lisajay

FWIW, i've heard the same thing about it not looking great to do your phd at the same school where you did your undergrad. moreover, i've heard cal (my undergrad) really prefers not to accept people who did their undergrad there into the phd program strictly from a stats perspective (i.e. it hurts the program from both a diversity & a perceived prestige standpoint), but i'm giving it a shot anyway.

that's a great idea! consider it stolen—er, 'borrowed'

FWIW: 600 // 67th percentile *forget 'good,' here's hoping for 'good enough' emoticon*

maybe in your SOP, you can discuss your previous work in postcolonialism, british colonial writing, and representations of race and how that work has informed your current interest in pursuing graduate study in 20th century american lit, particularly with respect to race and ethnicity? that way you show how your WS might dovetail with future projects? as far as question no. 2, the sense i've gotten based on posts from board members who have worked on AdComms is that it's really important to convey the message that you're both aware of the current state of the scholarly/critical conversation related to your area of interest and clear on how you hope to contribute to that conversation. as such, i'd say a WS that's 100% close reading would probably do you a disservice. that being said, you also want the WS to be representative of your best work. maybe spend some time improving the close reading you conduct in your current WS just to polish it and make it as strong as it can possibly be?

seconded. though i would be specific about the programs/centers/courses/&c offered at each specific institution to which you apply that interest you & why. show AdComm you've done your homework & explain how you're a good fit.

while i don't have any direct experience re: AdComm with this question, in general, my $0.02 is: never, ever, EVER disobey a page limit. this was ingrained for me by my teachers in high school who insisted that if a professor said "12 pages max" and you submitted more than 12 pages, they'd rip off the extra pages and grade you based on only what was contained in the first 12. exactly one time in my academic career have i had a professor explicitly grant us permission to deviate from the stated limit, and he did it thusly: "12 to 15 pages or shorter if merited by wit." no joke. best professor ever. & in my MA program, i happened to go over an assignment by one page (12 to 15 pages, my paper was 16 i believe, which included my works cited), & i was scolded for not sticking within the parameters of the assignment by my professor (who did his undergrad at columbia & phd at harvard). my gut tells me that if you're applying to west coast schools, you *might* get away with not following directions to a T, but it certainly won't fly back east. but my brain is much more cynical than my gut, & it screams: never, ever, EVER disobey a page limit.

usc offers a masters in professional writing.

it's an annual conference, so more likely than not, they will be having it again. no CFP posted yet, but i'd imagine something will be available this winter. last year, the deadline to submit was 24 feb. there's always this year! i'm planning to submit again. also, CSU long beach's CFP for both its conference & its journal should be posted soon... </shameless plug> looks like quite a few of us are applying to UCR. it's like an instant support system! awesome, i just may hit you up for that. in fact, i think i'll PM you now. thanks!

yup! i presented & caught some panels on the first day last year (well, last academic year anyway), missed the rest though because i had family in town.

meeeeeeeeee too! did you check out their conference last year?

@Timshel: broadly, my areas of interest are literary theory, 20th century through contemporary literature, and pop culture. most of my work over the past year has dealt with the intersections & divergences of print and digital culture, and remix culture as it relates to post-humanism and ecocriticism. what area(s) are you in? i've gotten in touch with rob latham & james tobias, both of whom were very helpful.

UC Riverside USC UCLA Stanford UC Berkeley UC Davis davis was much higher on my list before timothy morton left for rice. i'm willing to leave california for a teaching position once i finish my phd, but i'm not prepared to leave to pursue said phd. unfortunately, this leaves me feeling as if my chances are slim to nil, with slim on his way out of town...

with 230 questions to answer in 2 hours & 50 minutes, the expectation (to the best of my knowledge) is that you won't finish the test. i took the subject test straight out of undergrad in 2003 without studying & bombed miserably. took the test this saturday with a minimum of studying, but with the helpful advice to make a first pass through the entire test picking up any & all "easy" points first, then going back & answering questions based on longer passages with which i wasn't immediately familiar on the first pass. i wasn't able to make it all the way through to the end of my second pass before time was called, but i was able to answer 207 questions total, a majority of which i feel pretty confident about. factoring in the 1/4-point deductions for incorrect answers, my guess is that best-case scenario i'll land somewhere in the 80s percentile-wise, worst case scenario i'll maaaaaaaybe hit somewhere around the 60th percentile. that being said, given that the subject test is so broad (& so heavily skewed away from 20th century literature for the most part (let alone contemporary lit)), depending on your area of focus, most programs really won't rely on the subject test score as any sort of indicator of your potential success in graduate studies. as i've seen others post in other threads, a great score can certainly help your application, but a less-than-stellar score isn't likely to keep you out. the hierarchy of importance re: app materials seems to be (1) writing sample, (2) letters of rec, (3) GPA, & (4) test scores. also, bear in mind that your SOP (& personal statement if the program(s) to which you're applying have both) is really the chance for you to shine and let AdComm see your personality. it's what sets you apart as an individual. use that. & if you completely bombed the GRE subject test, you can use part of that space to state your case as to why that's not a valid indicator of how you'll perform in their program. the same goes for any aspect of your application package: if you're concerned that it might be held against you & you're confident that it's not representative of your quality of work, let AdComm know. just keep it short, sweet, to the point, & confident as opposed to whiny or arrogant. just my $0.02.