isabelarcher

Thanks everyone. Will probably take a year off anyways (for other reasons), but I really appreciate your input.

~3.8-9, total UG GPA ~3.7. The main issue was that I took an 8 unit lit class in my major and got a B while abroad so that's taking a hit too. It was an immersion university class in another language, though.

Semester GPA from studying abroad: 3.39. Considering waiting a year and/or not applying at all now.

All of this info is available on their websites, really. DPhil = PhD, MSt = Master of Studies (taught degree). MSt is where you take courses, whereas for a DPhil and MLitt/Phil (research degree) you really are only doing research that culminates in the writing of a dissertation. You normally need a masters to apply for the PhD. For the GPA, contact them and ask. They have tons of international applicants and know that grading systems vary. They normally want a first, which is ~3.75 I think. However, the writing sample plays a big role in admissions too. They also look at letters of rec. I someone from the US about to start a masters at Oxford and they said it wasn't too hard to gain admission and it's much less selective than US grad programs because it's up to you to find funding. As I'm sure you know, top grad programs in the US normally fund you, so they accept the amount of applicants they can afford to fund. Funding is another issue you'll have to consider. The different colleges (read up on the system) normally offer grants you can apply for but unless you're independently wealthy you should expect to take out loans. Whether or not you think this is a wise course of action for a masters degree is up to you. I could be wrong about any of this so feel free to correct me; it was all gleaned from the Oxbridge websites when I was looking into this for myself.

University College Cork has an MA in Irish Studies. Not sure if that's exactly what you're looking for.

For those of you coming straight from undergrad, have you thought much about contingency plans? I'm thinking about also applying to be a teaching fellow for the NYC dept of education and/or the French gov's teaching assistant program in France. I don't want to spread myself too thinly but I also need viable options for once the dust settles.

I was in Dublin on Bloomsday this year! I went by the James Joyce Centre and all of the people working there are so young and passionate about Joyce. I hope it's not too much to ask for to wish that I meet people like that in grad school.

Thanks for the reassurance. It's so easy to get caught up in thinking that every single detail of your app could make or break you...

Picking classes for my last fall quarter, so stressful. The classes I need for my two separate majors are invariably at the same times so I'll probably have to switch one of them to a minor. :/ Does anyone know how detrimental that might be? I'm applying for Comp Lit... would it really hurt me to have a major/minor in French and Classics rather than a double major? Something tells me the difference is kind of minute but still...

I'm applying for Comp Lit this fall. I'm a French major, and I would say that I'm pretty fluent (studied since high school and have lived ~1 year total in 2 different francophone countries). I picked it pretty arbitrarily in high school but I really do love it. I'm also really interested in Romanticism (generally) so my next language will probably be German. I also majored in Classics, so I've got some pretty decent Latin and halfway decent Greek, which are pretty relevant too. I think having fluency in English, French, and German would be ideally suited to my interests, eventually. Also, I can understand Spanish and speak it rather poorly, so someday I would like to be able to do more with it than watch telenovelas. If I had no time constraints I would learn Japanese, just because. Thanks for posting this, I love languages and talking to other people about them. (◕‿◕✿)

As a 20 year old undergrad starting to apply this fall, I have to say that I am quite in awe of (and intimidated by) pretty much anyone older than me. Even just considering the leg up time has given you in terms of experience and knowledge. When I consider the fact that I've only been seriously reading for five years (since I was 15, say), you've had the opportunity to read five times more than I have, and not just wider but more profoundly, I'd bet. Five times as much the opportunity to soak up literature as well as the world. Mind-boggling, and also impressive.

I have the same question. This one's for history, but I like how they break it down and address every aspect of what makes it ideal in a way that (I think) would apply to all fields: http://ls.berkeley.edu/files/statement_of_purpose.pdf

Since everyone else is posting their lists, I will, too. I'm applying for Comp Lit.: Harvard Brown Berkeley CUNY Columbia (French/Comp Lit) WUSTL (French/Comp Lit) NYU USC (Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture) I mostly made this list based on faculty I'd like to work with and location, and to a lesser degree, the setup of the program and the ability to study abroad. Are there other factors I should be considering, like placement rates or course listings? Decided to scrap all Canada/UK aspirations as funding seems iffy. I also have a fairly large list of schools that I'm still considering. This is mostly based on financial constraints. My parents have generously offered to pay for 5 apps, so if I apply to the 8 above I'm still paying for 3 myself and I am broker than broke. This list of schools is the Maybes. Please feel free to sway me for or against applying them on any grounds: Emory UCSB Cornell UPenn Yale Johns Hopkins Vanderbilt UChicago Northwestern

Just to clarify for OP, the California State University is different from the University of California (think Berkeley, UCLA). CSUs don't focus on graduate education (some offer MAs but not PhDs) so I just wanted to clarify.

I literally do this exact same thing. Was JSTOR-ing Evelyn Waugh earlier today, for funzies.

If you go to school in a non-English speaking country, aren't you at least bilingual? That's more than most Americans. Are there programs that specifically ask for French?

I wonder about this as an applicant. I've had three substantial internships as an undergrad, none related to academia. Two were 9-5 in the summer, one was 15 hours a week for a semester -- not insignificant commitments. Two were related to government (one in DC, one locally) and one was in the law department of a corporation (I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, once. HA HA HA.) I figure it won't hurt or help my application. At least it shows that I'm well rounded and makes for good talking points when it comes up in conversation.

I kind of think so. I go to a UC, and when I was talking to my advisor w/in my department about grad schools she was like, "And of course you can apply here. You would definitely get in with full funding." Definitely presumptuous of her but still nice to hear.

KeelyMK: Anecdotal evidence but my dept chair (at another UC) has BA/MA/PhD all from Berkeley, too. And she's clearly doing just fine. Maybe more of a concern at smaller, less known schools?

Thanks for the advice. I may not apply to UK schools since the possibility of getting secure funding seems much smaller. Also I just realized I could translate one of my French papers into English and then have someone look over it. D'oh. I'll look at some more schools, including the ones you mentioned. Also, I noticed that a lot of people who post here have verrrry specific research interests and I'm wondering if I need to find some way to narrow mine down to be competitive, like in my statement of purpose. Is it fine to be general i.e. "Romanticism" or "Women and Gender Studies" or should I be like "Lacanian gaze as applied to the works of Madame de Lafayette!" Honestly before lurking here I had never heard of a lot of what a lot of you list as interests (like animal studies or ecocriticism or history of the book) but it's cool because now I get to educate myself via wikipedia, haha.

Hi everyone. New here. I'm applying for Comp Lit for Fall 2014. My UG majors are French and Classics. My languages are French (fairly fluent; have lived in 2 francophone countries), Latin (upper div), and Greek (lower div). I'm suuuuuper nervous for this fall; I haven't taken the GRE yet, I've never been published, etc. etc. It seems like a lot of people here have MAs already or have been out of school for a while. I have absolutely no idea what my chances look like. My major gpa is >3.8, overall ~3.7 but looking at the results pages it seems like there are a lot of 4.0s out there. My advisor seems to think that I have a good shot seeing as she advised me to apply to Berkeley and Harvard (lol). My tentative list of schools is kind of reach-y, any advice for more reasonable options would be welcome: Harvard, Brown, Columbia (French/Comp Lit), NYU, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSB, UCSC, Toronto, plus maybe some UK schools: Oxbridge (lol, why not), UCL, Edinburgh. I'm interested in classical allegory in 19th century French lit, women and gender studies, etc. as well as a lot of other things which makes me think that Comp Lit would be a better fit than straight up French. I have a few questions if you guys don't mind: I have some impressive(ish) internships on my resume that are completely unrelated to anything academic. Do they even look at stuff like this when you apply, or is it strictly academic? Being a French major, all of my potential writing samples are in French. My best paper in English is for a writing class I took but it's on film. Do I submit that, do I write a completely new paper, do I try to take some sort of English class this fall that would give me something to work with? Thanks guys.