1Q84

final destination

Ah, it's okay... I guess we can't always think rationally when we get a rejection. Sorry if I was a little too snarky.

I think it might help to recognize that just because you have great numbers in your app and that you've received acceptances from very reputable schools does not mean that you should simply be handed an acceptance to an MA program. Perhaps chalking the rejection up to the school being turned off by your "Ivory Tower" interests isn't the best way to think about it either, if you're concerned about why people are interpreting your post as entitlement. Not to mention, on the whole, it's just very insulting to the people at UCSC.

You were saying?

So this is how I'm feeling about my constant wait listing: https://vimeo.com/120993210

And the winner is...

I teach a 2 sections this semester and it's a real grind, especially combined with work at the writing center on campus and two grad courses. Oy. Would love if people who received funding info could update the spreadsheet! I see most of them are from Fall 2013.

Thanks, all Congrats to windrainfireandbooks on the full admittance and awesome fellowship! (Frankly, I'm a little torn about UT anyway... not sure how I feel about returning to the land of ice and snow...)

I have been placed on wait list at U Toronto! Edit for a little more info:

Just wait until the official NYU rejections come out!

Congrats! A colleague from my department matriculated at Brandeis last year! She's loving it.

Ah, thanks! I only remembered it being in the mid-late 20s of February. Well, any second now, folks!

I'd definitely find the retake policy. Since you said that most of what you studied didn't appear on the test, I'll offer an unrelated piece of advice that I've offered in other GRE threads: maybe look into studying some rudimentary Latin. Knowing common prefixes, suffixes, and recognizable etymological origins can help you to puzzle out and "study widely" for vocabulary and reading comprehension questions that might otherwise make you panic or stump you. Obviously, not saying you should learn how to translate all of Cicero but some rudimentary knowledge may help. I don't know about this. Obviously WS and SOP are far more important pieces of the puzzle but what I've noticed this cycle has been how quantitative aspects of one's app seem to make the difference between acceptance/wait list and wait list/rejection (not to mention funding). Not at all negligible, when it comes down it. If OP has the time to re-study and re-take, I'd say go for it.

First of all, I'm hoping that the $1000 you paid for Manhattan prep included a "improved score guarantee" clause. I know that Princeton Review has that, so if your scores are unsatisfactory after going through their program, you can retake for free. That might be something to look into so that you won't have to pay as much for this new round of test prep that you're about to undergo. As for your psychological issues, have you sought treatment? Blacking out and being hospitalized because of test anxiety is not something that any prep program can or should handle. Maybe seek therapy and find medication that might help you approach the test in a focused and calm manner.

I'm beginning to think Apppplication has Camille Paglia'd us all and is just saying random, fallacious crap for the sake of pushing buttons.

Great to hear and best of luck to the movement at your school. I think national solidarity through awareness is so important in order to get the gears of progress turning. I was bitterly disappointed by the intense opposition and campaign of intimidation that the administration waged against adjunct unionization at my school last year. I won't be here after this year but I'm hoping the existing adjuncts will regroup, strategize and launch another campaign soon.

Argh what's the deal with the U Toronto radio silence. Historically, they've notified within these past two days. They're the only school I applied to that haven't sent out anything yet. Edit: oop, didn't see this edit. It better be coming tomorrow!

If you're looking for some info to share with students, this article has some great statistics: http://www.salon.com/2014/02/16/the_wal_mart_ization_of_higher_education_how_young_professors_are_getting_screwed/

That's great! Would love to see it when you get a chance. Sadly, my institution has not recognized it at all, from what I can see, which is a shame because I know some tenured faculty were very supportive of adjunct unionization attempts from last year.

I'm not sure I agree with your last statement. What was Appp's purpose of bringing up transphobic violence in relation to reputational hiring biases in academia aside from trying to derail the conversation or minimize the importance of what's being discussed in this thread? Being worried about getting a TT job and caring very deeply about stopping transphobic violence are not mutually exclusive. It's ridiculous to even suggest that if one cares about getting a TT job, they don't care about anything else. Unfortunately, Appp wasn't making the argument that you so eloquently expressed here. He/she is saying that the two concepts are separate while you're saying that they're intertwined, which is absolutely on the nose.

(crappy school computer erased original post, so this might be a little terse). I was dismayed to only find out about this event late last night, which prevented me from being able to adequately plan for any action today. As I understand it, NAWD is meant to be awareness-raising action only, so in that I think organizers have both failed (I didn't know about it until last night) and succeeded (main goals have been pushing us to inform undergraduates/general public). Here's what I did: I didn't tell students class was cancelled but when they arrived, I informed them that it was NAWD and talked for a bit about adjunct issues and how they affect higher education (and thus, their education). I fielded questions and allowed any pushback. Then I "refused to teach" and allowed them to leave (they were pretty happy about that last part). So kind of a half walkout. Most students, surprise surprise, didn't care much (most hadn't even ever seen the word adjunct before) but some came up afterwards and said they were glad to be made aware of the issue, which was comforting. Anyone else take action today? Some good examples here: http://nationaladjunct.tumblr.com/page/2/

Well, you're resorting to strawman arguments and fallacious comparisons ("Hey you can't complain about your broken down car because people are getting bombed in Syria!") now, so I'm not really sure where you want to head with this. I'll take it as a sign to drop the debate.

I think you kind of missed my point. Yes, all job candidates, regardless of alma mater, will have difficulty finding a TT job simply because of the shrinking number of positions. I don't think anyone is denying that and that's an obvious fact. Does that mean that we should ignore the inequalities that rank and reputation create? No. The point that upper-tier schools hire within themselves only is a real and concerning issue because it reinforces and reproduces the exact types of concerns that you find ridiculous. So I agree that the things that you point out are ridiculous in theory. They shouldn't exist as concerns for anyone. Nonetheless, they do exist because of real material conditions in the hierarchical, reputation, networking-based job market out there and I don't really get why you're so invested in flattening the distinction between all candidates when it's undeniable that those distinctions exist. I don't think it actually helps anyone, least of all in changing the system in some way, to simply declare, "NONE OF US WILL GET JOBS! HURRAY!" You seem to think that just ignoring these inequalities and "not worrying" about them will make them go away. This is stating the obvious and something that I'm pretty sure every single person in this thread would cosign. Talking about reputational hiring biases is not mutually exclusive to this statement. Again, it seems like you're hoping that that will become a performative statement--just by acknowledging that all universities do great work (which, I believe we all do already), and by stating that ANY TT job would be great, it shall be so. Unfortunately, that's not how systemic discrimination and inequality go about being fixed. Edit to add: And yes, in case this wall of text did not make it clear: I'm well-aware that candidates from Ivies and top-tier schools don't simply sweep gloriously into TT jobs. I, nor anyone in this thread, is making that ridiculous claim.

I don't recall reading such a simplistic point of view in this thread. It was pretty much established from the get-go that top-tier graduates tend to find TT jobs within those same top-tier schools (which generally bar graduates from outside that tier), whereas those from lower-tier schools have some success finding TT jobs in non-Top 20 schools (where top-tier graduates tend to have a little more difficulty because of so-called "anti-prestige bias"). You're right to call out the unjustified Ivy-hate flowing through some arguments here but that and the availability of TT jobs are two separate debates that you seem to be conflating. Yes. This.