Comp Lit 2012

[pel]

Also in at NYU. I received a phone call from the department chair today. Good luck to all who are waiting to hear from them.

[aldousarendt]

Also in at NYU. I received a phone call from the department chair today. Good luck to all who are waiting to hear from them.

Congrats to you! Will you be attending?

[pel]

I'm waiting to hear from my alma mater. If I don't get in there, I will def. be attending NYU.

[minourouge]

Same! Congrats! So far, I've been admitted to usc, cornell and will be interviewing with Emory. Will you be visiting?

Yup, I'll be there. How would I recognize you? Will you be the one with the rose pinned to your lapel?

[clmos]

Hi all.

I have been waitlisted at Cornell. Anybody else waitlisted there? And I got rejected at U of Minnesota. Also I see some people have been getting answers from the other schools that I applied to like U of Chicago and UC-Irvine . Thats probably a bad sign isn´t it? Aren´t the rejections often postal but waitlisting and acceptances are via e-mail or phone? I live in Europe that could also be a factor.

[minourouge]

So, what does it mean if I've got an email from the department chair at UCSB saying that I've been nominated for competitive fellowship? Is that the same as an admittance--with funding details pending--or is the admittance pending until funding is decided?

Good question. I imagine it is the first, but remains ambigious. Probably it wouldn't hurt to ask outright.

[minourouge]

Hi all.

I have been waitlisted at Cornell. Anybody else waitlisted there? And I got rejected at U of Minnesota. Also I see some people have been getting answers from the other schools that I applied to like U of Chicago and UC-Irvine . Thats probably a bad sign isn´t it? Aren´t the rejections often postal but waitlisting and acceptances are via e-mail or phone? I live in Europe that could also be a factor.

Congratulations on making the waitlist at Cornell. Surely that has to be a very short list, and it ain't over until April. Which school would you prefer to get into?

[clmos]

Thanks. I´d love to get into Cornell - just cross my fingers that somebody else wants to go somewhere else.

[pel]

Hey guys,

Did a lot of people receive offers from UCLA and/or Stanford over the past few days? Those are the only west coast schools that I've applied to and I'd like to know if my chances are extremely low at this point..

[Heather Hoffman]

The results survey has a lot of UCLA comp lit activity on it, I applied there but I haven't heard anything yet. If I don't hear anything by Feb 24 I'm gonna call to see what's up.

Anyone applying to USC? If so, does your application have a new message saying they're only sending out decisions via postal mail? I know one person on here got into USC Comp Lit and I think (maybe) they emailed that person.. so it's all very confusing.

Also, anyone hear back from UCSB or UCI?

[mist]

Hi heather, for your question regarding usc, i was notified of acceptance via a personalised email in late jan. Best of luck!

[Bayo]

Heather, I got one of the "you're being considered for fellowships" emails from Susan Derwin at UCSB, but I haven't heard back from the program yet. That was about two weeks ago, I guess.

[Heather Hoffman]

Congrats to both of you

Bayo, are you officially accepted at UCSB? It sounds like it. My understanding is that UCSB has an awesome program.

Just curious, did you contact anyone at UCSB before/during the application process? I'm just wondering so I have a better idea how to approach the school next year.

[Bayo]

Congrats to both of you

Bayo, are you officially accepted at UCSB? It sounds like it. My understanding is that UCSB has an awesome program.

Just curious, did you contact anyone at UCSB before/during the application process? I'm just wondering so I have a better idea how to approach the school next year.

Yeah, I have been accepted, but with no word yet on funding, I am far from out of the woods. And I certainly don't sleep any better at night.

I did not have departmental contact beforehand, but, to be completely honest, I seem to have followed a very different path from a lot of the applicants on these boards.

While I gave an overview of the overarching themes of my intended project in my SoP, and the period is implicit, much of my focus will be on one author in particular. This author is relatively well known (to Latin Americanists at least), but critically he has been largely ignored, or at least outshone by the likes of Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, et al. This has proved a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand, I think that I have a very original idea, but on the other, my chances of listing at least one POI per application was in some cases very difficult. Two of the most prolific critics of this writer's corpus are tenured at colleges (as in almost strictly undergraduate institutions).

I applied to UCSB because a professor there in an affiliated department has written at least a couple of articles on this author, and while I mentioned his work as an inspiration, I spent an equal amount of time in my SoP detailing the institutional factors that drew me to UCSB.

While I'm assuming I've been rejected at 3 of my remaining 4 schools, I went all out for the one that hasn't notified yet. I barely mentioned any departmental names in my SoP. One of my rec writers (an alumna of this school) told me that she thought it was perfectly fine. Instead, I focused almost entirely on institutional factors, namely that their library houses two extensive collections containing almost all the extant manuscripts, recordings, diaries, and personal correspondences of my author. If I'm rejected there, then it would seem that UCSB has proved the exception to the rule.

Edited February 19, 2012 by Bayo

[Heather Hoffman]

Thanks for giving me more details on your SoP. Mine was not specific to anything at all at UCSB, not even mentioning institutional factors. This was a problem with all of my applications, one I will definitely correct when I try again next year.

Here's hoping you get your top choice, but if you don't, UCSB is an awesome school, IMO.

[Origin=Goal]

As concerns Chicago, I emailed the department to ask when decisions would be out, this is what I got: We expect to finish finalizing decisions in the next week if everything remains on schedule. So, you can reasonably expect to hear from us regarding your application by the end of February. You will receive a notification email with a link to your online application status page (the same place where you checked to make sure recommendation letters and such were received on time at ) when additional information regarding the status of your application becomes available.

Though I'm aware at this point that (in the case of Chicago specifically) they have almost certainly sent out acceptances. and come next week will dole out the rejections and the invites to their cash cow masters program. Anyone know the status of Princeton? Last year they sent most of theirs out at the end of Feb, but just wanted to check.

[vordhosbntwin]

As concerns Chicago, I emailed the department to ask when decisions would be out, this is what I got: We expect to finish finalizing decisions in the next week if everything remains on schedule. So, you can reasonably expect to hear from us regarding your application by the end of February. You will receive a notification email with a link to your online application status page (the same place where you checked to make sure recommendation letters and such were received on time at ) when additional information regarding the status of your application becomes available.

Though I'm aware at this point that (in the case of Chicago specifically) they have almost certainly sent out acceptances. and come next week will dole out the rejections and the invites to their cash cow masters program. Anyone know the status of Princeton? Last year they sent most of theirs out at the end of Feb, but just wanted to check.

princeton told me that it will be the first week of march.

[LLL]

While I gave an overview of the overarching themes of my intended project in my SoP, and the period is implicit, much of my focus will be on one author in particular. This author is relatively well known (to Latin Americanists at least), but critically he has been largely ignored, or at least outshone by the likes of Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, et al. This has proved a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand, I think that I have a very original idea, but on the other, my chances of listing at least one POI per application was in some cases very difficult. Two of the most prolific critics of this writer's corpus are tenured at colleges (as in almost strictly undergraduate institutions).

which author? i'm curious.

[Origin=Goal]

Ugh, I'll already have done two visits by then and was hoping to have things narrowed down a little more. Wonder why the wait is so long with them...

[Bayo]

which author? i'm curious.

Reinaldo Arenas.

Which authors/periods/etc. interest you, LoLu?

And thanks for reporting back on Chicago, Origin. Actually, I was preparing to write them earlier but wanted to check here first to ask whether people had been contacting the DGS or some department liaison instead.

[Origin=Goal]

Reinaldo Arenas.

Which authors/periods/etc. interest you, LoLu?

And thanks for reporting back on Chicago, Origin. Actually, I was preparing to write them earlier but wanted to check here first to ask whether people had been contacting the DGS or some department liaison instead.

No problem, Bayo. Actually, believe it or not I've totally heard of Reinaldo Arenas. I have a copy of La loma del Angel sitting in my ever-growing "to read" stack!

[pel]

Just curious... Was anyone rejected by Stanford?

[LLL]

Reinaldo Arenas.

Which authors/periods/etc. interest you, LoLu?

He reminds me of Before Night Falls, but honestly i haven't read anything from him. I'm more into southamerican contemporary poetry, the right mix of

surrealism+existencialism+"innovating techniques-aesthetic" (more of a french influence, like almost everything). Although, I don't mind taking a sexual approach and use Bataille to explain erotic verses of a recent puertorrican writer. I guess that's my problem, not having an specific time or theme or literary theory to pursue something. I am absolutely sure that I will not study anything from the colonial era. I hate it.

Poems have to inspire me in any weird way so I can try and figure out a possible explanation/interpretation. That's my only goal.

Hello, I used Bajtin and Nietzsche to explain Alejandra Pizarnik's delusions. How crazy is that?

[vordhosbntwin]

i realize i've asked this before, but i'm still anxious about it and would love to hear the opinion of other... could someone give me some thoughts about yale comp lit versus hopkins humanities center? the funding at the former is 27.3k, 22.3 at the latter, but it increases by 1k per year for two years, then 500 per year after that. the fit at both programs is good, but yale is definitely more of a 'literary' fit, whereas hopkins is more of a theoretical fit. i'm visiting hopkins next weekend, yale in three weeks, but in the meantime, any opinions about either program would be much appreciated.

i can't believe how fortunate i am to get into my two top choices, but at the same time, boy is it a hard choice...

[Origin=Goal]

In a similar boat myself, vordhosbtwin, congratulations again on the great acceptances! For me, I think department fit (and maybe the greater university fit--especially for more interdisciplinary fields like ours) is paramount; but lifestyle and living considerations are also important. Have you thought much about living in B-more versus New Haven?

Out of curiosity, who do you want to work with at Hopkins? I almost applied to work with Lsi, but felt it wasn't a very strong match for me personally. Hent de Vries also has some great research, but not much that relates to my interests.