FALL 2020 - Film & Media/Cinema Studies + African American/African Diaspora Studies

[WallaceShawn]

17 hours ago, anselben said:

@WallaceShawn @ericanei congrats on your acceptances!!

I just received a rejection email from Uchicago’s CMS program, forwarded to the MAPH. But with at least one offer currently I will have to pass on that. Still waiting to hear back from Pittsburgh and Brown. Brown’s results don’t seem to come out till the end of February - mid March so looks like it’s on to more waiting!

In the exact same boat. Rejection and forward to MAPH, waiting on Brown, Pittsburgh, Harvard and Yale. But Madison was probably my top choice anyway, so I'm happy.

[ToffeeCoffee]

Hoping this is the week to start receiving some decisions. Someone posted an acceptance (on GradCafe results) to Univ. of Texas at Austin’s Cinema & Media Studies program. Good luck to everyone, as I’m sure most decisions will be out by end of February. ??

[WallaceShawn]

Hahaha the MCM rejection scorched earth. Oh Brown.

[ericanei]

1 hour ago, WallaceShawn said:

Hahaha the MCM rejection scorched earth. Oh Brown.

haha im glad it's over i think? like a band-aid 

[ToffeeCoffee]

25 minutes ago, ericanei said:

haha im glad it's over i think? like a band-aid 

Looks like rejections were released in waves last year. Do you think more notifications are coming in the next weeks? Doesn't look like they were all sent at once. Ugh, the agony.

[nuefgo09]

meanwhile, I have yet to receive any notification... ugh the wait

[ToffeeCoffee]

2 hours ago, nuefgo09 said:

meanwhile, I have yet to receive any notification... ugh the wait

Same ?

[anselben]

No notice on my end from brown either.

[nuefgo09]

Has anyone been in contact with Brown?

[ericanei]

They do seem to do a waitlist, based on previous years' info so not all is lost I think - for everyone who hasn't heard back yet

Not sure how relevant, but I did notice that someone posted an acceptance early last week:

[anselben]

18 hours ago, ericanei said:

They do seem to do a waitlist, based on previous years' info so not all is lost I think - for everyone who hasn't heard back yet

Not sure how relevant, but I did notice that someone posted an acceptance early last week:

Huh, I did not see that. Just received my rejection from Pittsburgh via postal. Now brown is all that’s left! Looks like I may be heading to Minnesota. 

[ToffeeCoffee]

So.....Can anyone speak to their POI relationships?

Who had no established relationship with a POI when they submitted their application?

The humanities appears to be very different from the math and science fields, where potential students are “interviewed” for a lab/research position. Wondering what everyone’s experience has been thus far with regard to this...

 

[43pennsylvanian]

6 hours ago, ToffeeCoffee said:

So.....Can anyone speak to their POI relationships?

Who had no established relationship with a POI when they submitted their application?

The humanities appears to be very different from the math and science fields, where potential students are “interviewed” for a lab/research position. Wondering what everyone’s experience has been thus far with regard to this...

 

•  

I did not contact anyone before applying, and I even got accepted without an interview. In the science, the nature of lab/research changed annually and it is more difficult to be updated with availability. In the humanities, most professors work on a project for years, or even decades so it is easy to identify their areas. Most of the time, they are writing a book. For example, the majority of the faculty at UC-Irvine has a strong emphasis on critical theory (many of them work with postcolonial theory and gender studies) while Pittsburgh is now a rising institution for genre studies with a strong focus on horror films. Of course, there are people who work on your field everywhere, but each school has its signature emphasis. 

Also, labs get their funding through different sources every year, so their research interests can change a lot. I know at my school, the engineering school just got a big funding from the army, which made it a hot place for students who wanted to work on drones.  

I guess what you are asking is whether if establishing a relationship with a POI is necessary for admission in the humanities? It is true in Europe and Canada that you should always reach out to a faculty first before applying. I know a few schools in Canada even listed faculties who were accepting graduate students on their website. However, in the U.S. it's not a must. I know many people who got accepted without having talked to a POI. 

I'm not opposing to the idea that a student should reach out to a faculty, but I think they should only do so when they have a very specific question that they cannot find the answer anywhere else. I don't think building a relationship with a potential advisor will increase your chances of getting admitted, because the admission committee is on rotation every year (at least to a few schools that I know of). 

[ToffeeCoffee]

1 hour ago, 43pennsylvanian said:

I did not contact anyone before applying, and I even got accepted without an interview. In the science, the nature of lab/research changed annually and it is more difficult to be updated with availability. In the humanities, most professors work on a project for years, or even decades so it is easy to identify their areas. Most of the time, they are writing a book. For example, the majority of the faculty at UC-Irvine has a strong emphasis on critical theory (many of them work with postcolonial theory and gender studies) while Pittsburgh is now a rising institution for genre studies with a strong focus on horror films. Of course, there are people who work on your field everywhere, but each school has its signature emphasis. 

Also, labs get their funding through different sources every year, so their research interests can change a lot. I know at my school, the engineering school just got a big funding from the army, which made it a hot place for students who wanted to work on drones.  

I guess what you are asking is whether if establishing a relationship with a POI is necessary for admission in the humanities? It is true in Europe and Canada that you should always reach out to a faculty first before applying. I know a few schools in Canada even listed faculties who were accepting graduate students on their website. However, in the U.S. it's not a must. I know many people who got accepted without having talked to a POI. 

I'm not opposing to the idea that a student should reach out to a faculty, but I think they should only do so when they have a very specific question that they cannot find the answer anywhere else. I don't think building a relationship with a potential advisor will increase your chances of getting admitted, because the admission committee is on rotation every year (at least to a few schools that I know of). 

Thank you! Those were my thoughts exactly, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just assuming based on such a small sample of friends in the humanities. Most of my friends, who are in doctorate program, are in the science and math fields; so their experience with faculty is very different during the application and admissions process. I’ve heard from some humanities folks that they didn’t know any professors beforehand, and from others that they had a professor advocating for them.

This is my second year applying to doctorate programs, so I feel like I’ve learned sooo much about the process along the way. I guess it really is such a mixed bag of things that contribute to the final decision on whether an applicant is accepted or not.

Shrug. Back to waiting. ?
 

 

[ztshin]

I'll second @43pennsylvanian

From my personal experience, all the schools that I got acceptances or interviews from are those I had no communication or whatsoever before. But some Canadian programs do strongly recommend the applicants to build a relationship with your potential advisors beforehand. 

[ncan360]

Has anybody heard from the combined programs in Film Studies at Yale? Art History / Film Studies, East Asian/Film studies, etc? 

[WallaceShawn]

Nope. I applied English/Film Studies. The English results went up a week or two ago, so I assume they've moved on to the Film section. I think I saw an acceptance last year for the end of February. 

[Nope!]

On 2/12/2020 at 1:40 PM, ToffeeCoffee said:

So.....Can anyone speak to their POI relationships?

Who had no established relationship with a POI when they submitted their application?

The humanities appears to be very different from the math and science fields, where potential students are “interviewed” for a lab/research position. Wondering what everyone’s experience has been thus far with regard to this...

Hi! I was in the cycle last season, and got accepted to (and am currently attending) UT Austin for media studies (PhD).

I had no prior relationships with my POIs - I, however, was a bit of a "known quantity" because my two thesis readers (who were also two LoR writers) both went to UT. Not that that connection really matters - another person in my cohort had absolutely no connection to UT, while another person did their MA there. 

All in all, admissions cycles are a total crapshoot to begin with, and I don't really think a relationship with a POI matters too much one way or the other. 

Best of luck, everybody! 

Edited February 18, 2020 by IBrakeForVanJohnson

[ToffeeCoffee]

6 minutes ago, IBrakeForVanJohnson said:

Hi! I was in the cycle last season, and got accepted to (and am currently attending) UT Austin for media studies (PhD).

I had no prior relationships with my POIs - I, however, was a bit of a "known quantity" because my two thesis readers (who were also two LoR writers) both went to UT. Not that that connection really matters - another person in my cohort had absolutely no connection to UT, while another person did their MA there. 

All in all, admissions cycles are a total crapshoot to begin with, and I don't really think a relationship with a POI matters too much one way or the other. 

Best of luck, everybody! 

Thank you!

[WallaceShawn]

Welp, there's Yale finished. I think that was the only place that was competing with the acceptances I have for me.

[ToffeeCoffee]

Guess we’re just waiting on UCLA and NYU. Not sure if anyone applied to those programs? Any other programs people are waiting on? I think decisions come out around March/April. 

[ncan360]

Anybody heard from Toronto Cinema Studies? 

[ztshin]

On 2/22/2020 at 1:25 PM, ToffeeCoffee said:

Guess we’re just waiting on UCLA and NYU. Not sure if anyone applied to those programs? Any other programs people are waiting on? I think decisions come out around March/April. 

One of my cohorts got an interview from UCLA yesterday. I'm still waiting on some Canadian schools.

[ToffeeCoffee]

On 2/25/2020 at 5:44 PM, ztshin said:

One of my cohorts got an interview from UCLA yesterday. I'm still waiting on some Canadian schools.

They actually decided not to interview this year, but sent out interview notifications for some reason. Decisions will be sent out in the coming weeks. 

[clarac]

On 2/7/2020 at 7:22 AM, Cjhawley said:

VCU, Media, Art, and Text, nothing

 

 have you heard from MATX yet?