DyslexicBibliophile

Hi! I too am waiting for a response from Indiana! I am so anxious because I have only heard back from UMass - Amherst and that was a rejection. Even though I wasn't in love with the UMass program, it still hurts when the first is a rejection. What is your concentration?

I just noticed in the results search that some people got Waitlist notifications today from UMich today . . . cue compulsively refreshing my email every 5 minutes.

I had a similar dilemma. I’m English literature, and while I am fine broadly studying Anglophone literature, I am specifically most passionate about Victorian literature. My interests also include Gothic literature, Women’s & Gender issues (sometimes Queer), and honestly? Transgressive acts within literature, especially concentrating on sex. The three strongest essays I have written all have some sort of issue. 1. I completed undergraduate research, which has gone through the most comprehensive and extensive editing process, but it is on Aphra Behn (Restoration). It does have a clear women’s/gender studies spin to it. The biggest issue with this sample is that I completed it two summers ago, and have really developed as a writer since then. This paper was 15-pages. 2. Sophomore year I completed a capstone (senior thesis) course on Jane Austen, but again, the paper is horrible compared to what I have written recently. This paper was 22-pages. 3. This past semester (Fall 2013) I completed another capstone course. This course produced a 20-page paper on homoeroticism and the divided self in Melville. This is by far one of the best papers I have ever written, but Melville is not an author I am very interested in. 4. This past summer I wrote a paper on how Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the crowning achievement of American Gothic literature. The paper was a masterpiece – my professor, who once told a class that grading papers is soul crushing and the only thing in life that consistently brings tears to her eyes, said it was good enough to be an A+ paper in one of her graduate courses and that it was clear from reading it that I had a bright future in the field. The problem? Well I can get past that it isn’t about British literature, but what I can’t get past is that it is only 10-pages. I definitely could get the paper to be longer – hell, I made notes as I was writing it as to where specifically I could expand points to be longer. I just didn’t have time to do so once the fall semester started. When a program allowed it, I submitted all three. But for most programs I submitted Aphra Behn and the Beloved paper. If a program very specifically stated it only wanted one paper, I submitted Aphra Behn. I just wish I had a paper about British Gothic literature that was about 15 pages in length, because a paper like this would have worked for almost EVERY application.

Hi all! Sorry for the long response, I suck at editing myself down, and it just feels like there is so much to say! I graduate this May with a BA in English Literature and Psychology, as well as a minor in Women's Studies. Overall GPA: 3.97, Lit GPA: 4.0. GRE scores not as flashy - V: 162, Q: 147, W:4.5. I'm not even going to mention Subject test because I straight BOMBED it (bad day met with nerves met with the fact that my strongest subject hardly appeared and my worst seemed like it was 80% of the test). Other information: 3 incredibly personal, sincere, and strong recommendations from tenured, full-time professors (one academic advisor & Victorianist, one McNair mentor, one is the senior of all the professors & teaches the women & gender stuff, additionally, I have taken multiple classes with all of them). Also a McNair Scholar and have both completed and presented independent research. I have also gotten several institutional awards over the last few years. I should probably also mention my main interests - Victorians, Gothic literature, gender/women's/queer studies, Anglophone (I like some American, just more British). I really like writing about sex or culturally taboo subjects; analyzing things that are transgressive in literature make my insides do somersaults (in a good way). I kind of use a few different critical lenses depending on what subject I am writing about. I mostly use New Historicism and Gender/Queer theory, but sometimes also write using a psychoanalytic, archetypal, or feminist lens. My downfalls - Currently attending a small, no-name undergraduate institution that most people living in the same state, hell, in the same county as it, haven't even heard of. And as I I already mentioned, my GRE Subject scores were too abysmal to even admit to. Not worried about low Quant score because I actually got the chance to speak personally with the Director of Admissions @ Harvard and she said for Literature they "couldn't care less" about how well a candidate does in Math. My last two qualms about myself (They're the biggest): 1. I didn't have a writing sample that was specific to my area of concentration - the last time I took a course that focused on Victorian literature was Freshman year, and god knows that wasn't even good enough to edit into writing sample shape. I took two capstone courses (I didn't even have to take one technically, but I love seminar courses!). One was my sophomore year and on Jane Austen, I re-read my final paper and it was a mess compared to what I can do now. The second was this past fall, but was on Herman Melville. I wrote about the divided-self and homoeroticism in Melville's works, but still, not quite Victorian or Gothic, just sort of captures the Gender & Queer Studies, and the Psychoanalytic. My independent research was on Aphra Behn (the only professor available to work with me was Early Brit Lit). My favorite paper was one I wrote this past summer on Why Beloved is the crowning achievement of American Gothic literature (still not British, but hell, at least it focuses on the gothic & has a women/gender studies bend to it). This last paper is by far the best one I have ever written . . . but it's only ten pages and I just did not have the time to expand it to a decent length. The only good thing about this is that I tried to present it as a negative - that I can take subjects that intially do not interest me and find ways to connect them to my interests. 2. SOP/PS - even though I had many people read and review it several times, and I personalized each one to the program, I still found mistakes and weaknesses after my app was submitted. I really, REALLY, don't want to sound big-headed or cocky, but this is going to sound that way, so I apologize in advance - the more achievements or strengths you have to point out, the harder it gets to write a SOP that is truly detailed. I found myself leaving out sections about specific professors I'd like to work with unless it was specifically specified to do so in the prompt (did more broad connections as to why I am a good fit, some places I quoted the website in my intro and then attempted to show how I meet that description/expectation). Personally, I am still a little lost how in 1,000 words you're suppose to: detail accomplishments, explain relevant coursework, explain relevant experiences outside coursework (research, work ex.), talk about how you would be an attribute to program moving forward, explain future research interests, mention specific professors you would like to work with and seamlessly weave in stuff from their research, talk about how you fit the program as a whole, mention why you want to get a graduate degree, mention what inspired you to want to get this degree/go into this field, don't be too anecdotal, and in all that, somehow sell that you are extremely passionate about the program. I know some of these topics mentioned can be combined, but even then . . . geez, it seems like an impossible task! So pretty much - there are about a million things I would have done differently if I could do it all again. Retake GRE for better score on V & W, retake Subject test and hopefully not absolutely embarrass myself on it this time, create a writing sample that actually shows off my interests, and have more people read my SOP/PS and ask them specifically to tear it apart as much as they can. I only received one rejection so far, but the UMich-AA acceptances went out yesterday and I did not get one, and that was my top program. The other program I'm really in love with is Rutgers, but they required subject test scores, and no matter how great my other pieces of my application were, I'm convinced my subject test scores will doom me. So at this point I feel dejected, misterable, and just want to stay in bed all day cuddling with my cat and reading.

YES! I applied to a total of 13 schools and I'm now regretting not applying to: U of Oregon, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, U of Colorado - Boulder, and so on . . . I've seen some people in this thread cite money as the reason they didn't apply to more schools, but I don't have that excuse - I'm a McNair Scholar so my applications fees were waived for most of the schools I wanted to apply to. I was just too lazy, and too tired.