dazedandbemused

I guess it depends on how confident you feel about your probable decision. I think there were two or three people in last years Austin thread who hadn't really felt strongly about it before the visit, but were so impressed that they ended up attending. The atmosphere of a school is really important to me, so I'm relying heavily on the visit, but I know it's not the same for everyone.

Honestly, I don't think people disagree with you because they don't want to believe it. I think enough of us got into good schools from with no-name undergraduate degrees and unknown LOR writers that we just can't believe it. Yes, if you have connections, your chances are probably much more heightened; I don't think anyone would deny that. I know a student who got into Columbia and she thinks that her MA advisor's connection to the DGS really helped her. But the idea that a lack of connections may make an app weaker just doesn't sit well with me.

I've known people who finished in five years, no problem. If the time to degree problem stems from the student and not from the department, then you may be one of the people who gets it done in five, too. That being said, finishing in five seems to be really difficult for the majority of students. I intend to have my degree before I'm 30; that's seven years max, but I'm aiming for six.

Ooh, nice. I don't know why a tiny part of my head is still holding out hope for UIUC, but there you have it. It feels like torture to have nothing to do between now and the end of the month but waver back and forth between Pitt an UT. I just want to decide!

If you don't mind me asking, brigadierpudding, how many schools are you considering? One of the thigns that I really liked about Austin is that they seem to really make an effort to offer a variety of classes. Just looking at this semester's listings, I saw a surprisingly large number that I could see matching with my interests. One problem that I have with Pitt is that my interests aren't really addressed in my current classes, so I have to find a way to make the courses work for me.

I know here at Pittsburgh, as long as you're making good progress, but are not quite done, you can get a visiting instructorship. There's also the visiting lectureship, but those are a lot more competitive because they're open to outside candidates. I also might have those titles backward, but I can't find anything clarifying it on the website; I got this info through word of mouth.

Sweet! I've chatted with a few people on here, but I always feel like I'm an incessant questioner and I'd get really tired of answering my own questions. If you get anything meaty, I'd love ti hear about it. It sounds like you've got some pretty good connections to the department already. I hope that waitlist converts for you!

They did say in the award letter that all students get at least one semester on dissertation fellowship, and you can often apply for a second semester. Also, it seems like the graduate school has some pretty awesome dissertation fellowships, so I intend to find out whether English people are ever successful at getting those. Honestly, I don't find the teaching load to be that daunting because I know there are places that make you teach two classes a semester. Plus, I've been working in a writing center for four years, so that doesn't sound like it would take much more out of me. My only worry is when I would possibly have time to teach two discussion sections and attend the professor's lecture and meet with them regularly while simultaneously taking three classes. Obviously, it can be done since people are doing it, but it sounds like a LOT of structured time with little outside time for independent work.

Trust me, I'm thankful everyday that humanities people are almost expected to be a bit strange looking. The problem, for me, lies in the utter impossibility of semi-formal/business casual. I pretty much have no way of enacting it without feeling uncomfortable with my clothes and myself for the foreseeable future. So yeah, I'm mildly panicked.

Alas, if I could. I have unbelievable issues buying clothing. I hate gender-specific clothing, so I go for mostly androgynous stuff, but when you're my size, clothes pretty much only come in tent and frilly. I basically gave up a year ago. Though I do sometimes find random useful items at goodwill, I have yet to actually find an outfit. The day people start making men's style suits/clothing for women who aren't a size 6 will be the day hell freezes over.

This conversation is actually worrying me now. I do not own anything dressy or even remotely business casual that doesn't make me want to change into sweats immediately. My life uniform is Hanes v-neck t-shirts. I think I might be screwed.

Word. Some of mine were, literally, at the the eleventh hour.

If you don't already have to many cooks in the kitchen, I'll give it read too.

Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Trader Joe's is a random collection of non-matching foods. Plus, I live in PA, so I can't even go there for cheap alcohol. Also, Wegman's is truly amazing. I definitely thought they were a Pennsylvania thing, but I'm glad other states get to share in awesomeness.

Yeah I think it's a bit weird that I haven't heard anything substantial outside of flight arrangements and sandwich choices. Hopefully that gets addressed while we're there. I'm just really excited about so many scholars there, which is my main pull. That and the teaching. And the lack of snow. And the Mexican food, which Pittsburgh is almost completely devoid of.

Just sent in the paperwork for the campus visit, so I thought I'd resurrect this thread. I know there are quite a few Austin people on here, but it seems like many are leaning toward their other offers. Anyone else around here planning to go to the visit weekend? How are you feeling about the program at this point? I think I've finally reached a place where, unless something about Austin is just unbelievably horrible, I'll probably be accepting.

Seriously though, Penn State is the worst with this stuff. I think I mentioned somewhere previously that I applied there last year and when I called at the end of March, they were still giving me that "we're still making decisions" nonsense. I think my rejection finally arrived around April 20th. My favorite rejection, though, was from Maryland. They offered me their "consolation" MA in the most terse letter I've ever received, and it was completely riddled with spelling errors. A few hours later I received it again, with a note at the top apologizing for the bad spelling in the first one. Nothing like two rejections from one school in the same day. All this to say that you may NEVER hear from some of these places. If I had known about the results search at the time, I probably would have saved myself a lot of hope.

Yeah, I haven't decided yet but I'll definitely be taking one of my other two offers. Best of luck!

I just looked this up and, wow. They only offered three courses each semester this year? That's very strange. I only applied to the MA as my backup, but now I'm curious about the state of the program, too. Their recent placements aren't half bad, but there don't seem to be that many of them. I don't know how many PhDs they're graduating, but two or three jobs a year (and not just for new graduates) seems a bit low.

Nope. I just thought we were dealing with a ridiculously high concentration of trolls this year.

Ah, the broad, interconnected interests. I've got them, too. I think the biggest difference between my applications last year and this year is that I did a much better job of showing that they are interconnected this time. Re-reading my SOP from last year,I realize that I sounded all over the place. The biggest issue was that my writing sample, though my best piece of writing, doesn't actually have anything to do with my stated interest. Seriously, I work on 19th century transatlantic women writers and queer theory; my writing sample is on The Faerie Queene. I had to basically weave a thread from my undergraduate research through the work that I'm currently doing to show how the two are related, if only tenuously. So yeah, If I had been able to focus it better I might have gotten into Brown and Princeton, but all I really wanted was to get into UT Austin, so I'm happy. I think one of the most important things is showing that you didn't wake up this morning and decide, "you know, modernist lit is some cool shiz." There has to been a distinctive path through your interests, even if it is a bit meandering. If you decide to forgo the masters and do this again, just spend as much time as you can showing exactly why your interests are important and making it clear that they are long term, abiding interests for you. Also, take what we say with a grain of salt because, as I've learned in the past year, things that people told me would be deal-breakers, weren't. Do what you're comfortable with and what you think will best showcase what you have. I heard that I should definitely write a new sample to match my interests, but I knew my own abilities to write really good work, and they did not include banging out a fifteen page masterpiece in a month. Also, be careful who you get your advice from. My undergrad adviser is an amazing person and scholar, but she hasn't been within hitting distance of an adcomm in about 15 years, so her information was very much out of date. Make sure whoever you're talking to has been on adcomms recently and knows what kind of things they're looking for. I can't even begin to describe how much that helped me this year. Ok, I'm done pontificating.

From what I understand, it's pretty common for most first years at IU not to have funding, isn't it? I think it has something to do with training before being a TA. The likelyhood of an unfunded first year was one of the reasons I didn't apply there this year.

Don't worry, I'm in the same boat as you. It was amazing to start the season with a waitlist and then two acceptances right after the other, but to have that followed by half a dozen rejections is...mildly depressing. You'd think I'd feel calm and happy, but each rejection is surprisingly painful. Honestly, as long as you know that you're blessed to have somewhere to go, I see no reason to try and tamp down the pangs of inadequacy. It really has made me realize that no matter how self-deprecating or insecure I think I am, there's a small part of me that thinks I'm awesome and wishes other people could recognize it, too.

Yes, yes, and yes. I agree that equating it with civil rights is straight-up madness. Then again, I have a hard time with any attempts to make equalizing statements between any cultural/civil activisms. As for the contention that minorities would be offended, I can only offer the idea that this kind of thinking always creates a heirarchy of minorities. What's wrong with having a lot of minorities? The minorities aren't all operating within the same contexts so there isn't really a possibility of the "specialness" of minority status diminishing somehow. Not that I think anyone's advocating for specialness, just that measuring the worth of minorities often feels that way.

Hey, there was some conversation about the funding at UT over in the post-acceptance stress thread earlier today. My impression is that they deliberately give everyone equal funding. The debate, however, is over what it would be like to live off of that money. If you want to talk more, PM me; I'm pretty worried about this as well.