Any other fourth-timers out there?

[Medievalmaniac]

I think you ought to re-apply to the school the waitlisted you and told you "any other year...", especially when they made it a point to tell you you had champions in their department. I know if it were me, I would certainly re-apply to that department.

[hazelbite]

I must say:

1) Your story is terrifying

2) Your tenacity is admirable

3) I hope you get it this year!

I know I certainly could not handle more than two cycles of this expensive, emotional, time-consuming process. After that it would be time for me to commit to a career in something else...

[imisscoffee]

recession + no jobs = mad competition. Could be just chance. Plus, English is a really competitive field. You don't see me applying to English departments, for a reason! I don't think I could keep trying. If I don't get in this year or next, I'll move to plan B: learn to read tarot, hang out with artists and open a tea shop.

[fredngeorge]

For anyone who is curious, I've now received rejections from all my schools for the fourth time. I think I'm done.....

I seriously have no idea what the hell else I'm going to do with my life, but it's definitely time to start figuring it out. If someone could tell me that FOR SURE I would get in within the next three years if I kept applying, I would probably do it -- I want this THAT much -- but my level of self-doubt has reached the upper limit.

FWIW, to those who suggested I reapply to the school at which I was previously waitlisted (on my 2nd application) with positive feedback, I did. Rejected. So far, no explanation. I had been in contact with some faculty as to how I could improve my application this year and was told to just submit a strong app again (no specific points for improvement). I tried to reach out since receiving my rejection and was told to e-mail again in six weeks. Good luck to everyone still waiting to hear and congrats to those who were accepted (I'm so happy that such a large number of you made it!)!

For me, though, I give up.

[Fiona Thunderpaws]

Fredngeorge, I'm sad to hear that things didn't work out this round. I read your story before I joined the site, and thought it was really inspiring, and was really hoping for you I know I don't have the drive to do this over and over again, and your ability to keep trying (while remaining so positive and supportive) truly amazes me. I wish I could send you a hug, a plate of cookies, and a bottle of gin.

[fredngeorge]

Thanks, Fiona! I'm really pulling for you on your waitlist!! I want nothing but the best for all my fellow GCers -- especially those who offer me virtual gin and cookies!

[neverstop]

This was my third year applying. The first and second year I applied to 9-11 schools (and at least half of them overlapped). The only thing that changed was my writing sample--and I LOVED my first writing sample, but I wasn't sure if it expressed how involved I am with theory in my research and writing. I was waitlisted in two programs the first year and I heard nothing from them the 2nd year. This year I applied to 16 schools (about 4 were re-submits) and I've heard back from almost all of them. I received an acceptance from 1 school (a school that waitlisted me the first time), but no funding AND after talking to a few students it sounds like it's unlikely I'll get funding.

This is a program I really love--it's interdisciplinary and would allow me to focus on the philosophy I'm so found of on the theory side and literature. When I applied this time I returned to my first writing sample (which got me waitlisted and encouraged to re-apply). Essentially I'm still in the same boat I was in last year if you look at the overwhelming advice to not accept a position without funding. However, I'm going dude! First: I suck at the GRE and the thought of taking that confusing bastard again makes me nauseous, Second: there's nothing I can do about my average M.A. GPA, those professors at Binghamton are egotistical bastards that are looking for nothing more than a mirror and damn anyone who makes an effort at an original thought, and Third: I've spent about $4000 on applications, waited tables/ cashiered/ and became a banking analyst and I can say, without too much drama, I will never be happy in any job that isn't this one.

So yeah, by the time I finish my degree I'll owe the equivalent of a small mortgage, but I won't have a house over my head. And yeah, the job market sucks (and interdisciplinary degrees can be confusing to some employers)--I don't mind living like a pauper if it means I get to hang out with people who get me and wake up every morning happy to be struggling to survive at something I love. Also, there is an upcoming market in exporting professors; for example, Indiana Univ. has a branch in China and there are usually many openings to teach at branches. It doesn't pay as well and it's not TT, but it's a job that will hold you until you can find that TT job in the States or Western Europe.

For me it comes down to being happy. I live in a small rural town in the Midwest and everyone around me works because they have to pay bills and they have kids because somewhere at sometime they were told it was the next step after graduation. No one understands someone who wants to work and hang out with their colleagues after work, they don't want to travel, and they don't understand why you would want to stay in school forever (even as they bitch about their 8a.m-5p.m/5 days a week cubicle job that gives them backaches/headaches and puts them on autopilot with those children they couldn't wait to have). This is a unique job that requires a unique person, but if you are that person I don't see how you can be happy until you find a way to attain that job. Keep trying! Try not to let pride get in the way. There are a lot of offers going out these days without funding, ask yourself if you'd be willing to accept one of those if it meant--though you would still struggle--you'd have the chance to make your dream a reality. If you would, then keep applying because this is the job for you.

[hermia11]

@neverstop - I've heard tons of advice about unfunded PhDs. (I hate that money gets in the way of our DREAMS, man.)

If you're bent on going (and I think you are!), search hard for outside sources of funding, in addition to searching for internal sources of funding that comes from internal places other than the English/Philosophy department (sometimes schools have openings for occasional writing for their communications, general tutoring unrelated to your discipline, etc.). Someone who just graduated from ULouisiana a few years ago told me that in your second year, it's easier to get internal funding, but you have to endure that one horrific year to get there. And it's worse than it sounds.

But, I've also heard this - attending graduate school is like opening your own business. You take out tons of loans, and while you're hoping for the best and think you're pretty good at doing what you do, you have no guarantees that there will be a return on your investment in the future. Is this an appropriate metaphor? I don't know - but it makes me feel better about the debt we're all getting into nonetheless.

[Sparky]

neverstop, I realize that nothing I say will dissuade you. Please respect that that is not my intention in this post. I am talking to other people considering unfunded offers.

1. neverstop's picture of the future is RIDICULOUSLY optimistic. "until you get that TT job?" "by the time I finish my degree"? Less than 50% of people who begin humanities PhDs ever finish. Don't assume that just because you want this OH SO BAD (and I get it, I really do), you will finish. Most of the dropouts also wanted the degree OH SO BAD at the beginning. Things happen. Life happens. Family disasters. Health problems. Multiple B+s in your classes mean you are asked to leave the university with a terminal master's. Then let's consider the number of people who *do* finish who ultimately get tenure--a number that is sure to decline as retiring professors' tenure positions are eliminated rather than refilled with a new hire.

2. "(and interdisciplinary degrees can be confusing to some employers)." No. Not confusing. Unacceptable. Outside of a very, very small handful of interdisciplinary programs that have a proven track record of job placement--and "proven" in the last five years, not over the past several decades-- an interdisciplinary PhD makes it all but impossible to get an academic job. It can also make you a tougher sell on the high school job market.

3. Student loan debt is not like other debt.

4. ETA: neverstop is painting a picture of zirself as somehow more deserving of both a spot in a PhD program and of an academic job because of willingness to commit to an insane unfunded PhD. The real world does not care about such romantic notions or false senses of nobility. This is a literature forum--Great Literature abounds will tales of how very very much delight Fortune gets in systematically destroying romantic notions and delusional wannabe-nobles, often in the cruelest ways imaginable. Don't fall into this trap.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Sparky

[hermia11]

3. Student loan debt is not like other debt.

#3 - True. And an excellent point.

[Phil Sparrow]

To echo Sparky, an unfunded degree can also make you a much harder sell on the job market. No teaching experience? No fellowship? These kinds of things, which fund you, are markers of being vetted by at least one institution. I can't imagine a job search committee overlooking a lack of both.

[HunkyDory]

fredngeorge, which schools are you applying to? Top tier? Mid tier? Wouldn't there have to be some fundamental flaw with you app for across the board rejections 4 years in a row?

[neverstop]

Sparky: since #4 seems to apply to me directly let me just say that I don't think of myself as more deserving or to be making some great noble decision/future-sacrifice. I've spoken to students in the program and they've given me great sources to look for internal funding, and I plan on working my butt off to find it if possible even while I know it's an obscene long shot. And maybe (definitely if I don't find funding) I'll apply again next year anyway if funding isn't offered.

However, once you finish your classes and you're ABD (which is 2 years in my program) you have only a few hundred to pay to keep yourself enrolled and then you can go anywhere in the world and teach while you write your dissertation. Yeah, I know finding a teaching spot is difficult in this job market, but I've spent 2 years looking for a job and there are a lot of colleges (not TT or research institutions obviously) looking for ABD students to teach. There are more of those positions available than for terminal MA students.

Finally, what the hell do we do people? With a BA in English and History and a MA in English I'm not qualified for ANYTHING. I live in a rural town where the majority of the jobs have been sent overseas, and I can't move elsewhere because I live with my family due to the lack of respectable job that would allow me to pay my gov't student loans and live in a small apartment. Moving to another city where I know no one and would have to live on my own while paying my exorbitant loans is more of fairy tale than getting in to a program next year. I have numerous friends who went to school and graduated with education degrees and licenses and they can't get a job teaching pre-school. There's not a lot of hope out there for those of us not living in cities where there are publishing companies and newspapers, etc. galore. We're stuck working in jobs that people with no education at all are also working. The highest salary in my area is approximately $11.00/hr. I have 2 jobs.

So, do you jump off the freaking bridge toward the possibility (and Sparky, it's not out of ridiculous optimism... I've received straight A's my whole life and I knew I wanted to teach since I was in elementary, and eventually that decision went to teaching college and writing research in 8th grade when I started college thru advanced programs... but I didn't get into that Ivy I worked for, I didn't get into the private out-of-state schools I applied to for my BA, when I applied for my MA I only got into one school without funding and that turned out to be a freaking nightmare, and now I've spent $4000 on app's over the last 3 years to get into this joke of a situation for a PhD... I don't expect FATE to make the rest of my life easy) or do just live miserably all the while barely keeping your head above water?

Yes, I looked at #3 and it's scary as hell. All but 5000 of my debt is federal, and it feels like I'm in one of those countries that won't let you leave until you pay back your debt. But I'm not. And I've always wanted to teach out of the US anyhow, so if I have to teach in Asia for $25-35k/yr for awhile I will.

Let me repeat... I'm not ridiculously optimistic. But does anyone else out there living in the Midwest with loans to pay back already want to tell me just what they hell there is to do? Should I wait the next 15 years to be out of debt before pursuing a PhD, and then be told I'm too old?

Seriously, I'm not ranting here? What are the options... because I'm well aware that when August comes around and I haven't heard that I received one of those internal funding options I may very well back out.

[Sparky]

I apologize that it came across as a personal attack, neverstop. I have been in a similar situation to you (though without undergrad debt) and I get it, I really do. As I stated, I wasn't talking to or about you--I was trying to respond to points in your post that I think are unclear or wrong. (Experience has taught me that on the Internet, it is impossible to say everything you want to say in exactly the way you want to say it). I should have made that distinction; I didn't and I'm sorry.

I doubt I can come up with any career advice off the top of my head that you haven't come to already (well, certainly none to which you'll be receptive). Quite a few of my friends who were in your (and my former) situation have, in fact, hauled themselves off to Asia to teach English for a few years. One of them actually came back to the US, did an MEd, and is now happily back in Japan. It might not be a permanent solution, but it would give you at least some time to pay off undergrad loans as well as the all-important experience that does, actually, play a factor in getting a teaching job (as testified by a separate set of my friends, most of whom are, like you, BAs in a humanities field with no advanced degree yet). It would require branching out, of course, but you could also see about getting a master's in teaching a critical-need field (math or science). In the end, though, whatever you decide probably will require some risk, certainly (as you lay it out) moving elsewhere. The point about unfunded humanities PhDs, though, is that it is not really a question of "risk" so much as "certain disaster."

To be a bit hypocritical for a moment--you might also consider moving elsewhere (I think you made it pretty clear that you can't be happy where you are, at least on your terms), getting a couple of menial jobs, and making something besides career the focus of your happiness. I don't mean get married and have kids, BTW. I am thinking more like my friends in New York and Chicago, who hold down 2-3 jobs waiting tables and bartending and find their joy in amateur theater (I have seen them act. These are not people who are going to "make it" on any level). There are--and I can testify to this personally--lots of opportunities to be involved in some form of teachiing at the volunteer level. It's not your ideal, I get it, I've been there. But it's something.

ETA: My mom did her entire education, culminating with a PhD, once I started school. Late thirties (and judging from the PhD cohort at my MA school, late forties) being "too old for a PhD" is crap.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Sparky

[fredngeorge]

@neverstop - I appreciate that you believe anything can be accomplished with enough time, effort, passion, etc. However, based on my track record so far, I have absolutely no reason to believe that I will ever even receive an unfunded offer, so considering that possibility would be purely hypothetical. I've never received more than a single waitlist and a smattering of advice. I've heard "no" so many times that I'll admit even a "yes" with no funding would be pretty damn tempting -- but I think, in the end, I'm with Sparky in thinking that a "yes minus funding" amounts to a "no." The one positive to draw from your personal experience, however, is that your unfunded offer is strong evidence that with better timing/app materials/luck (or whatever) you are certainly capable of getting a funded offer if you continue to try. In my case, though, I have very little experiential evidence to support any argument in favor of continuing to apply.

Yes, getting my Ph.D. in English (and pursuing a career in teaching) is what I want to do more than anything else I can possibly think of. BUT working as a secretary while continuing to apply to Ph.D. programs for years and years indefinitely is pretty low on my list of dream-careers. Like I said, if there was some way of knowing that an additional, say, three-year investment in this process would give me a positive outcome, I would probably act like a starry-eyed idiot and say, "Bring it on!" I have no such guarantee. AND I've already invested approximately six years and $4000 in application costs (not to mention the money spent on my M.A. that will very likely not help me to get a job I will be happy with -- my current crappy job is evidence enough of that for me). In addition to the time and money I've lost, I've taken some serious hits to my self-esteem, my confidence, and my optimism. So you can say that "pride" is holding me back, and maybe it is, but I'd be more likely to put it down to my hard-earned sense of realism. The evidence tells me to move on, and I'm not going to close my eyes and continue to walk blindly into the same wall over and over again on the off-chance that somebody opens a door for me. So in a choice between making a career of applying to graduate school (forever) and finding some other career that, while less fabulous that my Ph.D. dream-career, can challenge me intellectually and allow me to contribute to in some way to something I care about, I choose the latter. Yes, it sucks to start over but, as far as I'm concerned, not as much as the alternative.

I appreciate that you're trying to be encouraging Please don't interpret my explanation of my decision to give up as an attempt to convince you to do the same. I think you should do what makes you happy.

@dokkeynot - If you read my earlier posts in this thread, most of your questions would be answered. I have applied to a very wide range of programs, never going by ranking but solely by fit -- I never applied to a single ivy league. The list of schools to which you applied puts my list to shame. And if my application has some fundamental flaw, the programs to which I've applied aren't telling. The feedback I've gotten (when I've gotten it) has mainly been minor, fixable stuff. And, at this point, most (all?) of it has been fixed. I know it would be comforting to those experiencing first (or second) round rejection to hear my application was doomed for some reason I'm not telling, but I can offer no such comfort. I will say that I intend to contact departments once the admissions season winds down to get feedback (even though I'm not applying again, I can see no reason not to even if simply for curiosity's sake), and if I find out anything indicative of that "fundamental flaw" I'll be sure to let you know.

Edit....

P.S. I really don't mean to throw a pity party here. In some ways this application season, though ultimately just as unsuccessful as all the rest, has been my most productive. The stress of doing this for a fourth time prompted me to take up running in September, and now I've run two half marathons and have lost the 15 pounds I gained since getting married. I'll take what I can get!! And I'm very much looking at my decision to move on in the most positive way possible -- as a fresh start.

Edited March 7, 2012 by fredngeorge