zanmato4794

Dear UPenn, Tomorrow's my birthday. Don't worry if you didn't get my gift quite yet. I know just the thing. Best, -Z.

Looking at the results boards, I'm proud that I haven't seen the brattiness in posts of English rejections that I see in some of the other fields. Sheeesh! Entitlement!

A few things: 1) I find myself wondering if B.A. to PhD is becoming less common as it becomes harder for students working their way through college to have the time to study since working your way through college requires more hours of work every year (and by working your way, I actually just mean having money to live off of if mommy and daddy aren't footing the bill--keeping up with tuition while enrolled at a university without loans is nearly out of the question for most students). 2) I also think the field is being made more competitive by students taking gap years, which is potentially in turn making gap years more popular and almost necessary as candidates keep doing things to beef up their numbers and CVs. I took my sweet time applying to both M.A. and PhD programs, and I think it helped me. Basically I think we're seeing a process unfold, not uniformly and with definitely exceptions, but I do think I see the age of the average PhD candidate potentially ticking up for economic and competitive reasons. Also, to make you perhaps feel better: there were many extremely happy 40+ PhD candidates where I did my M.A. One of them was getting her PhD in creative writing, and from what I could tell, it felt like she basically had a career (she started publishing like crazy during the program) and it seemed like taking classes was just something she did for fun and writing her dissertation was just another project among many she was doing. Perhaps you will be able to streamline your professional self with your student self as a PhD candidate so that it doesn't feel too bad to be a student. Also: I don't know how you feel about doing your PhD at UMD, but I bet if you stuck around there for it, they might pop you out in four years since you'd have taken many of the classes.

I don't know what your attitude on gap years is--they seem like they suck but, having taken two in a row, I can tell you it's not so bad--but I bet with one more year you could reapply and, having strengthened your application, get that funding. Further, I bet you'd feel better about it in the long run, and your future selves would be glad for it. I know you must be anxious to move on with your life, but my vote would be for you to spend another year becoming an even more stellar applicant while putting away money for your eventual move and having time to study and also to travel or something.

I had entirely given up on this season. I had so given up that I ALREADY SIGNED UP FOR THE APRIL SUBJECT TEST. And here today a UCSB acceptance lands in my email. I'm so happy and so relieved. I was considering quitting academia! What nonsense!

Rejected from UT Austin. This was the one I thought I really had a shot at. Tonight I sulk. Tomorrow I start my first serious weekend of getting ready to apply again in the fall.

I'm starting to act out. I want to spam DGS email with pictures of cats. UT Austin pweeeze. I wuv yoo.

It's asking a lot, but I will drink the alcohol for you. Feel better!

I see UT-Austin in a lot of people's signatures. I'm thinking we'll start hearing from them in the next three days.

You seem to know the weak spots in your application, and I have a few ideas about mine. I think if we both do get shut out this year, we should bounce ideas off each other and maybe even start a topic for a kind of a tough love camp for next cycle.

My sabbatical from GradCafe was kind of nice, as a little self-control exercise. If any of you are stressing about waiting for acceptances (especially if you haven't gotten one yet), I suggest taking a break from the site. I did notice my stress levels kind of go down, and I stopped obsessively checking email and the results page and was able to focus on other things. Obviously, everyone here this year is super nice and supportive, but watching everyone else get life-changing acceptances while you kind of piddle around and wonder if you're out of their league is pretty disheartening. Is there any consensus on UCSB, does anyone know? I have the feeling that the first round admits have all been contacted already. I go between, on the one hand, accepting that fact that I think this is a shutout year for me and actually having a good attitude about it, and, on the other hand, hoping that I still might squeak in this year while also dreading the idea of rejection and not knowing if I'll have the energy to apply again. Emotions!

True Life: I'm in a Samuel Beckett Play

I upvoted it to make the post happy again.

oh goodness oh goodness. UCSB is technically my lowest-ranked pick and they seem to be notifying. here comes full-blown panic! i'm a pisces and am currently willing to believe anything!

lesson learned, guys! old English username = Berkeley acceptance. congratulations unraed and hraedemus (I can't do special characters while covertly sending this at work)!

To make you feel slightly better perhaps, it seems to be kind of a widely accepted fact that previous years on this thread were 'nastier' than this one. The group active on here now is nothing but love, which isn't to say that seeing a bunch of highly talented people and then realizing they're your competitors isn't kind of unnerving at times, but still: the pros outweigh the cons.

POI from Duke came into my place of employment with a copy of my writing sample that had tire marks on it. He strode into my office, spit on my writing sample and punched me in the face. Didn't catch what he said about my mother on the way out, but I don't think it was feminist. When I went to lunch my tires were slashed. I had a standard link-to-website email notification.

This makes me so happy. You had been so worried! Certainly now you'll get more good news.

Very nice spreadsheet. I don't want to overburden it, but maybe add foreign language preparation? Too much?

I'd contribute to a google doc. We can obviously construct it so no names are involved. I am very curious about how standardized testing factors in the process because I'm almost thinking that individual members of the committee may be lying to themselves about their own perceptions. Let's say a Derridean applies to your program. His writing sample is very dense--lots of wordplay, perhaps some things that might be considered jumps in logic or nonstandard argument strategies, and only tangential relationship to politics and history, which would be a weakness since those are vaguely "in" right now. I can't help but imagine that if a student with such a writing sample applies with, say, 155/149/4.5, that paper will be read entirely differently than if he applies with, say, 169/165/6. Am I projecting too much when I imagine that in the first instance, the reader might be less merciful to what seem like errors, whereas in the latter instance the reader might be more inclined to double back on himself and think: Perhaps there is something here I missed the first time, I'll give it a second look? I guess in short I'm saying that I think that besides being a relatively small deciding factor in themselves, I could also see standardized test scores as having kind of a larger ethos effect upon the entire application. If for example, like me, you had a difficult undergrad experience, you might rely on test scores to recast yourself as "troubled smartypants."

Unrelated to last few posts, but jeez, the stats on a lot of the admits so far are pretty intimidating.

I'm anticipating running into a similar problem. Cats are crucial for academic success. I considered starting a "Show Your Pets" (read: cats) thread, but didn't want to be that person. I will say, however, that my roommates and I were able to make the landlord believe we had no cats when we had three. Whenever they did inspection, we'd clean up and stuff the cats into a car and one of us would go on a cat drive around town until it was over. You'll work something out.

Going off on a slight tangent here, but does anyone else prefer not to date fellow academics? My reaction anytime I've gotten romantic with a fellow gay academic--especially if he's in the humanities--has been to bro out and be like DUDE GET OFF MY TURF. My current boyfriend writes screenplays and is into film, but he feels far enough away where like I have my interests and he has his. In theory, that's possible within the discipline too, but anytime I've dated another academic, I've mostly felt uncomfortable, probably because he brings to light insecurities I have about myself or something like that. (Am I that boring/obnoxious when I talk about my research?)