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davidipse

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Everything posted by davidipse

  1. Princeton Review has a useful prep book that also includes a practice test. The book lays out the simple but practical concept of evaluating what to read by "points-per-page." E.g. Keats Odes, taken together, are as likely to turn up on the test as is, say, Joyce's Ulysses, which means the points-to-page ratio of the odes is something around 1:10 where Joyce's p-to-p is 1:1000!!! So it makes much more sense to save time you would spend on works like Ulysses for works like the Odes. http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Literature-English-Graduate-Preparation/dp/0375429719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403375498&sr=8-1&keywords=princeton+review+gre+literature I took 2 practice tests and the GRE itself, and all 3 had a question about Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." I also remember that most of the Chaucer questions were from the General Prologue. 2 had questions about Pope's Rape of the Lock. I also think they all refered to one or other of TS Eliot's famous critical ideas: his idea of the "objective correlative" and the theses laid out in "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Good luck!
  2. I don't think Columbia would add that much more shine to your resume if you already have a B.A. (wild guess) from Berkeley
  3. JHU changed to 29K this year (was waitlisted)
  4. Sorry for the spam. Using phone. Anyway: Your scores are in the ballpark. I had 4.0 writing score and got into multiple top 10s. Where are you doing your undergrad? You can pm me this if you don't want to disclose here 8@
  5. http://www.pw.org/files/topfifty_secured.pdf That will help with figuring out program sizes.
  6. I got an extension until midnight. Just call and ask. I also plan to call the school I'm waitlisted at a bit before the business day's over, hoping they've finalized the class.
  7. Some of the schools I declined asked where I was going. One DGS specifically mentioned that they use the list of their rival departments (disossiated from the names of the students that went there) for when they're proding the graduate division for more funding.
  8. So, I was (as you might remember) in a similiar pickle recently. I asked around a lot and most professors and grad students seemed to agree that only one year of teaching might put you at a serious disatvantage on the job market. But Princeton would let you teach more if you wanted (and I think they even pay you extra for any teaching you do in addition to what's required).
  9. Hi Zabka. You might want to check this out: I'm positive about prefering the waitlist school, though I'd be happy and content at the other one too. And yes, I've already let go of my other offers, and now it's all a Beckettian wait-land.
  10. Thanks proflorax. I was thinking of calling, but email seems better. It'd be less awkward to take no over the email!
  11. Another option, similiar to your hotel one but likely cheaper, would be to sublet a room for a month or longer. That way, you'd have a month to look for housing.
  12. Dear ones, Thanks, in advance, for your answers. I have X admit vs Y waitlist; I prefer Y, for personal (not academic) reasons. I know a lot of people will be making last minute decisions, so a place might open up at Y right after the April 15 deadline. The two options I can think of are the following, and I'd appreciate hearing people's thoughts on which is preferable, esp. people who have been in similiar situations: 1) Call X now and ask them for an extension of the decision deadline until, say, April 16. 2) If I don't hear back from Y until April 15, accept X's offer at the last minute. Then if Y comes through, ask X for a release. Both programs are funded, if that makes a difference to the legality of retraction. What's the least incendiary way to go about doing this!?
  13. Good to know this (thank you). Did your advisor say what kind of risk? I assume they wouldn't rescind your admission; maybe it would sour the relationship a little, but the bitterness would probably be forgotten by August, and in any case you'd have 5 years to change their mind about you, if you do accept.
  14. Thanks, and I agree with this, and would indeed deserve a harsh reprimand if I were asking for an extension just because I need one more day to make up my mind. But that's not the case. I'm waitlisted at School X. An extra day would mean that if a place opens up in School X in the last minute, I wouldn't have already accepted an offer at School Y. Which is the lesser evil: 1) to ask X for an extension, or 2) to accept X's offer but then, if Y's waitlist comes through, ask X for a release?
  15. Do you guys now if we can ask schools for a an extension of the decision deadline, until, say, April 16? Or would it be in extremely bad form to ask?
  16. Just a note of caution. I think the deadline is 5pm EST.
  17. Honestly, one has no way of knowing. I've talked with faculty who think it's a good idea to mention names, and other faculty who think it might be "risky." That said, if I were to go through this process again, I'd only mention faculty whose work I've read, and whom, preferably, I've contacted before. About this last point, if you've read someone's work (not a lot, but say 10 or so pages) do send them an email identifying yourself as a prospective applicant who shares some scholarly interests with them. I emailed a few profs at big name (Read: ranked 1-10) schools and got kind responses across the board. You could ask about whether they're taking on new students; heck, you could even tell them you've gotten contradictory advice about mentioning names when applying to that particular school and ask what they'd suggest. A neutral way of mentioning names that I used was "A number of faculty at PlaceX, including professors A, B, and C, specialize in fields I would like to study or have studied."
  18. I can't answer as fully as I'd like right now but just writing here so I can have later access to this thread, when I can answer more fully. I came to the US 5 years ago, and knew little English before that. I was accepted to 2 great, highly ranked MFA programs and waitlisted at another. So it's certainly doable as a non-native speaker. If you get into a decent program, you not only won't have to pay tuition, but will receive a livable stipend in exchange for teaching. So you'd get to teach part time AND attend a full-residency program! I'd also suggest joining the MFA Draft group on facebook; it's the best resource. It's a closed group, but they'll let you join if you ask.
  19. You know, you could always move to NY after finishing coursework at UPenn, and/or you can always do an exchange year or two at Columbia (the ivies, in add. to some other highly ranked schools, have an exchange program for up to 2 years). And, of course, congrats on coming out live out of the application and decision throes!
  20. Thank you guys for chiming in. It's helpful to have this kind of sounding board. Proflorax, I'll be able to create a syllabus of my own in one of the courses. The school's on a quarter system, so I'll be teaching a comparable number of courses, but the general class time will be just shorter. And thanks for decoding the numerical lingo! Zabka, my eventual goal is to write and teach at a good university with a good graduate program in English. School B has a strong placement record, and you have the option to teach more classes even within the 5 years (1 yr of teaching is the minimum), so I don't think lack of teachign experience will be a problem on the job market. I'll add the names of the schools to my signature but would be grateful if, in responding, people would refer to them as school A & B still.
  21. I don't quite know what 1-1 etc. are. You teach 2 sections of a course principally thaught by a professor. I.E. 2hrs/week you attend the prof's lecture + 2hrs/week you teach a "section" of the undergrads. It's basically a TAship. This is half of the total teaching req; the other half consists of teaching a themed composition course that the grad student designs himself/herself. By the option to tag along I mean that if you don't finish your dissertation by the end of the 5th year, you can stay on for a 6th year as a registered student while being paid to teach (presumably a heavier load than within the 5 years of guaranteed funding).
  22. Most of these will depend more on specific professors, who have more or less free reign in workshop, rather than the program per se. If you want to learn to read like a writer, you should probably look to MFA programs with highly ranked English departments (e.g. high PhD rankings not necessarily MFA) and see if there's a prof or two whose critical approaches seem hospitable to a writerly perspective. I tend to think that critics who can close-read well will teach you more about how to read like a good writer than not-so-good, and even some good, writers whose teaching consists of anecdotal rambling about the touch and feel of a poem or story. Here's how I went about applying to programs. Find the most well-funded, see if there are writers you think you can learn from there, then apply. Do apply to Michener, Cornell, Michigan, Virginia, and Washington University in St. Louis, and Indiana-Bloomington, schools where you won't have to go into debt. Johns Hopkins has good funding too, but they require you to take the GRE, I think.
  23. I'm caught between schools A & B, of roughly equal prestige, and would appreciate any advice/opinion (thanks in advance!). School A: - Top 10 - better academic fit, though otherwise more hands off; it seems like I'd have to be more of a "go-getter" - Heavy teaching load: 3 years out of 5, with the option to tag along and teach extra years - bigger School B: - Top 5 - a stronger official support structure outside (e.g. in addition to) the classroom and advisor-advisee model: writing groups, better incidental cost coverage, probably better and more hands-on support for job-search too - much lighter eaching load: 1 year out of 5, with the option to tag along and teach extra years - smaller, but I loved the cohort I visited with, so that's probably alright I'd most probably go with School A if the teaching load, instead of 3, was 2 years, which seems to be the normal load for Top 10 schools. I'll try, but as the funding/teaching package is the same for all students, I don't think I can negotiate a lighter teacing load.
  24. Hi. Does anyone know if dissertation chairs and/or other members of the committee get any compensation for directing/advising on dissertations? Just curious.
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