The Agony of....Defeat??

Most of you know that I was "rejected" from UVA last week. "Rejected" is in quotation marks because  I still haven't been officially notified. I sent an email to the admissions director of the English Department, asking if PhD candidates are automatically considered for unfunded MA's if they are not suitable doctoral candidates. This is sometimes the case. In most instances, people refuse this offer, as why in the world would someone want to repeat a degree they already have, and pay for it to boot?

After some soul searching Bryon and I thought, in our situation, it might not be a terrible idea, to at least start an unfunded MA at UVA, since it would keep my foot in at UVA, and it would be our best bet at keeping our family together. Then, I could reapply there the following year, and transfer the same credits to a doctoral program (assuming I got in). See, my PhD dreams are complicated by Bryon's career, which is at a crossroads with IDE (his military education). He has to put in where he wants to go (like as in this week). He can select someplace like here, or Alabama, and then a follow-on here (which would align perfectly with a school like UVA--one that I have almost no chance of getting into, but keeps our family together); or, he can select a random location like TX or some other locations, and I can hope that I get into a school there (but, that's like winning the lottery twice--he has to get that assignment AND I have to get into that school). So, we are putting all our eggs in the UVA basket and hoping.

Alas, the director replied to me almost immediately with the devastating news that no, they do not automatically consider PhD applicants for MA programs, and that no I'm not into either program. He did say that they aren't done considering, and that it's not official, however. So, I've spent a couple of days either moping or diligently planning what I should be doing to fix this situation (mostly moping). I pretty much cried it all out when Catholic's rejection came. Still, there have been some tears (mostly whenever Bryon tries to comfort me).

Anyway, I've got some concrete plans about what I will do and what I should be doing to improve next year's application and what I hope to accomplish by then, but it's all still a crap shoot, I've learned. We'll see what happens. I'm not giving up hope. The goal is to move to Fredericksburg, apply for the fall, get in, and forget this whole mess.

However, this morning, I emailed the director again, and asked him who I should speak with in the Medieval department about improving my application specific to that department and he told me to hold off until I'm officially rejected because there's an open house for accepted applicants. Seriously? Why are they torturing me? If I've been rejected, why aren't the notifications out? Why does my application show that it's still processing? Why make me wait? Why the delay? Why the grey area from this guy? What is the deal? This is horrid. I know that it's over, but this is just awful. The official word from the admissions office is that notifications must be out by 1 April, so at least permanent torture will be over by then.

I'm very excited to do this again next year.

Rambling post: out.