hj2012

Depends on the online program. If he eventually wants to work in the States, I'd argue that he would be better off with an online degree from a recognizable American school (e.g. Harvard, Berkeley, Penn State, ASU) than with a degree from an EU school that no one in the States will know about.

Honestly, I don't see it worth being the financial investment. I totally understand why you're considering this option, but if your greatest fear is adjunct hell, adding substantial amounts of debt is not going to help you in the future. If you have interests in DH, I would encourage you to consider PhD programs that offer the coursework for you to gain the requisite training -- they're definitely out there! Additionally, you could use your gap year to strengthen your skillset for DH (pick up some programming skills, for example) or to gain experience related to the DH field (e.g. digital technology internships at the Library of Congress or the NEH). Even if the latter is unpaid, it'll still be better than taking out enormous amounts of debt for tuition, and you'll have the option of working on the side in the U.S. to cover bills. Since you have friends and mentors working in the field, you could also ask them to connect you to research assistant work or other opportunities. Many of the skills that will help you succeed in DH are either easily self-taught or can be learned through free resources (basic programming, database management, wiki management, CMS, etc), so it would be difficult for me to justify taking out that much in loans.

http://thenightlytexan.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/ut-austin-graduate-students-against-the-clock-why-we-oppose-the-6-year-fundingtime-cap/ Looks like UT Austin is rolling out new policies for their graduate school. Most controversial is the new six year funding cap, which would prevent students from receiving funding past the sixth year. I was just curious what the forum thought: good idea, bad idea?

GREs are definitely not the most important part of your application, but for tippy-top schools I think you'll want to aim for 160+ on the V section. For cultural anthropology, I doubt that the Q score is all that important. I would try for a score of 210 combined, as some schools have arbitrary cut-offs at the grad school division level in order for you to receive funding.

Lots of helpful advice in this thread so far! But because I'm coming from the perspective of someone who just finished applying to English PhD programs, I'm going to go against the grain and suggest that you don't actually need to reach out to professors before applying. English PhD programs, at least in the U.S., are unlike the sciences (or the social sciences) where you're looking to work in a specific lab or under a specific professor. There's a reason why a good number of English PhD websites specifically request that you DON'T contact faculty; unless they are on the adcomm, they will not usually have much input on who is accepted. Posing specific questions about the school or program to the DGS makes more sense if you actually have questions (I doubt the DGS, who is inundated with questions about the program, will remember your name out of the crowd when it comes to decision time), but I contend that the most "helpful" kinds of contact you can make are the ones formed via networking. Ask your professors if they have any contacts across the pond who would be willing to give you advice, or reach out to undergrad professors with the same request. I got some of the most helpful advice from friends of my advisers who shared their impressions of the strongest schools in my (sub)field and who I should look to work with in the future. That said, all of this should be for your own personal information and understanding, because I'm still skeptical that a brief one-off email contact has any meaningful impact on admissions decisions, at least in English. Of course, this is just my $.02.

Mid-150s sounds about right to me. I had a cousin who was accepted to Mason (though for a CS related masters) with a Q score in the low 150s. I remember him worrying a lot about his GRE score, but in the end he ended up getting in everywhere he applied. I would just do as best as you can and not sweat it too much -- as you mentioned, Volgenau is not particularly competitive.

Are your parents experts in your field of interest? If not, then tell them (nicely, of course!) to back off. It may even be worthwhile to show them the grad school pages where they explicitly state that they prefer applicants 2-3 years out, as you're 100% right that work experience is extremely beneficial to MPP programs. After your campaign experience, I think it could only help you to work for 1-2 years in a field related to your interests to clarify what you'd eventually like to do long term. Good luck, though -- I know what it's like to have pushy parents...

Honestly, I don't know much about specialties and such. I know a lot of my international friends used sites like https://www.uniworldbp.com/search.php to find multinational companies based in the U.S., as these are often more amenable to international students. (For example, many of my Korean friends found their first job in the States at a Korean-based company.) Your best bet would be to look at job descriptions for the kinds of positions that you want, and try to develop as many skills as are listed in the description. This is my $.02 as an outsider to the process, but the folks who were most successful tended to be those who spoke really fluent English and were also acculturated to the U.S. I think this is particularly difficult if you're from a non-Western country, as the business norms (and the interview norms!) can be quite different. You may want to focus as much time as possible in gaining those "soft" communicative skills, regardless of your specialization.

I have an international student friend in the humanities who was able to transfer a semester's worth of credits from her MA program, but eventually ended up taking the extra classes anyway, because courses are often how students build relationships with faculty members in order to form their committees. One of my undergrad professors told me that he could have *potentially* graduated in 4 years from his PhD program, but elected to stay longer in order to really strengthen his dissertation and give himself two go-arounds on the job market. But I don't know how common either scenario is, as I'm just starting my program in the fall, haha. For your interests, I feel that programs in the U.S. might be a better fit! American Studies is basically cultural studies grounded in the (geo)political/cultural/historical understanding of the United States. This is a really clunky way of saying that it's an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the U.S., with a heavy emphasis on theory and multidisciplinary methodology. Your project sounds like it would fit well in American Studies, but if you could make it work in a "traditional" department (e.g. English) then I would recommend doing so, as the job market seems even tougher for those of us in interdisciplinary fields. As for me, I'll be starting at Berkeley in the Fall; you might be interested in the English department as well as the Rhetoric Department at Cal. There's a strong film program as well, though I don't know how heavily your interests fall under film. In the end, you may just want to apply to programs in both the US and UK and see how the funding situation plays out. Who knows what'll happen! Good luck!

I don't know if this is the answer you want to hear, but if you're not considering a future in academia then I don't know if either degree will really help you in any capacity. The prestige between Birmingham and Edinburgh should hardly be a deciding factor if you want to work in the U.S., as neither school has name brand recognition in the States. If you see the masters degree as an opportunity to try out the grad school thing before committing 5-6 years of your life, I would go for the fully funded option. Ultimately, I don't see Edinburgh having quite the same brand value as, say, Oxbridge (at least in the States) on your average American, so the option that minimizes debt seems wisest.

No problem! I'm glad you're interested. Most of the students I work with are male, perhaps because most of them are in STEM and the gender divide is quite substantial here, too. In the humanities it is more evenly split, nearly 50/50 I'd say.

What do you intend to do post-master's if you do not continue on to the PhD? I can't think of many career options outside of academia where the distinction between Modern Lit and Comp Lit would matter in any significant way.

From what I've seen, it's easier for international students to secure funding for American PhD programs in comparison to UK programs. The actual cost of tuition is quite high, but any decent PhD program should offer you a full tuition remission and a stipend. Do you already have a master's degree? Unfortunately, most American PhD programs do not accept transfer credits, and you'll likely end up doing the equivalent of another master's degree in the States. This is one of the reasons why some of my international friends chose to go to the UK over the US (3 years to complete the PhD vs 5 years). What is your area of interest?

I don't think Stanford or Harvard offers Ed.D. programs, and I don't think your background really "fits" for a PhD at either of those places, where research experience is probably the most important factor. Perhaps Harvard's Ed.L.D. program? If you already have a job that you're settled in, you might also consider distance programs like the Ed.D. at Hopkins.

Your GRE scores are great! I don't think you need to do the master's route, though I do encourage you to think about taking some time off between undergrad and grad school. The reasons are twofold. 1) Your application will likely be stronger after you graduate, as you would have taken all your upper-level courses, finished a senior thesis, graduated with honors, won a Best Thesis prize or something equivalent, etc etc. 2) It might be wise to give yourself a break from the academy instead of jumping into another 5-6 year program. Burnout is real. Depending on the specifics of your research interests, you may also want to look at programs in Literature and Film departments as well, as gender studies departments hire across disciplines (or require their faculty to have an affiliate "traditional" department). From my experience, I don't think that teaching high school would necessarily help you as a line on your CV (i.e., it won't boost your application significantly in the eyes of the admissions committee). However, teaching experience is valuable for those considering a career as a professor, IMO. I've worked as a secondary school teacher, and I think the skills learned (lesson planning, time management, classroom management, dealing with bureaucracy and paperwork, etc) will be invaluable to my future career.

I personally would argue that it is unsustainable to do an unfunded PhD of any sort -- but this is particularly true in the humanities. If you aren't offered full tuition remission and a stipend (funded through fellowship, TA or GA ships), I don't think the PhD would be worthwhile. From what I understand, it's pretty difficult to secure funding at UK institutions as an international student. Have you considered any U.S. schools? Is there a particular reason why you're looking at the UK? There are some great schools in Canada, too.

Quite competitive. Successful international students tend to have strong quant backgrounds and previous work experience. If your undergrad was in something like Finance, Accounting, Computer Science, etc you'll have a better time than if your undergrad was in a liberal arts field. Ditto if you've developed a high-demand skill set (statistical analysis, programming, etc).

I've heard anecdotally of students struggling to get into the grad program of their choice because their undergrad program was not AACSB accredited. However, this is not my field and I'm not really certain about the problem...however, that might be something worth checking out.

In PhD admissions, there is no such thing as a "safety school." You will not be able to find a place that will definitely accept you; even "lower tier" schools routinely reject qualified applicants. That said, the schools you mentioned are absurdly competitive, and you should definitely think about applying to a broader range of places.

A lit degree from America, particularly from a name brand school, is incredibly valuable in the Korean academy (and in Korean society in general). Korean society tends to place a high premium on "brand name" things, and this is perhaps most salient in education, where high school students work themselves to death (sometimes literally) in order to get into the top universities. Graduating from one of the "SKY" universities (the Korean version of the Ivy League) is seen as a ticket to success. There's an NYT article here and here that do a good job illustrating the pressure that Korean students are under. I would say that many of my Korean humanities students want to be able to work in the States, at least temporarily. But most of them want to eventually secure jobs in Korean universities, where an American Ph.D. is much more highly valued than a Korean Ph.D. in basically every field, from humanities to STEM. In English, most of them are interested in rhet/comp. They want to learn pedagogical methods for teaching English, and many of their research interests touch upon TESOL or linguistics. My students are incredibly bright and motivated, and their desire for going to the States is also fueled by the realization that the best way to learn to teach English is to study it in an English-speaking country. Most of them genuinely want to improve their English, and are interested in American culture and ideas. At the same time, they also are driven by prestige and other outward markers of success, which is why we have so many students who insist on applying to only top-10 universities, even if their research interests don't line up. It's hard for the brightest Korean students, who have worked day and night for 10+ years to get where they are, to accept that they are STILL not good enough for the top universities in the States. It's a strange combination of denial and hope. To answer your question more succinctly: yes, it is valuable to get an American Ph.D. for Korean students -- enormously so if they are able to get into a place with brand-name prestige. Sorry for the ramble-y answer!

Though this thread is geared mostly toward people applying to Literature PhD programs. Good luck!

haha, no worries! It's really hard to narrow down programs for those of us in interdisciplinary fields! In terms of Germanic folklore -- how good is your German? To be totally frank, I can't see you being accepted to study Germanic folklore without advanced German language. It's usually a requirement to study these things in the native language. If you're primarily interested in Germanic folklore, then you should probably be looking at either German Lang/culture/lit PhD programs or CompLit PhD programs. For Greek mythology, you would most likely want to be in a Classics department, though that also presupposes a high level of ancient Greek. If your language skills aren't really up to par, you could turn your interests to reflect English literature, e.g. the circulation of Germanic/Greek mythology in the works of 20th-C feminist writers such as Angela Carter, or the utilization of Germanic mythos in feminist speculative fiction. Both of these projects would work well in cultural studies or gender studies departments.

Hmm. In order to have a successful application season, I'd argue that you would need to narrow your interests down slightly more. At the very least, I'd try to identify a principal geographic area (e.g. folklore from the American South, folklore from East Asia, African folklore) and a principal time period (i.e., an interest in the American colonial period would differ from an interest in the American civil rights era, even if you were broadly interested in African American folklore). Have you considered any gender studies programs? I feel that your interests would thrive in a gender studies environment, and many programs allow you to pick a concentration in an allied field while pursuing a feminist studies or gender studies PhD (e.g. University of Kansas or Ohio State University).

This is the most important factor. If the professor thinks highly of you, then I don't think the "I" matters quite as much. But if the "I" is a sign that you were not one of the top students in the class, then I'd consider asking someone else.

Berkeley and UNC come to mind as the "best" programs in folklore. What are you interested in methodologically? If I understand correctly, most folklore programs are heavily ethnographic or preservation oriented....and if you're interested in fairy tales and mythology this may not be the best "fit" for you. Would you mind elaborating more specifically on your research interests? Depending on the exact boundaries of your interests, you may want to look into cultural studies programs or other interdisciplinary programs as well.