Taco Superior

My POI at a UC (who lobbied for me to be admitted) told me that if his dept chair hadn't let me in 2 years in a row then "it's not happening." I take this to mean that applying more than twice is a waste of time generally (though perhaps not always--I'm sure someone out there has a contrary story).

I agree with your point. It's certainly the funding itself, not private or public, that matters. What I was getting at was that a lot of the schools on that list have so-so funding compared to other schools that might not be any harder to get into, and that many of those just happen to be private. For example, USC only received around 80 applications this year and yet they fund at the $20-$23,000 level (or $30,000 with provost fellowship) with two years of fellowship and light teaching for the rest. You might come up with an example of a public U with that few applicants and that much funding, but then again you might not. Want to clarify that I don't mean to sound combative--just trying to share a little insight that it took me quite awhile to notice during my own research.

Just curious: why so many public schools? I would consider more private schools since, on average, the funding is stronger....

Look at the Funding thread--a lot of info there.

troll? troll. GOTTA be.

I agree with asleepawake. I think the prescription for this malaise is pretty clear: instead of applying right away, apply fall '15. A little time away will almost certainly help to clarify things. For Keely though, since you're already signed up, maybe just try to chill out over the Summer and not be all grad-schooly ahead of time--you'll have like 6 or 8 years for that, starting soon!!! I'm in the opposite position of not having been in school for a long time, and I can tell you that time away has made me WAY more excited about the academy than I ever was in undergrad, when I took a lot of stuff for granted.

evened it out. poor fishbucket is almost back to zero.

I've found out who my cohort will be next year and it seems all the really really smart and funny people that I liked at visiting will be there! I'm actually finally starting to get excited now! As meryl streep says, "these are the moments..."

I think the fact that Princeton waitlisted you is evidence that if you apply to a longer list of schools you have a very good chance to get in. Certain posters have pointed out repeatedly (nowmoreserious) how important it is to apply widely (even if you insist on only doing top tier programs, you can still do MORE of them). Think of it this way (as i did while reapplying TWICE): next fall is going to come and go ANYWAY, so why not have your applications out there when results start coming back??!! can't win if you don't play...

I've seen a lot of people on here who have acceptances from Roch. and are headed elsewhere so I hope that bodes well for you!!!

a big jump in your math score IS realistic if you just study a half hour per day for a few months and then ramp that up to several hours for the last month or 2 weeks before the test--I raised my score about 40percentile points this way.

there is no soul searching--you're going to irvine.

I had the impression that a few grad school service position/committee member type things were good for the CV--if not I will mos def skip them, so if you're giving me permission to do that please confirm now!

Your rehabilitation (votes wise) is in full swing, but your kitty's is not. Will you stop at nothing? What cost is too high? What cost?

keep up the cat campaign and I believe you'll have an effective platform for clawing your way back from that downvote cliff... try making the cat your avatar.

Normal, but irrational.

ordered. i can't seem to get enough of these survey books. i have a problem. but it could be worse.

I just accidentally downvoted my own post too lolcats.

WashU due diligence complete; acceptance confirmed. (!)

I recommend getting student email addresses from the dept web page and sending emails to 10 or so students so you get a range of answers. I've had good luck with this.

more than one (though others will have differing opinions).

I know there are some people on these boards who were successful applying to phds out of MFA programs and they could definitely give a better opinion about this, but my advice would be to keep mum about your creative writing ambitions in your english phd applications (that's what my advisors told me). In your statement of purpose, focus your interests (artificially if neccessary--as I did); a long list of things you're into won't do (unless they're made coherent somehow). For recommendations, Lit professors are better than creative writing professors. As far as languages, you're applying to english not comp lit--language skills are good, but you don't need to be an expert.

thanks for starting this conversation--already learned about some options I hadn't considered (pods and Upack).

Stick with it at least to the Harold Bloom part.

As someone pointed out elsewhere people tend to gravitate towards the rankings that favor their institution(s), so beware my opinion. I used phds.org (and its NRC data) a lot in my program search and it was helpful. However, much of its hard data is strictly incorrect: For WashU, phds.org says that -they have 22 faculty... They have 32. -they enroll 11 students per year... They enroll 7. -they grant 20 English MAs per year... They don't grant MAs at all; PhD program only. So, you know, when they say ArizonaState affords you better job prospects than Princeton, I would double check your data there too.