desaparecido

Good to hear! Mine went pretty well. Got good, useful feedback on a paper I'm planning to revise+expand. One odd thing happened: The chair of the panel, a PhD student a prestigious university, didn't present her paper because she said she was too busy with classes. That annoyed me. I don't know.

Absolutely, and I've been looking into just that. As of right now, I'm leaning towards desiring more tutelage with the theory-type stuff. I've been immersing myself in Southern lit for since undergrad, over the course of two NY-area universities. My MA thesis dealt with traumatic experience in two Southern novels, neither of which were ever taught in a class I took at my MA institution. I'm pretty comfortable exploring the Southern lit stuff on my own. At the same time, Faulkner and O'Connor and such are taught outside of Southern universities, be it in courses on modernism of American gothic or whatnot, so it can be done - I can always bring in the less-studied (in the North) Southern figures on my own. I'm fairly well-versed in theoretical-type stuff as is, but being that cognitive narratology is still very much a new field, I think it might be more beneficial being around folks involved in it to some extent, and I'm not sure anyone at Ole Miss is. Stony Brook has a few people involved in cognition and the arts, and also a very strong psych department that has people working on the cognitive science end of things. We'll see, I guess. A good thing about SB is they are open to letting me double up a teaching load one semester and giving me the next semester off, with pay, since I'd already have completed my teaching load for the year. I'm already looking into the possibility of heading down to Oxford and spending a semester just auditing courses or however one may do that. The dept. at SB made it seem like that sort of thing is easy enough to do. Too many thoughts right now. Too many thoughts. I'm sorry for blabbering on!

Ole Miss is a fantastic program, I totally agree. McKee, Bone, and especially Leigh Ann Duck are all super exciting folks (I've met them before). For a long while, it's been basically my dream program. In the last year or two, though, I've gotten very interested in cognitive psychology and the ways in which it's applied to narrative. I really want to do my doctoral work on cognitive approaches to postbellum Southern narratives, as I think the cognitive approach offers really interesting insights on works that don't tend to be studied much outside of the south (my BA and MA are from northern institutions, but I've presented at many conferences at Southern schools and I've been involved in Southern studies work for a while now). This is where I'm torn: Ole Miss is my dream program for all things Southern lit. Stony Brook, however, has several people working in cognitive/affect studies and also affords the opportunity to take courses at Columbia and Rutgers, and even more cognitive/memory folks teach at those schools. The Southern programs don't offer much in terms of tutelage for the cognitive aspects of the work I want to do, and I'm afraid that, unable to study under folks working in the field, that those aspects of my future scholarship wouldn't get nourished enough, if that makes sense. I feel like it's far easier to absorb the literary texts while at an institution that doesn't exactly focus on Southern lit but far, far more difficult to engage in/expand on cognitive studies without being able to work closely with someone in the field. I don't know. This is all horribly difficult. Heeeelp.

Ah, if only I was still in town. The hotel bar was pretty good yesterday, though. I'd recommend staying away from Legends. Crappy crowd, the bartender was awful and rude, and I'd imagine that would only be worse on St. Patrick's Day. How'd the panel go?

From what I was told when I visited the department ten days ago (I was accepted in early-February), they had only just sent out the last couple of acceptances a week or two ago, so I don't think you'd have been wait-listed yet. A few more people either just visited campus or are visiting campus this coming week, from what I was told by a friend in the department. Stony Brook aims to take 4 people per year, but they only took 3 last year so are aiming for 4-5 this year. I was thoroughly impressed with the place when I visited - congrats on getting accepted!

Isn't the teaching load 2/1? The email I got reads: (1) Teaching Assistants (TAs) serve as section leaders and graders in the English Department’s 200-level literature or 300-level Shakespeare classes. Each TA is assigned three sections per semester of around 20 students each, meets with each section once a week for 50 minutes, and serves as principal grader for each section. (2) Graduate Instructors (GIs) teach a yearly 2-1 course load in the English Department’s 100-level composition sequence. More experienced instructors may occasionally be assigned to 300-level literature or writing classes. I am weighing my options between Ole Miss, LSU, and Stony Brook. This is by far the most difficult decision I've ever had to make. Sigh.

Trip, I'm sending you a PM about something re: Rutgers.

There have been two posts in the results section by someone who, apparently, was accepted into the PhD program last year and seems to have been kicked out. I'm not sure why he posted that in the results section, and I'm quite certain it was something along the lines of blowing off steam and letting people know his thoughts on the matter as opposed to a reaction to any sort of admissions decision, as I went to Binghamton for my MA and I know they typically let people know rather late (given their mid-February deadline). A good friend of mine is waiting to hear from them regarding PhD admission, and he hasn't heard anything yet. FYI, if you happen to catch those posts on the board, the DGS the poster is referring to is not the current DGS. David Bartine (to whom he's referring) was the director last year (his second in the position), but now Donette Francis, I believe, is directing the program. If you have any questions about the program or anything, feel free to let me know. Some people didn't have great experiences with it, but personally I found the program to be very rewarding, though it certainly has its limitations.

In the spirit of hopefully easing spirits, I turned down funded offers from Kentucky, UNC-Greensboro, and South Carolina - hope that helps someone! I am currently weighing my options between Stony Brook and Ole Miss, and I'm leaning towards Stony Brook right now (potentially, at some point in the next week or two, opening up a funded spot for a wait-lister at Ole Miss). Also, of course, waiting on some G-D wait lists (really just waiting on Emory, though, since that's the only one that could sway me away from my two remaining acceptances at this point... though UConn could put up a fight, maybe).

Er, rather: I was told I was one of the first two folks accepted. Fraggin' typos. I blame the leap forward in time.

Hey all. I was accepted back in the beginning of February and I took a tour and met with the DGS and professors last week. I was told I one of the first two folks accepted, and that they just sent out more acceptances last week. I got mine via snail mail, so I have a feeling that's how they'll be doing the rest of the acceptances. If they sent them out last week, as I was told, they should be arriving this week. Best of luck!

Ditto.

Woo! That's awesome. Congrats!

Yep, got the email around 9pm. I'm actually still waiting to hear from a few programs at this late stage in the game (I applied to a whole lot of schools, putting out lots of lines to programs I found interesting/good fits and hoping some would bite). It's entirely likely that a school may notify PhD applicants prior to MA applicants, as the MA pool occasionally expands when folks are turned down from the PhD. Looks like you got wait listed for some really great programs as well - I'll keep my fingers crossed for you on both counts!

Just got an acceptance offer for the PhD program, with TA-ship ($12,440 stipend) and health insurance.

My thoughts on your concern regarding the SOP and shifting interests: In my opinion, at least, what the adcom is looking for, even if you decide to change your focus, is someone that can write convincingly for 2-3 pages about a project they're very much interested in, at least at the time. Saying "I'm interested in writing about Little Dorrit and Bentham" is one thing (in the eyes of the adcom), but writing a really interesting 2.5 page proposal of a project that interjects in the current scholarship about LD and can interestingly explain how your project adds to the conversation in the field, and how such-and-such university's faculty and/or resources would benefit your work immensely - that's another thing completely, and I think that's what adcoms look for in terms of "fit." The ability to write a really strong proposal like that, I think, is perhaps the most important thing in applying to a PhD program, at least in my experience. Strong GRE scores are cool, a good GPA certainly adds to the package, but the numbers mean relatively little if, in 2-3 pages, an applicant can't explain how his/her project benefits or adds to the conversation going on in his/her proposed field of interest. The best way to help with that sort of thing, in my experience, is applying to and attending as many conferences as you can. For those, you're writing a (generally) 250-500 word proposal of a paper - granted, a paper 20x shorter than your dissertation will be, but the exercise is the same. I got shut out last year, and in the year off I applied to and presented at 20something conferences (excessive? maybe. but I genuinely feel it helped me not only become a fairly solid proposal writing [necessary for publication possiblities, grants, etc. once we're in the profession] but also helped both refine and expand my interests), but also made my CV look much nicer than it did (my CV was pretty much empty the first time I applied... no conferences, no publications, nothing outside of the few courses I TA'd while doing my MA), and makes you look like an active member of the academic community (which, I think, counts, at least sometimes). This, of course, is far from an exact science. I haven't gotten accepted to lots of schools I was hoping to get into, but I also got into a couple of programs I'm really, really excited about. At the time I applied this go-round, I had presented at I think 24 or 25 conferences in the last year (some of them I turned into road trips and hit 3-4 different conferences over the course of two weeks, presenting different papers at each one, which isn't a bad cognitive exercise!) and, at one conference I went to recently, met a third-year PhD student at Duke who was presenting at his very first conference - so apparently he was able to convince Duke that he had a project worth investing $100,000 into without the (what I see as great) benefit of conference presenting/proposal writing experience. That's just what I feel worked for me, and I genuinely don't think I'd have gotten in anywhere this go-round if I hadn't spent the several months prior to applying writing proposals constantly, sending them out, presenting my work (including, at times, my writing sample and things that I spoke about in my SOP, in various incarnations) and getting feedback from others in the field. So yeah, even if you decide after writing your SOP that you want to shift focuses (as long as there's still someone at the school you're applying to that you can work with in terms of your new interests), I think the adcom is mostly concerned with an applicant's ability to write a strong enough proposal that can clearly articulate what intellectual conversation you're hoping to insert yourself into, and what your proposed project would add to the existing scholarship. I hope some of that is at least somewhat helpful!

Oh thanks! I agree with wanting the process to be done with... I applied to entirely too many schools (though I don't think that's bad) and was very lucky to have heard back positively from a couple of schools very early in the process that I'd be delighted to attend. Now, though, I just want some clarity and I'm afraid to make any real decisions until this madness is over with. An acceptance from UConn would only further complicate this whole ordeal, too, as one of my favorite narrative theorists teaches there. Oh, life.

Anytime, transcendental. And ah - congrats on the Fordham acceptance! I had my eye on that program and haven't heard anything back (and despite my sense of false hope for UConn, I'm beginning to accept that I've been snubbed by Fordham).

Hey! I only referred to that thread in order to ease the minds of others in the thread. My street cred is still intact, thank you very much.

Also: *copies and pastes the entire "Wait List is NOT the end!" thread into here* Motivation! Inspiration! Hope!

LSU does something similar - they send out wait list notifications pretty late, traditionally, but their wait list is HUGE. They do send out a round of rejections, then they seem to wait list a ton of people, and they whittle that down slowly but surely. I'm not sure if UConn does an "official" wait list, but from what the department told me, anyone who wasn't rejected at 9am or so today is in that second batch of people being considered, should their initial offers get turned down. Who knows what'll happen, but I think it's definitely a good thing for those who haven't been rejected yet, even if the department doesn't email us to say so themselves.

From what they told me, yes. Weird, indeed. Sorry I couldn't report better news.

Well, I have no soul or feelings so I decided to call and ask what goes on re: statuses and whatnot. She acknowledged that they sent out a bunch of rejections today, and also told me the department generally takes 13 literature folks (plus five medievalists, if anyone in this thread is a medievalist). They also sent out some acceptances and are waiting to hear back. I was told that I'm "looking good" (though that very well could've been a general nicety) but that they have to wait to hear back from the first batch before they address the second batch. A weird way to go about things to be sure, but that's what she said. Hope that helps some!

Oh! I'll be at the CEA conference, too. What're you presenting on/which panel?

Definitely understandable.