Troppman

I, too, am anxiously waiting to hear back from some of the programs mentioned in this thread. Most of these programs already have posted accepted representatives on the board though :-X. Good luck to all!

i would disagree with all of the above posters. I maintain that the answer is simply 3.50.

Congrats!

Here's to good news this week!

Totally feelin' it. I also totally agree with your response to my post...And your other musings about the productivity of ressintement. In attempting to compensate for less than stellar normal credentials (UG GPA, institutional prestige, etc) I might have over done it on the professional development side. And of course, I have to accept that If given the opportunity to mature as a scholar (by means of a PhD program), it could be the case that things i've put in print will haunt my career. Whether I live by yolo or some sort of eternal return mythos, "if i'm to die whether or not I try, I might as well let the dice fly!" This board has helped with perspective. There are applicants with credentials (and I mean extra-curriculars) that are nothing short of inspirational. The process also comes down to the whole "If I am not for myself who will be for me, and if i'm only for myself what will I be" thing. :-)

Thanks for sharing this, I can totally relate on "was it an A compared to the majority students..." By talking about my credentials in a round-about yet self-important way, I meant to actually suggest that these things don't in any way make or break an admissions decision (apparently). The interesting thing about my writing sample is that my advisor told me it was some of my most clear yet still theoretically important writing. He told me this in the face of my angst over "dumbing down" complicated ideas. Ironically, some of the feedback that I received from the journal that invited the piece was that it was too dumbed down and thus threatened the integrity of the theories from which it drew. D'oh! At least I have the opportunity to rewrite it... Can't please everybody, and audience seems primary. I also know a student who had two peer-reviewed full lengths as an undergrad, four or so languages, grants to travel all over the world, and didn't get admitted to a single PhD program her first (maybe now second) time. And, I know a student who went to a really not-so-great undergrad institution with (relatively) poor grades and no credentials (per se). The latter student was recently admitted to an ivy school with full funding, first try. Real talk! My intensity thus-far has yielded highly ambivalent results.

I post only to affirm your angst (implicitly, and necessarily, for narcissistic reasons as well). Hopefully this post can help others... I, too, have received only bad news this season. My writing sample was flawed, sure. But it was well received by my advisor, and also by a large audience at a major conference (in slightly different form)--even invited to a journal. My undergrad transcript is not-so-hot, but it was also not-so-hot working full-time, being an athlete by vocation, and losing immediate family members to tragic causes. I was not partying as an undergrad. I was working, and dealing with constant phone calls from the ICU and ER. My MA is from a lesser known program, and yet I still managed a 4.0 here while presenting at several conferences and publishing a handful of pieces (book reviews, reviews, full-articles) in various peer-reviewed journals of immediate relevance to my proposed doctoral study. In addition, I made a point of undergoing language training (2 languages, for a total of 30 hours [summer immersions]) while enrolled in my MA program. Although I didn't receive a TA or RA position (they are scarce here), I was still given many opportunities to guest-speak/lecture at multiple campuses during my two year MA program. All of this to say that I really don't know what I could have done better this season. Perhaps my SOP--drafted a million times and very relevant to current faculty interests at each program--didn't evince a sexy-enough project? I contacted professors and current students at each program to get a feel of fit and camaraderie--maybe I shouldn't have? I only applied to schools that I found to be a great match given faculty and student projects--maybe I should have just shot for the top ten or something? Perhaps being so ambitious as a neophyte reflects poorly as it could indicate that I am not so malleable. Wouldn't that be ironic? Either way, I am already proofing another article and submitting multiple abstracts (As well as scouting funded 1-year-MA programs with rolling admissions [they do exist]) in preparation for a round two. I could also pull my GRE scores up a tad and find a better letter writer... I still haven't heard from three programs (none of which are represented yet on the boards), so I'm still in the game per se...

For what it is worth, I am also an MA student and I do have a "good" CV: multiple peer-reviewed publications, multiple major conference presentations, invited lectures, language immersion, and so forth. I also have not been accepted to a single school this application season. All of this to say that the whole process seems radically contingent and I have a scrotum on my chin.

x2

Responding to affirm angst

Without a doubt /\; just bringing to light an unmentioned opportunity :-)

Birkbeck's program also looks fantastic (and much more in line with my interests)

I'm still in the valley, and I know that feel big time. Congrats!

There is def good reason to keep hope for OSU

I sent a brief e-mail, upon notification of rejection, to the POI who I had been e-mailing for some months. Interestingly, one concern was that I was to tied to a specific discipline; this is interesting because I never mentioned this discipline explicitly, and I implicitly noted my intellectual shift from it. It was comforting to know, however, that I otherwise 'made the cut' and that funding was of primary concern.

Hello folks, I just received word from a program that rejected me. My POI explained kindly what I could do to improve, and he gave me feedback about the committee's response to my application. It certainly sucks to have no acceptances thus far, but it is comforting to experience the humanity of the humanities. Here's to a productive week! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfPjYdef1lg

First news of the season: rejections... blah!

I was once a member of a secret society. Our mission, during our meetings, would be to sneak our way into prohibited super swank areas (club rooms of 5 star hotels or comparable places) in order to read out-loud and discuss our weekly selections. Staff would serve us drinks and complementary hor d'oeuvres...

Word, good call. Awesome! I like to stalk the market prices and trends of first editions and signed copies of books that I find to be important. I guess that this is a hobby of sorts. This book that has changed my life: what is the market value of its first printing/edition? Who could have read this very copy? Regarding signed copies, especially of esoteric dead authors, I find few things cooler. What is the story behind this signed copy? Holy moly, this was _____'s copy?! Better yet, I like finding people who are selling journals that contain rare/important articles for super cheap. Especially when the extracted article itself might be a museum value piece... It is a fun hobby for sure... Edit: Pseudonym pieces are dope too... In other words, it would be nice to hear some good news from a program at this point...

So... Anybody out there collect rare, signed, or first edition books?

Congrats to the UCI admit!

I find these sentiments troubling in their purported foundation.

Since the conversation is still going, this confuses the heck out of me. If I want others to do well, presumably this is because I appreciate a shared element of self with the other. Thus, of course I would want to be better than others precisely because this entails "constantly pushing and assessing my own limits and strengths." Unless, of course, we are assuming that all are fundamentally alienated from self and other and that this alienation consists of a solid divide and not a perforated one... Perhaps history really is over. Edit: Bluecheese is killing it this season! Sweet!

This. Mechanisms of altruism and aggression are linked to similar narcissistic identification processes. This conversation reminds me of the last piece of pizza dilemma: A:"no, no, you have it, I insist!" B:"Please, it's yours!" A: "ok, thanks!" B: [thinking] "that son of a bitch..." Anyway, congrats to the recent admits. Of course I'm jealous, and of course i'm concurrently happy for you!

My writing sample was/is pretty bad because I sent the wrong version (to almost all programs), despite preparing apps all throughout the summer and submitting all of them months early. As it turns out, this same shitty sample is now much better and in the proofing process for a good academic journal. I am choosing not to inform my programs of this. I say this not as a suggestive prescription for the aforementioned predicament, but rather to let my peers know how someone else is handling something similar. This might seem really dumb to some readers. I'm hoping that having other publications on my CV will let committees know that I am in fact able to write (and able to write well on my proffered topics of inquiry). I think that e-mailing them might seem too thirsty. I also acknowledge that the whole thing is radically contingent, and thus my only suggestion would be to read the following account: My writing sample was/is pretty bad because I sent the wrong version (to almost all programs), despite preparing apps all throughout the summer and submitting all of them months early. As it turns out, this same shitty sample is now much better and in the proofing process for a good academic journal. I am choosing not to inform my programs of this. I say this not as a suggestive prescription for the aforementioned predicament, but rather to let my peers know how someone else is handling something similar. This might seem really dumb to some readers. I'm hoping that having other publications on my CV will let committees know that I am in fact able to write (and able to write well on my proffered topics of inquiry). I think that e-mailing them might seem too thirsty. I also acknowledge that the whole thing is radically contingent, and thus... i'm losing it!