Fall 2014 applicants??

[igetstuffdunn]

Horb I didn't get the UVA 1am rejection email either (I keep refreshing my inbox with a growing sense of doom). I'm going to take it as a good sign that I haven't heard anything from them...that's what I should do...yes...right? 

[igetstuffdunn]

As for the whole fit debate, I applied to 21 schools because I could (surprisingly) afford it this year (soul-crushing corporate jobs do have their perks). I definitely know some of them are a good fit, and some of them might be, and some of them I'm just praying they are but I'm not really sure. I figure every school you don't apply to is an automatic rejection, might as well try. The worst thing that happens is I'm rejected, the best thing is I end up at a school that is great for me but I might have otherwise overlooked. 

[jaymarais]

Anyone have any idea what's going on with Vanderbilt? 

[Horb]

Horb I didn't get the UVA 1am rejection email either (I keep refreshing my inbox with a growing sense of doom). I'm going to take it as a good sign that I haven't heard anything from them...that's what I should do...yes...right? 

 

I've decided I'm just getting in. 

[igetstuffdunn]

I've decided I'm just getting in. 

 

I believe in you! That's the spirit

[Horb]

You too! Maybe we will both get in!!!!

[andromache]

Anyone have any idea what's going on with Vanderbilt? 

 

I wish! There's been a few acceptances posted and that's it...I'm thinking they just haven't gotten around to notifying the rejections yet, and taking it as an implied rejection until I hear otherwise. Tempted to email the department and enquire as to my status, though. Same with Northwestern.

[jaymarais]

I wish! There's been a few acceptances posted and that's it...I'm thinking they just haven't gotten around to notifying the rejections yet, and taking it as an implied rejection until I hear otherwise. Tempted to email the department and enquire as to my status, though. Same with Northwestern.

 

Yeah I'm in the same boat on both schools. But with Northwestern, this is usually how they do it (judging from past years)-- acceptances over the phone, and then rejections several days later via email, so I'm assuming it's a rejection.

 

But with Vanderbilt, I can't really see a clear pattern that way. If anything, it looks like they've notified rejections first, in past years. But of course, who knows what that means- maybe nothing! Just trying to convince myself there is still hope! Haha

[despejado]

Did anyone here apply to Syracuse? I haven't seen that they're historically popular here, at least on the results board. Anyone know why?

[gwarner13]

I'm glad this came up (again) - I've been giving "fit" quite a bit of thought...

 

First, it seems more or less bulletproof to conclude that "fit" matters greatly in getting an acceptance. I think there's enough common ground there to just sort of concede it and move forward with it as a working premise: yes, fit is incredibly important, and has been so thoroughly documented all over the place, it is so important that it often trumps even things like publications, etc.

 

Ok - fit is huge, yes? Yes! However! I very much take Kamisha's desire to apply to 28 schools to heart...yes I know that's a bunch and I understand that some good-humored exaggeration may have been involved in her comment, but I get it it, and here's why: DETERMINING fit is an entirely different story. INTERPRETING fit is another story again. ARTICULATING fit? Are you kidding me?  If this was in any way easy, SOP discussion boards would cease to exist.

 

Now here are some very concrete things that I have experienced, and I invite anyone to let me know where I'm missing the boat on fit - please. I am being sincere, not sarcastic. First, for all the universal consensus regarding fit, there is just as much ambivalence and ambiguity concerning whether (and how) to contact POI's - some even go so far as to say, "don't do it," or else you get a highly qualified, "ok, do it, but be careful and here's a laundry list of etiquette...". Very rarely does the universal conclusion regarding fit equate to, "well, you have to determine good fit, so you might as well make as much contact as possible! Go nuts!" Nope, those two things just seem not to go together.  Very well, I resort to in-print resources. Namely, departmental websites, replete with faculty profiles, dissertation titles, placement records, etc.  

 

Now then, let's say I'm perusing a website to try to figure out if a particular school is a "good fit" for me. I look for faculty with similar interests (right? right?!). When I find them, I start reading up on them, including where they went, what they have published, etc. (right?! RIGHT?!). But right about here, many factors begin to complicate "fit." Intuitively, I would gravitate toward departments that have a tradition or a reputation in working in my interests (right? right?), but I find 4 very concrete difficulties in this approach. 1. Most departments are well-rounded enough that it makes it fairly difficult to cross "fit" off your list based on that alone - in fact this (in my humble experience) becomes a tiresome and fruitless exercise very quickly, simply because how could you not want to study at every single department you look up?! On paper, they all look great! 2. Faculty profiles are misleading. In my current program, I have made some very important faculty relationships, but not one of them would have been in any way predictable based on website profiles. Furthermore, the ones that would indicate common interest have proven to be some of the less meaningful relationships of my time here. Thus, even "common interest" is not necessarily equal to "good fit," whereas often quite divergent interests - at least on paper - render incredible working relationships and killer productivity. If you are discouraged from making contacts, then that sort of experience/knowledge would simply be impossible to anticipate. 3. Even if you were successful in "determining fit," I've heard too many stories about how "such and such department wanted to take on a [insert specialty here] precisely because they didn't have any!" Thus, in some cases, the logic of fit works literally in reverse. 4. Finally, most of the professors with whom I am intimately familiar with (as far as their body of work goes), I tend to write off as the kind of rockstars not worth making an application for. Right?  I mean, you can't very well apply saying, "...and so I'd like to work with Jameson." And to the counterarguments that say, sure you can, that's exactly what you do, I'd say, true, but then your competition just got that much stiffer, so much as to basically make it either come down to luck or futility. Then again, let's say you temper such an approach by finding not the rockstar but the under-the-radar scholar...well then, you have a problem of a different order, do you not?!

 

Very well, fit is extremely important, but also very hard to determine and/or make a case for yourself. Often you can't know what the department is considering "good fit" based on their print materials, and even/when you can, you still have a very uphill battle on the competitive front. This very board has some story from someone being told their rejection was based on fit even though the applicant had been convinced that the department was a great fit (my apology for not citing this more specifically). If it can't be known, and if contacting people is at all discouraged, then it makes very good sense to boost your odds by throwing as many hats into as many rings as possible. Right?  Right? By doing so, are you not saying, "I hope one of these is a great fit!"?

 

A last bone of contention...there are those who try to be very concrete about how to scout out fit, and I appreciate it very much. I do. But if find it somewhat troubling that there is a very direct correlation between "concrete" and "missing the point altogether," where the more concrete, also the less helpful. Example: "When I researched fit, I looked at placement records...". Well, yeah. No shit. That's great, but it reduces pretty quickly, does it not? Isn't that basically the same thing as saying, "What's better for me is better for me" or "the best program that I can get into is the best fit for me."  Of course it is!  The thing that's absurd about this approach is that EVERYBODY'S best fit is the school with the biggest stipends, fellowships, placement records, etc., rendering fit not so much this subjective thing to be thoughtful and introspective about, but just a thing to be flat-out pragmatic about: go to a good place. And if that's the case, then wouldn't applying to as many programs as possible be the same as saying, "well, it's a damn tough thing to get in to good places, so I'll try to get into as many good places as possible and hope that one of them sees me as fitting well."? 

 

I am not trying to be a smartass. I am sincerely trying to know how one can resolve the premise of fit with the reality that matching fit between applicant and school seems complicated to an overwhelming degree. My response would be exactly Kamisha's (and anyone else's) who says, damn, better apply to more schools! As to mikers86's response to this response, I don't mean any disrespect, I hear what you're saying, but I guess I'm wondering how you figure you can identify some number of good-fit programs with which you can apply with confidence, and further, how that number is so obviously less than 28? I honestly have no idea how one does that. Help me out, here. I, too, want to make a good-fit application.

If you apply to 15 schools that you believe to be "good fits," and are subsequently rejected across the board, that might indicate either that there is *some* sort of weakness in your application you are not seeing  (NOT that you are a bad candidate, unworthy of a spot, etc. etc-- just so we're clear about what I am and am not saying), OR that you are interpreting/defining fit incorrectly and/or are failing to articulate it persuasively. Unless you address those issues, doubling the number of apps isn't going to solve the problem.

 

Of course, there's the other (likely) option: you were a strong applicant and a good fit, but 300 people applied for 10 spaces, and someone else's writing sample was a bit more interesting/someone else's undergrad advisor has connections/someone else mentioned a member of the adcomm's favorite theorist in their SoP.

 

Fit is important, but there's no way to get around the numbers. There is a certain degree of arbitrariness to this process that we all want desperately to eradicate, but can't.

 

Hang in there guys. I remember how much February sucked, but it's so early yet.

[gk210]

Did anyone here apply to Syracuse? I haven't seen that they're historically popular here, at least on the results board. Anyone know why?

I applied to the Syracuse MA Humanities program. Their department for English looks absofreakinglutely amazing. Their program really appealed to me...one because I noticed they are one of the few institutions I'm applying to that actually cares about Masters students. Most don't give a piece of poop until PhD from what I've heard from several grad students. "Caring" meaning, I saw that they offer funding from what I understand and took from their department coordinator. I really like that. 

[mikers86]

I lost the quoted section, thanks iPad, but this would be in response to Strong Flat White.

For me that number is so obviously less than 28 because as a grad student that would bankrupt me. Even 14 was a struggle. Factor in geographical factors on top of that. Then, as you say, having to research fit is a monumental task. I can't imagine researching 20+ programs in depth to determine if I think they would be a good fit, then crafting and selling to 20+ programs that I view myself as a good fit for their program on top of teaching, writing a thesis, and doing coursework. But by all means, if you have the time and the money to invest in researching, determining, writing and selling fit, and applying to 28 schools, then I say do it. I also don't believe more is specifically better in this case, but that is strictly my opinion.

[Katia_chan]

I, honestly can't say I have a concrete way to determine "fit".  Mine was more "...everyone in this department does contemporary work on poetry/American/post colonial lit. I don't."

 

So maybe sometimes it's better to determine absence of fit?  I guess that's what I do.  There's no way to determine which "not my topic" professors you will bond with, and it's possible that if you end up in a department where no one gets even close to your research, you may not be able to find the guidance you desire.  I'm not saying it always happens, but, coming from the experience of studying medieval Welsh at a department with one medievalist, who most certainly did not study Welsh, it can present a bit of a challenge if you are totally off in left field.

 

And sometimes fit is not faculty.  Sometimes fit is resources.  Where I was accepted, I'm not a stunning "fit" with any professor.  But I could work with some, and the resources available for my specific field were amazing.  So "fit" can be archives, libraries, lecture series... and what is important to you might not be as important to others.

 

As for applying to 28 schools... it puts up red flags for me, but can't pinpoint why.  I guess I would just feel that, in 28 schools, there would be a decent-sized handful that you didn't really like that much.  And then even if those turn into acceptances, you've sold yourself short.  What if you'd stuck to all schools you *loved*, waited just one more year, and gotten into a school you liked a lot more.

 

...If you're in love with 28 schools, then I am proven wrong and I'll stop.  But where you get in, you're (mostly) stuck.  So.  Make sure it counts.

 

And maybe, though I do not think this is true for all or even most, maybe there was a flaw in your application.  Maybe your scores, or your SOP, or your writing sample weren't great.  If there is just something that needs more work in your application, you could apply to 28 schools, all perfect, and get shut out of every one.  So I at least personally would hesitate to throw eggs and money at that many baskets unless I was utterly confident that it was the prettiest app ever.  Which...maybe some of you are.  I never felt like that.  But I live and breathe insecurity.

[Horb]

Can you imagine asking the same profs for 28 recs? My god. They'd kill me. 

[despejado]

Can you imagine asking the same profs for 28 recs? My god. They'd kill me.

What a brilliant point.

[mikers86]

Can you imagine asking the same profs for 28 recs? My god. They'd kill me.

They would strangle me. And I imagine would probably try to talk me out of applying to 28 programs.

[Megeen]

Can you imagine asking the same profs for 28 recs? My god. They'd kill me. 

 

Oops, that's the vital flaw in that plan.

[grubyczarnykot]

Hi all,

 

I have tried to stay away from this place this time around, but now that we're getting into February I have to join in. Really, refreshing the results board is an addiction. I applied last year at 9 programs, was rejected from all except for UChicago's MAPH (without funding, of course, so I did not accept it). This time, I intended to apply to around 12 programs, but had some unexpected circumstances that prevented me from doing so. So, I only finished 5 apps. Although, the 5 were the best fits I could imagine. Seriously though it's looking grim; I'm assuming Davis is a rejection, and I also applied to CSLC at USC, but it looks like those acceptances have already gone out too. 2 implied rejections? I have an interview with the director of the graduate gender program at Utrecht on Friday, though, and if that goes well I could get a category A scholarship for the Erasmus Mundus GEMMA program. 

 

I think it'll be funny if the only acceptance I get is the FREE application. Does anyone else have experience with these Erasmus programs? I kind of applied on a whim, didn't expect anything from it. 

 

Now I'll go back to refreshing my email and the results page obsessively. 

[shortstack51]

I don't have any experience with that program, but one of my back up plans is applying to only European institutions next year. My fiancée has family in the Netherlands, so we were looking there and I came across Utrecht's program last night. (I was a bit confused trying to find programs in general...) I'm excited for your interview! Good luck!

Edited February 5, 2014 by shortstack51

[Megeen]

Hi all,

 

I have tried to stay away from this place this time around, but now that we're getting into February I have to join in. Really, refreshing the results board is an addiction. I applied last year at 9 programs, was rejected from all except for UChicago's MAPH (without funding, of course, so I did not accept it). This time, I intended to apply to around 12 programs, but had some unexpected circumstances that prevented me from doing so. So, I only finished 5 apps. Although, the 5 were the best fits I could imagine. Seriously though it's looking grim; I'm assuming Davis is a rejection, and I also applied to CSLC at USC, but it looks like those acceptances have already gone out too. 2 implied rejections? I have an interview with the director of the graduate gender program at Utrecht on Friday, though, and if that goes well I could get a category A scholarship for the Erasmus Mundus GEMMA program. 

 

I think it'll be funny if the only acceptance I get is the FREE application. Does anyone else have experience with these Erasmus programs? I kind of applied on a whim, didn't expect anything from it. 

 

Now I'll go back to refreshing my email and the results page obsessively. 

 

Well, I'm from Germany, and ERASMUS programs are the main form of international exchange for students throughout Europe. I'm not familiar with your particular program but usually erasmus is pretty good and Utrecht is a good university. I would assume that the competition is less stiff than in the US, or rather, being from the US makes you exotic

[grubyczarnykot]

Megeen - I actually participated in ERASMUS during my undergrad. Well, I was the fake American ERASMUS student who just took the classes with everybody else. I had previously been unaware of the joint MA programs, though, and if this one doesn't work out, I'm looking to also apply to the IMESS, which is based at UCL and (I would choose) University of Belgrade, as I'm interested in Slavic lit. I'm hopeful about the GEMMA program, though, and the Gender Studies dept at Utrecht looks pretty stellar. 

 

Shortstack - Thanks!! Utrecht seems to be a really great university. Also, looking for programs in the EU can be kind of daunting and funding is I guess kind of hidden. According to my friend who is currently doing an MA in history in Berlin, there's a lot of funding available, but you kind of have to dig for it, apply for external scholarships, etc. But another upside to EU programs is that many of them do not require tuition fees! 

[Kamisha]

All: RESIST THE URGE TO CONTACT SCHOOLS AND ASK ABOUT ADMISSIONS DECISIONS!!!!

 

If it’s later in the game (like end of March) go for it....but do not do it now. 

 

Don’t believe me? Read this: http://chronicle.com...c,158253.0.html

[Jocko]

AAAH! No news for me either. I only applied 3 places, so my odds are already incredibly skewed. Plus, one was UPenn my chances are oh so slim. At this point, If it makes anyone else feel better, I am pretty sure everyone else on the forum will end up somewhere. Whoever it was who obsessively refreshes the results page: I'm with you every step of the way. It's hypnotic. I've wasted hours searching the damn thing and I am no closer to any real information than if I was on a tiny rubber raft in the middle of the ocean (with no phone--or at least a dead phone). 

I don't see why schools can't let everyone know at the same time. 

How hard would it be to at least update all the application trackers over the course of a day? 

[grubyczarnykot]

All: RESIST THE URGE TO CONTACT SCHOOLS AND ASK ABOUT ADMISSIONS DECISIONS!!!!

 

If it’s later in the game (like end of March) go for it....but do not do it now. 

 

Don’t believe me? Read this: http://chronicle.com...c,158253.0.html

Oof. This makes me feel kind of better about NOT being over-eager about contacting departments. Sometimes I think I'm not showing enough initiative, but I always feel pest-y or presumptuous about the idea of too much communication. 

[gk210]

All: RESIST THE URGE TO CONTACT SCHOOLS AND ASK ABOUT ADMISSIONS DECISIONS!!!!

 

If it’s later in the game (like end of March) go for it....but do not do it now. 

 

Don’t believe me? Read this: http://chronicle.com...c,158253.0.html

Holy. 0.o