guinevere29

I do know multiple people who have chosen this route (an unfunded MA from a high-ranking school) and successfully gotten into top-tier PhD programs. However, I think this route may be better suited for someone who really thinks they need a boost in their applications due to a low undergrad GPA, didn't have strong recommendations from undergrad professors, or more research opportunities. This doesn't sound like your situation. After getting into both the University of Chicago's MAPH program and Univeristy of Toronto's Medieval Studies MA, I seriously looked into the cost/rewards of going to a t

First off, I'll echo rachelann and queennight in saying that they are absolutely correct on how to do better on the Verbal. Plain and simple, memorize those words. My goal was to break into the 90th percentile and I didn't achieve that the first time, in my estimation, because I was taking a more hollistic approach to studying. Second time, I just took practice tests and memorized vocab and I got into the 90th percentile. Wyatt - I also got a 4.5 the first time I took the Analytical, mostly because I didn't believe that I needed to study examples of how to write an essay. I'd gotten a 12 out

I'm a first year graduate student at IU and I'm moving out of my 1 bedroom apartment next year. I don't think the landlord has found someone for next year yet...just throwing that out b/c I saw someone posted they were having trouble finding a place!

Love the Groundhogs Day reference. I think part of what people are frustrated about here is that while there certainly are naive, rosy-eyed students appying to PhDs in the humanities who definitely should be warned, if they have spend any amount of time on the forums here, they should be well aware of that fact. On the otherhand, it has been really refreshing to hear people defending their choices to pursue PhDs in the humanities when there is so much negativity going around. Once you've considered all the risks and rewards and made the choice to get a PhD in the humanities aware of th

Hi coffeeandcomics! It looks like you are applying to the Literature program, so my response pertains directly to that. Things vary a bit by department. Right now the situation is that every incoming student should be fully funded with a first year fellowship and a 1-1 teaching load for the remaining years of the contract. I don't know if they updated their website since I applied, but if it's the same thing it's fairly confusing. Because IUB does not offer teaching assistantships to first-year students without MAs, in the past, some students have been offered admittance to the program wit

Hmmm. That is a good question. I haven't heard whether comp. lit is doing anything official that day and I'm not on their email list. If I had to guess, comp. lit's campus visit day would be the same weekend if they have an official one. I would contact someone in your department and if they are not organizing something official, that would be a good weekend to visit either way.

Yep! It's Friday, March 28th and coincides with IU Graduate Conference. PM me if you have any questions about IU, I'm a current student and I attended the campus visit day last year.

Well I'm on here, I guess I'll put my two-cents in on perspectives on success. I'll let everyone else be the judge of to what extent I was successful; I didn't get into any Ivy Leagues, but I also didn't really apply to any of them besides Stanford, and that was at the behest of my advisor. I got into one PhD program that is top-20 for Medieval Lit. The school itself fluxuates around 20-22 in the USNWR for overall English program ranking, but obviously it was more important that it be highly ranked for my field. I got into two top-tier masters programs that were unfunded, and one funde

While I'm not saying the coverletter isn't a factor in applications, I have trouble believing it played a crucial role in getting anyone in anywhere. I've always supplied cover letters for jobs, but the reality is that AdComms have a limited time to sort through hundreds of applicants, so I can't imagine they'd really want anything that they don't explicitly ask for. Worst case scenario, if you don't include something in your SOP that you do include in your cover letter, there's a chance that information will be discarded.

Although when and how acceptances/rejections are sent out varies from school to school, if you are desparate to know, the Results Search on this website is pretty helpful. If multiple people are posting that they were accepts and 24 hours later you still haven't heard, there is a very good chance you are either rejected or wait-listed. If you are waitlisted, don't give up hope or jump to accept another offer just because you feel pressured to. I knew multiple people who got accepted at the beginning of April off the waitlist. I'm going to chime in here with one other piece of advice: once

I also failed at excercising first semester...I may have gone on a short run once or twice...I watched a lot of Netflicks. But this semester I have actually be much better about it - I've been going to some group excercise classing at the gym which kills the getting involved and working out birds with one stone. In fact, in general I've been sticking to my resolutions a lot better in my second semester of grad school than I did in my first: 1. Make time for pleasure reading/creative writing. I'm in a Lit PhD program, so things can get pretty dry and theory-heavy. My goal is to write a

If you are currently attending a university, I would definitely take advantage of its resources before pursuing expensive (and potentially fruitless) outside help. Even if one or two professors you ask for help don't come through or are too busy, keep trying. My undergraduate thesis advisor recently became the DGS of the college, and I was really looking to her for help, but I suspect she was too busy. I was wary to ask a professor that I just started taking a class with for help on my writing sample and personal statements, but when I did he really came through with giving me the advice I nee

Thanks Algernon! I'm always happy to talk about UIUC. The English department is great.

Congrats on getting accepted to UIUC! I love Professor Trilling. She was my honors thesis advisor for undergrad. If you guys have any question about UIUC or their campus let me know!

They will be sending out acceptances in the next couple of weeks, Indiana is currently doing a bunch of new facutly hires and the department is really busy with that. But they just selected who will be the prospective student coordinator so they are getting ready to send them out soon. They are looking to have about 10 people in the incoming cohort, so I assume this application season was especially difficult but the good news is that everyone who is coming in this year should have a first year fellowship if you don't already have your MA. I'm currently at Indiana-Bloomington in the PhD p