toasterazzi

Haha I like that. I need to make a collage of all the pretty campuses 
 
My Facebook is on lock as well, and most of my social networks don't have my name attached. LinkedIn and Academia.edu are the first sites that come up for me. Then there's all those random sites that collect all your info from the internet for some inexplicable reason. I've already gone to a couple of them and had them delete everything they had about me. I suspect I'll have to visit a few more. The most interesting things that come up about me are from my undergrad years. I appeared in the school newspaper at least a handful of times because I was in Student Government, I ran for Homecoming one year and I was on the executive board of my campus' LGBT group. I had an interview once years ago where the interviewer told me I should obscure my pro-LGBTness for future endeavors, but I'm quite proud of the work I did with that group and those mentions are important to me.

I think keeping optimistic is the key to avoiding the mood swings. I actually have pictures of the campus and list of reasons to why I want to go to what school on my at all times. I know that might sound a little cheesy, but when I open my laptop and I see a picture of the pretty pretty campus I can't help but feel motivated!
 
 
That is good to know! I just googled myself and all that came up was conference presentations and student orgs--my facebook is under lock and key.

There's something simular to this over in the political science forum. I thought this slightly altered version would be helpful for 2014 English applicants. 
 
For those of you who participated in the fall 2013 application season, please consider filling out some of the information below. 
 
Profile
Type of Undergrad Institution:
Major(s)/Minor(s):
Undergrad GPA:
Type of Grad:
Grad GPA:
GRE:
Time between undergrad to grad and/or MA to PhD: 
Teaching experience:
Research experience: 
Conference experience: 
Other experience: 
Letters of Recommendation (position of recommender, relationship, etc.):
Subfield/Research Interests:
SOP (how much time you spent working it, what you focused on, what you left out, etc):

Results
Acceptances ($ for partially funded, $! for fully funded):
Waitlists:
Rejections:
Pending:
Going to:
 
Reflections
Are you satisfied with the outcome of your applications? 
Most helpful resources/advice: 
Most unhelpful resources/advice: 
Strongest part of application: 
Weakest part of application: 
What you spent the most time on: 
What you spent the least time on: 
Regrets: 
Lessons learned: 
Words of advice: 

Just calling for some reassurance on my sanity here. I don't know what it is, but it is literally an hour-by-hour switch on my confidence about this whole process. I might wake up in the morning, have my first cup of coffee, read something that sparks a few ideas, and think, "Holy Hell! I'M THE SMARTEST MOST ABLE ACADEMICIAN IN THE WORLD! EVERY ADCOMM EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WILL LOVE ME!!!"
 
Then, I have two more cups of coffee, I start to research school to which I might apply, I look at the raw statistics, and I fall into a desperate maelstrom of second-guessing of which Prufrock or The Underground Writer would be proud.
 
Is this happening to anyone else? Or should I really be concerned about my mental health?
 
Sorry for the hyperbole, but it really isn't too far off...

I haven't read through the link above, so I'm not sure if it's mentioned in that thread, but this is one of the books we use in my grad theory class: http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Theory-Today-User-Friendly-Guide/dp/0415974100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365265135&sr=8-1&keywords=lois+tyson. It's really good at providing an overview of the theories along with showing how they'd be applied to actual texts, which can be useful (at least for me) before delving into some of the essays.

Helpful resources: 
 
How to present at a conference: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/delivering-an-effective-conference-paper/29683
How to get the most out of a conference: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-to-hack-a-conference-aka-attend-one-productively/22891

I currently work at a middle school. I suppose there must be worse jobs.......

As someone who just quit TFA, allow me to tell your their application process is 100% objective. If you know the formula before going into the interview, you're in. If you don't, who knows. It was also the worst experience I've ever had. Consider it an excellent use of time that you didn't get in.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose, you guys.

I just emailed UMass--Amherst to ask whether or not I should staple or paperclip my application materials. I realized just how overwhelming this process really is after I spent nearly 30 minutes conducting an internal debate about the pros and cons of staples and paperclips before deciding to contact the grad department.

And for those of you who are also conflicted about grand paper clip vs. staples debate (I can't be alone, can I?!), Barbara with UMass suggested paper clips because the department ends up scanning all materials as soon as they receive them.

I would have to disagree with the consensus here. There are certain aspects of laptops that I believe many people overlook in the name of portability, one of which is a quality display. Yes, you could always just buy an external monitor to compensate, but if the whole point of owning a MBA is the portability, then I would prefer having access to a good display when I am not at home or at work.
 
I am not simply referring to screen-size though, but picture quality and resolution. This is where I think the MBA display lags behind as its PC competitors now offer 1080p (1920 x 1080) IPS displays at the same price point. If you have never heard of IPS displays before, just know that they are capable of resolving more colors and have much better viewing angles than the displays most of you are probably used to (TN). A higher resolution allows you to have more applications viewable side by side on one screen, and this can potentially offer a large boost in productivity depending on what your needs are. And as far as apple products go, even the 13" MBP offers a vastly superior display (2560 x 1600 IPS retina display). Unless you need portability at all costs, I can't believe anyone would think that the MBP offers less value! Not too long ago it was not common for stand alone monitors with displays of this caliber (albeit on a large 30 in. screen) to retail for beyond $2000. The fact that paying only a few hundred dollars more by upgrading to a MBP could give you this kind of luxury seems kind of amazing to me.
 
I apologize for rambling on a bit too much since admittedly I am somewhat of a technophile and really value extra screen space (I write a lot of code), but I know that when I have to travel and not have my desktop computer around, the most infuriating fact is being stuck with a crappy 1440 x 900 TN display (similar to the MBA) on my 4 year old laptop. Investing in a new laptop with a better display is definitely something I will have to consider myself when starting my grad school program next fall, so I wish you the best of luck in whatever decision you make. Again, I understand that while the needs of most users are very different from mine, I could never fathom making the compromises involved with owning a MBA as a power user.

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.

Found this, had to share. When researching programs, universities, and professors, you'll find this to be incredibly true!
 

Haha I don't know if there's a real answer to this. I've seen some people say they were told to be very specific and some people say they were told to avoid being too specific. Most SOPs I've seen indicate that they want you to indicate what your interests are, but they don't always explain how detailed they want you to be. Of course, they do typically impose word count limits so I guess you can't get too detailed hehe.

Fair enough. Sorry we took this as an opportunity to criticize your decision... As far as loans go, the only advice I would give is yes, by all means, avoid private loans. If something happens where you cannot pay government loans, there are always things you can do. You'll be paying them off forever, but, honestly, it's not the end of the world. However, private loans can really, really mess up your financial life. And that's no exaggeration. It's really nothing short of a scam and, frankly, I'm sometimes surprised that it's legal. I've never had any experience with PLUS loans, but I guess you'll have to make something work if you're paying more than 20,000 in tuition. Maybe you can contact the fin. aid. office at Washington and ask a couple of questions. 
 
Again, sorry this thread got hijacked by our judgement. Congrats of Washington and your decision!

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/

So I dunno how many of you are familiar with the dog shaming site, but this is along the same vein. So much of this speaks to my soul lol:
 
http://englishgradstudentshaming.tumblr.com/