April_Green

Good luck with your decision, country mouse! It does sound like the lit PhD probably isn't for you. But -- do you already have your M.A.? If not, and if there is an option to get it through your current program, you might consider staying on another semester or year to complete it if you can do so debt-free. (Obviously not at the expense of your health or sanity, though!) The degree could be a boon for your next non-academic job search, and a benchmark reached if you should wish to revisit some version of academe in the future.

Hashlinger: Thanks for chiming in! Great feedback here--- So, it sounds like you might have gone through a few application seasons (or MA and then PhD apps)... As a returning student, what do you think most helped you land a good spot? It makes sense that there'd be even more pressure on us older applicants to produce a super-savvy SOP and WS. I just finished my MA, but I know I need to use the next year to deepen my knowledge of the current lit-crit scenes relevant to my research interests, and build that awareness into some killer app docs. Any suggestions for how to bone up on current work? Besides reading the past several years of journals in the areas that interest me, I'm planning to wade through some full-length studies that excite me (newer and classic ones I never got to), browse the paper abstracts for key conferences from the past few years, and mock up a profile of each of the POIs at my target schools with a list of their publications and research interests and recent course descriptions (I go nuts with lists and charts sometimes, but it helps). Any other thoughts? Anyone else, feel free to jump in too!

Thanks, all, for the insights! I aim to prep for my grad apps with a healthy balance of hope and shrewdness--and with a mimimum amount of wishful thinking. It is heartening to hear that there is a broad-ish range of grad ages in some competitive programs, although I'm not surprised to hear that most likely skew younger. NowMoreSerious, this is awesome advice: "I tried to use the time I spent working and doing other things as a positive (On my SOP) rather than negative." Like you, I view my maturity and non-academic professional experiences as strengthening my candidacy for academe rather than otherwise. It sounds like a savvy move to communicate that outlook in my SOP. Lons: I hadn't yet thought to check out profiles of current grad students in my target programs. Thanks for the tip!

Here's a question for those of you already in competitive (all students fully funded) PhD lit programs, especially on the East Coast: Do your programs seem to admit any 35+ year olds? I'm hoping to apply for Fall '15, and am wondering if my age might count against me (supposing my application materials were otherwise strong). I have a recent MA, a good sense of research interests and intended dissertation topic, a professional outlook, and a settled personal life. I'd be in my early 40's by the time I finished, though; would adcoms see the age factor as a potential strike against me when I went on the job market? Might it dissuade them from taking a gamble on me? I've always looked a few years younger than my actual age, but that doesn't show on paper.