Spanish Literature Phd - 2016

[Jhlasa]

  On 2/24/2016 at 12:35 PM, Dulcinea11 said:

Would you be going there for an MA or PhD? 

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PhD

[waitingforletter]

  On 2/10/2016 at 4:12 PM, lauracol said:

Hey there--I've been hearing back. Applied to six (UNC Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, University of Chicago, Duke, Cornell, and UTexas Austin) and have heard back from the first three (acceptances, luckily!). No word from the last three yet, but I'm expecting based on the Results Page here and the university websites that I should be hearing by the end of this week or the next. How are things going for you? 

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Congratulations for your acceptances. I am still waiting for Cornell, have you heard back from them? I am kind of loosing my hope now.

[mundodevidrio]

I got an email saying I've been accepted at Chapel Hill! Don't give up hope!

Congratulations to everyone else on their acceptances! Siempre adelante!

[lauracol]

  On 2/25/2016 at 10:11 PM, waitingforletter said:

Congratulations for your acceptances. I am still waiting for Cornell, have you heard back from them? I am kind of loosing my hope now.

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Haven't heard a thing from them, so don't lose hope! Today I got waitlisted by Duke, which is a bummer because I really liked them  Now just waiting on Cornell and UTexas, but they were both at the bottom of my list. 

[waitingforletter]

  On 2/25/2016 at 11:26 PM, lauracol said:

Haven't heard a thing from them, so don't lose hope! Today I got waitlisted by Duke, which is a bummer because I really liked them  Now just waiting on Cornell and UTexas, but they were both at the bottom of my list. 

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Ok, I hope this anxiety ends soon with whatever response I receive. I found this webpage after I submitted all my applications and it's now when I realized that I could've prepared my apps better (improve GRE, more publications and better writing sample). Anyhow, let's see what happens with Cornell (it was my first option). Applied to 4 and I already got two rejections  and 1 acceptance.

[Dulcinea11]

  On 2/25/2016 at 11:06 PM, mundodevidrio said:

I got an email saying I've been accepted at Chapel Hill! Don't give up hope!

Congratulations to everyone else on their acceptances! Siempre adelante!

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Congratulations!

I did too!

[Dulcinea11]

  On 2/25/2016 at 11:36 PM, waitingforletter said:

Ok, I hope this anxiety ends soon with whatever response I receive. I found this webpage after I submitted all my applications and it's now when I realized that I could've prepared my apps better (improve GRE, more publications and better writing sample). Anyhow, let's see what happens with Cornell (it was my first option). Applied to 4 and I already got two rejections  and 1 acceptance.

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I hear you! I also just recently found this website, it would have been helpful to hear about it earlier!

What school did you get into?

[waitingforletter]

  On 2/26/2016 at 9:52 PM, Dulcinea11 said:

I hear you! I also just recently found this website, it would have been helpful to hear about it earlier!

What school did you get into?

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Lauracol, I know it's not your first choice but I contacted Cornell today and it seems that the 3 students admitted to the field in Spanish have been already contacted. So, the only way to get in is that one of those people decide not to attend which I don't think it's going to happen. 

Dulcinea, I am going to University of Washington, only enrolled to the Master Program.  I am very happy about it.

[lauracol]

  On 3/2/2016 at 9:24 PM, waitingforletter said:

Lauracol, I know it's not your first choice but I contacted Cornell today and it seems that the 3 students admitted to the field in Spanish have been already contacted. So, the only way to get in is that one of those people decide not to attend which I don't think it's going to happen. 

Dulcinea, I am going to University of Washington, only enrolled to the Master Program.  I am very happy about it.

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Thanks for letting me know! I can move along with the decision-making process! Sounds like you've made your choice--congratulations!!

[P.Y C]

  On 2/25/2016 at 11:06 PM, mundodevidrio said:

I got an email saying I've been accepted at Chapel Hill! Don't give up hope!

Congratulations to everyone else on their acceptances! Siempre adelante!

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I just received my acceptance from Chapel Hill ! Couldn't be happier !
Although in the acceptance letter it said that the funding information (oh, and the recruitment event info) will come along with the official correspondence latter, I am still quite happy right now.

[mundodevidrio]

P.Y C, did you receive the acceptance package?

 

I received an email today from the graduate advisor from UNC that he would like to chat with me. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing. Anyone else receive a similar email?

[P.Y C]

Hey mundodevidrio,

No, I'm still waiting for the funding package information / official acceptance letter

I got that email too, and in the email he wrote in a enthusiastic and positive tone (...Those of us who evaluated your application materials were very impressed and excited about your work and what you will bring to our department.), so I would assume that it's a good thing? Or maybe everyone who got accepted just received the same email. haha

Are you planning on going to the recruitment event, or still making the final decision about the school you will be going?


 

[mundodevidrio]

Ah, okay. You will get it. It comes in an email -- it's a 10-page or so packet. 

Yeah, his tone was very cheery and he listed two professors in my field so I'm thinking it is a good thing. 

Unfortunately I can't go to the recruitment event, but this is the best offer I've received so I'm thinking I will take it. I've heard so many good things about Chapel Hill so I think it is the right decision  

[P.Y C]

Thank you for your information

[lauracol]

Will anyone be attending UNC Chapel Hill's visiting event this week? I'm looking forward to it! Feel free to shoot me a message to say hello if you will be attending! 

[elsueñodelretorno]

Hi y´all!

I have applied to 6 PhD programs and have been rejected to 5 so far. Though there is one decision yet to come, I´m not feeling optimistic at all and I guess I´ll reapply next year, so I´d like to ask you how to make myself a better candidate for next fall or what to improve. I applied to Spanish PhD programs at UT Texas, CUNY, Michigan Ann Arbor, USC, Princeton and Stanford. Was interviewed and waitlisted by CUNY, directly rejected by the rest ad nothing from USC. Here you have a summary of my profile:

International candidate from Spain pursuing a PhD in Spanish.

BA in Spanish, Spanish University, GPA 8.14/10.

MA in Spanish, Same Spanish University, GPA 9.6/10 plus award to best student in the promotion. Master thesis received High Honors.

During undergrad: one semester as an exchange student in Latin America and two semesters in Germany (top 3 German universities) and did an internship at the German college. (My BA was 10 semesters long). Both exchanges with scholarship. 

TOEFL IBT 107/120.

GRE: verbal 160 (percentile 85), quantitative 145 (percentile 21), analytical 4.5 (percentile 80).

Work experience: six months as an intern at my Spanish University Press, one year teaching Spanish at private center in China, one year teaching Spanish in top 10 US University, and one year (currently and probably next year too) teaching at another university (EXTREMELY low position, the top 10 thing was a one year opportunity).

LOR: one from my master advisor, one from another master professor and one from a VIP writer that I met in a summer course. 

Extra training: lots of courses, seminars and so on on Hispanic lit and Spanish.

Research: 4 conference presentations, one book chapter. 

Other languages: intermediate German, basic French, basic Latin. 

 

What do you think was my weak point? What could I do to improve? Should I forget about this kind of universities and try to score lower? I asked for feedback after each rejection but didn´t get anyhing useful, so I´m asking The Grad Cafe comunity. Thank you very much for reading and for commenting!  

[lauracol]

Hey there--have you considered that the rejections may be less about your qualifications and more about fitting in with the program? To me it sounds that you're very qualified (although I don't know about whether those TOEFL scores are considered good) so all I can think of are that your Letters of Recommendation, your writing sample, or your statement of purpose may have had something that negatively influenced the decisions. If that's not an option, it's possible that the programs you applied to really aren't a good fit for you. It's not necessarily about the universities being high-ranked, but if you look at the faculty that compose the program, your research interests might not align with anyone's or you could be interested in a research area that just doesn't fit in with their programs. For next year I would look into whether other programs might have faculty who have areas of study that better align with your research interests. Good luck! And April 15th is just coming up, it's possible you'll be brought off the CUNY waitlist. 

[elsueñodelretorno]

  On 4/6/2016 at 4:11 PM, lauracol said:

Hey there--have you considered that the rejections may be less about your qualifications and more about fitting in with the program? To me it sounds that you're very qualified (although I don't know about whether those TOEFL scores are considered good) so all I can think of are that your Letters of Recommendation, your writing sample, or your statement of purpose may have had something that negatively influenced the decisions. If that's not an option, it's possible that the programs you applied to really aren't a good fit for you. It's not necessarily about the universities being high-ranked, but if you look at the faculty that compose the program, your research interests might not align with anyone's or you could be interested in a research area that just doesn't fit in with their programs. For next year I would look into whether other programs might have faculty who have areas of study that better align with your research interests. Good luck! And April 15th is just coming up, it's possible you'll be brought off the CUNY waitlist. 

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Hi lauracol! Thanks for your answer! I think you are right: next year I´m going to rewrite my statement of purpose, change some of my recommenders and look for better research fits (for example, I think CUNY was a great fit, and it was the one that I went further in the process... Though they have eventually rejected me... Yikes). Thanks a lot for your recommendations!!

 

[rack_attack124]

  On 3/5/2016 at 1:38 PM, mundodevidrio said:

Ah, okay. You will get it. It comes in an email -- it's a 10-page or so packet. 

Yeah, his tone was very cheery and he listed two professors in my field so I'm thinking it is a good thing. 

Unfortunately I can't go to the recruitment event, but this is the best offer I've received so I'm thinking I will take it. I've heard so many good things about Chapel Hill so I think it is the right decision  

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I went to UNC undergrad. I love my school. Chapel Hill is a great place to live. I hope you like it!

[lauracol]

Hi everyone!! Since it's THE DAY, I just wanted to check in and see where everyone ended up. I'm psyched to have picked UChicago!! I also notified UNC Chapel Hill on Monday/Tuesday, so it's possible a waitlist spot has opened up, if anyone was waiting to hear!