Back At It: Getting Back on the PhD Horse After A While

[bgt28]

Hi Everyone. I just wanted to add a note to see if others are in the same situation as I am. I got my MA in 2017 and left school to work and live my life for a bit. I've reached a level of stability that makes it a good time for me to revisit my intellectual goals and resume my journey towards a PhD. Hoping to apply to some programs this coming fall and to matriculate in the fall of 2025. Cheers, happy to be back, and best of luck to all. 

[bgt28]

Is anybody out there? Can you hear me? lol

[bgt28]

😬

[thea]

Welcome back! What schools are you considering applying to? 

[bgt28]

Thank you @thea! I'm shooting my shot and trying for the following programs:

• Johns Hopkins
  • English
• George Washington
  • English
  • American Studies
• Harvard
  • African American Studies
• Yale
  • Combined PHD, African American Studies + Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Brown
  • English
  • American Studies
  • Modern Culture and Media
  • Africana Studies
• Stanford
  • English
  • Modern Thought and Literature
• Berkeley
  • African American Studies
  • English

God be with me! 

I do need to come up with one to two additional tiers since these all sound like "reach" schools. 

Edited May 3 by bgt28

[thea]

Nice! Those are definitely great but very competitive schools for English, but it also depends on your subfield(s). What is your area of focus?

[bgt28]

@thea I am interested in African American literature and intellectual life in the incipient era of our nation, from roughly the 1760s to the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Specifically, I am interested in tracing the many ways in which figurations of race, gender, and sexuality played into ideas of national belonging and how those figurations continue to reverberate in our present understanding of “Americanness”. 

They are for sure competitive, but my motto is reach for the stars; I might not get there, but I won't know until I try, and I may get lucky and land somewhere high up there. 

I've already gone through one cycle where I got rejected from all the PhD programs I applied to, so I'm trying to learn from past mistakes and the bitter disappointment and keep trying until I get in. 

Edited May 8 by bgt28