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comparative literature acceptance thread!


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Speaking also as a fellow Chinese applicant to CompLit & East Asian programs, I feel that for English/CompLit PhDs ranking does not make that much difference (so long as they are top 50/70) if you intend to go back to China. The pool is smaller; not a lot of Chinese students are studying those for PhD in top 25 institutions anyway). And finding a job back home perhaps has more to do with your connections etc and then where you got you BA may become relevant. It does make a difference though if you want to find a job in US first. It seems much harder, perhaps impossible, to find a teaching position in a research institution with a PhD from a lower ranked university.

It's another story with East Asian focuses I think. The prestige of your degree perhaps matters more if you want to go back to China, because we are supposed to compete with people equally if not better trained in China and abroad. So it really depends. 

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Did anyone else apply to UCLA? And if you did, have you heard anything? I think if I haven't heard anything by the end of this week I'll email them, it'll have been a full three month since their deadline and nothing on the gc results board indicates that they've made their offers already.

SubmarineReflection, I haven't heard anything but as someone posted about bench in the shortlist a while ago my impression is that people still in the running well here have heard by now.

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Speaking also as a fellow Chinese applicant to CompLit & East Asian programs, I feel that for English/CompLit PhDs ranking does not make that much difference (so long as they are top 50/70) if you intend to go back to China. The pool is smaller; not a lot of Chinese students are studying those for PhD in top 25 institutions anyway). And finding a job back home perhaps has more to do with your connections etc and then where you got you BA may become relevant. It does make a difference though if you want to find a job in US first. It seems much harder, perhaps impossible, to find a teaching position in a research institution with a PhD from a lower ranked university.

It's another story with East Asian focuses I think. The prestige of your degree perhaps matters more if you want to go back to China, because we are supposed to compete with people equally if not better trained in China and abroad. So it really depends.

Yeah, it makes me worry, but I checked the profile of teachers in Chinese key universities, most of them are not overseas trained. So guess studying abroad still has a competitive edge.
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Did anyone else apply to UCLA? And if you did, have you heard anything? I think if I haven't heard anything by the end of this week I'll email them, it'll have been a full three month since their deadline and nothing on the gc results board indicates that they've made their offers already.

SubmarineReflection, I haven't heard anything but as someone posted about bench in the shortlist a while ago my impression is that people still in the running well here have heard by now.

 

Nah I'm assuming rejection at this point. I just think it's super interesting how much later rejections are sent out than acceptances.

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Nah I'm assuming rejection at this point. I just think it's super interesting how much later rejections are sent out than acceptances.

Tell me about it. Considering that rejections tend to be completely generic and that they no doubt know who they're going to reject almost as soon as they know who they'll accept I really don't get why they're leaving us hanging for so long...
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Tell me about it. Considering that rejections tend to be completely generic and that they no doubt know who they're going to reject almost as soon as they know who they'll accept I really don't get why they're leaving us hanging for so long...

 

I was wondering about this too and I had an idea. It could be in part about the whole issue of yields/waitlists. Some schools seem to prefer contacting their first choices before even letting their second choices know they're on the waitlist, apparently. In that scenario, it would make sense to wait to inform all the rejects at once since some of them may be bottom-of-the-waitlist but never make it that far when the acceptances decide to take the offers, so they might be trying to reduce uncertainty about offers. Even tho obviously we feel this is way more uncertainty because this is taking forever and I'm losing my mind lol.

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Waiting on Yale and my waitlist at Harvard so far.

I saw a Yale acceptance two weeks ago. Perhaps I am still waiting for UIUC. It's right now the spring festival in China. Thus I don't quite feel the anxiety of waiting at all. Fingers crossed for Harvard waitlist.
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Waiting on Yale and my waitlist at Harvard so far.

What happened to Cornell? Did you eventually heart back from them?

Iwontbelyeveit I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

I haven't heard from my interview place either, they said late Feb, so hopefully I'll know by Saturday at least, even if I right now think it's a rejection

Edited by Katla
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Katla, I just heard the final words this morning, including Yale. It turns out I didn't get accepted anywhere except a few unfunded MAs, which I cannot afford.

 

I'm hoping for a miracle that the Harvard waitlist would work out, but otherwise it looks like moving on to different dreams for me.

 

What happened to Cornell? Did you eventually heart back from them?

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Oof, sorry to hear, ThisIsDog. Just goes to show how strange this whole process is -- get waitlisted at Harvard but rejected everywhere else. Did they tell you what your chances are?

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Katla, I just heard the final words this morning, including Yale. It turns out I didn't get accepted anywhere except a few unfunded MAs, which I cannot afford.

I'm hoping for a miracle that the Harvard waitlist would work out, but otherwise it looks like moving on to different dreams for me.

ThisisDog, hugs. I didn't even get waitlisted by Harvard. There is still hope. Did you get an email to check website by Yale?
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Huge congratulations iwontbelyeveit!!! What wonderful news!!!

HelloThisIsDog I'm sorry about the bad news, but you never know about that waitlisting, which is very impressive anyway.

Also, sorry to pry even further but did you email Cornell or did they email you?

Edited by Katla
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Thank you everyone for the encouragement. I'm hoping for the best :)

I phoned Cornell to ask, I never got an email.

 

For Yale, I got an email this morning to check the website.

 

Huge congratulations iwontbelyeveit!!! What wonderful news!!!

HelloThisIsDog I'm sorry about the bad news, but you never know about that waitlisting, which is very impressive anyway.
Also, sorry to pry even further but did you email Cornell or did they email you?

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I don't know if this is just paranoid me being paranoid, but I have a feeling the reason my Cornell rejection hasn't arrived yet is because my last name begins with one of the last letters of the alphabet.

Oh well, still waiting I guess... Should I give them a call tomorrow?

 

Hey HelloThisIsDog, 

I also did not receive any news from Cornell and my last name begins with one of the first letters of the alphabet...  Did you call them?  I just send them an email inquiring about my application but the waiting is killing me!!! 

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