dazedandbemused

I wish my SOP was a bit clearer in some places. I keep thinking of better ways to say what I said, even though most of those ways would have required a LOT more words. Also, I worry that I should have taken the GRE again, especially as I only recently saw the addendum on Buffalo's website about minimum scores for University fellowships.

Wow, ya'll are reading some hardcore stuff in your down time. I mean, I've been reading material on Gibson Girls in preparation for a project that I haven't decided whether to begin yet, but I wouldn't call that fun reading. The most serious my free time stuff gets is non-academic, fun non-fiction.

I'm not stressing about them yet; I heard back from them last year very early in February and I was just waitlisted. The post was just really weird because it appeared the day after apps were due; it just seemed so unlikely that anything could have happened yet.

I hope it is real for all of the waiting applicants' sake; I'm still wondering about that Buffalo post from back in December. No one ever claimed that right? It just seems so mean-spirited to scare all of us poor, mildly insane waiters.

I did not know some English programs did interviews! That sounds mildly terrifying.

Alas, not a misspell! No Phineas and Ferb fans around here? Barbecue Pit

Wow, congratulations! Send the rest of us some good vibes.

I'm with you; Jim Hawkins will always be a Jack Russell Terrier to me.

Love Handel

To be fair, I don't think the warning is against all contact whatsoever. It's really for people who think sending an email just for its own sake will help them out. I'm sure I'd be annoyed if I kept getting emails from prospective students that were basically slightly more veiled examples of "what are my chances" threads.

Does watching the Wishbone version count?

I think the conversation grew out of a comparison between how science applicants absolutely had to make contact ahead of time vs. the general tendency of humanities applicants to not make contact pre-acceptance. I'd always heard the same as sebastianteddy: don't write unless you have substantial comments. However, everyone I've met who's ever been on an adcomm said that any emails from prospective students were unlikely to make a positive difference in the decision making, though it is possible to make a negative enough impression to affect one's chances.

Nope, not a given. In fact, there was actually a discussion on here last year as to whether or not English people should make contact ahead of time or not and everyone was pretty divided on the topic.

Finally, something we can agree on! I'm a huge fan of the Tenant of Wildfell Hall as well, but the Brontes just don't do it for me. Wuthering Heights, in particular, is just a little too much crazy in one place for me. As for things that I haven't read...I'm gonna go with The Scarlet Letter. It was assigned in one of my Sophomore seminars and I just could not roll with that writing, so I fell back on Sparknotes. I think I read one out of every 4 chapters.

Two of my recommenders from last year wrote recommendations for me again this year. I wrote them really long, heartfelt thank-you cards last year. Can I just send them cards that say "see thank you card 2012 for expression of my current gratitude"?

I just feel like if Jane Austen and I lived in the same time, we'd spend the majority of our time talking about how stupid the majority of our acquaintances are. I mean, the sarcasm running through her books is just inspiring. Most people I know who don't like her usually have a difficult time looking past her sometimes overlong prose at the wit beneath.

Anything to suppress the pain, eh?

We might have to take this into an alleyway. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Spenser! I can't get too mad though; I wouldn't call reading him the most enjoyable experience either.

Ain't nobody gonna talk about my girl Jane like that.

I see your Conrad and raise you a Henry James. I might be alone here, but I just can't stand his stuff. It doesn't help that all of the things I've read by him were taught in conjunction with psychoanalytic theory, which I generally find unimpressive and needlessly complex. Oh, and Wordsworth. hate that guy.

I don't know, I'm starting to feel like there isn't much more to be said until some results start popping up. I haven't been posting much in the last few days because I feel like I've entered this weird state of ennui between applying and hearing back where I just want to not be thinking about it.

I had the exact same thought. Maybe you should start that thread anyway and glory in the bloodbath! And OP, I'm gonna go with neutral on that, too.

If you don't mind me asking, what's your specialization and what was your criteria for fit? Because even keeping it down to places that I would be truly happy living and working for 5-7 years, I think my list would only have shrunk to eight or nine.

I actually am a second-timer myself, and I would say my anxiety has increased in relation to my confidence from last year. Last year, I had no idea what I was doing; I was in my senior year of undergrad, I'd decided that I wanted to be an English professor, but I hadn't yet read all of the scary literature about the state of humanities and the difficulty of getting into graduate school. I didn't really get anxious until early march when I realized that I had 3 unlikely waitlists, a whole lot of consolation MA offers, and no funding. So this year, I know my chances and I'm already worried and mildly panicky. However, I also know that I've managed to supplement my unknown BA with graduate level work with a fellowship at a great university and considering that my ignorant app last year got three waitlists, I'm hoping my much more mature and considered app will get me at least one acceptance this year.

This is a slight change in topic, but this comment made me wonder what everyone's emotional feelings about this process are. I've noticed that a lot of people across this website seem absolutely terrified of failing this app season because of shame, not wanting to disappoint current advisors/parents, and loss of self-worth. I find that attitude to be extremely dangerous and illogical; this is such a crapshoot and to put so much of yourself into the outcome just doesn't seem healthy to me. For one, I think the average advisor is aware that getting in is difficult and I have a hard time believing they'd react with the extreme disappointment that so many people are imagining. When I think of all the people I've seen on here in the last 16 months who are on their second or third try, I just start to think that the terrified first timers need a serious reality check and maybe some more advising. Bfat, I'm not attributing these ideas to you, by the way. Your comment just made me think of it.