jrockford27

One of my recommenders told me that "as long as you're over 3.8 it doesn't make a difference."

I went straight from BA, but I am in a PhD program where we have students from a wide variety of masters programs - from household name type programs to schools you may never have heard of. My fiancé is doing a humanities PhD as well, and took an unfunded masters. And without commenting in too much detail, I'll echo what others have said and say only this: go where there's funding. While you can no doubt do really good work and receive brilliant training with great people at an unfunded MA program with a household name, you'll really want to think about what your life will be like when you can no longer take deferments on your loans.

The DGS may not necessarily be on the adcom, but the DGS is definitely going to be more engaged and informed regarding current grad students, who their advisers/committees are, what they're working on, as well as important deadlines. They may be helpful in directing you to graduate students who share your interests or who work with your POIs. While the chair isn't going to be totally uninformed on these things, I think we can often forget that day to day they supervise the undergrad program, staff, tenure faculty, non-tenure faculty, and other administrative stuff. As a grad student, you may go through your program and have little interaction with the chair.

I currently attend one of the programs on your list and nothing you've said here would keep you out. My GRE quantitative was very pedestrian (64th pct'l) and my degree was in English lit, I had only a BA with undergraduate conferences on my CV. Don't get too psyched out, if you've made a strong case for fit that's what truly matters if you've got the prerequisites in place (and it seems you do).

I'm an MN native, did my undergrad at UMN, and lived in the neighborhood a couple of years thereafter. Como sounds like a fine neighborhood for you. You might also look at the Marcy Holmes neighborhood on the other side of I-94 from campus, I lived there, and it has many single family homes, parks, playgrounds and even an open enrollment elementary school. Como and Marcy are both fairly affordable.

My personal statement to the school I'm going to now went a little something like this. I. Some background about my life and professional background and what's driving me toward scholarly work. II. The thrust of the type of project I'd like to work on. a. What do I mean by thrust? I mean, articulate a project that gives them a good idea of the type of work you want to do bearing in mind two things 1) No one is ever going to hold you to the research project you proposed in your SoP (and I mean ever); and 2) In my cohort there is just one person working on the project they proposed in their SoP, and he was the oldest person admitted, already was doing research in that area, etc. Thus, this is less a proposal of an actual project than a chance for you to articulate what type of scholar you are, the types of texts you're interested in, the types of theorists who have driven your inquiry so far. 3) While no one on an adcom has ever told me this, one has to imagine that they realize that people don't generally end up doing the project they articulate in their SoP. b. If you already had a good handle on what the discourse in your field was, or were already an expert in some area, you wouldn't need to go to a PhD program. III. Which professors I wanted to work with when I got there and why. It may help to familiarize yourself a bit with their work. This doesn't mean consuming their entire oeuvre, but read some relevant chapters or articles. Where possible, I tried to drop in specific ideas from works of theirs that I'd read. IV. This may depend on the program, but something resembling a teaching philosophy. In my program you are more or less required to teach at least six semesters. Teaching heavy programs will want to know that this is something you feel strongly about. This is what worked for me to get into my #1 program. My application year I was accepted at 3, waitlisted at 2, and rejected by 6. But I was accepted to the one I wanted most, which I suppose is what matters.

As I get toward my comps, I now realize that my knowledge of the discourse of the field at the time I applied was miniscule (part of why you go to grad school, at least in the U.S. model, is to learn what the state of the discourse is). I think that if you articulate your interests clearly, if there are folks well suited to advise you on the adcom that they'll know whether it has the potential to make a meaningful contribution. My feeling is that you're much better suited telling them what your interests are, rather than using up precious space discussing the state of the field.

WT: I have no non-academic publications so I've never been in this situation, but thinking about basic CV logic I have some thoughts. Our DGS tells us to use common sense but err on the side of overreporting. I don't think it can hurt you as long as the usual stuff is at the top where it belongs. I have some unusual non-academic professional experience and I continue to include it in my CV, albeit at the bottom, because I think it fleshes out my background a bit. Ultimately, do you think that in some way these publications are important to your identity, either as a scholar or a person?

I developed my specialization by just following my nose and writing seminar papers that seemed interesting to me, guided by some very broad concepts I wanted to develop when I came in. My present work grew out of the papers I wrote in my first and second years, which arose out of a very broad set of interests I had coming out of undergrad. In my third year, I put the seminar papers to work refining the interests the emerged my first two years in the program. Since my specialization is in Film Studies via English this may be different from someone in a Lit concentration, but I realized it was much easier to find a fulfilling field of expertise when I decided on a sort of theoretical concept I wanted to refine, and started using the Films to drive my study of that set of issues, rather than picking an author/director/time period/geographic space and allowing it to raise the theoretical issues - but ultimately I suppose I'm more of a theory/cultural studies guy. I find this allows me to write about a broad and fresh range of subjects and keep myself interested. This was also at the urging of the people who are now on my committee, who slowly directed me toward this way of looking at things (there was a very specific period and kind of films I was eager to focus on when I first came in). The advice I've been given again and again is to not think too much about where hiring trends are in relation to your specialization. If you're a second year PhD student you may be 5-7 years (or more!) away from the market depending on your program, and by the time you hit the market the specialization you developed at the expense of something you found more interesting may be yesterday's news. Obviously, you don't want to be specializing in ground that is already well-worn, but picking your specialty based on the market presumes that you can predict where the market is going to be when you defend half a decade or more from now. That's a long time. Do what interests you and what you think you can get mileage out of, you don't want to be stuck writing a 300-500 page book about something you don't feel all that strongly about.

If you're interested in the MA as a stepping stone to other PhD programs I'd strongly encourage you to look for funded MA programs. While they might not carry the household name recognition of Columbia, there are brilliant scholars to be found everywhere. If you see your MA as a stepping stone to a PhD, perhaps consider Columbia as a goal for your PhD. Not only do you have to think about the cost of Columbia, but the cost of getting by in New York as well. Before I was actually in a program and active in my field I was pretty mesmerized by fancy names, but once I actually started looking around I realized that there is good work being done everywhere, and also that there's really nothing better than minimizing your debt. I mean this truly. The job market is terrible. Consider that when you finish your degree you are likely to be - at least for a little while - stringing together adjunct employment just to get by while you look for more stable work. Do you want to be burdened during this time with a debt payment that eats up most of the money you have to live off of? Don't think of the MA as your endgame, think of it as a place where you will build a dynamite CV and craft an awesome thesis that will define who you are as a scholar so that you can make the excellent case to the fully funded PhD program you've been dreaming about, because once you have your PhD no one is going to really look much at where you got your MA. Consider taking a look at NC State, they offer a funded MA that is very highly regarded (especially if you go the film route) and may speak to your interests. We have several excellent scholars in our PhD program who came out of NC State.

I used to think that people reading from the page were giving bad presentations too. When it came time for me to actually give a graduate level paper at a conference I realized that it doesn't work not to, at least in my experience. I think where people go wrong is simply reading things they turned in for a seminar without adapting it into a specific spoken version. Nothing like hearing someone read a lengthy block quote from Deleuze aloud!

Girlfriend and I are both PhD students. We adopted a dog over spring break, a little 25 pound guy. The first week, you'll find you'll get absolutely no work done, you'll worry that you'll never finish anything ever again, and you'll probably weep copious tears of fear and regret wondering what the hell you've gotten yourself into. After that, it's a gradual process of getting back into things. I'm now back to getting my usual 40+ hour work weeks in. I walk him in the morning, she walks him in the afternoon, and we walk him together at night. If you're committed to two walks a day, keep in mind that that's an hour or more a day that you will no longer have for work, on top of the time you take out to play with him and train him. He's a fun little guy, and he makes us laugh and smile, and makes us healthier more responsible people -- but he's a lot of labor. Also: money. I feel like I've spent more on this dog in 3 months than I've spent on clothes for the whole three years I've been in grad school. I would highly recommend adopting during a break. I've been trying to use the dog to my advantage in various ways. For example, instead of complaining that he wakes up at 7:30, I try to think, "oh, that means I get an early start on my day. When the dog is sleeping, I'm working. I know the dog goes down to nap at about 9:30 a.m. and stays napping until about 1:30, that means I need to be locked in during that time. This is just for example.

I'll just second that it's pretty conventional wisdom that yes, your GPA and GRE scores are often important for getting you in the door, or surviving the earliest cuts. But having actually spoken to people on the adcoms in my department, and also been privy to discussions about our admissions process, selection is much more nuanced in the later stages. Different profs privilege different aspects of the application, the biggest factor in grad school admissions seems to me to be "who's on the admissions committee." I was told that the success of my application was owed primarily to two profs on the adcom really believing that my proposed research would bring a unique perspective to the cohort and strongly advocating for my admission. If those two profs weren't on the adcom, then perhaps my high GPA and GRE scores would not have meant anything. It wouldn't have meant that my app was bad, it just would have meant that it was an unlucky draw. If you're say, really excited to get in the stacks and reveal something new about Milton and there's no early-modernist on the adcom, then you're at the mercy of the other members of the adcom to say, 'hey, this student would be a good fit to work with our early-modernist'. So in considering what's most important in the process, then yes, in the first round of cuts GPA and GRE are very important. They become vastly reduced in importance after the initial field has been sufficiently narrowed. The different steps of the process involve different contingencies.

I think pursuing a PhD will be a major inhibition to your goal of completing any work on the side. I'm only just now entering the comps phase of my PhD and I've found that "on the side" exists only in very small pockets when it exists at all. It takes a lot of mental energy just to keep the PhD from consuming your entire life -- and being a PhD student is in many ways a lifestyle in itself. Once you are in the program, the expectation is that other pursuits will take a back seat -- and this is coming from a person in a program that actually does a pretty good job of promoting self-care and work-life balance. Yes, this even includes the summer, in fact, you're expected to work even harder on your own academic work during the summer. You may find that your available time to work on your sci-fi novels will be 20 minutes before bed at the end of a long day where you've already expended substantial mental energy - this is the only time I seem to be able to find to play guitar anymore! I gave up my artistic pursuits to enter grad school half expecting that I would take them back up again when I became better established in a new city, but it doesn't really work that way. While this may sound very glum, I actually quite enjoy my life, and I think grad school is great and I find my research rewarding. I only want to caution you that pursuing a PhD will substantially limit your ability to pursue anything else until you've defended your dissertation (5-10 years, depending on your field/program/work habits). I think it's great that you're thinking about tough decisions. My advice to you, for whatever it is worth, is that if you "have no clear direction" right now, that it is absolutely the wrong time in your life to enter a PhD program, or to even undertake the substantial time and financial commitment of applying. Take some time to figure out what is most important to you. Grad school is still going to be there when you figure out what that is.

Yeah, we also have folks from Emory and Ohio University's MA programs in our program, solid, awesome folks. And it seems like a very smart route. When I arrived straight out of my BA, it took me a real long time to feel comfortable in seminars, and a real long time to get over imposter syndrome. In my observation, the people who arrived with an MA seem much more capable of hitting the ground running and getting involved right away. I suppose that should be a no-brainer though. As I work my way through my comprehensive stuff right now, I kind of envy how in touch those people are with the field as a whole from the word go.

Since I came straight out of my BA my knowledge is limited, but I'd recommend checking out NC State's masters program. We have like three people in our PHD program who came out of that program. While it's not funded straight up, they offer "assistantships to competitive applicants". It's a school that doesn't have a brand name, but as far as I can tell, actually has a very good reputation within Film Studies (at least in our department).

First of all, it's not over until its over. I had waitlist notifications come in late. I remember being shut out was one of the more crushing periods of my life, and for a week or two I spent my evenings after work drinking wine and eating pizza and playing video games and not much else. Then I woke up one morning, dusted myself off, and said "what's my next step?". Two biggest things I did: 1) Asked my recommenders to look at my SoP; and 2) Refined my selection of schools to really get a good feel for fit -- which is to say, I honestly asked myself if I had a good reason to be applying to a particular school. In a sense, it was very good thing that happened to me, because I wouldn't be where I'm at now if it hadn't happened (I look back at my first round school selection and wonder what I was thinking). From what I've observed, a masters is probably very helpful. My assumption is that at my school, the year I was admitted, they said "what if we experimented with letting in BA students this year?", since the other two students in my Film cohort also only have BA's, but just about everyone else recently admitted to the program, and the cohort before us, all have MA's. I would advise, based on what I've heard these students say, to be very wary of going the "paid MA from a big name school" route, and consider the many funded or partially funded MA programs from non-name brand schools. We have people from both types in our program.

Don't get too nervous about a lack of accolades/publications/etc. I'm currently at one of the programs he was admitted to and my only "accolade" as such was a B.A. with a 4.0 GPA. No publications, no masters, no awards, more or less typical GRE scores. Beyond having the requisite "numbers", what really matters is whether your SoP and writing sample click with the folks who happen to be on the adcomm that year (we wont call it luck, but there's certainly a degree of that involved). And this is how it should be, "fit" is definitely what's most important -- the difficulty is that you need to "fit" with the specific people on the adcomm, or count on the people on the adcomm to know you'll fit with that PoI you want to work with. I was completely shut out my first time through. It didn't mean I sucked, but I definitely retooled my app. It built character and forced some serious self-reflection.

We have a student in our program who got their MA at U Cincy and she's solid. I regularly cite Stanley Corkin's work in my papers and just assigned one of his essays for a class I'm teaching. Sounds like a plenty classy program to me! There are people doing great work at programs that aren't "big name"! Congratulations on the acceptance and good luck!

First of all, to echo what others have said, it's a bit early to hit the panic button. I got into the program I'm in now off of the waitlist on April 11. I was rejected my first time around. It was demoralizing, but after a few weeks I dusted myself off and tried to figure out what I ought to do differently. There are certain more or less immutable aspects of your application, GPA, the school listed on your transcript, etc. Look at what you can change, and seek help. I had some recommenders who offered to take another look at my materials and offered feedback. Based on their notes I made substantial changes to my personal statements. Most of my changes were to my personal statement, but I think the biggest change was actually my school selection. I had applied to a number of "name brand" schools and high profile interdisciplinary programs with very low acceptance rates without a lot of regard for fit. I did much more thorough research, cast a wider net, and ended up with acceptances and waitlists at schools that were an ideal fit for my interests. While the names of the schools probably wouldn't put my aunts and uncles in a state of awe, they have placement rates as good as any. Which is to say, if you get rejected by all comers, take an honest look at where you applied, were you really rationalizing in terms of "fit" in order to justify applying to some school with an impressive name? I don't say this because I assume you are, I'm saying it because it was probably the biggest problem facing my application. Once you're actually in the field in a more permanent sort of way, you realize that there really is more to life than the Ivies and their worthy equivalents. For reference, I was applying out of undergrad as a non-traditional student from a Big Ten school with a 4.0 GPA and very good GRE scores, in case this sounds like a "you should just settle" type message. As a masters student, naturally, your mileage may vary.

If you have a good relationship with a recommender, offer to buy them a cup of coffee and see if they'd be willing to chat with you about a potential writing sample you're working on. One of my recommenders did that for me with my personal statements. I'd stop short of asking them to read a draft, since that would make a big demand on their time, but if they're interested they might simply offer.

I was working in the private sector prior to going to grad school. I was making about $34k/yr and I was scared to death about the drop in salary. As it turns out, it wasn't at all difficult to adapt to life on a stipend (between my TAship and various fellowships I come out to about 20k/yr). You'll learn to adapt, but you'll also quickly learn that grad school doesn't afford you the time to spend a lot of money on various luxuries, and your social engagements will be spent primarily with people who also make very little money (your cohort/colleagues) and so the price will scale down. If I had to list one financial anxiety, it's that it's very difficult to create a savings and plan for the future. It's good that you've accepted that you wont be friends with everyone in your department, that was hard for me. Nevertheless, I am friends with enough folks, even if what binds us together is our shared struggle. Grad school can be very isolating, especially early on, especially if you're moving far from your hometown. But if you make yourself a department citizen and you show up for events (people pay attention to this, and they notice), and keep an open mind, that stuff goes away somewhat. In my department you can be as involved or uninvolved as you'd like in bureaucracy. Though part of being a dept. citizen and being recognized for it means dealing with some of that.

Tenure, health insurance, and about $50,000 a year and I'm set. A mentor of mine who worked at a community college once told me that he didn't know anyone with a PhD who didn't get tenure as long as they were willing to go where the job was. That might mean Calgary or Topeka or Fargo, but I don't care as long as I have the above. Most of us wont be upper middle class and living in a cosmopolitan metropolis.

Don't remember my exact quant score, but I think it was around the 65th percentile, and I still got into some schools and was offered funding. I wouldn't sweat it too much.

I submitted a writing sample of 25 pages to a school that asked for approximately 20. I was accepted and am now happily attending. Though I can't actually remember whether this was out of audacity, laziness, desperation or simply forgetting. I also had a short writing sample, (which consisted of the best section of my honors thesis at 17 pages) and a long writing sample that (25 pages that included that section, plus my theoretical introduction), and sent them to schools depending on what they asked for. It made life substantially easier. My completely uneducated guess - in total contravention of my personal experience - is that you're probably better off sending something slightly shorter than sending something that is longer. When I used to work in law, we had a saying, "the more you give them the less they'll read."