rhetoricus aesalon

As someone who knows or knew @Ramus irl (and as someone still in academia), these are words of wisdom. As an English major, you have a range of skills. Don't buy into the foundational myths of academia. An undergrad English degree adds value and $ to your life and career trajectory; English PhDs do neither of those things. I don't expect anybody will really pay heed, because the intellectual validation of academia is so alluring, but I admire @Ramus and others for persisting with this message, even as they, like a generation before them in 2014-16, get downvoted and mocked for these posts on this forum.

While I caution y'all from placing too much stock in anecdotal data, allow me to share two brief examples of other recent PhD outcomes from my subfield. I imagine you all know the stories about those who end up in adjunct hell, but I wanted to share these two stories because they help illustrate what can happen even when you do everything "right."
Person A: Graduated from the University of Michigan three years ago with two publications in hand, had participated in one of the keynote panels at the national conference in our field, and was well connected with all the big names in our historical period. A brilliant, brilliant guy. Person A won the lottery in his first year on the job market: he got a TT position at one of the better programs hiring that year (an R2 in the Midwest). But Person A has been absolutely miserable in his job. He lives in a place without the intellectual life he enjoyed in Ann Arbor; he lives in a place without any kind of city life; and he's stuck with students who aren't terribly smart or engaged. Every time I talk to person A, he talks about how he wishes he could leave his job but that he feels like he has no way to escape. The takeaway: even when you get achieve "the dream," you may realize that, in reality, it's not quite all it was cracked up to be.
Person B: Is graduating this year from Yale University with two publications and multiple national conference presentations. Person B struck out entirely on the academic job market this year (which isn't saying much, as there were three jobs posted in our subfield). Person B is now scrambling to accomplish the transition to an alternative -- which he had always thought would be an easy one. He's now in a position to graduate with no job lined up, having struck out thus far on "alt-ac" jobs, too. Person B, who had dreams of being the next Stanley Fish, resorted to calling me a couple months back to ask how to break into technical writing, and he now seems resigned to volunteer to gain experience, taking on personal debt in the process. The takeaway: don't buy into "you can just do something else if it doesn't work out," as though employers are waiting around to hire English PhDs. Moving out of higher ed takes time, dedication, and hard work, often requiring you to seek and participate in internships or learn new skills before you can find a job. Though it often gets framed as the easy back-up option, it can take months or years to develop the kind of resume that would make you competitive for the jobs that can put you on a path toward stability.

Sorry you feel that way. Feel free to ignore and continue on the path you're on. I wish you well, and I hope you end up in a stable, well-paying position that brings you security and happiness. Unfortunately, the likelihood of you or anyone else on this forum finding such a position in the professoriate is next to nil, which is why I'm compelled to "proselytize."
I'm not looking for an apology, as things worked out fine for me. Please reserve your condescension for someone else. 
I think you're missing the point. It's not that people aren't intelligent. I was a smart undergraduate, too, just like many on this site. I read about how bad that the job market was before I went. And that wasn't enough to deter me (though it should have been). The issue, I think, is that there is this impulse on the part of professors to encourage their smart undergraduates to pursue PhDs because, well, that's what smart undergraduates should do. They tell their undergrads (as I was told) that they're smart enough to be the exceptions to the trend, or that they can always do something else if it doesn't work out (and you don't need a PhD to do any of the alternatives). The truth is that virtually none of you will be exceptions to the hiring trends, and, if we can agree that's the case, I would argue that pursuing a PhD in the humanities at this time is a mistake.
But, as your reply evidences, most will ignore such warnings anyway (and, for good measure, will likely look on such warnings with derision). Again, I can say that from experience! I was stubborn and self-assured then, too, similarly arrogant in my refusal to listen to those who made it through the process and came out the other side cynical or defeated (so I perceived them then). For those who are like I was then, I reckon there is no getting through. My hope is that if there's someone out there on the fence, wondering if pursuing a PhD's worth the extraordinary degree of personal risk and uncertainty, that that person will simply pursue another option for their future. 
 

Whether you think she's a saint or a skeez, Karen Kelsky is more forthcoming about the fucked up state of academia -- its people, its job prospects, and its insane value system -- than any of the professors I had in undergrad or in my PhD program. For all those considering a PhD, I recommend you spend ten minutes of your time on this video:
While I imagine most of you have heard the horror stories of the job market -- which really has gotten vastly worse in the last year -- I think Kelsky does a better job than most other explanations I've seen in presenting how the whole psychology of the academy works and how professors groom their underlings into trying to stick the whole thing out.
Fwiw, I got out and am much, much happier now. I only wish those of you out there would make the decision that I was too cowardly to make: don't do a PhD at all, and if you're in a PhD now, get out ASAP for your own sake (just say no to the sunk cost fallacy!).

Seek out advisors who will support articulation of your background as an asset to future study in English, both in their feedback on your application materials and in their letters of recommendation. You are right that not having a clear path into a specific field will be a hard sell. So make sure the materials you are writing now make that path as clear and seamless as possible. In some cases, your inexperience in English could be more of an issue for funding depending on institutional policy or state law. 

Seek out advisors who will support articulation of your background as an asset to future study in English, both in their feedback on your application materials and in their letters of recommendation. You are right that not having a clear path into a specific field will be a hard sell. So make sure the materials you are writing now make that path as clear and seamless as possible. In some cases, your inexperience in English could be more of an issue for funding depending on institutional policy or state law. 

Seek out advisors who will support articulation of your background as an asset to future study in English, both in their feedback on your application materials and in their letters of recommendation. You are right that not having a clear path into a specific field will be a hard sell. So make sure the materials you are writing now make that path as clear and seamless as possible. In some cases, your inexperience in English could be more of an issue for funding depending on institutional policy or state law. 

The irony here is that both schools you've listed are top programs. Yours, Washington University, is in fact listed as a top 20 by USNews. So I'm not really sure why you're trying to convince early career graduate students that you've somehow beat the odds with your modest graduate education when in fact you've benefitted from the prestige of your program as much as anyone.

I genuinely sympathize for you. It's shitty feeling like you've gotten wins in this arduous process but that those wins might not be enough to position you well for your end goal (presumably, a TT job). As one of those commenters ragging on the odds of getting a decent TT job from a lower-ranked school, I'll just say that I hope it's clear my remarks are not designed to make readers feel like shit. I get no satisfaction from that. My concern is with the consequences of the well-meaning optimism on this site. I'm all for celebrating, but the back-slapping and congratulations can obfuscate the realities of graduate education in the humanities today: those coming out of lower-ranked programs are very unlikely to get good, well-paying jobs that allow graduates the time to think, write, and teach well.
The national TT placement rate is something like 60%; it will be considerably lower than that for lower-ranked programs. If you're comfortable playing those odds, that's on you. I wish you good luck. It literally makes me sick to my stomach, however, to think that applicants are not undertaking such a big decision without considering the stark reality of the job situation. 
I hope it is obvious to all applicants that they should seek a range of opinions on these topics. The only caveat I would add is that you should take the opinions of your professors—especially if they graduated with their PhDs before 2008—with the same grain of salt you would apply to other pieces of advice. While I hope for your sakes that you have perfectly well-informed professors who can be painfully blunt with you about the relative merits of your prospective programs and the job market, you unfortunately cannot assume as much.
Let me give two examples. While a baby undergrad way back in 2012/3, I got word that I had been admitted to the University of Arizona with a "fully-funded" package. My recommenders were ecstatic for me: "this is well-deserved," they told me, "a great offer," "proof that you have what it takes to be a professor," and on and on. But their enthusiasm was misplaced. They didn't know that UA had a heavy teaching load, a wimpy stipend, and, most importantly of all, a poor placement record. (If memory serves me correctly, UA had only placed one student in my subfield into a TT line in the prior five years.) If I hadn't pressed to find this all out on my own, and had simply listened to my professors, I may well have ended up in a program that would have left me unhappy and poorly positioned to secure post-graduate academic employment.
Fast forward a few years: I'm now at Ohio State, working under smart, well-connected faculty. You'd think they'd be in the know and honest with me about jobs and the like, right? Wrong. My advisor has repeatedly expressed to me his belief that "those with the good ideas are the ones that make it" and good ideas simply "get out there"—regardless of the conditions required to create and refine good ideas, the connections needed to "market" those good ideas, and the institutional pedigrees that enable the kind of required connections to be made. This kind of pollyanaism borders on professional malpractice. Even someone like my advisor, who is closely attuned to the present job market, can indulge these habits of thought, either because they help him sleep at night or because he genuinely (if mistakenly) believes in the righteous meritocracy he espouses. 
TL;DR: GradCafe doesn't have all the answers, but don't assume your professors' words are gospel, either. 
 

I am looking at the general rankings, not English graduate program rankings. Job search committees are routinely made up of faculty outside a candidate's area of specialization and, often, with at least one member outside the department. Departments will want to hire someone with specialization they do not have in order to round out program and university expertise. This means a graduate program's prestige can be less important to a university's overall prestige when on the academic job market.

This is an interesting consideration, thank you. In my experience, everybody in English lit is hyperaware of the English rankings, so I still think Regiomantus' perspective provides a useful angle with which to look at this. I'm aware of a number of applicants who wouldn't apply to WUSTL. (Which, if you didn't apply to anything but top 10, that's totally your choice! I wouldn't fault anyone for pragmatism. I'd only be inclined to call you an ass for thinking you're actually better than WUSTL.) The English rankings would likely hold sway with many committee members who are aware of them and are keen on prestige. 
If this weren't a factor, Rice would have greater success than Berkeley, since overall it is #16 and Berkeley is #22, even though Rice is #35 and Berkeley is #1 in English. However, while Rice does very well for its ranking - and let me be clear, it's a beautiful program I'd be honored to attend - Berkeley's placement rates in English are breathtakingly good. There's just no comparison. 
Nonetheless, I have wondered if overall/undergrad prestige impacted the job search, and it doesn't surprise me to hear it's a factor as well for committee members outside of the specialization. Good information to be aware of, no matter what choices an applicant makes.

The irony here is that both schools you've listed are top programs. Yours, Washington University, is in fact listed as a top 20 by USNews. So I'm not really sure why you're trying to convince early career graduate students that you've somehow beat the odds with your modest graduate education when in fact you've benefitted from the prestige of your program as much as anyone.

That may be so—though I'd caution applicants placing too much stock in  this kind of anecdotal claim—but it isn't especially relevant to the present discussion about Miami University of Ohio and Ball State University. 
 
As I've said elsewhere, the ranking systems are by no means perfect. My concern is that critiques of them, like yours, @Regimentations, might lead young applicants to believe they don't measure anything or that they can be outright ignored. In fact, they are especially important for cases like OP's. In the present case, the US News ranking system, even with its warts, helps support the conclusion that the two schools OP is considering would leave her/him/them with at or about a snowball's chance in hell of getting a tenure-track job. For the sake of OP, let's not have yet another quibble over the methodology of US News distract us for that reality. 

ETA: Now that I'm in front of my computer, allow me to elaborate.
The most common (if much maligned) ranking system is the US News one: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/english-rankings. People like to grumble about it, but it's a decent approximation of prestige within our field. According to this list, Miami ranks #77 nationally. Ball State does not place in the top 153 programs surveyed here. Make of that what you will. I'll just say that if I knew the realities of the academic job market when I was applying for schools, I wouldn't consider programs outside the top 20. 
Here's some more information about the PhD placements at Ball State: https://www.bsu.edu/-/media/www/departmentalcontent/english/pdfs/graduateprograms/graduate program alumni.pdf?la=en&hash=B292055CC6E80F7A38700693FC0A09C595B4453D. The long and short: they've placed two Literature PhDs into professorships in the last ten years. Neither of those appointments was in the US.
Here's some more information about PhD placements at Miami: https://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/english/academics/graduate-studies/literature/lit-grad-achievements/index.html. There's little long term information listed on their site, but they Miami place someone into a high-teaching-load TT line last year, along with a couple of VAPs. That's better than Ball State, but not much better. 

I can't speak to SMU specifically because I do not have a relationship to that school, but these events in general are meant to recruit admitted students into making the final push to enroll. In other words, this is now your opportunity to interview the school to make sure it is a good fit before you agree to whatever offer they have made to you by the universal April 15 deadline.
It will also be a chance to meet other students who will be in your cohort and get a better sense of what your life would be like while at the institution and living in that area. You will most likely meet professors whose interests align with yours, and you might even sit in on a graduate course to get a feel for how they are run. You will likely get a group tour of the department building and campus, and you will most likely eat meals with current graduate students and have the chance to candidly speak to them about their experiences in the program.
In other words, this visit is intended to be fun, build community, and convey to you that attending the program would be worth the half-decade plus you will be devoted to it. So enjoy it. But also, use it to your advantage. The program has made a commitment to you, but you have not yet made a commitment to the program. There are very few moments you will have power over your circumstances in academia, and this is one--however small it may be.
Gather intel about how students support themselves over the summer, if they work other jobs and where those are, where they live, if they are comfortable, where your children (if you have any) will be going to school or daycare, where your partner (should you have one) work, etc. The school will do everything it can to put on its best face for you, and they will do what they can to get you to make the decision to enroll. Use the opportunity to be kind, open, and honest about what you need to be successful, and see if in the absolute best of times (because you truly will never have the university on the hook like this again) if they are able to give you that. They might not be able to do much, but even knowing how they communicate that to you will be very telling about what life will be like over the coming years.

I can't speak to SMU specifically because I do not have a relationship to that school, but these events in general are meant to recruit admitted students into making the final push to enroll. In other words, this is now your opportunity to interview the school to make sure it is a good fit before you agree to whatever offer they have made to you by the universal April 15 deadline.
It will also be a chance to meet other students who will be in your cohort and get a better sense of what your life would be like while at the institution and living in that area. You will most likely meet professors whose interests align with yours, and you might even sit in on a graduate course to get a feel for how they are run. You will likely get a group tour of the department building and campus, and you will most likely eat meals with current graduate students and have the chance to candidly speak to them about their experiences in the program.
In other words, this visit is intended to be fun, build community, and convey to you that attending the program would be worth the half-decade plus you will be devoted to it. So enjoy it. But also, use it to your advantage. The program has made a commitment to you, but you have not yet made a commitment to the program. There are very few moments you will have power over your circumstances in academia, and this is one--however small it may be.
Gather intel about how students support themselves over the summer, if they work other jobs and where those are, where they live, if they are comfortable, where your children (if you have any) will be going to school or daycare, where your partner (should you have one) work, etc. The school will do everything it can to put on its best face for you, and they will do what they can to get you to make the decision to enroll. Use the opportunity to be kind, open, and honest about what you need to be successful, and see if in the absolute best of times (because you truly will never have the university on the hook like this again) if they are able to give you that. They might not be able to do much, but even knowing how they communicate that to you will be very telling about what life will be like over the coming years.

I can't speak to SMU specifically because I do not have a relationship to that school, but these events in general are meant to recruit admitted students into making the final push to enroll. In other words, this is now your opportunity to interview the school to make sure it is a good fit before you agree to whatever offer they have made to you by the universal April 15 deadline.
It will also be a chance to meet other students who will be in your cohort and get a better sense of what your life would be like while at the institution and living in that area. You will most likely meet professors whose interests align with yours, and you might even sit in on a graduate course to get a feel for how they are run. You will likely get a group tour of the department building and campus, and you will most likely eat meals with current graduate students and have the chance to candidly speak to them about their experiences in the program.
In other words, this visit is intended to be fun, build community, and convey to you that attending the program would be worth the half-decade plus you will be devoted to it. So enjoy it. But also, use it to your advantage. The program has made a commitment to you, but you have not yet made a commitment to the program. There are very few moments you will have power over your circumstances in academia, and this is one--however small it may be.
Gather intel about how students support themselves over the summer, if they work other jobs and where those are, where they live, if they are comfortable, where your children (if you have any) will be going to school or daycare, where your partner (should you have one) work, etc. The school will do everything it can to put on its best face for you, and they will do what they can to get you to make the decision to enroll. Use the opportunity to be kind, open, and honest about what you need to be successful, and see if in the absolute best of times (because you truly will never have the university on the hook like this again) if they are able to give you that. They might not be able to do much, but even knowing how they communicate that to you will be very telling about what life will be like over the coming years.

I think figuring out fit is very tricky despite how hard we try. Programs with large faculty might make it seem like most people are a fit. But some big names might not be taking on new students. Programs with a smaller faculty might make it seem like the fit isn't there even if it is.  We also rarely ever know who's being hired at what time for any upcoming position which may also showcase what a university might be interested in.

Remember that you are not drafting a contract when you write your SOP. Naming a POI in no way means that you will actually work with that person. Listing faculty that you want to work with in a SOP is one way to convey your fit within a department and not much else. Trying to read into who might be moving, or not getting tenure, or retiring is usually information that you will not be privy to. Just list the faculty who work in similar circles as you want to; otherwise, they might be curious as to why you didn’t list them and if you really know much about the academic community you want to engage with.

Great advice in this thread, and I'll just add that if you haven't already done so, talk to your professors at your current institution about this and ask them about how to fund it. Ask the chair in the department you are majoring in if the department has money to support your trip. Ask your college dean if they have money for undergraduate research travel, even if the deadline for their grants has passed. Your acceptance to this conference also makes them look good, and they might be able to help you out. 
Also want to echo what has already been hinted at. This conference will look good in the short term for grad school applications, but 5-8 years from now it will not matter. Don't go into debt for this conference.
But most importantly: Celebrate! This is a big achievement, very worthy of your excitement. You may already know this, but your work was almost certainly judged anonymously -- it was reviewed for acceptance alongside graduate and faculty member work without your name or status as an undergraduate attached. And it was accepted! Congratulations!

Great advice in this thread, and I'll just add that if you haven't already done so, talk to your professors at your current institution about this and ask them about how to fund it. Ask the chair in the department you are majoring in if the department has money to support your trip. Ask your college dean if they have money for undergraduate research travel, even if the deadline for their grants has passed. Your acceptance to this conference also makes them look good, and they might be able to help you out. 
Also want to echo what has already been hinted at. This conference will look good in the short term for grad school applications, but 5-8 years from now it will not matter. Don't go into debt for this conference.
But most importantly: Celebrate! This is a big achievement, very worthy of your excitement. You may already know this, but your work was almost certainly judged anonymously -- it was reviewed for acceptance alongside graduate and faculty member work without your name or status as an undergraduate attached. And it was accepted! Congratulations!

Most adcomms LOATHE the GRE. If the program hasn't already abolished it as a requirement, then they would likely be delighted to have a well-qualified candidate with low to mediocre scores (not saying yours are) to use as proof that the college should get rid of it in application considerations. 
GREs continue to be less important, and more of an embarrassment, to schools that still use them in admission decisions. See: this recent study demonstrating STEM students who score in the lowest quartile either (for men) outperform or (for women) show no difference from their counterparts in the highest quartile when measuring rate of degree completion.
Do not waste your time, money, or energy giving the GRE one additional thought.

If your goal is to enjoy grad school, feel supported and valued in your department, and get the best education possible: go to the lower-ranked school. If your goal is to be as competitive as you can on the imploding academic job market: go to the elite private school.
I’m not saying both aren’t possible at the same institution. But without knowing more about your specific situation, this is the (problematic) assumption that still predominates in academia. Especially from the perspective of the academic job market.

@Lowe, you may also consider when you reach that point in your graduate career, you can ask a top professor doing similar work outside your institution to be an external reader on your dissertation committee. This will make your materials stronger on the job market because you will have a letter from someone -- in the words of Karen Kelsky (AKA The Professor Is In) -- who is not paid and obligated to be your adviser, giving search committees a more unbiased evaluation of your accomplishments. Having external letters also shows you are building a reputation outside your institution.
But as someone who is just now wrapping up their first year on the market and has landed a good job coming out of a top program in my field, I think it's incorrect to say rank isn't one of the more important factors when landing a first-round interview. I believe fit -- which unfortunately is something you cannot really know or control very much on the market from year to year -- is the most important, but I truly believe rank is also high on this list. I have seen students in high-ranking programs with no publications get offers after successful on-campus interviews. And I have seen students from lower-ranking institutions with multiple peer-reviewed publications receive few if any first-round interviews. Of course it is impossible to know why exactly, but over and over I have heard faculty say some version of, "Coming from X program, you are just going to get more interviews than people in Y program. That's just a fact."

It's just difficult to know. From someone on the other side of this process, I'll say that I've "lost" on the job market multiple times to people who went to "less prestigious" programs. (In fact, I've lost multiple times to people from a program I turned down, lol.) I've also beat out people who went to better programs. 
At the same time, I've seen firsthand how obsessed academia is with prestige, and elite grads fare better, statistically speaking. A more prestigious PhD is also a big boost when getting fellowships and postdocs. A person from a prestigious program just gets the benefit of the doubt. Granting agencies are just far more willing to throw money at someone who went to Northwestern than they are to someone who went to a school with less "brand recognition."
All things being equal, it's impossible to predict how you'll fare on the job market 6-7 years from now. But "fit" is very important on the market, much moreso than it is even in the admissions process.