poliscar

My PI's lab is on Danforth campus so it seems like it would be about a 15 minute bike through Forest Park and worse comes to worse, I can take an uber since the apartment is only 8 min away (according to google maps)
 
I'm just going to go ahead and post this here. It's the map I send to first year/prospective students who are looking for housing near the med campus (so it's highly med-campus focused). Hopefully it will help some people. If anyone is more familiar with the Danforth side, please feel free to update/save/repost a version of the map with more details on that side of Forest Park: 
 
Here's the map I refer to in this e-mail (let me know if you have trouble viewing it): https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=znSq18U6Bxo4.ka_fNS8CoCMQ   Just to orient you on the map: The medical campus is the green square to the right of forest park (large green rectangle). I've also labeled metrolink stops with red markers. There's a blue marker that marks the 4444 building, which is where many of the genomics labs are located (though many of them will be moving to the main campus in the next year or two).    I'm sure you've heard quite a bit about the Central West End (purple and red on map) during the interview process. It's a great place and I highly recommend looking there for apartments. Some of the older buildings have extremely reasonable prices, while some of the newer ones can get pretty pricey. The Del Coronado is (in my mind) the gold standard of what you will find in the CWE. It's new, super close to campus and has a parking garage...but its prices reflect those benefits. I do, however, think it serves as a good comparator when looking at other buildings. If you have a car I highly recommend putting affordable, provided parking high on your list; parking in the CWE without an assigned space or garage can be a bit crazy.    I live in the Debaliviere (DEB) area, which is north of forest park (Blue on map). It's right next to the metro link and I metro to work most days. If you live in either the CWE or DEB, there is a shuttle that runs every 30 mins from campus from 5pm-midnight:30 (M-F) that will take you directly to your door on your way home. I love living where I do. It's not as frequently-travelled as the CWE, parking is easier and I feel very comfortable walking around at night. The CWE is generally safe but it has a lot more foot traffic coming through.    There's an area between the CWE and DEB that is highlighted on the map in pink. A good number of students live there but it's not immediately adjacent to any metrolink stop so transportation may be a bit more difficult, though there are some beautiful buildings in that area.    Another place you might want to look is The Grove (brown pentagon on the map). There is lots of affordable housing in The Grove and it's an area that is getting nicer over the years...but it's not a place I feel 100% comfortable walking on my own at night. I do, however, know a lot of people who live there and have never had any problems. There are several apartments outside of the pentagon that are perfectly safe/nice but I can comfortably vouch for the brown-covered area being filled with happy graduate students.    Also highlighted in green is St. Louis University (in orange). There are tons of apartments in that area, but again, you have the commuting issue that isn't a problem in DEB or CWE. I also highlighted the Tower Grove area (in black) at the bottom right. This tends to be a place students move to in their second or third years. I wouldn't recommend it during your first year.   In yellow is the undergraduate (Danforth) campus and the Delmar Loop area. There are labs that some students may want to join on the Danforth campus and the Delmar loop is a great place to live. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the area. I recommend living close to the medical campus (green) for your first year at least since so many of your classes/journal clubs will be there.

My PI's lab is on Danforth campus so it seems like it would be about a 15 minute bike through Forest Park and worse comes to worse, I can take an uber since the apartment is only 8 min away (according to google maps)
 
I'm just going to go ahead and post this here. It's the map I send to first year/prospective students who are looking for housing near the med campus (so it's highly med-campus focused). Hopefully it will help some people. If anyone is more familiar with the Danforth side, please feel free to update/save/repost a version of the map with more details on that side of Forest Park: 
 
Here's the map I refer to in this e-mail (let me know if you have trouble viewing it): https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=znSq18U6Bxo4.ka_fNS8CoCMQ   Just to orient you on the map: The medical campus is the green square to the right of forest park (large green rectangle). I've also labeled metrolink stops with red markers. There's a blue marker that marks the 4444 building, which is where many of the genomics labs are located (though many of them will be moving to the main campus in the next year or two).    I'm sure you've heard quite a bit about the Central West End (purple and red on map) during the interview process. It's a great place and I highly recommend looking there for apartments. Some of the older buildings have extremely reasonable prices, while some of the newer ones can get pretty pricey. The Del Coronado is (in my mind) the gold standard of what you will find in the CWE. It's new, super close to campus and has a parking garage...but its prices reflect those benefits. I do, however, think it serves as a good comparator when looking at other buildings. If you have a car I highly recommend putting affordable, provided parking high on your list; parking in the CWE without an assigned space or garage can be a bit crazy.    I live in the Debaliviere (DEB) area, which is north of forest park (Blue on map). It's right next to the metro link and I metro to work most days. If you live in either the CWE or DEB, there is a shuttle that runs every 30 mins from campus from 5pm-midnight:30 (M-F) that will take you directly to your door on your way home. I love living where I do. It's not as frequently-travelled as the CWE, parking is easier and I feel very comfortable walking around at night. The CWE is generally safe but it has a lot more foot traffic coming through.    There's an area between the CWE and DEB that is highlighted on the map in pink. A good number of students live there but it's not immediately adjacent to any metrolink stop so transportation may be a bit more difficult, though there are some beautiful buildings in that area.    Another place you might want to look is The Grove (brown pentagon on the map). There is lots of affordable housing in The Grove and it's an area that is getting nicer over the years...but it's not a place I feel 100% comfortable walking on my own at night. I do, however, know a lot of people who live there and have never had any problems. There are several apartments outside of the pentagon that are perfectly safe/nice but I can comfortably vouch for the brown-covered area being filled with happy graduate students.    Also highlighted in green is St. Louis University (in orange). There are tons of apartments in that area, but again, you have the commuting issue that isn't a problem in DEB or CWE. I also highlighted the Tower Grove area (in black) at the bottom right. This tends to be a place students move to in their second or third years. I wouldn't recommend it during your first year.   In yellow is the undergraduate (Danforth) campus and the Delmar Loop area. There are labs that some students may want to join on the Danforth campus and the Delmar loop is a great place to live. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the area. I recommend living close to the medical campus (green) for your first year at least since so many of your classes/journal clubs will be there.

I like wine as a gift because it's reasonably inexpensive (I capped it at $25 a bottle), and you can tailor the kind you buy to the professor's personality. One of my LOR-writers is Italian, and very refined and elegant, so I bought her an "elegant and refined" wine from Italy. Another is Spanish and much more flamboyant, so I got him a lively and fruity wine from Spain. But it all depends on the relationship you have with your professors. A couple of years ago, I bought one letter-writer a nice leather-bound journal, another a bottle of single malt scotch, and the third a more personalized gift (a Maori carving) from New Zealand, as I'm part New Zealander, and one of my professor's personal interests was in Maori culture. So it really depends on what you feel is appropriate.
No, I wouldn't ask that. In some cases, if you have particularly good rapport with your LOR-writer, they may choose to personalize. I know in my last cycle one professor told me she would personalize when she knew a lot about a particular program, but I think that's the exception, rather than the norm.
I don't think it's considered necessary at all. In a very real sense, it's a part of their job, after all. But I do appreciate my LOR-writers' willingness to write for me, and I figure a $25 gesture of gratitude for each one is simply a nice little courtesy...but NOT an expectation, by any means.

I'm sure you've heard that the admissions process is holistic and depends on your GRE in the last instance. I mean, it's not exceptional, but it won't keep you out of most programs, assuming your written materials are good. This kind of isn't sufficient or the right information to give you an idea f your chances, sorry.

I'm not sure if it's that clear-cut. Columbia's endowment is large, but spending at the university has been/is somewhat controversial. They've come under fire for throwing money at massive building projects, while tenure-track positions in the Humanities haven't been filled, or have been replaced by sessionals. Likewise, there's a lot of money going towards the business and law schools, while the Core Curriculum is being comparatively underfunded. I guess it suffices to say that there's really a stranger political landscape beneath the overall wealth of the school. 

I think it's also worth pointing out that Columbia is one of the few schools of its calibre to offer standalone, unfunded MA programs in a number of Humanities disciplines, like English and Art History. Ironically, the other school that comes to mind here is Chicago, whose MAPH program is probably the best comparison. In both cases—and I've heard this from students in the PhD programs—the MA students are seen as subsidizing PhD candidate funding. Moreover, rejected PhD applicants are often funnelled into the MA programs. As cynical as it seems I don't think it's out of line to believe that Columbia and Chicago are fairly intent on maximizing the number of applicants to their PhD programs, so as to likewise maximize the $$$ coming in from their masters programs. 

Curious: Would you feel comfortable saying which schools notified by Dec. 15 last year? I don't think I've read about any school that notifies any applicants prior to January in the humanities. I thought that the sciences were the only ones who notified earlier.

I think there are (at least) two ways of understanding "atheoretical."
A theory is really just a particular way of looking at things. In this sense, you can't really avoid theory. No matter how hard you try to avoid it, you will always be coming to a text from a certain perspective, and thus you will have your own theory. So in this sense, being atheoretical is naively unrealistic. And given that we are all working from certain perspectives, it's important to critically examine what these perpectives are and how they inform our research and understanding of the texts we deal with. So avoiding theory altogether is a sort is almost certainly a mistake.
That being said, the idea of "theory" has often become associated with a particular group of thinkers and approaches (primarily French post-structuralism and it's descendents as well as an increasing role for gender and race theory). Given this understanding of "theory," the desire to be atheoretical is not all so strange. If you think, as I often do, that most of French post-strucutalism is a wrong turn in intellectual history, then you may have good reason to avoid it or at least to avoid atmospheres in which it is seen as essential to literary study (That being said, given its wide ranging influence, I think it's still a good idea to have at least a basic understating of the main ideas that are involved here.).

I'm not sure if it's that clear-cut. Columbia's endowment is large, but spending at the university has been/is somewhat controversial. They've come under fire for throwing money at massive building projects, while tenure-track positions in the Humanities haven't been filled, or have been replaced by sessionals. Likewise, there's a lot of money going towards the business and law schools, while the Core Curriculum is being comparatively underfunded. I guess it suffices to say that there's really a stranger political landscape beneath the overall wealth of the school. 

I think it's also worth pointing out that Columbia is one of the few schools of its calibre to offer standalone, unfunded MA programs in a number of Humanities disciplines, like English and Art History. Ironically, the other school that comes to mind here is Chicago, whose MAPH program is probably the best comparison. In both cases—and I've heard this from students in the PhD programs—the MA students are seen as subsidizing PhD candidate funding. Moreover, rejected PhD applicants are often funnelled into the MA programs. As cynical as it seems I don't think it's out of line to believe that Columbia and Chicago are fairly intent on maximizing the number of applicants to their PhD programs, so as to likewise maximize the $$$ coming in from their masters programs. 

I'm not sure if it's that clear-cut. Columbia's endowment is large, but spending at the university has been/is somewhat controversial. They've come under fire for throwing money at massive building projects, while tenure-track positions in the Humanities haven't been filled, or have been replaced by sessionals. Likewise, there's a lot of money going towards the business and law schools, while the Core Curriculum is being comparatively underfunded. I guess it suffices to say that there's really a stranger political landscape beneath the overall wealth of the school. 

I think it's also worth pointing out that Columbia is one of the few schools of its calibre to offer standalone, unfunded MA programs in a number of Humanities disciplines, like English and Art History. Ironically, the other school that comes to mind here is Chicago, whose MAPH program is probably the best comparison. In both cases—and I've heard this from students in the PhD programs—the MA students are seen as subsidizing PhD candidate funding. Moreover, rejected PhD applicants are often funnelled into the MA programs. As cynical as it seems I don't think it's out of line to believe that Columbia and Chicago are fairly intent on maximizing the number of applicants to their PhD programs, so as to likewise maximize the $$$ coming in from their masters programs. 

I'm not sure if it's that clear-cut. Columbia's endowment is large, but spending at the university has been/is somewhat controversial. They've come under fire for throwing money at massive building projects, while tenure-track positions in the Humanities haven't been filled, or have been replaced by sessionals. Likewise, there's a lot of money going towards the business and law schools, while the Core Curriculum is being comparatively underfunded. I guess it suffices to say that there's really a stranger political landscape beneath the overall wealth of the school. 

I think it's also worth pointing out that Columbia is one of the few schools of its calibre to offer standalone, unfunded MA programs in a number of Humanities disciplines, like English and Art History. Ironically, the other school that comes to mind here is Chicago, whose MAPH program is probably the best comparison. In both cases—and I've heard this from students in the PhD programs—the MA students are seen as subsidizing PhD candidate funding. Moreover, rejected PhD applicants are often funnelled into the MA programs. As cynical as it seems I don't think it's out of line to believe that Columbia and Chicago are fairly intent on maximizing the number of applicants to their PhD programs, so as to likewise maximize the $$$ coming in from their masters programs. 

I've gotten emails from a number of universities encouraging me to finish my application. I think they just want to make sure they get their application fee.

The GRE is bias but it also helps to compare institutions a bit. Harvard may or may not be harder than another college's honor program. The GRE may help someone who attended a  school which may not be as known for sending students into graduate school. Overall though, it's a horrible predictor of how well a student will do during their first year of graduate school. Studies have shown that it tends to underpredict the abilities of women over the age of 25 and minority students.
At this point, I'm confused on why people in the humanities have to deal with the math section and viceversa.

THE MATH SECTION. The worst. I scored in the 30s (percentile), and am more or less certain that no one will care.

The GRE is just a way for schools to filter out the poors. 

I'm only half-joking, really. Once you consider the cost of the test(s), the extra cost of sending scores, the money spent on prep material, etc it's pretty obscene. That and the inherent class (and racial) biases in standardized testing.

The GRE is just a way for schools to filter out the poors. 

I'm only half-joking, really. Once you consider the cost of the test(s), the extra cost of sending scores, the money spent on prep material, etc it's pretty obscene. That and the inherent class (and racial) biases in standardized testing.

The GRE requirement is an odd thing. I guess it's not enough that you've finished or nearly finished your BA and perhaps have an Honors thesis and/or publication under your belt. No, you have to solve this problem: If Johnny is riding his bike without a helmet at 9 miles per hour with wind resistance at 10 knots, how many joules of energy does the Sun produce when Susan eats an apple while standing on one foot?

I wouldn't say that UChicago is any more focused on European literature than some of the other programs on your list. As far as I know they have faculty working in Chinese, Tamil, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Japanese, etc. Mostly I mention the program because Chicago is pretty stellar for Queer & Feminist Theory (they have a Grad Certificate in Gender and Sexuality), and they also have really top-notch faculty in East Asian & Middle-Eastern Studies. 

On that note—it's hard to say! Things change considerably based on the diaspora(s)/diasporic communities in question. A school that is stellar in the area of African/Afro-Caribbean diasporas might not be great in the area of East Asian or Middle Eastern diasporas, and vis versa. It really depends on the work you see yourself doing, which will be considerably more specific than the fairly generic category "diasporic literature."

Based on your interests I have to say that I'm sort of confused. Some of the schools you mention could work well (Emory, Irvine, Duke, possibly Columbia and NYU), but others don't seem to be good places at all for you. Why are you looking at Harvard Comparative Lit instead of something like their program in Visual and Environmental studies? The same goes for Brown—you'd probably be better suited to Media and Modernity—or even Berkeley, where Rhetoric or Art History might be a closer fit. 

I would recommend going through lists of dissertations completed at the institutions in questions, because they will probably put a lot of this into perspective. Frankly, I don't think you'll find anything similar to the work you want to do at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or UPenn (in Comparative Literature, that is). Other programs, like those I've mentioned above but also including Performance Studies at NYU and Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford, are far more likely to be good fits for you. I'd also throw in UChicago and Northwestern Comp. Lit, which seem more amenable to your interests.

Frankly though, I think you should step back a little and seriously think about why you want to work in a Comparative Literature program. Obviously the field has a pretty capacious scope, but it still is grounded in Literature & the Literary. If you want to study New Media and Contemporary Art, alongside Feminist/Queer and Diaspora Studies, a lot of Comp. Lit programs will be too "traditional" for you. Alongside some of the programs you've listed, I'd take a look at Art History, Performance Studies, Media Studies, etc, because I'm not sure that your current list makes a lot of sense. 

I don't think any of your listed scores will filter you out during the first round.
However, this is more than about scores. This isn't like applying to undergrad schools. The only common thing that all these schools have is that they're all considered great schools.

The schools listed all make people think of a different thing. What in Comp. Lit interests you? Political Psychology? Oral traditions? Folklore? Religion and Literature? Popular Culture Studies? Critical Race Theory? Medieval Literature?  Museum Studies? Gender and Sexuality?

Excluding English, how many languages do you know? Some require 2 additional languages; others require 3. Some may require you know all 3 prior to entering; others have more leeway.
 

I think this probably depends greatly on the perceived size of your undergraduate / master's institution. For some people, there isn't really an option to choose professors who are of the opposite gender, because there's only an opportunity to work with a limited number of professors.
I was a female applicant with all male professors as recommenders, but I came from a small liberal arts college (2k students). There were only two professors in my discipline and both of them were male. My third recommender was the only professor outside my discipline with whom I had taken more than one class. Come to think of it actually, I didn't take a single English class with a woman the entire time I was in undergrad...
So just to those from SLACs who may be inclined to fret over this - I wouldn't worry about it. The admissions committee will know that you were working with a much smaller pool of faculty members. I think it's only an issue if it's perceived as intentional. But that only makes sense in larger programs (or those perceived as larger).
If anything, I will say that it's sometimes good as a female applicant to have female recommenders. I've had issues with letters written by male faculty in the past (not necessarily by recommenders, but in other academic and professional environments). Not because they weren't positive and professional letters, but because they used gendered language. This immediately stands out as "icky" to me - and I'm assuming to other people on committees.

Frankly, you need to take this stuff to a lawyer who deals with wrongful termination suits. Because of your health issues, you may have grounds for some kind of lawsuit that might result in your being reinstated, but I'm guessing (actually, I'm certain) that no one at TGC is qualified enough to advise you on this matter.  

Writing concisely is, in and of itself, a discipline, and a discipline worthy of practice.
If you're within ca. 10%, i.e. 1 page per 10, whatever. Otherwise, you're not doing the assignment, and the great quality of your paper doesn't transform it into the assignment. 

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
If your paper isn't formatted as indicated, it's technically cheating. Also, yes, it's noticeable, and in my opinion a little embarrassing to still be using freshman year tricks in grad school.
A word count is used to guide you to the right amount of thoroughness/conciseness in your argument. If you are falling short of the page limit, you are either a very concise writer, or you didn't answer the question. If you are over, you either know/can argue more than the professor expects you to, or you're a waffler. If you honestly believe that your paper is not redundant or waffly and the extra length serves a purpose, just leave it. You won't normally get penalized for doing good work. 

No, and no.

Committees care about the case you make for your proposed research, not the number of languages you know. Now if you're some sort of Comparative Medievalist, and you can make an argument for knowing 7 languages, go for it. However, it's not going to elevate you above someone proposing an equally compelling project involving 2-3 languages. 
The same goes for any sort of negative impact. If you submit a ridiculous SoP that tries to link all 7 languages in a nebulous fashion, you're going to get rejections—not because of the number of languages, per se, but because of a lack of coherence. Likewise, you could propose a very compelling and coherent area of research involving 2-3 of those 7 languages, and have far more success. This wouldn't really have anything to do with the other 4-5 languages. Rather, it would be a result of the argument you made for the relationships between the 2-3 languages you chose to focus on. 

Honestly, to be blunt and succinct, no one cares how many languages you know if you're not doing something interesting with them. Focus on the "interesting."

No, and no.

Committees care about the case you make for your proposed research, not the number of languages you know. Now if you're some sort of Comparative Medievalist, and you can make an argument for knowing 7 languages, go for it. However, it's not going to elevate you above someone proposing an equally compelling project involving 2-3 languages. 
The same goes for any sort of negative impact. If you submit a ridiculous SoP that tries to link all 7 languages in a nebulous fashion, you're going to get rejections—not because of the number of languages, per se, but because of a lack of coherence. Likewise, you could propose a very compelling and coherent area of research involving 2-3 of those 7 languages, and have far more success. This wouldn't really have anything to do with the other 4-5 languages. Rather, it would be a result of the argument you made for the relationships between the 2-3 languages you chose to focus on. 

Honestly, to be blunt and succinct, no one cares how many languages you know if you're not doing something interesting with them. Focus on the "interesting."