Goodbye Academia Part 1: Rejection

It looks like I won't be doing a PhD, at least in the immediate future. I was going to write a single post explaining why and what I thought, but it got very, very long. So, I've decided to break it up into parts. Also, I'd be lying if I didn't say that doing a multipart series on my blog wasn't at least partially inspired by a friend's fantastic discussion of his beard-related problems at BYU, which you can read here.

After finishing a master's degree at BYU last year, I decided to apply to grad school to do a PhD. There's not many careers that require—or even value—an MA in English, so teaching at a university seemed like a good thing to shoot for. 

So, all through fall of 2009, my primary "occupation" was applying to PhD graduate programs (I did other things, but saw them as secondary). Though I initially planned to apply to around 15, I only ended up submitting applications to 9. Six were in film, and three in English. They were:

Film: 

NYU

USC

UCLA

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Brown

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

English:

University of Pennsylvania

Northwestern

University of Washington.

I chose these schools based on simple criteria: 1) Programs that appealed to me based on their focus/faculty specialties, 2) Programs with enough prestige to get a good job after finishing, with at least a remote possibility of it turning into a really good job down the road, 3) Location, 4) Other assorted factors. 

It's also worth mentioning that though my current degrees are already in English, I almost didn't even apply to any English programs. I have a lot more work experience in film, am more interested in it as an art form, and liked the film programs more. In the end, however, I decided that I'd love to live in Washington state (hence that school), UPenn has great placement and is an Ivy League (and I had a good contact there), and I also had a good contact at Northwestern.

I also think I had a pretty strong application. I had a number of conference presentations, a good writing sample (according to some professors), a published film review in a scholarly journal (and a number of non-scholarly publications with varying pertinence to the field), strong letter's of recommendation (also according to the people who wrote them), etc. Overall, my letter recommenders told me that I was a strong candidate. 

Nevertheless, I have been rejected by all but the University of Michigan, and I don't have high hopes for that school. I have no idea why I've been rejected, but the most basic reason is that the schools I applied for received more suitable applications. I also didn't apply very broadly (as I was advised to do by many people). Three schools in English and six in film hardly ensures entrance into either field. Plus, I mostly only applied to top tier programs (Washington and Michigan aren't necessarily the very top in those respective fields, but they're still very good). 

Because I'm not dying to undergo the financial, emotional, and psychological bludgeoning that the PhD application/rejection process entails, my many years of school are likely at an end. The application for each school cost between $60 and $90. Plus, I retook the GRE (big mistake, btw), which cost over $100, and I had to pay $20 to have my scores sent to more than few schools. There were also a bunch of other expenses along the way which made the application process very expensive. 

More importantly, no matter how nice the rejection letters are, they might as well be a blank piece of paper with the words "you're worthless" scribbled on them. (Or better yet, they could be one of those audio cards that I think are made by Hallmark and play a song when you open them. Except in this case, they could just scream obscenities and insults and leave you to figure out the rest.) Though I don't actually believe I'm worthless, I had no idea how difficult it would be to receive 8 (soon to be 9) consecutive rejection letters. Seriously, it takes a toll.  

Of course, there is still the possibility that I'll get accepted into Michigan. It's slim, I think, but it exists. However, at this point, I may not accept an offer to go to Michigan, as I'm increasingly content with the way things are turning out. Since I've been out of school I've cultivated some new career possibilities, and my qualms with academia are stronger than ever. So stay tuned for the next installment of this series to find out why getting rejected might actually be a really good thing.