hj2012

Yeesh. I think the more important question is, why would you want to work for 5+ years with someone who sounds as unstable as this woman? I would take this as a sign of things to come and decline the offer.

Yeesh. I think the more important question is, why would you want to work for 5+ years with someone who sounds as unstable as this woman? I would take this as a sign of things to come and decline the offer.

Yeesh. I think the more important question is, why would you want to work for 5+ years with someone who sounds as unstable as this woman? I would take this as a sign of things to come and decline the offer.

Yeesh. I think the more important question is, why would you want to work for 5+ years with someone who sounds as unstable as this woman? I would take this as a sign of things to come and decline the offer.

Hey! It's you again.
 
At this point, you know what the problem is. Those GRE scores are way low for the schools you applied to; at places like my undergrad institution, your application would be immediately thrown out.
 
From what I remember from your past posts, another problem is likely your lack of focus. (What do you want? Philosophy? Lit? Crit theory? Narrow it down.) Make sure to really tailor your interests in your SOP. Did you only apply to Philosophy programs?
 
If you already have a master's degree, I don't really see additional coursework benefiting you. Focus on creating a cohesive application package (everything from your writing sample to the SoP should be connected) and apply to a diverse set of schools with strengths in your AOIs.
 
Good luck.

Yeesh. I think the more important question is, why would you want to work for 5+ years with someone who sounds as unstable as this woman? I would take this as a sign of things to come and decline the offer.

I think the DGS would be appropriate to ask. You applied to some really competitive schools and only only submitted a few applicationa, so it could have unfortunately just come down to luck. Was your combined GRE higher than 310? If so, I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm not in your field, so I wouldn't be able to give school recommendations, but just wanted to wish you luck! Don't give up!

I think the key to bargaining is to be as specific as possible, rather than a generic, "Give me more money." You can email and ask about summer teaching/research opportunities, collaboration opportunities with professors, etc. Also, you can't really bargain if you don't have anything to bargain with. Do you have any other offers that would give you more money? If so, you could email and explain that, although School A is your top choice, the only thing keeping you from immediately accepting was a more generous financial offer from School B. Ask if there were other opportunities available at School A in order to increase the stipend.
 
Anecdote: During an informal Skype chat with a DGS, he asked what other offers I had. I told him, and he emailed me afterward and offered me about $3,000 more a year.
 
I've heard of others raising their stipends in similar ways: by approaching departments with their other offers, and asking if they'd be able to match it. Not sure how successful you'd be without that bargaining chip in hand, though.

Not trying to be a jerk, either, but as someone who migrated from science to humanities, it really surprises me the number of people who go on and get a PhD in the sciences. I love what I do, but the other half is knowing that my work is useful in understanding and interpreting a world that is more overcrowded and 'complex' by the day. I am sure there are topics in the sciences that are useful, but when these PhD students usually talk to me, it's usually about 'Euclidean vectors' or 'seasonal reproductive success of sandgrouses.' It boggles my mind that funding even exists for these topics in a time when many Americans lack a basic knowledge of their own national history. Sorry, I know this is harsh to some. It just seems like there are way too many going this route. The number of STEM PhDs stuck in an endless loop of post-docs certainly agrees with me. 
 
 
 
Look, I actually have a deep respect for the sciences, but consider how ignorant the above paragraph sounds. I don't attempt to convince STEM people that their research is worthless because I can't immediately understand its significance (you're going to spend your entire life observing the mating rituals of jellyfish? that's cool). Knowledge production in the humanities differs from that in STEM, but we need people devoted to the task of interpreting and challenging our social structures and cultural norms, just as we need people to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the natural world. 

Not trying to be a jerk, either, but as someone who migrated from science to humanities, it really surprises me the number of people who go on and get a PhD in the sciences. I love what I do, but the other half is knowing that my work is useful in understanding and interpreting a world that is more overcrowded and 'complex' by the day. I am sure there are topics in the sciences that are useful, but when these PhD students usually talk to me, it's usually about 'Euclidean vectors' or 'seasonal reproductive success of sandgrouses.' It boggles my mind that funding even exists for these topics in a time when many Americans lack a basic knowledge of their own national history. Sorry, I know this is harsh to some. It just seems like there are way too many going this route. The number of STEM PhDs stuck in an endless loop of post-docs certainly agrees with me. 
 
 
 
Look, I actually have a deep respect for the sciences, but consider how ignorant the above paragraph sounds. I don't attempt to convince STEM people that their research is worthless because I can't immediately understand its significance (you're going to spend your entire life observing the mating rituals of jellyfish? that's cool). Knowledge production in the humanities differs from that in STEM, but we need people devoted to the task of interpreting and challenging our social structures and cultural norms, just as we need people to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the natural world. 

Duke Literature, Stanford Modern Thought and Literature, Minnesota Comparative Studies, Berkeley Rhetoric (or an English degree with a designated emphasis in Critical Theory). I'm really interested in postcolonial theory (particularly diaspora / migration / theories of belonging) as well.

Hey! For future reference, gradcafe usernames appears left-justified in the blue bar (mine would be hj2012). "Mocha" is just a nifty little gradcafe moniker for how many posts you have.
 
I suppose I'm just confused by your argument, because in our present world the humanities and STEM are NO WHERE near equally funded. There is far, far, far more money for STEM than the humanities. Google "scholarship for humanities" and "STEM scholarships" and see which way the pendulum swings. My programs (in the humanities) accepted 5-10 students per cohort; it's not uncommon to see STEM cohorts triple or quadruple that size. I find it interesting that you are bemoaning the lack of funding for university STEM students when (1) STEM funding far outstrips the humanities; (2) STEM carries much greater prestige; and (3) STEM students and faculty outnumber those in the humanities.
 
The fact of the matter is that our society already places a very high premium on STEM, and the number of humanities students is already dramatically and drastically shrinking. I'm not arguing that humanities funding should outstrip (or even equal) funding for STEM. But I do think it would be a real shame for our society if the humanities died out altogether -- and these days, they're in real danger of doing so.

Hey! For future reference, gradcafe usernames appears left-justified in the blue bar (mine would be hj2012). "Mocha" is just a nifty little gradcafe moniker for how many posts you have.
 
I suppose I'm just confused by your argument, because in our present world the humanities and STEM are NO WHERE near equally funded. There is far, far, far more money for STEM than the humanities. Google "scholarship for humanities" and "STEM scholarships" and see which way the pendulum swings. My programs (in the humanities) accepted 5-10 students per cohort; it's not uncommon to see STEM cohorts triple or quadruple that size. I find it interesting that you are bemoaning the lack of funding for university STEM students when (1) STEM funding far outstrips the humanities; (2) STEM carries much greater prestige; and (3) STEM students and faculty outnumber those in the humanities.
 
The fact of the matter is that our society already places a very high premium on STEM, and the number of humanities students is already dramatically and drastically shrinking. I'm not arguing that humanities funding should outstrip (or even equal) funding for STEM. But I do think it would be a real shame for our society if the humanities died out altogether -- and these days, they're in real danger of doing so.

Hey! For future reference, gradcafe usernames appears left-justified in the blue bar (mine would be hj2012). "Mocha" is just a nifty little gradcafe moniker for how many posts you have.
 
I suppose I'm just confused by your argument, because in our present world the humanities and STEM are NO WHERE near equally funded. There is far, far, far more money for STEM than the humanities. Google "scholarship for humanities" and "STEM scholarships" and see which way the pendulum swings. My programs (in the humanities) accepted 5-10 students per cohort; it's not uncommon to see STEM cohorts triple or quadruple that size. I find it interesting that you are bemoaning the lack of funding for university STEM students when (1) STEM funding far outstrips the humanities; (2) STEM carries much greater prestige; and (3) STEM students and faculty outnumber those in the humanities.
 
The fact of the matter is that our society already places a very high premium on STEM, and the number of humanities students is already dramatically and drastically shrinking. I'm not arguing that humanities funding should outstrip (or even equal) funding for STEM. But I do think it would be a real shame for our society if the humanities died out altogether -- and these days, they're in real danger of doing so.

oooh, this one looks great!  Thanks.
 
http://cscl.umn.edu/grad/csds.html

Duke Literature, Stanford Modern Thought and Literature, Minnesota Comparative Studies, Berkeley Rhetoric (or an English degree with a designated emphasis in Critical Theory). I'm really interested in postcolonial theory (particularly diaspora / migration / theories of belonging) as well.

No, I wouldn't recommend a post-baccalaureate program at all.  What I would recommend you do is work.
 
A low undergraduate GPA becomes less important the more distance/time there is between you and your college graduation.  Furthermore, work experience doing similar tasks to what you are preparing for a career in can also raise confidence that you can do the job.  So I would recommend that you look for full-time work in your field.  The kind of work you get will depend on what you want - if you want to be a professional engineer just find an engineering job, whereas if you want to get a PhD and go into research, it may look better to find a research-related engineering job if you can.  So work for a couple of years, and perhaps take some graduate-level engineering classes as a non-degree student part-time at a local public university.  This will show that you can, indeed, succeed in graduate level classes if given the chance.
 
Then reapply.  No need to spend money on fancy expensive post-bacc programs, in my opinion.

Sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate that English departments are biased against international students. I was simply asking because there's no point in bringing up your lit GRE score until your general GRE score is up to par. Frankly, I'd advise ALL English lit applicants to aim for a 160V. Many international students think that it's OK to have a low V score because they're not native speakers. This simply isn't the case if you're applying for humanities.
 
I'd also echo proflorax: many, many domestic students get routinely shut out of English PhD admissions, so I wouldn't take that as a sign of bias, or take it too personally. The fact is that there are too many qualified applicants, and not enough spots.
 
I also have to note that if you did both your undergrad and M.A. coursework abroad, you will be at a distinct disadvantage. Again, this is not because of bias, but because your schools (even if they are the best in Taiwan) will not be well-known in the States, and your recommenders likely do not have connections or may even be unfamiliar with how to write a good recommendation letter. (Tip: It's not to simply gush about how you're the best student who ever existed; a good recommendation letter will talk specifically about your accomplishments and situate your future research in terms of a broader scholarly discourse and your personal/scholastic qualities in terms of professional ability.) 
 
Someone in Korea went through and looked at top-ten or top-fifteen English Ph.D. programs and found that not a SINGLE Korean international student had been accepted by these programs without first doing a B.A. or M.A. in an English-speaking country. (There was a sprinkling in the top-25, but were concentrated at schools who sometimes accept students without funding, like CUNY.) I suspect the same is true for Taiwanese students as well. Make sure you're applying very, very broadly in terms of rankings.
 
If you don't mind me asking, what are your research interests? Where did you apply this season?

I get where you're coming from, and we've all been there, but I enjoin you to consider that your opinion is rooted in ignorance.
 
What is, pray, "useful"? Is it something that we can make a product out of? Is it merely something that can be sold? Does it have to be useful now, or is it still useful if it becomes useful many years later? I ask because the notion "'useful" derives its meaning from 1) the contrast to "useless", and 2) the contextual parameters in which you define it.
 
I can't deconstruct your argument until you answer these questions, but I can give a couple pointers re its founding assumptions.
 
Your first point. You are perhaps implying that 'Abraham Lincoln studies' and 'Socrates Interpretation' are too esoteric or too historically removed to be "useful". However, is everything esoteric and removed necessarily "useless"? HEP is pretty esoteric and pretty removed, given that it's founded on a theory invented 200 years ago, which might be wrong anyway. Academic geometry is pretty esoteric, since it is very needed by those same high-energy physicists but more or less by nobody else. My own degree is in economics, and oh man, I can tell you, unless you're doing quant finance, whatever you're doing is some high-octane bullshit. But your own degree, engineering. I know an engineer who's building these little flying things out of spy movies that are super cool, but otherwise the only use they have so far is inspiring a very detailed model of the mechanics of insect flight. I imagine in engineering, as in other professional fields, the hivemind is closer to yours, but in general academia, I have yet to encounter an academic who has a gripe with study being useless, as long as it is original and elucidatory.
 
To your second point, the market will decide us. However, a caveat: the market system operates by consumer demand, which reflects consumer preference, not usefulness of the good traded. Of course, sometimes we want things because they are useful in general, like food or oxygen, but other times - indeed, most times in developed economies - we want things for other reasons, ie because they are useful to us. Perhaps that will clear up your confusion as to why this humanities bullshit is being funded. Further, I would like to remind you that, in recent history, the sciences have been privileged for a lot of good reasons, and a lot of bad reasons too. One reason for privileging STEM in the states, and pretty much the main reason for the higher education complex and the ridiculous salaries professors get, is the Cold War arms race. I mean, yeah, building nuclear bombs and putting Neil on the moon is really cool - but is it, by your definition, "useful"? There is a rhetoric in the United States that if you pour money into the sciences, they will eventually come up with a way to cure cancer or invent Atlantis because scientific inquiry is incremental and accidental - at least, this rhetoric has been explicit in my K-12. But it is, nonetheless, a rhetoric. There is no essential reason why the sciences must receive more (or all, according to you) funding than other fields. Indeed, in many countries, the sciences do not receive such funding, or they do not receive funding at all. That's why for so many people grad school in the states is such a good deal.
 
Lastly, it seems to me that you know very little of what people in the humanities actually do. The R1 researchers are cultural theorists of some sort. It sounds corny and a little communist, but bear with me: they contextualize social movements within the dominant social belief system, so that we may understand what is going on in the world. Of course, that's just the couple hundred researchers at the very top of the hierarchy. The rest pretty much teach. That's basically the "crisis" in humanities hiring in a nutshell.

Not trying to be a jerk, either, but as someone who migrated from science to humanities, it really surprises me the number of people who go on and get a PhD in the sciences. I love what I do, but the other half is knowing that my work is useful in understanding and interpreting a world that is more overcrowded and 'complex' by the day. I am sure there are topics in the sciences that are useful, but when these PhD students usually talk to me, it's usually about 'Euclidean vectors' or 'seasonal reproductive success of sandgrouses.' It boggles my mind that funding even exists for these topics in a time when many Americans lack a basic knowledge of their own national history. Sorry, I know this is harsh to some. It just seems like there are way too many going this route. The number of STEM PhDs stuck in an endless loop of post-docs certainly agrees with me. 
 
 
 
Look, I actually have a deep respect for the sciences, but consider how ignorant the above paragraph sounds. I don't attempt to convince STEM people that their research is worthless because I can't immediately understand its significance (you're going to spend your entire life observing the mating rituals of jellyfish? that's cool). Knowledge production in the humanities differs from that in STEM, but we need people devoted to the task of interpreting and challenging our social structures and cultural norms, just as we need people to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the natural world. 

Update: I got a sizeable offer from Pitt ($23K per year with a tuition of $33K).
 
As noted above, most jobs straight out of school are going to fetch between $50-60K in the field in which I am pursuing the degree. Just something to consider if you are not familiar. 

Not trying to be a jerk, either, but as someone who migrated from science to humanities, it really surprises me the number of people who go on and get a PhD in the sciences. I love what I do, but the other half is knowing that my work is useful in understanding and interpreting a world that is more overcrowded and 'complex' by the day. I am sure there are topics in the sciences that are useful, but when these PhD students usually talk to me, it's usually about 'Euclidean vectors' or 'seasonal reproductive success of sandgrouses.' It boggles my mind that funding even exists for these topics in a time when many Americans lack a basic knowledge of their own national history. Sorry, I know this is harsh to some. It just seems like there are way too many going this route. The number of STEM PhDs stuck in an endless loop of post-docs certainly agrees with me. 
 
 
 
Look, I actually have a deep respect for the sciences, but consider how ignorant the above paragraph sounds. I don't attempt to convince STEM people that their research is worthless because I can't immediately understand its significance (you're going to spend your entire life observing the mating rituals of jellyfish? that's cool). Knowledge production in the humanities differs from that in STEM, but we need people devoted to the task of interpreting and challenging our social structures and cultural norms, just as we need people to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the natural world. 

Not trying to be a jerk, either, but as someone who migrated from science to humanities, it really surprises me the number of people who go on and get a PhD in the sciences. I love what I do, but the other half is knowing that my work is useful in understanding and interpreting a world that is more overcrowded and 'complex' by the day. I am sure there are topics in the sciences that are useful, but when these PhD students usually talk to me, it's usually about 'Euclidean vectors' or 'seasonal reproductive success of sandgrouses.' It boggles my mind that funding even exists for these topics in a time when many Americans lack a basic knowledge of their own national history. Sorry, I know this is harsh to some. It just seems like there are way too many going this route. The number of STEM PhDs stuck in an endless loop of post-docs certainly agrees with me. 
 
 
 
Look, I actually have a deep respect for the sciences, but consider how ignorant the above paragraph sounds. I don't attempt to convince STEM people that their research is worthless because I can't immediately understand its significance (you're going to spend your entire life observing the mating rituals of jellyfish? that's cool). Knowledge production in the humanities differs from that in STEM, but we need people devoted to the task of interpreting and challenging our social structures and cultural norms, just as we need people to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the natural world. 

Err, one of the cornerstones of scientific research is to question and test the kinds of assumptions we make on a day-to-day basis (as opposed to relying on anecdotal knowledge). Sometimes our assumptions are confirmed, and sometimes they are overturned.  In this case, it seems that the narratives we tell about athletes represent a minority of professional sports players today.
 
Anyway, if you're interested, this ESPN article references the NBA research: http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6777581/importance-athlete-background-making-nba There was an NYT article on this too, but I can't seem to find it. If I recall correctly, the authors found that pro athletes were much less likely to come from poorer backgrounds because of nutrition/height issues. I don't know if there are similar studies for NFL athletes, but I'd assume the commonalities remain. If you live in a neighborhood where 50% of the kids don't graduate high school and the extra-curricular funding is trashed, your path to pro will be more difficult.
 
This isn't pseudo-science or anyone trying to play gotcha! tricks. It's just that narratives of the inner city kid rising to great heights is much sexier (and therefore overplayed in the media), while the kid raised in suburban California in a stable home who wins a basketball scholarship to Duke is decidedly not.

Err, I'm going to jump in and say that formal "research experience" is not all that crucial for PhD admissions in the humanities. Neither are publications, although they help!
 
If you want to spruce up your CV, you can try applying to some local conferences in your field. However, for admission to a PhD program in English or Philosophy, what really matters is: (1) writing sample, (2) SoP and (3) letters of recommendation.
 
In my IRL network, I would say that none of my friends/former classmates who got into top humanities PhD programs had publications or RA experience (though several presented at grad student or local conferences). What you want (and what you need) is to really dig into that writing sample and polish it, and get someone with a critical eye to rip apart your SoP.
 
What are your research interests? The fields of Philosophy and English are interrelated, but different enough that I can't imagine too many projects that could fit comfortably into both. That could have been another problem for you: perhaps the "fit" just wasn't there.
 
Hope this helps. Good luck!