2021 Application Discussion - Film & Media Studies / Cinema Studies

[Aciah]

Congratulations to all who have received acceptances! 

I was wondering if anyone accepted to Columbia University's film and media studies MA program received the official letter recently... Thank you 

[snipsnapsnout]

On 3/9/2021 at 8:31 PM, andylee0427 said:

Has anybody applied to Iowa film school?

Hi there, yes, I applied to University of Iowa (Film & Video Production MFA). I had an interview last week, they said decisions would go out within a couple weeks.

[Kim2016]

Anyone here can claim the UW rejection posted on the results page? Was it a standard rejection letter? 

[andylee0427]

5 hours ago, snipsnapsnout said:

Hi there, yes, I applied to University of Iowa (Film & Video Production MFA). I had an interview last week, they said decisions would go out within a couple weeks.

Good luck to you! I applied for PhD program, so fingers crossed!

[Kaharim]

16 hours ago, Kim2016 said:

Anyone here can claim the UW rejection posted on the results page? Was it a standard rejection letter? 

I mean, the rejection in the results page is definitely not mine, but I received a pretty standard rejection letter (although it is way nicer that some I have seen around here):

 

"Dear ...,

Thank you for your application to the University of Washington Graduate School.

I am sorry to inform you that your application was not among the few that were selected for admission. The number and quality of graduate applicants to the University of Washington are extraordinary, and these difficult decisions are made after careful consideration of all applicants. In many cases, enrollment restrictions and other factors limit our ability to accept all qualified applicants.

Thank you for the considerable time and effort that you invested into the application process. I hope that you will be able to make alternate plans to pursue a graduate education, and wish you well in your future endeavors."

 

I actually value that they put some effort in recognizing the applicants' work in their application and that they highlight the existence of external factors that determine acceptances. Because they do. And most of the time we forget about them.

 

[phdinoverthinking]

I agree that UW sent out the most thoughtful rejection letter ? 

If anyone has any insight on University of Toronto’s admission situation please share. I am on the waitlist and wondering what my chances are. 
 

[andylee0427]

9 hours ago, Kaharim said:

I mean, the rejection in the results page is definitely not mine, but I received a pretty standard rejection letter (although it is way nicer that some I have seen around here):

 

"Dear ...,

Thank you for your application to the University of Washington Graduate School.

I am sorry to inform you that your application was not among the few that were selected for admission. The number and quality of graduate applicants to the University of Washington are extraordinary, and these difficult decisions are made after careful consideration of all applicants. In many cases, enrollment restrictions and other factors limit our ability to accept all qualified applicants.

Thank you for the considerable time and effort that you invested into the application process. I hope that you will be able to make alternate plans to pursue a graduate education, and wish you well in your future endeavors."

 

I actually value that they put some effort in recognizing the applicants' work in their application and that they highlight the existence of external factors that determine acceptances. Because they do. And most of the time we forget about them.

 

I also got the exact letter template for the PhD admission, for which I got rejected. We did our best...

[Kim2016]

Got the same template rejection letter from UW today. Very disappointing as this concludes my PhD admissions cycle 6/7 rejection and 1 suspended (NYU)

I hope the rest of the members in this forum will have at least one offer and will be able to start your academic journey. 

It's been good sharing intel with all of you throughout this cycle.

 

[Kaharim]

9 hours ago, Kim2016 said:

Got the same template rejection letter from UW today. Very disappointing as this concludes my PhD admissions cycle 6/7 rejection and 1 suspended (NYU)

I hope the rest of the members in this forum will have at least one offer and will be able to start your academic journey. 

It's been good sharing intel with all of you throughout this cycle.

 

I am so sorry to read this Kim and I can definitely empathize with your situation. I wish you the best of lucks next cycle and encourage you to invest the rest of the year in publishing articles, presenting papers in conferences, etc. to increase your possibilities of being accepted next round! Don't feel like this is your fault at all. We're possibly going through the hardest application cycle since 2008 or so

[andylee0427]

14 hours ago, Kim2016 said:

Got the same template rejection letter from UW today. Very disappointing as this concludes my PhD admissions cycle 6/7 rejection and 1 suspended (NYU)

I hope the rest of the members in this forum will have at least one offer and will be able to start your academic journey. 

It's been good sharing intel with all of you throughout this cycle.

 

Very sorry to hear that. But don't give up just yet. If possible, you should try again next year. This year has been massively competitive due to pandemic, notwithstanding the fact that most US film studies programs usually accept five applicants (compared to 15 in social science field). I salute you for at least trying. If you're gonna try again, you should take the time to hone your SOP and other documents to their best form possible. Good luck on your endeavor!

[graceful]

Hello everyone - hope everyone’s hanging in there, it’s been a crazy year and admissions cycle. For those of you that received offers, how much of your funding was based on TA-ships? I will be expected to teach every semester for all 5 years and wondering if that’s abnormal/more or less standard.

[pjbos]

Anyone here accepted or waitlisted for UT Austin's Media Studies PhD (RTF)?

[snipsnapsnout]

On 3/15/2021 at 9:35 PM, andylee0427 said:

Good luck to you! I applied for PhD program, so fingers crossed!

I got my letter of acceptance from Iowa today! So thrilled!

[Anoosh93]

On 3/24/2021 at 11:41 AM, pjbos said:

Anyone here accepted or waitlisted for UT Austin's Media Studies PhD (RTF)?

Hey, I got waitlisted. Were you waitlisted as well. It's so weird that everyone I know of has either been rejected or waitlisted.

[pjbos]

13 hours ago, Anoosh93 said:

Hey, I got waitlisted. Were you waitlisted as well. It's so weird that everyone I know of has either been rejected or waitlisted.

Yes, waitlisted as well. They had said the waitlist was small, but the results page has me thinking otherwise.

[turanfly]

Hello everyone!

I'm thinking about applying this coming Fall cycle and I wanted to know if anyone has been able to make a connection with someone currently in this kind of program? I had a very frank talk with one of my professors and they basically told me that right now is not a good time to be a PhD student. They were also very frank in saying, "I'm not entirely sure I would do it all over again." Has anyone else received the same kind of feedback? My friends at various doctoral programs offer the same warning. Kind of sucks, but I rather make an informed decision. Thank you!

Edited March 29, 2021 by turanfly

[andylee0427]

9 hours ago, turanfly said:

Hello everyone!

I'm thinking about applying this coming Fall cycle and I wanted to know if anyone has been able to make a connection with someone currently in this kind of program? I had a very frank talk with one of my professors and they basically told me that right now is not a good time to be a PhD student. They were also very frank in saying, "I'm not entirely sure I would do it all over again." Has anyone else received the same kind of feedback? My friends at various doctoral programs offer the same warning. Kind of sucks, but I rather make an informed decision. Thank you!

Hi, I'm glad that you're deciding to embark on a challenging yet rewarding experience of PhD program!

 

I'm just curious. What were the professors' reasons for saying it's not a good time to be a doctoral student? Was it funding, competitiveness, closing of admission cycle, etc.? Also, were your friends all in film studies program to give you the warning? What was their reason? I'd love to know what is their justification. Thanks!

[turanfly]

7 hours ago, andylee0427 said:

Hi, I'm glad that you're deciding to embark on a challenging yet rewarding experience of PhD program!

 

I'm just curious. What were the professors' reasons for saying it's not a good time to be a doctoral student? Was it funding, competitiveness, closing of admission cycle, etc.? Also, were your friends all in film studies program to give you the warning? What was their reason? I'd love to know what is their justification. Thanks!

The professor said that the job market is so bad for PhDs that the labor you put into that degree isn't worth the grim prospective of not having a job after you finish. My friends are not in film studies but they are pursuing humanities degrees - English, Music Composition, etc. I'm looking to corroborate this information with folx who are currently in film studies doctoral programs to gauge how happy they are in their programs and with their decision, but I haven't had any luck in finding someone.

[Maple1eaf]

5 hours ago, turanfly said:

Hello everyone!

I'm thinking about applying this coming Fall cycle and I wanted to know if anyone has been able to make a connection with someone currently in this kind of program? I had a very frank talk with one of my professors and they basically told me that right now is not a good time to be a PhD student. They were also very frank in saying, "I'm not entirely sure I would do it all over again." Has anyone else received the same kind of feedback? My friends at various doctoral programs offer the same warning. Kind of sucks, but I rather make an informed decision. Thank you!

I had a similar conversation with my undergrad advisor back when I was in my second year. I am currently in a master's program for some perspective. I never brought up my interest early on  in eventually applying to phd programs, but my prof could tell i was very intellectually interested in film studies. So when I did eventually tell him, he wasnt surprised though he did give the caveat that he would never advocate for anyone to get a PhD in this academic climate. That said, he has been encouraging and was one of my letter rec writers when i was applying to master's programs. 

 

I think after seeing my full intellectual growth, he seems more supportive and encouraging  in my interest in applying to PhD programs. I have other friends who are currently in PhD programs and/or just recently graduated, and they've all been pretty honest about the harsh realities of attending. Mind you, they are in top ivy league/ivy league level programs and even then, they seem to paint a very drastic picture of what it means to actually attend. My friend who just graduated from MIT a year ago is currently doing his post-doc in Europe, and he has had trouble getting any job interviews. 

 

Like most humanities programs, film studies is very interdisciplinary meaning anyone hypothetically could apply to a PhD program in film studies. One of the professors in my undergrad film department did her undergrad and masters in a STEM related field but ultimately moved to film. This was probably uncommon during her time but not quite so these days. Because of this growing trend of interdisciplinary work in the humanities, we're seeing an influx of applications in nearly every films studies program. And mind you, this is already competitive when the top programs are accepting 3-5 students per cycle. 

 

At this point, it really is a big responsibility of the applicant to be as informed as possible of the pros/cons of attending given that a doctorate/graduating from the best program does not equate to receiving a job in academia. But I do think this needs to be stressed. I have not seen this specifically in film studies, but in other forums online, there are always a couple stories of students being in denial of being unable to attain a job in the months after they receive their doctorate. I do question whether these kinds of students were responsible enough to really do their hw and see the harsh reality of academic life... 

[crunchyfallleaves]

On 3/29/2021 at 6:48 PM, turanfly said:

Hello everyone!

I'm thinking about applying this coming Fall cycle and I wanted to know if anyone has been able to make a connection with someone currently in this kind of program? I had a very frank talk with one of my professors and they basically told me that right now is not a good time to be a PhD student. They were also very frank in saying, "I'm not entirely sure I would do it all over again." Has anyone else received the same kind of feedback? My friends at various doctoral programs offer the same warning. Kind of sucks, but I rather make an informed decision. Thank you!

For context I'm in an MA now and starting my PhD in the Fall.

Have you done a Masters in film studies? If not, I would recommend trying to apply to (what few there are) funded MAs. I think USC offers some students partial funding and some full and maybe UW and Toronto ? Anyone know of others? 

You will hear a lot of people warn of humanities PhDs not being worth it or that the job market is abysmal. My #1 advice is to arrive at a personal decision about what matters to you. I realized that while all those warnings are sound, none of those people could actually offer me or point me to an alternative that would make me happier. All of the constituent parts of doing a degree are things I love: reading, writing, exploring new topics just for the sake of it, being in dialogue with peers and faculty, etc. There are of course things I don't and won't like, but I've also worked a desk job and know that this path is really better for me for now. Yes, the job market is horrible, but knowing that I have years of funding and license to study what I love for 5+ years feels like a really huge and amazing win for me right now. Some corners of academia are really distorted and toxic, for sure. But so are so many workplaces. We don't even know what world we will have in 5 years, and I'm just really happy to take it one step at a time. 

So, all this is to say, you need to make peace with the question of why you want to do a PhD. What do you want to get from the experience? If you fall more in the area of wanting the experience in and of itself, I would encourage you to keep researching and searching for the places that you think would be able to offer that. If you fall more in the area of wanting some kind of outcome, I would probably not pursue a PhD.

If you are struggling to get in touch with current students, try reaching out to the department coordinator and saying that you are a prospective student hoping to have an informal chat with someone in the program. They may be able to help connect you with someone more easily than just cold outreach to someone on the webpage.

I hope some of this is helpful to you!

[Anoosh93]

On 3/26/2021 at 9:14 AM, pjbos said:

Yes, waitlisted as well. They had said the waitlist was small, but the results page has me thinking otherwise.

Yeah, I am thinking maybe its a funding issue because I don't think anyone got admission offers yet. I know of at least 6 people who got waitlisted, which you it would be 7 people. That's quite a high number for a waitlist according to some of professors.

[jkv152]

Officially received my letter of acceptance to University of Washington on Monday. I am thrilled!

[m00dyjewel]

5 hours ago, jkv152 said:

Officially received my letter of acceptance to University of Washington on Monday. I am thrilled!

that's amazing! congratulations!! must feel so good after this slog of an admissions cycle

[eml121]

On 3/31/2021 at 1:05 PM, Anoosh93 said:

Yeah, I am thinking maybe its a funding issue because I don't think anyone got admission offers yet. I know of at least 6 people who got waitlisted, which you it would be 7 people. That's quite a high number for a waitlist according to some of professors.

Hey! I just barely found this forum and am also in the boat of being waitlisted at Austin (I did post my results). I was starting to think they hadn't sent any offers yet and just waitlisted people to buy some time so I'm glad I'm not the only one with that suspicion.

I have an offer at another program that was putting some pressure on me to give them my decision early, so I emailed Austin multiple times to see if they had an updated timeline for the waitlist decisions and got no response. I guess we'll just have to wait and see! 

[andylee0427]

On 4/2/2021 at 3:20 AM, jkv152 said:

Officially received my letter of acceptance to University of Washington on Monday. I am thrilled!

Exciting news, congrats!

May I ask a few questions for my own reference to admission for next year? Such as how did you well package your application documents? (Was all three recommendations from university professors? How was your GRE score? etc.)

Again, warmest congratulations, and you should find a perfect way to celebrate