viviandarkbloom

Should probably have clarified - the three and a bit hour bus ride I mentioned is to Providence, not Boston. And that's on a good day / times when there isn't a lot of traffic - if you hit rush hour it can be over four. So yeah, for Boston I guess you'd be looking at more like 4 - 5...

I commute between NYC (where my partner is) and New England (where my program is), and actually I have to say taking public transport, for me at least, is far preferable to driving. I take the bus, which is super cheap and surprisingly reliable. And I just spend the 3 or so hours reading, so it doesn't feel like it massively bites into my work schedule. If you drive on the other hand, that is essentially dead time, so you're writing off the best part of a work day every time you do the trip. So if I were you I'd look into cheap public travel options and see if they're feasible rather than worrying too much about not being able to drive. Just my two cents...

Thanks for replying, though this was actually a post from this time last year. I accepted an offer elsewhere in the end, partly because I didn't fancy the prospect of dealing with Penn Station several times a week...

I'd definitely be completely upfront about the fact that you're visiting other schools and trying to combine costs. Not least because it's a very good opportunity to non-obnoxiously let them know that you have multiple offers (ie creating a situation where some sort of stipend negotiation could arise without you coming across as pushy or entitled)

I'd echo this - it basically describes exactly the conversation I had with a program last year, and which led to them making me a substantially increased offer. And I very nearly didn't raise it out of fear of breaching etiquette. That would have been a very costly error...

I got into three 'top 20' programs (with full funding etc) last year with a 12th percentile quant score. I reckon retaking would be a waste of your time and money.

Perhaps this would be worth checking out http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Houses-Theatrical-Failure-Novel/dp/0691153167 It's by David Kurnick, who teaches at Rutgers

You might give Cornell a go, they have lots of those bases covered and are very open to interdisciplinary work. Jeremy Braddock, Paul Fleming, Peter Gilgen all do sociology-related stuff. Kevin Atell is a very good American lit person (I know there are others too), Liz Attell does law and lit, and Cathy Caruth is big in trauma theory. Worth checking out...

Bear in mind also that, especially as an international applicant, admissions will be less competitive than it would be for a US PhD program, but it will be very difficult to get funding. In lots of US PhD programs all admitted students are funded - very much not the case in the UK. Only the chosen few get a free ride these days...

The standard route onto a PhD course is via a taught MA, and it sounds like that's probably the way you should go (if you need to do an MA). They tend to be based on a particular chronological period (mine was 1850 to present), over which you gain a breadth and depth of knowledge that is beyond undergrad level, and then you pick a topic for your dissertation, which you research in detail. This project normally forms the basis of a PhD proposal (if you're going on to do one), which unlike a US statement of purpose is a lengthy document that outlines a substantial research project in a reasonable amount of detail. The research MA would work if you already had a very specific topic lined up, but for whatever reason didn't want to commit to a PhD. Whereas in your case it sounds like you want a grounding in a new period or national literature to serve as a foundation for a PhD application, which is essentially what a taught MA is designed to give you.

1. It isn't normally a requirement, but there are often opportunities to do some teaching that you can take advantage of - this is more common now than it used to be. Most people I know who've taught as PhD students in the UK have complained of a lack of support and guidance and terrible pay - it's not nearly so structured and integrated into your training as it is in most US programs. You'd probably be teaching a first-year literature course (ie some sort of broad introductory survey of a chronological period like 'Romanticism' or 'Victorian lit'), since the sort of composition courses that most people teach (at least at first) in the US system don't really exist in the UK. 2. That would probably depend on the details of your project. In the UK you apply for a PhD with a very specific research proposal (it's essentially the abd stage of a US PhD). If your MA is demonstrably linked to your intended PhD project then that would probably be fine, but if you lack a background in the field in which you're proposing to specialize, you might need to do an MA first. The best way of finding this out would probably be to get in touch with a potential supervisor and sound them out about your project, whether they'd be interested in working with you and whether your current qualifications are sufficient - this is standard practise in the UK. 3. The majority of people in the UK take taught MAs - they're generally one year, and involve a mixture of coursework and a final research project (mine was a 15,000 word dissertation) which you write over the summer. Research MAs have no coursework component, and are essentially just the first year of a PhD, where you work on a longer research project. If you already have a project in mind then the research MA would be a way to consolidate it and make yourself a more competitive candidate for PhD funding. Hope this helps.

Phew, decision finally made. I'm going to Brown

I've just turned down places at Cornell and Rutgers (concentration C20th British). Hope this helps someone out...

That's probably because schools offer places to more people than they can actually accommodate on the program, presuming that a certain percentage will accept offers elsewhere. So it's perfectly possible for a program to have reached its target incoming class size already, without everyone having responded yet.

Thanks - yeah I've honestly no idea where it stands right now, going to visit this week. Have heard great things about the program though. Was already finding it impossible to decide between two other places, so this is something of a curveball...