English Department restricts graduate admission to Black Studies only

[bluebayou]

Blue, you can check out the graph for yourself - here is the article re-posted. This is analysis from the office of the provost. Ivy+ peers get their English PhD’s out in a hair under 7 years; UChicago in a little over 7.

I prefer official statistics when available over a student newspaper article:

2016/17: 8.85 years
2017/18: 7.75 years
2018/19: 8.25 years
2019/20: 6.5 years, but only 4 students graduated so far; the others in the cohort are still toiling away, so that number will quickly rise to 8+ (even accounting for COVID).

Again,

https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/ProgramStatisticsHUMEnglish.pdf

Timing will on your topic, your advisor, etc.

And a bunch of other things. But the fact remains that Chicago is slow to completion in comparison to its peers.

Some of the best English deparments in the country are located in public institutions; Cal Berkeley, for instance.

Yes, I’m well aware of Cal’s academic prowess. Back when the nrc was ranking PhD programs, Berkeley had more top 10 departments than everybody but Harvard. (Surprisingly, English was no longer one of them.) That said, do you happen to know Berkeley’s time to completion?

Besides Berkeley, Michigan is a strong public with a high-ranked English PhD program. They get their students out in 6 years.

btw: Stanford and Harvard also find a way to get their English PhD’s out in 6 years…Duke is 6.

Chicago remains the outlier in its peer group. Perhaps Marlow has some insights as to why that might be?