what if?

[hopefulJ2010]

am i the only one who just broke down in tears despairing over what i'll do if i don't get in? seriously i've debating teaching high school or becoming a lawyer but i just feel like that's unfair to me. why should i have to compromise what i want to do?

[tortola23]

NO dude, you are NOT the only one.

For a long time I was practically having panic attacks over "What happens if NONE of these schools take me?" Then I sat down and made a detailed plan of my options if that does actually happen. It made me feel much better. I could live with my parents for a year (no), move in with friends in a new city (yes!), possibly move in with my s.o. in a new city (yes!), and do something totally different like wait tables or be a barista or work in a bookstore or tutor high schoolers, and focus HARD on applying to tons of schools the next year.

You have more options than you think! Making alternative plans made me feel much better. Try it! The world won't end, keep that in mind.

[peppermint.beatnik]

don't compromise if you don't want to. Re-apply next year.

[hopefulJ2010]

NO dude, you are NOT the only one.

For a long time I was practically having panic attacks over "What happens if NONE of these schools take me?" Then I sat down and made a detailed plan of my options if that does actually happen. It made me feel much better. I could live with my parents for a year (no), move in with friends in a new city (yes!), possibly move in with my s.o. in a new city (yes!), and do something totally different like wait tables or be a barista or work in a bookstore or tutor high schoolers, and focus HARD on applying to tons of schools the next year.

You have more options than you think! Making alternative plans made me feel much better. Try it! The world won't end, keep that in mind.

i am having panic attacks! i will have to live at home or go for my MA at my undergrad institution which i love. however i fear that the 25k it will cost me for my MA from there isn't worth it when it's just a small by no means TOP private school in ny. it would be even more crushing if, after completing my masters, i re-applied and again didn't get in. therefore leaving my options to: getting a masters in ed or taking the lsat and going to law school. oy.

[123]

i am having panic attacks! i will have to live at home or go for my MA at my undergrad institution which i love. however i fear that the 25k it will cost me for my MA from there isn't worth it when it's just a small by no means TOP private school in ny. it would be even more crushing if, after completing my masters, i re-applied and again didn't get in. therefore leaving my options to: getting a masters in ed or taking the lsat and going to law school. oy.

I wouldn't panic yet! There's no point in making yourself crazy before you know for sure. Like others have said, there are always options. Several of my classmates worked as high school teachers for a year or two before starting their PhD. While no one said it was fun, they did come back and are doing well. Basically, if you want to do it, then it will just work out. Good luck!

[missesENG]

don't compromise if you don't want to. Re-apply next year.

most definitely agree. I'm already planning to if I don't end up with a good enough outcome this time around. Life is not over and DO NOT go to law school if that isn't your true desire. I think you'd be doing yourself a disfavor.

[hadunc]

i am having panic attacks! i will have to live at home or go for my MA at my undergrad institution which i love. however i fear that the 25k it will cost me for my MA from there isn't worth it when it's just a small by no means TOP private school in ny. it would be even more crushing if, after completing my masters, i re-applied and again didn't get in. therefore leaving my options to: getting a masters in ed or taking the lsat and going to law school. oy.

If I were you I would not pay for the MA at your undergrad. I considered doing this last year when I got rejected from every school I applied to, but I refrained because it is just not worth taking on that kind of debt. My advice, as someone who went through the exact same experience last year and got across the board rejections, is to spend the year off doing everything you can to improve your apps for next year so that you can get into a funded program.

I spent some time feeling very depressed and bitter last year, and I too felt cheated, but looking back now I realize that it was the best thing that could have happened to me. In that year off I took the time to really figure out what it is that I want to do and why. I also had some great life experiences that I wouldn't trade for having gotten into grad school immediately. When you have to struggle and face rejection and doubt, you discover whether or not this is the right path for you. I know I will be a much better grad student this year because of what I went through last year.

You can choose to be angry or you can choose to use the time that you have constructively, that's the way I see it.

[tem11]

I agree with what others have said. DON'T use law school as a backup. It's a ton of time and debt for something you don't sound too passionate about and unless you get into a tier 1 institution, it likely won't pay off financially. I have a big spreadsheet of my options if I can't afford grad school. They include teaching English abroad, AmeriCorps, moving to a new city, etc. Having a clear set of options for the 'what if' scenario has allowed me to feel like I have more control over my options and has been pretty therapeutic. If at all possible, I recommend thinking about options aside from just moving home or getting an MA at your undergrad institution. If nothing else, looking up other possibilities is a fun way to waste time and get your mind off of applications. It's a bit early to panic, though, and hopefully you won't have to resort to a plan B. Good luck to you!

[hopefulJ2010]

I agree with what others have said. DON'T use law school as a backup. It's a ton of time and debt for something you don't sound too passionate about and unless you get into a tier 1 institution, it likely won't pay off financially. I have a big spreadsheet of my options if I can't afford grad school. They include teaching English abroad, AmeriCorps, moving to a new city, etc. Having a clear set of options for the 'what if' scenario has allowed me to feel like I have more control over my options and has been pretty therapeutic. If at all possible, I recommend thinking about options aside from just moving home or getting an MA at your undergrad institution. If nothing else, looking up other possibilities is a fun way to waste time and get your mind off of applications. It's a bit early to panic, though, and hopefully you won't have to resort to a plan B. Good luck to you!

haha i know it's a bit early to panic. convo with one of my good friends:

me: may as well apply to the MA at undergrad X university cause that's what it's looking like

her: no J, it's not looking like ANYTHING yet.

law admissions are so much more predictable. i think i can crack the lsat being i work for one of the test companies and have the GPA. but i know it's not necessarily the wisest move to resort to something i'm not quite as passionate about and am definitely considering other options including teaching HS and applying to CUNY for a more affordable MA.

[strokeofmidnight]

am i the only one who just broke down in tears despairing over what i'll do if i don't get in? seriously i've debating teaching high school or becoming a lawyer but i just feel like that's unfair to me. why should i have to compromise what i want to do?

I do know the frustrations and fears (I was breaking down in tears by the third week of February last year), but it looks like most of your schools haven't even began to notify. Give it time. It's far too early to panic.

Edited February 11, 2010 by strokeofmidnight

[bookchica]

I do know the frustrations and fears (I was breaking down in tears by the third week of February last year), but it looks like most of your schools haven't even began to notify. Give it time. It's far too early to panic.

I am in tears NOW. 2 rejections and 5 unlikely apps still in the mix. This is round 2 for me. I don't think there will be a round 3. 3.84 MA G.P.A. from a nowhere state school, GRES 660 Verbal, 680 Quant (down from the 1410 I scored the first go round)... my SOP seemed solid to those I've shown it to. I don't know. It isn't that I don't want this, but I'm not sure how much more I'm prepared to put into it. Panic seems like a valid option to me. It's a recession. Let's be realistic. Not everyone who applies will get in.

[strokeofmidnight]

I am in tears NOW. 2 rejections and 5 unlikely apps still in the mix. This is round 2 for me. I don't think there will be a round 3. 3.84 MA G.P.A. from a nowhere state school, GRES 660 Verbal, 680 Quant (down from the 1410 I scored the first go round)... my SOP seemed solid to those I've shown it to. I don't know. It isn't that I don't want this, but I'm not sure how much more I'm prepared to put into it. Panic seems like a valid option to me. It's a recession. Let's be realistic. Not everyone who applies will get in.

This isn't my first round either (it's my third, actually), though I'm not quite in the same boat because I did have offers in previous rounds. However, it seems quite common for applicants who were accepted nowhere in previous rounds to reapply and do very well. (My partner was turned down TWICE from every PhD program on his list before landing in his dream school. Several of my friends--now in top ten and ivy league programs--also applied more than once). Between the high number of applicants and the economy, this is something of an unpredictable year, which means you can be rejected from a less selective school but accepted into more selective one. Give it time. It's not even the middle of February, and schools will be making first round offers until March, often with additional offers coming down the pipeline throughout March.

[poco_puffs]

Plenty of anxiety/depression for me. At the moment, I know I could find something else to work with if I don't get in-- but I can also imagine the mind-games I'd play with myself with a lap full of rejection letters. I haven't heard ANYTHING yet.

Here's the kicker: If I get accepted and move somewhere, I'm not sure if my live-in boyfriend of 4 years wil be coming across the country with me. I figure it at somewhere around 50/50 right now. If I get rejected everywhere, we'll probably move to a new city together and start looking for some real work. Even though I know in my heart that this is my dream, the emotions that I have all wrapped up in the idea of moving away from family, friends, my hometown and my boyfriend almost have me more scared of the acceptances than the rejections.

And then the logic trumps the fear for a day or two, and I go back to reality and optimism for a while.

[AlecBaldwin]

Please don't believe from what I'm writing here that I am at all unsympathetic to the current worriers of our little world. I am very much among you and of you, but the reflective period that this process has forced on me has raised some (I think, anyway) useful questions. For one, why are my aspirations so bound up with this particular process? What is it that getting this advanced degree will do for me (beyond opening up the possibility of a particular kind of employment)? Yes, theoretically being a professor could be a comparatively more enjoyable way of participating in the world of work, but one ought to remember that it's still a job. Getting this degree and even getting an academic position are by no means keys to any kind of perfect bliss in the future.

Do I want to get a PhD because it will allow me to pursue my "research interests?" We might tell ourselves this one, but it's a lie every time. We develop research interests because we want to go to graduate school, not the other way around. No one would subject themselves to our current (and, in my opinion, somewhat abhorrent) knowledge bureaucracy unless they had a strong desire to get more higher education. In other words, if I don't get into graduate school my intellectual life will most assuredly not follow the (probably excessively narrow) trajectory that it would in grad school. Frankly, I'm kinda happy about that. And I'm not trying to de-legitimate research interests! But I think we should be more honest about their instrumentality...

Because I think at bottom what we all really want from grad school, or at least this is probably true in the humanities disciplines, is to have the chance to continue pursuing intellectual matters in a way that is (more or less) accepted and legitimated by society more generally. We want to be intellectuals, and we want to be them in such a way that won't limit our participation in other parts of social life (ie. we need to earn a living, we need the respect/credibility that comes with higher ed credentials, we need to be attached to institutions that are themselves respected).

My point though is that you can be an intellectual anywhere and while doing almost anything! And I could make a lot of arguments for why being an intellectual outside the academy is probably infinitely more satisfying from a purely intellectual standpoint (I think that's a discussion that should take place, but maybe in a new thread?). I think we all just want to be intellectuals, but we figured that out by going to college (or anyway, being in school). So our intellectual models are teachers/professors. But those don't have to be our only models! Embrace your inner Susan Sontag! I will be as upset as anyone if I'm rejected by all the schools to which I've applied, but we ought to keep in mind that the ultimate point of all this was something more fundamental (and I think something much more human) than acquiring another notarized piece of paper that affixes letters to your name. There is so much brainpower out there that isn't/won't/can't think beyond the academy! And the state of the world, financial and otherwise, renders it so necessary that we do!

Okay, that's all I've got. Back to refreshing my inbox every 3 minutes. For those who don't get into schools: get in touch with me and we'll talk about forming our own country or something.

[commoner]

Well stated Baldwin!

3rd round for me. Have had small successes, but nothing fruitful yet. Waitlisted at one school in '08, flat rejected in '09 from same school. The ups and downs are horrendous. My first round (technically second as I applied to MFA programs several years ago) was particularly tragic. I felt really horrible. Second year, got an unfunded acceptance. Thanks for nothing. But, as mentioned, the goal is to put together a better package every time, refine your list of schools to find the right fit, and keep moving forward. I'm much less worried about this year. There are plenty of options outside academia. I hold an MA which provides for a few more. It's not a terrible idea, but one you might consider pursuing as you refine your application. Try a different school. I went to a state school. Much less expensive. Made my own road through the program, too. Worked on what I wanted to work on to make myself a more well rounded candidate (and human being). In the end, it is what it is. Life does not end after 28 rejections (can't wait for #29!).

c.

[Nighthob]

This may seem trite, but I have to always remind myself that the outcome is going to be the same whether I panic or not. The apps are out of my hands, and it's normal to feel anxious, but letting my nerves shatter isn't going to help me.

Like others, this is my second time applying. The wonderful thing about applying for graduate study is that it means I'm opening myself to the possibilities of a different kind of life. And that realization turned the "what-if" game into a positive.

What if you don't get into graduate school? It won't be the end of the world, and it doesn't have to be a miserable year while you reapply. Try to do something you love. If you can't do that, try to do something you don't hate. Learn a new language. Submit papers for conferences. Make contacts. Join the FBI. Join the French Foreign Legion. Join a rock band. Travel; volunteer; eat cake for breakfast. Make your journey interesting, and you'll become an even more interesting candidate next time.

[callmelilyb]

To those of you despairing, please keep hope! It is so early in the process!

To those reapplying (or thinking about it)...there are so many people who get into amazing programs in their second, third (or fourth!) round of applications.

This forum, many professors, and friends are all a testament to the various paths that one can take to follow this dream.

[minnares]

@AlecBaldwin: That was so well put I'm tempted to print it out and hang it next to my monitor. Thank you for that.

@callmelilyb: My husband pointed out that there are many folks who professors who really have no business teaching. We've all encountered them. I figure if they can make it into a PhD program, so can we There are SO many programs, and from the looks of this board, everyone here has more than sufficient background going for them. I agree with you that despair is a bit premature, if tempting to bend to.

~ m

[straightshooting]

Do I want to get a PhD because it will allow me to pursue my "research interests?" We might tell ourselves this one, but it's a lie every time. We develop research interests because we want to go to graduate school, not the other way around.

I cannot say that I agree with this whatsoever. As it turns out, it's not possible to pursue -- at least with any rigor -- many scholarly endeavors that require a great deal of research without being in academia, whether it be graduate school or a tenure-track position. Though I'm hardly a fan of anecdotes, I will offer my own as an illustration. After my undergraduate degree, I spent two years in lucrative IT jobs. During that time I continued to pursue my "research interests" -- which existed prior to any desire to attend graduate school -- but it became very clear that without more time to dedicate, as well as without access to various resources, I wasn't going to be able to do the sort of research that I aimed to do. After nearly two years of graduate school, I can say unequivocally that I would not be able to do what it is that I do now in any other setting.

To be quite frank, I will say that you don't have any business filling a slot in a graduate program if you're just signing up because you're looking for a way out of another line of work or if you think that an advanced degree will earn you some sort of cultural capital. I could give a flying fuck about the social acceptability of my pursuits. What I do care about, however, is having the time to spend eight to twelve hours a day scouring old books, writing articles, and otherwise contributing to the scholarship in my field. Though there are some exceptions, that requires being in academia.

If you want to be an "intellectual," grow a goatee and pontificate at your local coffee shop, or impress your family with your knowledge of Foucault and Derrida at Christmas dinner. That's all fine and dandy with me. What's not, however, is for you to take the spot of someone whose "research interests" preceded their desire to sign up for graduate school.

Edited February 11, 2010 by straightshooting

[Aquinaplatostotlestine]

Straightshooting: While I agree with some of your points (I too think that without the resources the academy provides pursuing research interests past a certain point becomes, if not impossible, at least very difficult), I think Baldwin's well thought out and polite post deserved a more mature response on your part. And speculating on who deserves a spot in grad school and who doesn't, regardless of their motives, is just silly.

Ok, having weighed in with my (unsolicited) 2 cents on that issue, I also wanted to say that this is my second time around applying to grad schools. I graduated years ago (2004), applied to several schools around the country, and got accepted into....wait, let me think, oh yeah, now I remember, not a single one of them :-(. And it sucked, there's no reason to sugar coat the fact that rejection hurts. But by not immediately going to grad school I had the opportunity to do some really incredible things. I lived in a foreign country for almost 2 years, became fluent in another language, I worked in a field completely foreign to Literature, and, eventually, when I realized that a life outside of the university was not something I wanted, I got an M.A. in English Lit from a "nowhere state school" (to steal bookchica's perfect phrase). This time around, my luck has been much better. I've been accepted into one PhD program with funding and am a finalist in another. So don't lose hope. If this is what you want to do, you'll find a way to do it--even if the route there is longer and more circuitous than you might wish.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Aquinaplatostotlestine

[Branwen daughter of Llyr]

...After my undergraduate degree, I spent two years in lucrative IT jobs. During that time I continued to pursue my "research interests" -- which existed prior to any desire to attend graduate school -- but it became very clear that without more time to dedicate, as well as without access to various resources, I wasn't going to be able to do the sort of research that I aimed to do. After nearly two years of graduate school, I can say unequivocally that I would not be able to do what it is that I do now in any other setting.

...I could give a flying fuck about the social acceptability of my pursuits. What I do care about, however, is having the time to spend eight to twelve hours a day scouring old books, writing articles, and otherwise contributing to the scholarship in my field. Though there are some exceptions, that requires being in academia.

Yup. On both counts. I've been out of undergrad for nearly nine years. At no time in these nine years have I managed to pursue my love of lit to the level I did in college. I don't have the ppl around me who are interested in it (in fact, when I start talking Chaucer, they yawn and look bored), I don't have the library, I don't have the time and "peace and quiet" to delve in deep. I'm just busy surviving most of the time.

Obviously, the world won't end if I don't get in this year. I'll apply again. But truth be told? There is NOTHING I'd rather do. And trust me, I've tried my hand at just about everything. Unfortunately, we don't live in Paris in the 1920's, where we can sit with all our fellow writers and artists and talk intellectually over a cup of coffee all day long. Life has gotten too expensive for that. And when you're not surrounded by the constant discourse, it tends to lower your drive. At least it does for me. Scholarly discussion is exactly that - discussion. You can't really do it alone.

Oh yeah, and aside from loving poking in old manuscripts and puzzling over the connections between Morte L'Artur and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence, I really love teaching this stuff, and getting students excited about it. And unfortunately, except for some really exceptional high school programs, academia is where the juice is at!

[straightshooting]

Straightshooting: While I agree with some of your points (I too think that without the resources the academy provides pursuing research interests past a certain point becomes, if not impossible, at least very difficult), I think Baldwin's well thought out and polite post deserved a more mature response on your part. And speculating on who deserves a spot in grad school and who doesn't, regardless of their motives, is just silly.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you that Baldwin's statement, "We develop research interests because we want to go to graduate school, not the other way around," was a polite one. I gather that he was trying to be encouraging, but such a blanket declaration that categorically denies the genuine motivation of virtually every respectable scholar that I know can hardly be considered polite or even "well thought out." It is extremely presumptuous--and I would suggest, indicative of the mindset of many lackluster graduate students--to assert that "we all just want to be intellectuals, but we figured that out by going to college (or anyway, being in school). So our intellectual models are teachers/professors." I could care less about being an "intellectual," which from what I gather, means to Baldwin a person who receives recognition for being "intelligent" and "cultured"; I want to contribute to scholarly debate and knowledge. I have known many graduate students who are either on board because they want the sort of cultural capital that Baldwin speaks of or simply didn't know what else to do after undergrad in this less than stellar economy. By and large, they don't hack it as scholars, either deciding not to continue after finishing an MA or eating up funding as PhD students who never finish their dissertations. I would argue that the "having research interests that produce the need to attend grad school" motivation is the only one that should (and frankly, does) fly, at least at the PhD level. There are so many people who consume funding that would have been better spent on other people, realizing that graduate school is hard work that requires more than the desire to be thought of as an "intellectual."

[intextrovert]

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you that Baldwin's statement, "We develop research interests because we want to go to graduate school, not the other way around," was a polite one. I gather that he was trying to be encouraging, but such a blanket declaration that categorically denies the genuine motivation of virtually every respectable scholar that I know can hardly be considered polite or even "well thought out." It is extremely presumptuous--and I would suggest, indicative of the mindset of many lackluster graduate students--to assert that "we all just want to be intellectuals, but we figured that out by going to college (or anyway, being in school). So our intellectual models are teachers/professors." I could care less about being an "intellectual," which from what I gather, means to Baldwin a person who receives recognition for being "intelligent" and "cultured"; I want to contribute to scholarly debate and knowledge. I have known many graduate students who are either on board because they want the sort of cultural capital that Baldwin speaks of or simply didn't know what else to do after undergrad in this less than stellar economy. By and large, they don't hack it as scholars, either deciding not to continue after finishing an MA or eating up funding as PhD students who never finish their dissertations. I would argue that the "having research interests that produce the need to attend grad school" motivation is the only one that should (and frankly, does) fly, at least at the PhD level. There are so many people who consume funding that would have been better spent on other people, realizing that graduate school is hard work that requires more than the desire to be thought of as an "intellectual."

But I think you're imposing your preconception of what someone means when they say "an intellectual" on Baldwin, and I don't think it necessarily fits here. When I read Baldwin's post, I definitely didn't interpret it to mean that he wanted to been thought of as intelligent or cultured, but that he wanted to be involved in intellectual pursuits as a major part of his life - but that he hadn't exactly sorted through the particulars of what he wanted to research. There are a lot of grad applicants - and new students - that are a little fuzzy on exactly what they want to study, but just have more general pull towards certain interests. I don't know that there's anything wrong with that, as a starting point. I applied two years ago straight out of undergrad and definitely had a "fuzzy" view of exactly what I wanted to study - I had loved doing my thesis and independent projects and knew that that was ultimately the only thing I'd truly feel satisfied doing: rigorous, intellectual work. I had that intuitive sense and pull towards it, but as I was very fresh, I hadn't quite worked through exactly what direction I would take that research in but rather had broad interests and a few general questions I was interested in.

But in the two years since I've really had time to think about exactly what I'm interested in, who I would be as a scholar, and yes, part of the reason I was forced to do that now and not later was to make my application stronger this time around. I pursued some of my general interests to learn more about what specifically interested me, reading up on some theory, current scholarship, and subfields in general. Maybe that's the sort of independent intellectual pursuit Baldwin was talking about - but eventually it just affirmed that I needed the resources of an actual program if I wanted to be able to go further. So in that way, the grad school application process has forced me to identify and articulate research interests, when I couldn't have before. The thing is, some people go through this "focusing process" in the first year or so of grad school, while others do it before they apply (though you're going to have a much stronger application if you do it before, as I learned - grad schools would rather you figure it out on your own and not on their penny so that you can hit the ground running). You reacted to Baldwin's blanket statement, which is fair because it's not true for all of us, but you're also making one. It's no more fair to say that just because someone hasn't yet fully gotten their specific research interests 100% into focus yet (don't some complain about this tendency/pressure for applicants to do this so early in their academic careers? pre-professionalizing?), they don't have a valid desire to be a scholar and don't deserve a spot in a grad cohort.

Edited February 11, 2010 by intextrovert

[Shaky Premise]

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you that Baldwin's statement, "We develop research interests because we want to go to graduate school, not the other way around," was a polite one. I gather that he was trying to be encouraging, but such a blanket declaration that categorically denies the genuine motivation of virtually every respectable scholar that I know can hardly be considered polite or even "well thought out." It is extremely presumptuous--and I would suggest, indicative of the mindset of many lackluster graduate students--to assert that "we all just want to be intellectuals, but we figured that out by going to college (or anyway, being in school). So our intellectual models are teachers/professors." I could care less about being an "intellectual," which from what I gather, means to Baldwin a person who receives recognition for being "intelligent" and "cultured"; I want to contribute to scholarly debate and knowledge. I have known many graduate students who are either on board because they want the sort of cultural capital that Baldwin speaks of or simply didn't know what else to do after undergrad in this less than stellar economy. By and large, they don't hack it as scholars, either deciding not to continue after finishing an MA or eating up funding as PhD students who never finish their dissertations. I would argue that the "having research interests that produce the need to attend grad school" motivation is the only one that should (and frankly, does) fly, at least at the PhD level. There are so many people who consume funding that would have been better spent on other people, realizing that graduate school is hard work that requires more than the desire to be thought of as an "intellectual."

I'm not really interested in getting in the middle of this exceedingly strange (to my ears!) debate, but I would caution against attempting to sum up the motivations and intentions of others. In my experience, it's difficult to know what people's endgames are, even when they appear to be transparent. And judging who these characters are that "consume funding that would have been better spent on other people" seems to be a very tricky business, perhaps best left up to the admissions committees, don't you think? They put a lot of time into sorting out those people who can hack it from those who most likely can't, and I'd like to think they make the right call most of the time.

I'd also wager that most successful scholars went into graduate school looking to further research goals AND to attain cultural capital. In my experience, very few people wander into doctoral programs for lack of anything better to do and even fewer do so because they think earning a PhD will make them appear intellectual! At the same time, I've never met a college professor who didn't obviously pride him/herself on coming across as extremely intelligent; the cultural capital attached to earning a doctoral degree is attractive to every aspiring grad student, and denying it strikes me as naive. But in the end, grad school is basically extended on-the-job training towards becoming a teacher/scholar, not some sort of abstract, outdated humanist program towards becoming "cultured." Surely the vast majority of folks who see it as the latter would have a hard time garnering recommendations and an even harder time putting together a coherent statement of purpose.

[Aquinaplatostotlestine]

Straightshooting:

By polite I simply meant that Baldwin didn't employ the same kind of, let's say vivid language that you used in your first reply. And let's face it, in the kind of scholarly debate you want to be a part of you'll be using the phrase "flying fuck" very, very infrequently. Both because it's neither scholarly nor conducive to debate, and because it's rude. By well thought out, on the other hand, I didn't mean that I necessarily agreed with everything Baldwin said. I simply meant I thought his post well written and something he obviously spent some time on.