Fall 2014 applicants??

[Kamisha]

It is nice to have this community support group, isn’t it? As terrible as feeling anxious about all of this is, it’s nice that there are others in the same situation who understand. Friends and family members just don’t quite seem to get the significance of all of it. 

[andrewcycs]

Pinkberry is much more of a problem than earthquakes!!!! So true Graditude. And drive bys at Pinkberry are the worst. All those dead yogurt enthusiasts. It's really a traumatizing experience that every true Californian must go through.

And shortstack, in all honesty UCLA is a great school, but LA is one of the ugliest places I've ever lived. I am counting down my last 5 weeks and cannot wait to leave! So maybe it is a blessing.

[Kamisha]

And honestly Kamisha, I have a feeling you're going to get in to a couple places!

 

Thanks! You will, as well. We just have to find our fit. 

[ArthChauc]

I'm jealous of everyone who's even heard a peep from departments--I haven't heard hardly ANYTHING. One school emailed me today to say that my application had left the graduate college and gone to the department for evaluation...great. That school has never started accepting/rejecting earlier than March, so looks like I'm still set to be in the dark.

[ArthChauc]

Just checked the results board with the keyword "English". Looking pretty grim over there. Yikes. 

 

Also, I have a snow day today! No teaching freshman rugrats or meeting with my thesis advisor!

[Kamisha]

Just checked the results board with the keyword "English". Looking pretty grim over there. Yikes. 

 

Also, I have a snow day today! No teaching freshman rugrats or meeting with my thesis advisor!

 

Meanwhile, in Utah...I’m not lying when I say that they won’t cancel school for anything less than a white out or full blown blizzard.  Last year, we had three weeks straight where the temperature didn’t rise above -16 and there was about 3 1/2 feet of snow on the ground at any given time. No cancellations. 

[Megeen]

I haven't heard back either. Been trying to prepare myself for the impeding rejection from Northwestern, but I just wanna know for sure...

[oldmangandhi]

First official rejection from OSU. I'm very bummed. 9 more decisions left :/ 

[Kamisha]

First official rejection from OSU. I'm very bummed. 9 more decisions left :/ 

 

Don’t get too down! You still have 9 schools to hear from!

[ArthChauc]

Meanwhile, in Utah...I’m not lying when I say that they won’t cancel school for anything less than a white out or full blown blizzard.  Last year, we had three weeks straight where the temperature didn’t rise above -16 and there was about 3 1/2 feet of snow on the ground at any given time. No cancellations. 

 

Yeah, I live in northwest Ohio and we have had  -10 days (without windchill) for the last month or so--we got ten inches of snow just last night so this snow day is well deserved. But no, we don't cancel either. In fact, I walked to class last Monday when the windchill was -25 and I had the very well desire to just lay face first in the snow and wait for death. 

 

But I made it to class. My students were irritated. 

[despejado]

Bloodbath on the boards today. Jeez.

[Kamisha]

I’ve decided that all PhD rejections should be accompanied by chocolate and wine. When I come to power, it’s going to be a rule. 

Edited February 5, 2014 by Kamisha

[andrewcycs]

When you come into power, Kamisha, you mind admitting me to a few PhD programs?

[Kamisha]

When you come into power, Kamisha, you mind admitting me to a few PhD programs?

 

Let it be written, let it be done. 

[andromache]

Still haven't heard from ANY programs. Geez. No news is good news? At least better news than a rejection?

[andrewcycs]

I will defend Kamisha's rule until death!

[jrockford27]

I’ve decided that all PhD rejections should be accompanied by chocolate and wine. When I come to power, it’s going to be a rule. 

 

 

Funny, acceptances are accompanied by the same things.

[Kamisha]

Was it any of you guys who just posted the new UC Davis acceptance? That makes me think I shouldn’t give up hope yet. I’m wondering if they actually received it today, or if it came in a couple of days ago with the others. 

[AlisounMiller]

Hi guys! Any UVa. acceptances? 

[Horb]

Hi guys! Any UVa. acceptances? 

 

Not yet! Praying for one! last year most were done via phone on the 7th.

[scribnera]

I'm trying to believe that no news is good news, but I'm a little terrified that I haven't heard anything from UCLA yet. So sneaky of them to do acceptances and rejections on the same day. I guess they are probably notifying alphabetically and I'm towards the end but still ghdsjkgjhdskhgjs

[AlisounMiller]

Not yet! Praying for one! last year most were done via phone on the 7th.

Yeeeek that's so soon! How are folks already getting rejections, then? 

[andromache]

By the way, I'm surprised there's been nothing at all from NYU yet. Didn't they notify by this time last year?

[Horb]

NYU did notify (according to the boards) around now. Idk what is up with UVA. I just haven't been rejected (yet). Here is to hoping!

[Strong Flat White]

But would you be a good fit 28 schools? 14 is a solid number (what I did this round). All you need is 1!

 

 

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.