Waiting...

[swissmiss]

Waiting is painful.... Just wondering, does anyone know when we are supposed to hear responses? I know the official rule is in the first two weeks of March, but older posts suggest sometimes people hear from schools even in February. What have everyone's experiences been?

Also, does anyone have info about whether schools are cutting more slots from last year, or if whether the slight improvement in the economy will have affected funding/admission decisions?

[tenshi]

i think it will be a few years before schools get back to accepting as many students as they did in 2007. Maybe i'm just pessimistic, but seeing protests over tuition hikes at UCLA last month and the following in the news today is really not helping me wait it out...

"The University of Illinois has received only seven percent ($51 million) of its state appropriation since the start of the 2010 fiscal year in July 2009. The amount owed to the university is $436 million as of Dec. 31 and increasing each month."

dote.

[TMP]

I'm not worried about the waiting all that much. I've got... 6 books waiting to be read (for fun!) on my nightstand... and a crazy landlady to deal with seeing that my place is 60 degrees. BRRRRR.... I'll look forward to those accepted visits (if possible!).

[catilina]

I look at the Literature boards, and someone there posted that a UPenn professor said that they were only going to make 5 admission offers this year because too many people accepted last year and they are overcommitted on funding. Also said that they received 680 applications for those 5 slots. How can there even be 680 people in a given year who want to get an English PhD? I can only hope this is either not true, or an anomaly specific to the UPenn English department.

[Sparky]

People have posted on previous threads that: U of Texas (Austin) is accepting fewer people than usual, and Michigan is accepting the same number as last year, which is fewer than 2007 and before.

Given that THIS is the year that entire departments (in other subjects, no panic, people) have cancelled their programs, I don't think we should put our hopes in a resurrecting economy making schools more generous.

Given that UPenn number, I plan to assume that everyone applying for the humanities this year is going for English, and thus, I have no competition whatsoever.

[rising_star]

Given that THIS is the year that entire departments (in other subjects, no panic, people) have cancelled their programs, I don't think we should put our hopes in a resurrecting economy making schools more generous.

I totally agree with this. In a recent article in Science, the president of Florida State University said that the reason they aren't using stimulus money to plug gaps in the budget is that history has shown that once state appropriations to the universities decrease, they never increase just because the budget crisis has been relieved.

[JerryLandis]

I don't think 680 English applicants is all that surprising. Looking at some of these grad application websites, it seems everyone is applying for English PhD's, I'm assuming because they don't want to give up the subject and settle for a boring job. I am very thankful that I did not decide to major in English! I get the impression that a whole lot of people, more than in other years, are going to have to reconsider their futures when decisions go out this spring. Here's hoping I'm not one of them!

[TMP]

I don't think 680 English applicants is all that surprising. Looking at some of these grad application websites, it seems everyone is applying for English PhD's, I'm assuming because they don't want to give up the subject and settle for a boring job. I am very thankful that I did not decide to major in English! I get the impression that a whole lot of people, more than in other years, are going to have to reconsider their futures when decisions go out this spring. Here's hoping I'm not one of them!

Check out the Rate Your Students Blog... they had several people blogging from the MLA convention. F*cking hilarious.

Believe me, as *hopeless* the job market and the value of an English PhD degree (other than academia and publishing and journals, etc) seem to be, those people are smart and creative. I just passed a graduate seminar in the English department last semester and I was the only one NOT doing a Literature PhD or MFA. As frustrated I was with the whole methodology of the course, I give these people a lot of credit for being willing to study English for the LOVE of English language, even if they might not have a job at the end.

I really do feel sorry for those English professors on the adcoms.

[Boogs]

I don't know if people have seen this on UTexas's history department website.

Each year approximately 300 students apply for admission to the Graduate Program in the Department of History. The usual entering class numbers about twenty. In fall 2010 we will admit only eight students. The admission process is thus very selective and only highly qualified applicants whose records indicate considerable academic potential are admitted to the program. Some of the students we accept already have extensive training in history, either at the undergraduate or graduate level. Others have majored in related disciplines such as economics, art history, law, philosophy, political science, or sociology. Students are admitted to our graduate program once each year for enrollment beginning in the fall semester only.

Eight students, for the whole history department. Pretty scary stuff. I've also heard that UMichigan is making half as many offers as it did last year and padding its waiting list in order to avoid "overenrollment." Seems like this is going to be a common theme with all the usual suspects following suit. I feel like the Grinch.