hiphopanonymous

Thanks, Trip! I have a couple meetings with people from the department coming up, but I've been trying to leave the DGS alone since the initial email bombardment (which she was very pleasant about). I don't actually know when their visiting day is, but I'm trying to relax until April. Any news on your situation? If I recall it sounded really promising given how far up on the list you are. I'm rooting for you, too. And FWIW I like that department as much as either of the others, so we may well end up in the same cohort. (I'm visiting tomorrow. PM me later in the week if you want to chat about it.)

Pretty much this is where I ended up. I've been in media (with good people, at a good job that values reading and writing and is not especially soul-killing at all) for a couple years since graduating. So pace Benton the lure of the English department for me is not that it delays making a career choice. It just leads to a more attractive career if I can, against the odds, make it work. And I believe, especially now that I have a couple decent offers for next year, that I have a nonzero chance of doing that. To answer your question, siarabird, I dealt with articles like this (and with the one or two professors I had who took it as axiomatic that no one should ever go to grad school in the humanities--ever) for 7+ years (including undergrad) by wringing my hands and worrying about how hard it is and doing other things. But ultimately you only get to do all this once. If going to grad school for English turns out to be the worst, most self-destructive thing I've done, I'll have led a pretty tame life, and I will still have had family to love and dogs to pet.

Mine's official, too. I appreciate the paper notice over having to look up my application PIN to log in for a rejection. Which I stopped doing after the first one. Nobody links to good news, turns out.

Does anyone have a rejection in hand from Harvard English yet? Everyone's still waiting for confirmation, right?

aeplo, I'm sending you a(n unhelpful) PM.

Really? Because of the ranking? I'm surprised. My two admits are from schools separated by a larger margin, but I'm having a tough time choosing because of factors like resources by specialization. And no one has suggested I'd be making a stupid move going with the "lower ranked" program--at least not to my face. Or is it the funding issue that they're looking out for?

Coffecurls, look up one or two of your favorite profs and see what morons have written about them. It will amuse you and set your mind at ease. "While he is very smart, he is also very boring": from the negative review of my advisor from undergrad, who is the mad scientist (not actually a scientist, of course) of our English department, writes great poems and novels, and who has been an exceptionally supportive mentor to me even four years after I graduated. Trip, this is the kind of spontaneous publicity that makes people.

I'm trying to remember what I did when I was choosing schools for undergrad. I remember I met both my parents (odd because they are divorced) at a Hawaiian-themed burger restaurant, and my mom made pro- and con- columns on some stationery that one of the schools had sent. I don't recall having helpfully added anything to either column for any of the schools. Sometimes I wish they still treated me more like a kid and less like a real person who knows what he's doing.

I had version control problems with my writing sample. I edit a lot. Like, professionally. I know how to edit my own writing. (As I'm sure everyone here does.) But I worked on multiple computers, and I had a few different files going, and in spite of the planning I tried to do I inevitably ended up submitting all my applications on the day of the deadline. And in the rush I sent a pre-final-edit version of my sample to 8 of the 11 schools I applied to--a version that included a handful of annoying errors that I later corrected. Surprisingly I was able not to agonize over it too much. In the end all the schools that responded well to the application were ones that got the uncorrected version. Maybe just those schools, though? People, if you can't keep track of your files, apply to Cornell and Rutgers, for they are forgiving in nature.

I have a buddy who did MAPH at Chicago. He has a job teaching at a community college, by which he funds a writing career. So his degree has been useful, and I don't think he regrets it. But he's still fairly bitter about the attention paying MA students got from professors. As in, he felt they got none. I would try to find out directly whether people in the program still feel that way. Could be corrosive. I didn't apply to Chicago's program and haven't been to the school at all since I was seventeen, so this is very much a second-hand report.

I don't disagree with the sentiment. But maybe this is how I know I don't belong to that class, however little money I'm making: marriage among the people I know (which necessarily includes the people I might marry) doesn't seem to work that way. I guess it's a question of culture and geography as much as money. (Not that those categories are separate.) I was mostly kidding -- especially about wanting "at least one" marriage. And you're right: my anxiety is wildly heteronormative and gender-specific. I want to be introduced to my partner's family as someone who can support her (even though she's incredibly smart and independent and capable of supporting herself far better than I could), and I feel like if my occupation is "student" for most of my twenties and early thirties I'll have a hard time making the case that I'm the kind of dude who can do that. Whoa this got personal! Sorry, all. Overshare, I'm sure.

Kids, marriage. I would like to have at least one of each someday. But I have far too much shame to ask someone to marry me while I'm making $21,000 and spending every day in the library. So assuming that's put off for another eight years . . .

Also, I realize I'm sending mixed messages here. This is spoken like a twelve-year-old with no attention span, as opposed to someone who's worried about getting old. Both: too true.

That's pretty much me. I know I can be good at this, too. I suppose in part it's daunting simply because I've never, to this point in my life, committed to doing anything for six or seven years. High school: four years. College: four. Job: three years. Grad school: relative eternity.

Anyone else having doubts about this business even after getting in? I worry about being dirt poor for six years while my friends take fancy vacations and buy apartments. I turn 26 in two days. I feel like I might be too old. Anyone?

thestage, don't despair. Please. Too many good people have been left out. Stately, I'll put in a good word.

Congrats, rainy_day! I love MN. Home away from home.

It doesn't seem like that to me. I've read this board enough to know how supportive you are of everyone.

Still hoping for your waitlist, too, Trip! And thanks for the support, bdon!

For reals, though: I think Rutgers has done an amazing job placing its early modern PhDs in some really bleak years. As well as anyone, from what I understand. I take them every bit as seriously as Cornell (or Princeton, for that matter--even though they haven't let me in . . . yet).

Yeah . . . My girlfriend is pretty attractive to me, too, unfortunately.

Haha. Thanks, Trip. I'm not sure at this point. I still lean toward Rutgers. I would like to stay close to NYC, for girlfriend-related reasons. Plus the early modern faculty at Rutgers are really good. We'll see. I look forward to visiting both. Thrilled by the offers.

I can claim one. Just got an email. Although they spelled my first name wrong . . . not auspicious.

Thanks, bdon. Sorry you didn't get the news you were looking for.

Is it ridiculous to be excited about being waitlisted? Anybody know anything about how Princeton's waitlist works? Big congrats to those admitted.