jmcgee

Thank you, jazzydubois and poliscar! DrF8, wow, thank you so much! How kind of you to take the time to find these programs for me. I will certainly be looking into each of your suggestions. Thanks again, very much!

Thank you both. Daniele, you've certainly allayed my fears that I don't belong anywhere in the U.S. I'll be widening my search. Somethinbruin, I will be sure to check out Milwaukee. Thanks again! Cheers!

Hey, y'all. I was wondering if anyone could help me out with some program suggestions. I learned last season the importance of fit, and have been doing lots of research, but so far I haven't found many programs that are just right for me. My theoretical interests are gender and sexuality and feminist studies, and the literature I plan to study is that of the New Woman writers of the fin de siecle. I am particularly interested in these writers' deconstructions of femininity and their rejection of what de Beauvoir termed "the eternal feminine": conceptions of women as archetypes (virgin or whore, angel or demon, etc), rather than as individuals. The problem I've run into is that most New Woman scholars are teaching in the UK, and I plan to stay in the U.S. The exception is Ann Ardis, who teaches at the University of Delaware, but I learned on GC recently that Delaware rarely accepts candidates with external M.A.s. So, I need help. Can anyone suggest any programs particularly interested in the fin de siecle, noncanonical Victorian female writers, or even just Victorian lit and gender and sexuality or feminist studies? Or do any of you know of any programs that simply make a point to teach New Woman lit? I'm not sure these writers are widely studied (which is a shame because they are brilliant), so I'm a bit worried. Oh, and I'm probably aiming towards mid-tier programs. Okay, thanks so much!!!

If you don't mind sharing with a mostly-lurker, I'd appreciate it, too. PMing you now. Thanks so much!

Waitlisted at Miami of Ohio. Whatever comes of it, at least I now know that I'm not completely imagining that I'm cut out for this.

That is awesome! We are soul friends fo sho!

Are rejections usually sent out as a mass email, or do they go notify everyone individually? Pathetically enough, the idea that a slightly later rejection means my application was given a second look would bolster my spirits considerably.

I'm so sorry for your loss, dear. That must have made this process extra, extra, extra emotional. Good on you for surviving and, I betcha, thriving.

Word. I have yet to see anyone call anyone else a Nazi or rejoin with the ever-persuasive "Your a moron." Well done, y'all.

I ruined tons of my books when I was little because, besides not being able to put them down while eating, walking, etc., I also tried to read while showering. Is this thread everything we wanted to say in our SOPs but weren't allowed to? I like.

I will fight all y'all over the Oxford comma. She belongs to me!

For what it's worth, DontHate's philosophy made me feel better about my impending rejections.

I am now completely shame-spiraling over my CV. I'm embarassed to even admit this, but I am in the second year of my master's, and I haven't presented at a single conference. I've been immersed in the work but have, apparently, been pathetically oblivous to the professionalization aspect of grad school. I've been pretty positive for a while now that I'll be reapplying next year, and I'm fine with this, as I've learned sooooo much this cycle, but my question is, will I even have enough time by next fall to attend the number of conferences necessary to render my CV acceptable? I am scrambling now to find relevant ones and have one, maybe two, on my radar.

Get out of my head!

Believe it or not, I didn't read 550 pages of Moby Dick without thinking about it. Like I said, I found a good chunk of it stunning, as in it had me bawling in sorrow and joy. No, I did not understand the significance of the minutiae of the whaling industry; I would be happy to have it explained to me. Super slowly, preferably.

To go completely off topic, where do people learn the "Excited to be here is something I am not" and "At the edge of my seat is somewhere that movie didn't have me" construction? No offense to Sarah, but I feel like I see it surprisingly often in the work of less experienced writers. It weirds me out. Thanks for the recommendation, Datatape.

Agreed! And if she's a mean girl, I would be her Gretchen Weiner in a second. I also just enjoy her super-precise sentences. Also agree about Gertrude Stein, or at least Three Lives: "Melanctha, Melanctha, Melanctha..." 150 pages of Moby Dick were beautiful; the other 400 read to me like a nonfiction pamphlet on the whaling industry, and not even the juicy stuff: a chapter on the particular type of twine used to make the rope that attaches to the harpoon, a chapter on the particular type of steel from which a harpoon is made, a chapter on the various home goods that can be made from blubber... And it drove me crazy that he prefaced most of these chapters with a caveat like, "Before we get to the real story, it's important that you know..." It wasn't important! It wasn't! Finally, I can't come to any conclusions about Faulkner having only read S and F, but I found that one pretty painful. Actually, if anyone has any Melville or Faulkner recommendations, I'd appreciate it; I'm not ready to give up on them as of yet.

May I? 168/146/4.5 (Q and AW scores are embarassing, but writing sample is solid) 3.34 (undergrad), 3.8 (post-bac teaching certification), 3.75 (MA) Please see signature. Thankee!

Aw, thanks. At least it's given me a good laugh about the fact that every aspect of this process seems to be an exercise in humiliation. Grin.

I must say, though, that my fellow students just don't seem that into the whole grad school experience. It's not rare for me to suspect that I'm one of maybe three students that has actually completed the reading each week. So that's a bummer.

Aw, man! Okay, everyone disregard my post! I didn't realize this was a faux pas! Sorry, y'all!

To put the question in another, perhaps far more answerable way, can anyone speak to the relative competitiveness of any of the programs I've listed? Thanks!

I would like to get a better idea of how realistic I'm being in my choice of schools. I'm applying to the following: U of C Boulder University of Florida Miami U Oxford UK Arizona State Purdue Stony Brook I know that my SOP, LoRs, and writing samples are far more important the following, but here are my basic credentials: B.A. GPA: 3.3, Western Michigan M.A. GPA: 3.75, Wayne State GRE Verbal: 720/168 AW: 4.5 (Boo.) Q: 560/146 (Embarassing but irrelevant?) I have two strong LoRs and one that might be a bit lukewarm. I'm pretty confident in my writing samples and quite clueless as to the strength of my SOP. Most of the schools to which I'm applying aren't ranked terribly high, so I think I have a fighting chance. Any comments? (This is scary!)

I did something super dumb. I emailed four of my former professors on the same day, asking each for a letter of recommendation. I knew fully well I only needed three! I guess I just expected at least one to say he or she was too busy at the moment. (I did not know then that most professors consider such letter writing a part of their job.) Instead, all four quickly responded in the affirmative. However, two seemed very enthusiastic about doing so, while the other two seemed simply willing to do so. Of the two latter professors, one is a professor of the particular period of literature I plan to study in my doctoral program, so his is important to me even if it's not overflowing with zeal. My problem is that I'm not sure how to tell the fourth professor that I no longer need his recommendation. (I really don't want to use all four, even at those programs that welcome that many, as I don't want his potentially lukewarm recommendation to detract from the power of the others.) I know this was a stupid situation to get myself into, but I would really appreciate some advice as to how to word the email I have to write him. I guess I just don't know how sensitive professors are in these matters. Maybe he'll just be happy I'm not taking up his time? To further complicate things, he is the newly appointed chair of my department and will be overseeing my master's essay. Were this not the case, I'd probably just drop it and assume he'd forget, as I know he's crazy busy with his new job, but I'm so worried he'd just flat-out ask me one day what happened with my application. Aargh! To reiterate, I would love some help wording this email, particularly as I tend toward overthinking and verbosity (if you didn't pick up on that). Thanks so much! P.S. Oh, no! It just occurred to me that he hypothetically could have already written the letter! I really, really doubt that is the case, as he's not necessarily the most efficient professor I've ever had, but just the fact that he COULD have spent his precious time and the fact that, were this the case, I would have completely wasted it looks really bad on me. Aargh! Should I just use his as a fourth letter to those schools that will accept it, even at the risk of watering down my other letters?