hopefulscribbler2014

Hi all, I'll be applying this winter to PhDs in English whilst in the third year of my MFA. It is the practice of my thesis advisor to award incompletes for all thesis research until he's got the book bound in his hand, so if I don't ask him to make an exception for me, there'll be incompletes dotted all over my transcript, even though the research is graded pass/fail. I'm just wondering whether anyone else currently in grad school has this problem and how this will look to adcoms. My thesis advisor is fairly stubborn about most things so if I want this changed I think it's going to cause me a lot of fuss (getting the chair of my department involved, etc.) and for obvious reasons, I'd rather not get on the wrong side of my advisor. That said, if I have to cause a bit of a stink, I will! Thoughts?

Rose Egypt, I believe that unless you're applying to PhDs with an MA, conference participation isn't necessarily an expectation, even if you are applying with an MA, I don't think it'll hurt applicants if they haven't had anything accepted just yet. It can't hurt to show that you're serious about your work with this kind of experience, but I wouldn't worry about the relative prestige of conferences at this point. However, to answer your question, a professional or graduate conference at an accredited university (with full departmental support: tenured faculty involved, if not running it / participating) is the basic standard. From there, prestige increases based on whether it is graduate or professional, the host institution, the reputations of the presenters / panelists, whether it is institution-bound as opposed to regional, and better yet, national, or international in scope. See comparisons: Nice to have: paper in your field of interest presented at an interdepartmental / interdisciplinary graduate conference held by a department at your own institution Very nice to have: paper in your field of interest presented at a graduate conference at a top-ranked R1 which is not your home institution, and that also has a specialist / dedicated department in your field of interest Highly impressive (as a PhD applicant with BA or MA): paper in your field of interest presented at a regional or national professional conference: e.g. NEMLA, MLA, etc. I think we need to be careful with presenting at "societal" conferences, e.g. "The (insert author name here) Society," etc. Some are really well renowned, attached to amazing institutions and run by reputable scholars, but others are tin-pot, and there's not much use in using up a great paper where it won't get you noticed (unless you desperately want the practice). As for the international thing, well, I'm an international who is in her second grad program in the U.S., and I think it's probably true that if anything, adcoms would like to see a name they recognise. I don't, however, think the location is a real problem provided the conference falls roughly into one of the criteria above. If the conferences are undergrad conferences, they're also indications of your seriousness and commitment, but are obviously regarded less highly in terms of academic rigour.

Thanks, asleepawake, for assuaging my fears a little, and I'd never try to justify or excuse my poor performance on an application unless I absolutely had to - this ain't my first time at the rodeo - but it's nonetheless good advice! You're completely right that stats aren't at all the most important thing, and I shouldn't obsess, but it can't hurt to have to numbers behind you... I must be a masochist because I hate this process with every hater fibre I possess! Now for a completely ignorant question: what exactly is a commuter school? Please don't laugh, I'm foreign!

Point taken, asleepawake, and thanks for the advice. I realise how I sound but in my general panic I will say, though, that I feel "blips" don't seem to be appreciated in this process; perfection or at least near-perfection appears to be the basic standard for top flight departments in areas like the GPA and GRE and I had been warned of this by previous profs. I'd be amazed if anyone on an adcomm has the time to even consider, let alone give a shit about "blips". All they see is the numbers, and when confronted with two applications where the SOP and sample have equal albeit different merits, the app with the 4.0 wins. I'm not hating on that; it's just logic, but it's sucky logic for us mere mortals trying to make it into top programs. I think I'm just nervous because the GPA and GRE feel like the only objective aspects of an application in a highly subjective field (although not as bad as my MFA!) and if those are a bit wonky, it makes me worry about the rest. Perhaps departments count the gpa of your most recent degree? Seems like that would be sensible.

This is all nerve-wracking. What actually counts as a good GPA / GRE score? Basically, should I be worried about my 3.83 MA gpa from a tough school if my MFA will be a 4.0 or higher? It all seems so arbitrary - I'm pretty sure some of my grades suffered because profs simply didn't give As as a matter of course, and one old farty pants just disagreed with an opinion I had in a final essay (he told me this)! Sigh. Also, in terms of the reputation of your previous school, I'm from the UK and it's always been a thing at home to attend the best department in your field that you can, (even as an undergrad because we specialise immediately). I've tried to do that with each program I've attended, but now it seems I shouldn't have bothered! I wonder if departmental prestige is taken into consideration at all? On another note, based on my last GRE quant scores (which didn't matter a jot for my MFA), I'm now going to have to add "LEARN MATH" to my list of things to do for PhD applications!

Thanks for your help! At the risk of sounding supremely negative, this feels exhausting and a bit impossible already. Researching today gave me a big case of the ickies. I cannot think of an activity I find less pleasurable than applying to grad school, but then I've never been waterboarded...

Hi there! Oddly, I'm already a little freaked by the application season, probably because I'm already in grad school and the idea of applying to grad school again at the same time makes me die a little inside! Before I start preparing properly, there are a couple of things I'm a bit worried about. It'd be great if you guys could offer a little help with them! When I was absently considering applying last season (I didn't because I got another funded year out of my MFA), I asked my MA thesis supervisor for a recommendation but she didn't reply to either of my emails. She'd offered to write me a letter unprompted previously, but I'm a little nervous about contacting her again. I have other, possibly better recommenders at my previous grad school, but I'm wondering whether it'll look weird if my MA supervisor isn't one of them. I'm also working with a prof in the English department at my current uni, so there's potential there provided we develop a good relationship. I guess my question is, when it comes to recommenders, what criteria wins out? Would it be okay if all of my recommendations came from my MFA rather than my MA? I'm also a little nervy about asking profs for letters more than once! UPenn is my dream school, and I actually did a year of graduate study there as an undergrad on an exchange program. I did well (As, A-s), but due to my general ignorance of the American system at the time, and the lack of support from my home uni, I failed to withdraw from a course I didn't need and thus got an F on my transcript. I was gutted! 'm hoping an adcomm would see this is a total anomaly considering the other grades I got, but I wonder if there's a way to explain it somehow, without sounding like the idiot I am (or was). Anyone think this could be a problem? I've since presented a paper at UPenn's McNeil Centre, so hopefully that'll look okay. Anyone worried about whether their interests seem too disparate? I'm finding it hard to label mine because there's a lot of cross-over with the stuff I'm interested in. As a fiction writer, it's important to me to attend a program with a strong focus on Narrative Theory and a generally strong creative writing community. I'm wondering how much I should make of my fiction writing in an application. Anyone think the MFA could be a put-off for some programs? Language requirement: I passed my reading exam for UVA but I'm not fluent, which worries me when it comes to some of the programs on my list. I think it'll be the weakest part of my application. Any suggestions as to what I can do in this short time to strengthen it? Sorry for all the questions and thanks so much for your help! i love this forum already!