blueberryscone

I was working with a limited budget for applications, and wanted to go somewhere a) awesome and within driving distance of DC. I have a new job, so if I did apply again, perhaps I'd have more resources, but carpet bombing English departments wasn't in the cards this round.

I think he's squarely in the canon (though I'm used to seeing "English" as a catch-all for "British" when paired with "literature"). Lots of decidedly English writers drew on his work, and I'd put him in the pantheon.

Shut out. Princeton took zero people from its waitlist this year (as was the case last year). I don't think I'm going to do this again. I put out a badass application, and can't think of what I'd have done differently. Might be time to double down at work and finally declare myself graduated from all forms of school.

Finally heard from Maryland. Waitlist now officially my only remaining non-rejection.

"If you haven't heard by now, you're probably on a waitlist." --Maryland ...that is literally the least helpful possible response

Hey--I'm seeing a lot of Maryland activity on the results page. Anyone else still waiting to hear? I'm nervous that there was an issue with a "missing" transcript (actually my junior year abroad program, which is included on my regular undergrad transcript), even though I spoke to them about it by phone early last month...

I don't think they're accepting people from the general pool. At least one of the people accepted in the last week later posted that it was from the waitlist, and s/he had been notified earlier about being waitlisted.

Whenever I think about this, it drives me nuts, because I have no idea. I have zero acceptances, but I still feel good about my application. I was just coming off an MA program that I completely pwned, and had presented at several conferences and published a paper (with another in the pipeline). I had solid undergrad grades, my subject test went great, and while the regular GRE scores weren't stellar, they were fine (710/math/6.0). My writing sample was adapted from my MA dissertation, which won a prize against 100+ others. I researched schools ahead of time, picked the ones that seemed like good matches, and contacted professors with similar research interests. I just chalk it up to a numbers game so that I don't tear my hair out.

I'll be there, and you'll recognize me by my compulsive email-checking and stubborn avoidance of PhD application-related topics.

UMD said they'd notify everyone within two weeks to me, too...three weeks ago. *Sigh.*

Neat! I guess I've given up on the holdouts, but I'm taking movement on any and all waitlists as a good thing.

Hmm--anyone want to claim those UVA acceptances? Was that off the waitlist, or out of the blue?

Hey, I went to UCL for their Shakespeare MA program and ended up loving it. London is a fantastic city--and yes, it's expensive, but if you cook for yourself and don't live downtown, it's completely reasonable--and UCL's English faculty is unreal. Every time I went to the library to research something, I came across something written by a UCL professor. My favorite parts of the program weren't what I'd anticipated--one of the best parts was being within walking distance of the British Library, which, when you're dealing with old books and manuscripts, is so, so helpful. I also liked that you can take a bus or train from London to anywhere, which ended up making things a lot easier when I chose a dissertation topic that involved traveling to archives around England, and was glad that the UCL brand name is well-known and respected, at least in England. It took me a bit of time to warm to the program, largely because the other students were mostly (though not all) right out of college, and only a few of us intended to immediately apply to PhD programs. But once I figured out how to ask for and pursue support from the faculty (rather than expecting it to appear before me, like it had in my small liberal arts college), the resources of the department really came through. In fact, if things don't work out this application cycle, I may apply to return to UCL for a PhD. The reason I didn't try to stay on straight through was that I've heard it can be tougher to find a US job with a UK degree, but it may be worth rolling the dice on that to be at an institution with UCL's firepower. The city of Edinburgh is super cool, but only London is London. I don't know anything about Edinburgh's English Dept.

Yep. No nail biting here, but I've been stress-cooking and watching terrible, terrible TV. I've gotten through two seasons of Supernatural, and there's about 5 pounds of cookie dough, 2 weeks worth of waffles, and enough chili to feed an army in my freezer...

Ugh. I just tried to call UVA but no one picked up. Metaphor=real life.