app process is literally 1000% more competitive, and so 1000% more anxiety-ridden--and I believe it. That being said, I still often find myself wishing that I had it in me to become a lawyer, and as long as you're informed of the stress, extreme anxiety, and unrelenting competition in the field (things I know people are going to point out are also unbearably present in our own), I think you should do it. Could be fun re: "Shitty Market" Law school *may* be a bit easier to get into right now (some programs have expanded given how many people have started applying), but the law market is not any better. Because of the economy, there has been an influx of people into law programs over the past few years and the elevated yield in lawyers has exacerbated the disparity between bar-cerified attorneys and careers for them. It's nearly impossible to get a law job in California right now, and the pass rate for the California bar for February 2011 was over 50%, which is unheard of. There was a lot of speculation about the fact that since there weren't any jobs anyway, the Bar just decided to pass more people to give them a break. Disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert on any of this, it's just stuff I've heard from my lawyer friends, and I'm not sure if this is only limited to California. Just thought I would share.

Congrats!!

People have started to hear back from ASU. I emailed the English Graduate Coordinator there yesterday about a missing LoR in my file, and she was willing to take it and make sure the graduate school had it scanned and put it in my dossier--this makes me think that their review is probably not over, or at least that they haven't finalized a wait list. I don't think the University of Arizona has started to notify yet. I haven't heard anything from them since an e-mail in January saying they were beginning app review. I didn't apply to the other three you're inquiring about, but I think it is safe to assume no one has started to hear from any of them since there's been no activity surrounding those schools/programs on the boards.