Spanish 2021

[senorbrightside]

May the odds ever be in your favour @presidentialpudding February seems to be the target month. 

In the end I applied to Durham (in the UK), McGill and Toronto in Canada and UVA, Washington, Penn State and Nebraska. 

What about everyone else? 

[presidentialpudding]

11 hours ago, senorbrightside said:

May the odds ever be in your favour @presidentialpudding February seems to be the target month. 

In the end I applied to Durham (in the UK), McGill and Toronto in Canada and UVA, Washington, Penn State and Nebraska. 

What about everyone else? 

That’s a nice mix! I applied for Georgetown, UIUC, UIC, UC Davis, U Arizona and U Miami so no overlaps with you unfortunately. I applied for linguistics track. 

[senorbrightside]

Look at it this way, we're not competing for any of the same spots  

I'm literature myself, but I appreciate and support all my linguistics people. We all love Spanish. 

[presidentialpudding]

Received my first interview invite today! Makes it all feel a bit more real and the department is absolutely lovely from the communications I have had with them. 

[senorbrightside]

¡Enhorabuena!

 Can I ask which one of your excellent schools has realised your own excellence? I understand if you don't want to say.

I have news of my own. I was accepted to Durham, but without funding because it's the UK, so now I have to apply for an important, extremely competitive scholarship for all humanities Ph.Ds amongst eight or schools in hopes of getting funding. I'm excited for the acceptance, but trying not to get my hopes up for getting the scholarship. 

[poetrylover]

@presidentialpudding @senorbrightside

That is amazing, congrats & good luck to you both!!

Edited January 15, 2021 by poetrylover

[poetrylover]

Just received exciting news as well! Received an email to schedule an interview for next week! It is one of my top choices, and I am too excited, but nervous too! Does anyone have any interview tips?

[senorbrightside]

¡Enhorabuena!

Be yourself. Be prepared to talk about your research or the research you want to do and why, what interests you about their research, things like that. Know your SOP well as they may ask things about it. Make sure Zoom or Skype are up to date beforehand. Be prepared for the "describe yourself" and "best/worst qualities" and "tell me a time" type questions. It'll probably be bilingual. I think for the one interview I had for my M.A., they asked about my hobbies, and we started talking about paella (I was living in Valencia at the time). 

Anyone else have any interview advice? What did I miss?

Edited January 16, 2021 by senorbrightside

[presidentialpudding]

On 1/15/2021 at 5:52 PM, senorbrightside said:

¡Enhorabuena!

 Can I ask which one of your excellent schools has realised your own excellence? I understand if you don't want to say.

I have news of my own. I was accepted to Durham, but without funding because it's the UK, so now I have to apply for an important, extremely competitive scholarship for all humanities Ph.Ds amongst eight or schools in hopes of getting funding. I'm excited for the acceptance, but trying not to get my hopes up for getting the scholarship. 

¡Gracias amigo! I won't say publicly just so as to not jinx it. I'm weirdly nervous and looking forward to it as I really like the program. That's great news about the Durham acceptance! Mucha suerte with the scholarship application!!

[nowherelit]

Anyone claim the Harvard interview?

[coffeeortea]

Hey guys! I was active in the Spanish thread last cycle, and am currently  in my first year of a PhD in Span. lit at Princeton. Just wanted to check in and say best of luck to everyone. In terms of interview tips, I'd add that in my experience, the interviews for PhD programs frequently asked me about a favorite or influential book I had read and why, a favorite film, potential projects or areas of interest for the future/for a possible dissertation, as well as a question or two about why I want to go to grad school, where I see myself in the future, and that sort of thing. Generally, they were fairly low-pressure. No grilling or intense interrogations. Pretty much a conversation about your interests! I was asked to talk about my undergrad thesis, to explain more about a possible interest I'd mentioned in my SOP, and to talk about a book I had connected with recently. I mentioned Nada and was asked what I thought was the most memorable scene of the book for me. I believe I was also asked to talk more about my experience going abroad and what I'd learned from it. Most of my interviews were 80-100% in Spanish which I assume is partly because I'm non-native. I heard that some other interviewees who were native Spanish speakers were asked more questions in English than I was. Anyways, just wanted to pop in. Hopefully this will helpful to some of you! Best of luck this cycle! 

[presidentialpudding]

On 1/20/2021 at 1:55 AM, coffeeortea said:

Hey guys! I was active in the Spanish thread last cycle, and am currently  in my first year of a PhD in Span. lit at Princeton. Just wanted to check in and say best of luck to everyone. In terms of interview tips, I'd add that in my experience, the interviews for PhD programs frequently asked me about a favorite or influential book I had read and why, a favorite film, potential projects or areas of interest for the future/for a possible dissertation, as well as a question or two about why I want to go to grad school, where I see myself in the future, and that sort of thing. Generally, they were fairly low-pressure. No grilling or intense interrogations. Pretty much a conversation about your interests! I was asked to talk about my undergrad thesis, to explain more about a possible interest I'd mentioned in my SOP, and to talk about a book I had connected with recently. I mentioned Nada and was asked what I thought was the most memorable scene of the book for me. I believe I was also asked to talk more about my experience going abroad and what I'd learned from it. Most of my interviews were 80-100% in Spanish which I assume is partly because I'm non-native. I heard that some other interviewees who were native Spanish speakers were asked more questions in English than I was. Anyways, just wanted to pop in. Hopefully this will helpful to some of you! Best of luck this cycle! 

This is really helpful, thank you!

[poetrylover]

I received my first acceptance yesterday!!! Even though I do have to hear back from the rest, I am beyond excited because its my top choice! I hope this cycle is going well for everyone!!!☺️

[senorbrightside]

Congrats!

[poetrylover]

Thank you!!! @senorbrightside Good luck to you!

I can't stop refreshing my email. The wait is so stressful

[firefly22]

¡Hola!

Does anyone know when do Berkeley and Stanford start to release decisions? ?  

[sadboi]

6 hours ago, firefly22 said:

¡Hola!

Does anyone know when do Berkeley and Stanford start to release decisions? ?  

Different language of concentration here but I got a notification last week from Stanford to interview later today. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by sadboi

[senorbrightside]

11 hours ago, firefly22 said:

¡Hola!

Does anyone know when do Berkeley and Stanford start to release decisions? ?  

There was 1 or 2 Berkeley decisions for Spanish on the results page: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/

[coffeeortea]

 

On 1/27/2021 at 9:43 PM, firefly22 said:

¡Hola!

Does anyone know when do Berkeley and Stanford start to release decisions? ?  

Not sure how it will go this year, but last year Stanford's decisions were quite late. They sent interview invites on January 27th, the interviews took place between March 4th and March 5th, and I received my decision on March 6th. They may do things differently this year, as last year they did interviews on campus. 

[presidentialpudding]

How is everyone coping with the waiting? I found out yesterday through Reddit that one of my programs has sent out some rejections but I’ve not heard anything. No signs of acceptances on here either so I’ve no idea where I stand tbh. The program I interviewed with has told me they will let me know next week and two of my other programs are also targeting next week for decisions. I’m going to be a nervous wreck in work all week I think lol ? 

[firefly22]

46 minutes ago, coffeeortea said:

 

Not sure how it will go this year, but last year Stanford's decisions were quite late. They sent interview invites on January 27th, the interviews took place between March 4th and March 5th, and I received my decision on March 6th. They may do things differently this year, as last year they did interviews on campus. 

Thank you for your response. I am anxious because I haven't heard anything about Stanford and there is no news on the results page. On the other hand, I was invited to interviews by Princeton and Duke! ?  Any specific tips for Princeton (is one of my top choices)? I'm so nervous!

Edited January 29, 2021 by firefly22

[senorbrightside]

49 minutes ago, presidentialpudding said:

How is everyone coping with the waiting? I found out yesterday through Reddit that one of my programs has sent out some rejections but I’ve not heard anything. No signs of acceptances on here either so I’ve no idea where I stand tbh. The program I interviewed with has told me they will let me know next week and two of my other programs are also targeting next week for decisions. I’m going to be a nervous wreck in work all week I think lol ? 

I'm slowly going insane and have convinced myself I won't get any more acceptances and won't get the funding for the one acceptance I have despite the fact it's still incredibly early, lol.  I'm on reddit but haven't seen anything about Spanish programs at all. 

Fingers crossed you get good news next week! 

[coffeeortea]

47 minutes ago, firefly22 said:

Thank you for your response. I am anxious because I haven't heard anything about Stanford and there is no news on the results page. On the other hand, I was invited to interviews by Princeton and Duke! ?  Any specific tips for Princeton (is one of my top choices)? I'm so nervous!

Congratulations! I don't have any specific tips for Princeton. Just the same as always. Try not to stress too much about it-- interviews in this field are typically dynamic and conversational. It would be really unlikely to be grilled or interrogated or anything like that. Also don't worry about trying to show off or 'prove yourself'-- these professors will always know much more than you, and that's expected. Just try to go into it thinking of it as a conversation!

[presidentialpudding]

The plot thickens with the program which has sent out rejections but no apparent acceptances/waitlist notifications. Someone from the university has been looking up my parents this week on LinkedIn which seems exceedingly strange seeming as we live in another country. They already have the financial info for potential visa processing so they must have got the details from there. So I know that they've been looking at my application this week in some form... 

[presidentialpudding]

Woke up to my first acceptance this morning! Beyond ecstatic! Also the program which I interviewed with a couple of weeks back has sent me a request for financial info for visa processing which can’t be sent until March so I’m assuming that’s at worst a waitlist (hopefully an acceptance)