The Chronicle has a very useful article by Thomas H. Benton (the pen name of Hope College English prof William Pannapacker) arguing that students thinking about grad school in the humanities ought to forget about it.
Here’s the line I especially like: “It’s hard to tell young people that universities recognize that their idealism and energy — and lack of information — are an exploitable resource.”
Just so, and that statement applies not only to graduate departments hungry for students to keep their enrollments up, but also to hordes of undergraduate-admissions officers who will say almost anything to lure students in.