dazedandbemused

Hey, looks like someone got off the waitlist at Pitt! I just sent in my thanks but no thanks this morning, and I was hoping someone from gradcafe would get off the waitlist. I can't think of any regulars who were waitlisted there though...

Holy wow, dude! That's awesome!!! This story just had to end well; no other options. Seriously, this has been an amazing season. I'm so happy for everyone!

Wow, I remember you saying that Berkeley had offered you crazy money and made staying look really tempting. What about Irvine changed your mind? I hope this doesn't seem nosy, I'm just always curious about how other people are making their decisions. I got lucky in that my dream program on paper ended up living up to my expectations IRL, but I know this often isn't the case.

Welcome, grumpyface! Have you looked at the course listings yet? Are you salivating too, or is that just me? After a year of having to try to find courses that match my interests, I don't know how to deal with having like, 6 great classes in the English department plus some awesome stuff over in Religious studies and WGS. There's just too much!

Awesome!! I wish more people from our cohort were on gradcafe, but I know that at least 3 others have accepted as well, plus the people who had already accepted before the visit. Seriously, we are an awesome group of peeps.

Wow, four courses! I can't even imagine the stress. I don't really think if it as teaching though, since it's really leading discussion sections. There are programs that make you teach your own classes right out of the gate! I saw on the other thread that you've decided to go to Northwestern; it's too bad they couldn't convert you too

Fall classes are out! Holy crap there are so many amazing options, I don't think I can just choose three.

Congrats! Do you plan to attend?

Wow, three year. That's mildly terrifying. I mean, I think it depends on what kind of academic you intend to be, but as someone who feels strongly about scholar-activism, I can think of instances and people who would never get job security because their views are not in line with the more conservative administration. That's why that kind of thing would worry me, but I can see how it would be possible, I guess. Do people in the UK stay in place for long? It seems like there would have to come a point where these contracts were just a formality. And I have read an argument for 7-year appointments rather than tenure, but I think I"m too idealistic to let go of some of the benefits of tenure and not idealistic enough to think we could ever convert the academics of this country to a contractual model.

I think the part that I would have a hard time with is, what exactly does a non-tenured permanent job look like? Does it just mean that you make a living wage and get benefits? Is there any component of it that would make firing you difficult? I agree that tenure is probably not going to last much longer, and that we need to figure things out, but I feel like opening the door to non-permanence would allow administrations a too arbitrary method of deciding whether you stay or go. Granted, there are far too many tenured faculty in the country who are essentially useless (bad teaching, no service, little research), so I wonder what a system of non-tenure would do in weeding those out.

Yeah, I still think it's ridiculous. Especially since they make it clear that your chance of acceptance off of their waitlist is highly unlikely. I agree, though, that it was a nice response to have as your first feedback.

Lol, I don't know about girl who wears glasses, but I don't think Vanderbilt was ever actually in the picture. We both got that ridiculous "you're on the waitlist, but really it's just a consolation prize" nonsense.

That sucks; I'm sorry. Have you gotten any info about your chances from Brandeis?

Interestingly enough, a lot of programs seem to think that they have sufficiently reduced their programs to account for the lack of jobs, but I think further entrenchment is really necessary. UT accepts 20 people a year still, which I think is a crazy large number, and that's apparently down from 25 students a few years ago (granted, UT has freakishly amazing placement numbers). Whenever I see lower ranked programs with horrible placement rates accepting 10-15 students a year, I'm kind of shocked that they don't feel a twinge of guilt. Then again, many of those programs require their TAs to teach 2-2 with very small stipends, so perhaps having a disposable workforce is more important than getting students jobs at the other end of the tunnel.

Seriously, I did the same thing. It made it so much easier to locate information. I also made a spreadsheet with every single application requirement filled in so I didn't have to keep referring back to the website, although it doesn't hurt to double check. Also, watch out for the time that the apps are due! I had an application that I assumed was due at 5 p.m., but I checked the website the night before just in case. Turned out it was due at noon and I never would have made the deadline if I hadn't checked that night.

Dude, there are so many schools to choose from that sometimes that's not even a bad thing. There were schools where, if I couldn't find the page talking about admissions after five minutes, I was done. Mind you, this was after searching "(name of school) english PhD program" on google and still not finding a single word about admissions or applications. Hell, there was a really great school that I refused to apply to because the worst professor I have ever had in my life got his PhD there and I didn't want to be somewhere that would give him a degree. It's completely ridiculous, but when you're trying to compile a list of 10-15 schools out of over a hundred, sometimes arbitrary stupidity totally helps.

Well, after giving myself a couple of days to come down off of cloud nine, I have officially accepted my offer from UT Austin. Hook 'em horns, y'all!

Exactly! Quite a few of my schools are state schools and this is the only one that had that weird contingency language. Other schools have either waited until they knew they could afford the students they wanted or simply accepted fewer students this year in order to keep costs low. Champagne, I don't really have much of an opinion of Florida, negative or positive, at this point. I just think it's very uncool to cover one's ass when it comes to a student's future in the humanities. Better to admit fewer students or try again next year.

I guess the reason it strikes me as shady is because I feel like in the humanities a program shouldn't make offers if they don't know they can back them up. I mean, imagine accepting that offer in good faith and then finding yourself, three years into a PhD, with no funding and no options. I know academia is a business, but I guess the idealistic part of me thinks it shouldn't be so corporate.

So I finally got my funding offer from Florida this weekend, and I was wondering what other accepted people's letters looked like. In particular, I thought it was interesting the way the language made it so that you were guaranteed funding, while still keeping a loophole just in case funding ran out. I wasn't feeling too generous to them before this, but I'm kind of amazed at what I think is mildly unsavory legal language. I mean, to tell their students that they're fully funded, unless things head south, seems wrong to me. I don't know if I'm overreacting, though. Maybe it's different for PhD acceptances?

I don't know about you, but I always find those questions a bit ridiculous anyway. I would never have asked people on this forum to help me choose between my schools because as nice as y'all are, we don't actually know anything about each other. If you're talking about the instance I think you are, I said I would choose Madison if it were me-- Lord knows I have no idea what they actually study and it's really not my responsibility to determine their fit before giving my opinion. I know you're not trying to "stir up trouble" but I just wanted to put it out there that at the end of the day, our opinions should not really have much to do with other people's decision making process.

Seriously, if I were you i would go with #2. It doesn't sound like school 1 really has anything at all except for its name going for you; school 2, on the other hand, has your specialty, better funding, and more security should you wish to remain there. MA prestige matters so much less than PhD prestige for English that it would be absolutely criminal to sacrifice the possibility to do great work just for a fancy name. In all probability, the quality of the work you would be able to do at #2 would outweigh the prestige of a degree from #1 that you had to cobble together yourself because of a lack of department support for your interests.

I don't know if Pitt will be going to their waitlist this year, but I'll be turning them down this week. I'm also turning down a funded MA offer from Florida, so I hope that helps someone!

By the way, I know a bunch of people were talking about starting an email chain for roommate finding; if that does (or doesn't) materialize, I saw a place in Far West that had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It was 991 sq. ft. and the rent was $991. Not a bad deal! I don't have the papers with the info in front of me now, but if you guys are interested let me know.

Wow! That doesn't even sound like an apartment; I think I've lived in dorm rooms bigger than that! That's amazing and I am super impressed right now. Yeah, I feel really lucky to have found that place; I emailed the apartment finder this morning and hopefully it hasn't been leased out in the last 24 hours. Fingers crossed!