2021 Applicants

[Cordelipup]

4 hours ago, DanArndtWrites said:

One more (Illinois State extended their deadline) but the anxiety is setting in. I keep saying I'm prepared (I applied to fewer schools than normal, it's more competitive than normal, etc.) but it's still worrying. But the prospect of another round of applications (a third one for me if it were to happen) is kind of anxiety-inducing as well.

 

Also some schools admit in weird time scales so hearing nothing doesn't necessarily mean bad news

Does anyone have this same feeling, that the pool will be more competitive than normal? I've been concerned about this as well.

[Cloudbury]

Wondering if Stanford's English department conducts interviews... 

[lingc35]

44 minutes ago, isabelj said:

I did, though I have yet to receive a follow up message. I truly have no idea how to interpret it, so of course I'm assuming the worst... Did you receive confirmation?

Also, don't let my over the top anxiety freak you out, and good luck!

I just got confirmed for an interview with two faculty members...now the real anxiety begins 

[queenofcarrotflowers]

1 hour ago, Cloudbury said:

Wondering if Stanford's English department conducts interviews... 

from what I can tell (someone correct me if I’m wrong!) they did last year, but it was for the first time in a while (they did not for many previous years), and they did not conduct them for all admits. 

[WildeThing]

7 hours ago, jkv152 said:

I'm starting to see calls for acceptances for some schools. Do you all usually assume that if you haven't received a call for an interview or an acceptance, it's usually a rejection? Or do you hold out hope. Curious to know how you all interpret it.

Saw this and figured I’d add my two cents from my experience in previous cycles: for your own well-being assume every non-acceptance is a rejection but do not commit to anything until you have officially heard from everywhere. Keeping your hopes up can make you basically experience rejection for a single school multiple times, but you also don’t want to be the person who got off a secret waitlist last minute but has already committed.

Edited January 21, 2021 by WildeThing

[A Small Raven]

How common is it for English PhD programs to conduct interviews? Does it generally vary depending on school to school? Does applying with an MA make a difference as to whether they conduct an interview, as opposed to applying directly out of undergrad?

Naturally just freaking out with anxiety waiting to hear back (AKA checking my email every ten minutes) and wondering what's next. 

Applied to Boston College, UNC Chapel Hill, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, University of Denver and UT Knoxville. 

[Kapol-in]

4 hours ago, Lighthouse Lana said:

Okay... did anyone just get a weird message from Syracuse about financial aid?? I usually wouldn't think anything of it (just another generic infographic), but this message made my palms a bit sweaty: "After you're admitted to Syracuse for graduate/professional study, you'll receive instructions for accessing MySlice, your secure virtual gateway to life at Syracuse. Your MySlice Financial Aid To Do List will house your Syracuse University Graduate Financial Aid Application and requirements." Anyone else get this message? I'm 99.9% it means literally nothing, but now I'm jumping to wild anger at their AUDACITY to play with my mind like that.

Got the same type of email but for UOregon, pretty sure it means nothing, especially since I got the email quickly after I barely applied. 

[Warelin]

42 minutes ago, CCort said:

How common is it for English PhD programs to conduct interviews? Does it generally vary depending on school to school? Does applying with an MA make a difference as to whether they conduct an interview, as opposed to applying directly out of undergrad?

Most schools don't conduct interviews. From the top of my mind, Duke (Literature), Chicago (their process was explained above!), UMass (because their funding is separate?), Emory, Northeastern, Notre Dame, and Southern Methodist University conduct interviews.

[isabelj]

4 hours ago, lingc35 said:

I just got confirmed for an interview with two faculty members...now the real anxiety begins 

Same. Also freaking out. Good luck! 

[jujubee]

48 minutes ago, Warelin said:

Most schools don't conduct interviews. From the top of my mind, Duke (Literature), Chicago (their process was explained above!), UMass (because their funding is separate?), Emory, Northeastern, Notre Dame, and Southern Methodist University conduct interviews.

I know based on a colleague's experience last year that they only do interviews in Amherst if you're already accepted and looking to be funded by their Writing Center as a TA. But I don't know how this year's *ultra* competitive cycle changes the way adcoms review applications, which might all of a sudden include interviews.

[semiotic_mess]

8 hours ago, Cloudbury said:

Anyone have any idea when Duke will release results? The anxiety is killing me. 

They told me they would release decisions by the end of the month.

[HipsterDoofus]

Anyone else apply to Notre Dame here? I haven't heard anything about interviews, though I think historically they've gone out by now...

[kirbs005]

29 minutes ago, HipsterDoofus said:

though I think historically they've gone out by now...

I didn't apply to Notre Dame, but I'm thinking it's possible everyone's timelines will be different this year. OSU has normally either had results on their website or even sent acceptances via email by now and as far as I can tell there hasn't been a peep (and it's not stressing me out *at all* or anything).

15 hours ago, Cordelipup said:

Does anyone have this same feeling, that the pool will be more competitive than normal?

I'm trying really hard not to think about this, because I can also see a good argument for it being less competitive potentially. I personally know 5-6 people who chose not to apply this year because so many schools shut down admissions or reduced them too much. I also know many people (myself included) who applied to only 1-5 programs instead of 10-20. But there are also people who would have applied to different schools and added others to fill out... so it's a toss up at this point I think, and who knows what the numbers will look like. 

[Bopie5]

2 minutes ago, kirbs005 said:

I'm trying really hard not to think about this, because I can also see a good argument for it being less competitive potentially. I personally know 5-6 people who chose not to apply this year because so many schools shut down admissions or reduced them too much. I also know many people (myself included) who applied to only 1-5 programs instead of 10-20. But there are also people who would have applied to different schools and added others to fill out... so it's a toss up at this point I think, and who knows what the numbers will look like. 

Okay, with the disclaimer that absolutely everything I am about to say is total conjecture (aka, I have little to no data, quantitatively or anecdotally)...

I think that because of our near-total lack of information, it's actually pretty easy to make the case for either side here. For instance, one could argue that the programs who paused admissions for this cycle logically make this cycle more competitive (more or the same number of people applying to fewer programs). However, there's no way to know if programs pausing also led some applicants to pause, which might balance it out. Right now, we have a sense of how many programs paused admissions, but there's no tangible way to map how that impacted the applicant pool (yet). Like @kirbs005 says, the pandemic caused some people to apply to fewer programs (1-5 instead of 10-20), whereas I ended up applying to more programs than I anticipated I would last April (14 instead of 5-6). 

Similarly, if we go off 2008, we might be able to reasonably assume that unemployment and other pandemic-related issues will push more people to apply to grad school. At the same time though, I know a few people who are not interested in applying until they can be sure that they'll be able to safely start their program in person. I think there's a bit of an apples-to-oranges element there.

One could also make the argument that more applicants does not necessarily actually make the pool more competitive. Obviously, numerically it does, but I think it can also depend on your subfield--an influx of c19 applicants might not impact you that much if you're a medievalist and not many more medievalists apply. This also isn't even considering applications that don't make it past the "first round" (if that's how the program does their admissions process).

All this to say, I think we can speculate on this, but we truly cannot know anything until schools share data, if/when they do so. I think there's certainly reason to believe that this cycle is more competitive, like@DanArndtWrites suggests. I think it's also likely that this application cycle will simply be weird. Essentially, I think there's no way for us to know, and the lack of data makes it easy to make a convincing case either way.

I don't know if this is comforting or stressful, but as others have said, please remember we are not our results! As a friend of mine currently in a program told me, an acceptance is personal, but a rejection isn't. Wishing us all good luck, and hoping everyone is managing the anxiety of these next few weeks!

 

[HipsterDoofus]

24 minutes ago, kirbs005 said:

I didn't apply to Notre Dame, but I'm thinking it's possible everyone's timelines will be different this year. OSU has normally either had results on their website or even sent acceptances via email by now and as far as I can tell there hasn't been a peep (and it's not stressing me out *at all* or anything).

 

I'm hoping that's the case! Also, not to add to your stress, (I'm an anxious mess myself) but someone did post on the results that they checked the OSU portal and they were accepted, so it looks like there might be some decisions rolling in on that front. Sadly, when I looked, I'm still in the purgatory known as "pending."

[kirbs005]

5 minutes ago, HipsterDoofus said:

I'm hoping that's the case! Also, not to add to your stress, (I'm an anxious mess myself) but someone did post on the results that they checked the OSU portal and they were accepted, so it looks like there might be some decisions rolling in on that front. Sadly, when I looked, I'm still in the purgatory known as "pending."

I just saw that - I'm also still sitting at "pending" - fingers crossed!

[cassidyaxx]

On 1/21/2021 at 7:11 AM, HipsterDoofus said:

Anyone else apply to Notre Dame here? I haven't heard anything about interviews, though I think historically they've gone out by now...

I applied and was thinking the same. However, I definitely agree with Kirbs and bopie that timelines may be looking a bit different this year. 

As for a competitive cycle, the way I've been looking at it is that every cycle is competitive. Even if this cycle is more (or less!) competitive, the application process is grueling and a lot of the time, great applicants will be accepted and rejected from schools. I don't know if thinking that way necessarily makes me feel any better, as it still worries me tremendously, but I agree with bopie that an acceptance is personal, a rejection isn't!

[arrowseeker]

I checked on the portal found I got accepted to OSU! I wasn't expecting much because I had been making changes to my SOP and writing sample until the last minute, so it's a pleasant surprise  

[HipsterDoofus]

1 minute ago, arrowseeker said:

I checked on the portal found I got accepted to OSU! I wasn't expecting much because I had been making changes to my SOP and writing sample until the last minute, so it's a pleasant surprise  

Congrats, I'm happy to hear your efforts paid off!

[HipsterDoofus]

13 minutes ago, kirbs005 said:

I just saw that - I'm also still sitting at "pending" - fingers crossed!

For sure! Hopefully we'll both hear sooner rather than later.

[arrowseeker]

6 minutes ago, HipsterDoofus said:

Congrats, I'm happy to hear your efforts paid off!

 Thank you! I hope you'll soon get the good news as well!

[AnxiousKnuckles]

18 minutes ago, arrowseeker said:

I checked on the portal found I got accepted to OSU! I wasn't expecting much because I had been making changes to my SOP and writing sample until the last minute, so it's a pleasant surprise  

Hey, congratulations!! I'm sure this was well-deserved! This indeed brings some hope. If you don't mind answering, were you the person who posted on the results page?

[AnxiousKnuckles]

Hi, I am new here. I am not one who can adequately verbalize their anxiety. That's why I have been restraining myself from participating in this forum (the community here, however, with its positivity has alleviated much of my tension). But now, I just cannot bear this dreadful waiting...especially seeing the "accepted" post for OSU on the results page (where my application status is still "pending") made my anxiety skyrocket. Does OSU send out acceptances first and then rejections? Does this mean I should be preparing for a sure rejection? I'm freaking out.

[arrowseeker]

1 minute ago, AnxiousKnuckles said:

Hey, congratulations!! I'm sure this was well-deserved! This indeed brings some hope. If you don't mind answering, were you the person who posted on the results page?

Thank you!  I checked the portal after seeing the results page, so I guess the person who first posted their acceptance isn't on this forum. I haven't received any emails yet though! 

[HipsterDoofus]

17 minutes ago, AnxiousKnuckles said:

Hi, I am new here. I am not one who can adequately verbalize their anxiety. That's why I have been restraining myself from participating in this forum (the community here, however, with its positivity has alleviated much of my tension). But now, I just cannot bear this dreadful waiting...especially seeing the "accepted" post for OSU on the results page (where my application status is still "pending") made my anxiety skyrocket. Does OSU send out acceptances first and then rejections? Does this mean I should be preparing for a sure rejection? I'm freaking out.

I would guess that's how they do it, but there's always the possibility of being waitlisted, too! Hang in there