rabelaisian

Your acceptance of older students is staggering. But worse, you don't think the vast majority of people in Ph.D. programs come from economically privileged backgrounds? Granted, that doesn't mean much these days. But it's not like college preparatory high schools don't exist as a mill for wealthier people to go to a "good college" often followed by a Ph.D. This isn't to say that there aren't plenty of people who manage to get into Ph.D. programs by other means, though it sure doesn't hurt if you went to Yale. But one could as readily equate the frustration you hold for wealthy old ladies who mistake lit classes for book clubs with the teeming masses of Ph.D. students who exist thanks to the beneficence of mom and dad, often with the most sophomoric and laissez-faire attitudes toward scholarship. If only graduate committees could work like Saint Peter and properly weigh the souls and minds of those entering, I do believe the composition of graduate students might look a bit different. Not to be contentious.

I didn't used to be a fan of the Lit MA, period, because I felt that it was useless and a money-making scam. As I've seen Ph.D. after Ph.D. languish on the academic job market for years only to wind up teaching at community college or private high school, my view has been adjusted. Not to say that the MA can ever replace the Ph.D., which permits for intensive study. But if someone has an interest in vocation, the two might wind up being somewhat interchangeable. The Columbia MA, specifically, is interesting because I've talked to people who've gone through it. It's a year program and it's almost entirely designed as a pre-Ph.D. program, to get you the best writing sample possible (and letters of recommendation) from a school that might have a better name than where you attended as an undergraduate (yes, that really counts, a horribly sad but true fact, obviously not a universal one but a trend). The only trouble with it is that your writing sample won't be done until the Spring, so you'll have to wait another year to apply for a Ph.D. If you went to a college without much reputation but did well, if you've gone through a few rounds of Ph.D. applications without luck, if your recommenders are shoddy, if you're still feeling out the graduate world but don't want to commit to two years, or if you want a vocational fast track to teaching community college or (depending on your state) private high school, I do hear Columbia's MA program is one of the best.