apres-coup

I'm sure UC Riverside is on your list already, but they have really cool speculative research constellations and faculty and collections. (This is not my area but I think it's very neat.)

I definitely won't be ready to apply this Fall, so I'm at least a '15-er. My project for this upcoming year is to confront all the flaws in my future application, take more classes in the field I wanna move toward, rebuild and build relationships with professors, et cetera. Taking it slowly so as not to destroy myself! And so I can aim a little bit higher than I might otherwise.

I don't know what the work looks like for people in these programs, but Berkeley's rhet department has an area emphasis in continental philosophy and critical theory, and Judith Butler is over there. I know there are other programs like that, but it's not my area so I'm probably not gonna be very helpful.

I'm so glad someone who went to school in Ann Arbor isn't really defensive about this, I was kinda worried! Honestly, I am pretty mean about the city, but I swear it comes more from doing a lot of studies about segregation in the state than it does from my having gone to one of/the major rival of UMich, haha.

I'm not sure I'll be ready for Fall 2014, but I'll give it a shot for Fall 2015 for sure. If I apply for Fall 2014 I know I'll have to balance it with classes, and I'd rather take more time and be more prepared, especially since I'm taking a lot of risks as a non-English-major from a not-brilliant university with a decent GPA but an unconventional transcript. It'll be worth it to really work at it, craft my apps. However, I'm thinking I might try to get one or two applications out before then, as a trial run? Maybe my top two or three, just to see what happens. Not sure. I also want to save up money before then so that I'll be able to apply to more than ten places if I want to. I doubt I'll even find 15 perfect fit schools but I don't want an extra $150 to be the deciding factor in whether or not I apply to a crazy reach school that would be a dream fit, like Stanford. (Ugh, that price tag, Stanford come on.) I kind of stupidly took my GRE general way too early in my studies and it'll probably "expire" by then, which means I will have to retake it. I want to weigh in on the quant section, though! It's definitely worth it to run through the prep books, not to "teach" you anything but to get yourself in the habit of doing problems quickly. I'm quite good at math but my quant score was about thirty percentile points lower than my verbal because of time management issues. It's worth it, I think, to take even 1-2 hours total to practice just so you don't have to worry about your combined score being an issue. I'm taking my subject test...oh god, in like twenty days?? I'm super worried about it because I feel like I need the padding, again, as a non-major, to demonstrate that I'm vaguely competent with the material. I'm so glad I am paying for that now instead of in the same year I'm paying for apps! I think researching schools can be a really fun and engaging process, a good way to start visualizing the scope of the field and where you fit in it. As I've said before, English wasn't my "home discipline" so I might have had to work harder than others in this area, but it's been very rewarding. I started with a list of the "top" 40-50 schools in English, and poked around them, crossing stuff off or circling them as I went. (Over a period of many weeks!) Faculty was most important (for me, and likely most of you, but me in particular because my interests are semi-narrow) and when I found a POI I added them to a list and tried to read as much of their work as possible, especially their current stuff. Another habit that's great to get into is every time you read something that really speaks to your interests, immediately look into where they teach if you don't already know. After that I always look into the makeup of the department (since I don't know a lot of their reputations already)--do they only have one person doing anything vaguely of interest to me? Does their mission statement say they are concerned with gender, postcolonial studies, etc. when really they only have one token professor in each? What are those POIs teaching? Similarly, interdisciplinarity is very important to me, but I know a lot of programs have a stated commitment to it but offer few obvious connections to other programs, faculty outside the department, and so on. And then come the questions of funding, whether or not I'm at all qualified, et cetera. These are the questions that go through my head! The top 50 programs are a good place to start because it's a nice mix of "reach" and "reasonable" schools but most of them--at least through 40--have decent placements in some way. Like many people, I keep a variety of files and charts to remember my reactions. The other thing that has really helped me is to take notes about **how** I see myself fitting into a program, as budding outlines for my SOPs. Instead of just being like "[theorist] is at [department]" in my notes, I try to write a few sentences that are like "[so-and-so] writes about [such-and-such], and I see my ideas about [blah blah] building off of them [in this way]." This has really helped me refine my arguments and expand my understanding of the whole field. (I mean, untested: it's not like I've gotten in anywhere.) I'm also coming out of a BA and I think I'm really, really ready to start a PhD but I want to make sure I have options for both, of course. I have a second list of MA programs (funded, unfunded) that are more than just safeties, places that I think can really help me develop myself to be stronger or whatever. Anyway, I'm really into this process and I've done applications counseling help and stuff before so if anyone knew to the process wants to PM me I'd be happy to combine notes. Everything else is still terrifying me though, lol. An aside, on the subject of geographies: I used to be pickier than I am now when it comes to where I end up, but when I loosened up on my own rules I ended up discovering some of my dream schools that were beyond those borders. But at the same time, it matters. If you have breathing problems or mobility problems, for example, not every city in the US is gonna work out for you, you know? You gotta live and you gotta be healthy, and not everybody can survive and be healthy everywhere. (See also: my unwavering terror about NYC.) Still, my major bias for a long time was "oh my god people outside of Michigan/Ohio/Indiana/etc. pay more than $400 for rent, what is WRONG with them," and that's just silly regionalism on my part. I will say, though, when I see people skeptical of "the South" as particularly bigoted but laud Ann Arbor as a progressive mecca even though it has been a stronghand in keeping Detroit the most segregated city in the US, and (last I checked) has worse diversity numbers than Harvard, I gotta side-eye. Ann Arbor is among the richest and whitest cities in one of the poorest states with the most majority-minority cities, and I wonder why no one is skeptical of that. (I know many people make the same criticisms of Austin especially when it comes to gentrification.)

Carnegie Mellon is the same! I have a hard copy of the last rankings (for comparison reasons) and it was at 39.

I started working on my practice booklet after I posted this! My scores are "definitely not passable for entrance" but already improving. (Someone in another thread mentioned that how easy it is to change your score on this test pretty much proves how useless it is, which resonates.) I was afraid of it, but I'm strong enough in the theory sections and I have enough of a framework to get it. Gotta work on that brit lit though. But given my insecurities, I want to have a really safe score on the subject test to demonstrate that I have some approximation of "proficiency." Just a little padding, I guess.

Like probably billions of other women's studies students, I have a strong background in media studies and film, even though that's not really what I want to do. Our film studies program (like a lot of them) is housed in the English department. Frankly, I thought "film can be read as literature" wasn't very controversial anymore? And most of the top-20 programs seem to have a strong representation of film theory faculty? (Even if these universities also host film studies programs otherwise.) People like Aviva Briefel, Carol Clover, and Kaja Silverman came out of or are in English/Rhetoric programs, and they were pretty big names in feminist film theory. (Again, not what I want to do, but I thought this relationship was a fairly well-established one.) I guess what "drew me to the discipline" is that I was looking for a place that can support memory studies, performance theory, and embodiment and most of the people working in those fields are in English programs. I am thinking especially of Cvetkovich, Ngai, Elizabeth Freemann, Lisa Lowe, Lauren Berlant of course, Peggy Phelan, Shirley Samuels, etc.--not necessarily people I'm dreaming of working with but people who influenced me, who are influential in these areas and who are influential for their work developing performance, visual, spatial, archival, public studies as textual inquiries that belong in English. When I said I haven't taken many non-comp English classes I meant "in the department," because most of them have been situated elsewhere. The classes I have taken in the English department were all lit theory classes. I'm weakest in breadth and have huge holes in my experience when it comes to canon. (It's probably a terrible idea, then, to take the GRE subject test now, before I take my English breadth classes, but I've got the time and I guess I'll just see how it goes.) This is good to know! I've got some time to decide, but I have to say that Cornell has a lot to offer what I'm looking for...

Maybe acceptance season isn't exactly the best time to enter the conversation, but here I am! I'm currently in the process of re-situating myself in the disciplines. I'm a history major moving toward English study. My undergrad is at a major research university/major state school that gets outshined by the better research university/public school in my state. (Not to mention outshined by our athletics reputation.) (It's not hard at all to figure out who I'm talking about.) We're strong in history, but much less strong in English. My second major was in an interdisciplinary arts & humanities college. It's a brand new college, modeled after similar residential-experience-at-giant-university programs in the midwest. Most of my work there was with art history, american studies, gender studies and cultural studies professors. This isn't exactly my first time at this, though. A few years ago I was a McNair Scholar* and was pushed through the process of vetting and visiting history programs. I was a successful history student--and am fully prepared to give you all my patented How My History Major Prepared Me For Working In Literary Fields speech--but I don't want to work in history. After that, I started preparing applications for Gender Studies programs, mostly WGS Ph.D options. I never submitted any applications because I felt too rushed during my last fall semester of undergrad, but I'm glad I have taken some time to distance myself and do some exploration. When you're in gender studies, a lot of people in disciplines spend a lot of time warning you to stay out of the standalone interdisciplinary programs because they are "unmarketable" or, you know, "terrible ideas" while at the same time those interdisciplinary programs spend a lot of time and energy marketing themselves to you. (This applies as much to american studies and cultural studies as it does to WGS, really.) I was convinced--and maybe this is influenced at least a little by so many rigid history departments at big research schools--that there was no discipline that could really support the kind of work I wanted to do in gender theory, performance studies, visual studies, etc. But of course, after working briefly with an English/WGS professor and exploring the careers of some of my favorite theorists/critics, I've realized that what I want to do fits pretty squarely in many English and Lit programs. *Does anyone else have McNair experience? I know a lot of alum don't end up in the humanities as much as professional programs, STEM, and social sciences, but I am curious about how this is regarded by programs. Luckily I haven't technically "graduated" so I have decided to take the next year or so to bolster my work. I'm going to try to take at least 5-6 English classes, since I've only taken one non-composition class in the English department, and build more relationships in the English department as I work on my writing sample. (My writing sample is a film studies piece.) (Some of my humanities college courses were lit classes, but that's one of those things I have to work to demonstrate.) Do any of you have similar experiences? I know the obvious answer is "just get a masters to transition into the field," and I am looking into those options. But I really think that I have a handle on the theoretical questions, methodologies and issues of disciplinarity that I need to enter the field. And I'm working to strengthen myself. I'm just working to make sure that I can demonstrate and articulate why I belong here to prospective peers and programs. Okay though, I have to say: while I know I'm going to need to work hard defending myself as a non-major, my absolute biggest insecurity is my alma mater. I know there is no easy way to address this, but can anybody ease my worries? Should I be worried about how my not-terrible but not-wonderful state school is gonna look to top-twenty English programs? I feel like there are so few people with BA's from schools like mine in Ph.D programs anywhere. I'd love some comfort. Or, maybe, some comfirmation that Cornell will absolutely not look at someone out of a B.A. at a just-okay state school in the midwest. If that's the case.