melusine

Ok.. this has been a very unlucky process for me so far: my top recommender disappeared (stopped returning my emails/calls), i have had to make three different versions of my writing sample because of two schools being completely schizophrenic about their formatting requirements regarding translation re: changing it last minute, (long story, but i have a sample which quotes from different languages and i need to make v specific changes for some schools), and now this... I have written 3 profs so far. Only 1 has answered- the one mentioned above. A few of my programs do have the "list the faculty" clause in the app forms. WHADDO I DO??? Am completely traumatized about it yet somehow the internets keep telling me I ought to try again.. I have a feeling this is also pretty late in the game and I don't want to bother profs when they're in the middle of giving/correcting midterms. Do you think it's ok to just not contact anybody else at this point?

re: the part-time/full-time discussion, i think it also greatly depends on how many classes you take per term and how many years you mean by "college" there were certainly times where i worked 2 or 3 part time jobs while studying, thereby arriving at a cumulative 40hrs+ per week.. however, this summer term, i got a big scholarship and decided to step up my game, taking 6 accelerated courses in the summer. Believe me, no one, NO ONE can take 6 senior year accelarated (3months' material in 5 weeks) lit courses (with reading lists containing Joyce, Woolfe, Dickens, Thackeray and Proust), complete the required writing and research assignments and keep a full time job. Or, let me rephrase it, you can. But you either replace your readings with Sparknotes or do your homework at work. Both are not a very good idea, IMHO.

So.... Since everyone's been saying one should contact faculty members, I did. I sent a v. polite email saying 1 or 2 things about myself, my interests, how it matches what the prof does and whether they would be intent on pursuing similar research in the future. I got a very curt answer that went something like: "At Y university on applies to a program. Not a professor." Now, does that mean my chances at University Y are ruined???? Needless to say, I'm never contacting anyone again! (I just wish I could take back the 2 other emails I sent to other universities' faculty members)..

Hi Lise! I'm also a foreigner (Russian but grew up in France) applying to comp lit.. And one of my schools is also Harvard! Anyways, i have good news for all of us fellow comp liters.. This past month, before taking the gre, i was really nervous about what grades i might get, so i emailed pretty much all my schools asking them what their policy for non-native english speakers was. .... And I got an overwhelmingly consistent response of either A-The Gre is merely number 6 or 7 in our list of priorities when considering a candidate's app, some great ppl are admitted with v low GRE..., B- For a non-native speaker, anything over 600 is considered good. sometimes a bit below is even fine too. C-no one gives a caca d'oie about the math. REALLY. I have the specific answers of every school, if anyone's interested, just pm me! best of luck

wow... so does that mean kids in california graduate high school at 14??? i'm 22 and i thought i was relatively young.. ( but props to you!

vent post disclaimer warning. venting and moaning ahead. soooooo... i had this top recommender who agreed to read over my SOP. and by top, i mean top. as in not someone who's just a great prof (+), but a famous prof (++), even outside of our field (+++), as in makes regular tv appearances/has wiki page/etc, and is also a regular lecturer at one of the top schools i'm applying to (+++++!!!!!). well, after keeping my hopes up, leading me on, making promises of rosy futures, etc... the top recommender just decides to vanish. completely and utterly. for like 1.5 months. i send 3 emails into the void. then out of the blue, i get an email asking me how things are. i resend the SOP and everything. SILENCE... for another month. in the meantime, my first submission package is due mid-november. so in less than a month. and i know they're not dead. because i called the university and actually speak to them. and they (the top recommender) said they had *ahem* probs with their email (for the last 2 months...). and told me to send everything again (to the same adress..) and that they have a plane to catch (or perhaps a flying saucer or something of that nature), and they'd get back to me tomorrow, really, truly, cross my heart and hope to be spanked very hard for being a big bad recommender. it's been 2.5 WEEKS. i have about 2.5 left. this suuuuuuuuuucks.

So i just took the dreaded thing yesterday. verbal was quite easy, although i screwed up on a couple of questions (actually realized it right when i clicked 'confirm').. so could have been better. could have been worse, too. math is abysmal. as expected but I did work my bum off for it for the last three months. i guess 540 is just what my mathematically-addled brain is capable of. now, i'm applying for a PHD in complit at very selective programs (yale, princeton, etc..) I'm also an international student and English is my 3rd language, not that that will cut me any slack in math. I just suck at it, simple as that. So my question is, as many other posters' on this forum: what do you think?? Are my Gre scores high enough to get past the elusive "cut off score" everybody keeps mentioning. I keep seeing the number "600", which makes me nervous since my math is below..

@ joro - i really don't think that's the way to do it. you're not taking into account the fact that (sorry but it is a fact) u.s. universities tend to inflate grades. admissions committees normally have conversion tables and that sort of thing for international schools, at least so i've been told by quite a few people. it makes sense, otherwise, my average of 87% at UBC (I am in the top 5% of my faculty this year) would be such a low GPA as to crash any grad school ambitions of mine right away...

Sorry I don't have an answer for you but I'd appreciate more replies as I'm largely in the same boat. I'm also applying to Comp Lit in (largely East Coast) top tier American universities and am looking for some slightly safer options.. I am bilingual in French and Russian (my mother tongue), with English my third language and also that of my undergrad lit major at UBC. So yes, judging by the languages, my focus is very self-evidently late 19th, early 20th century european lit. Any recommendations?

So I am currently trying to round up an ultimate list of schools to apply to for Comp Lit this december.. And am at a bit of a loss in terms of my "fit" in some of the programs. I want to study English, French and Russian Lit of a particular genre and time period. Sometimes, I find one or even two profs in the Comp Lit program of a given uni whose interests/languages match mine. More often than not, however, I am missing either a language or a genre/period combination. Meanwhile, in a separate Language department in the very same school, teaches a prof who would be the ideal missing piece to my tentative supervisor puzzle. My question is this: when studying comp lit, is it at all possible to work with professors in one of your languages/literatures/interests, yet apparently not involved with the comp lit program? If not, I will have to dramatically cut down my list of potential schools. Which sucks. Thx for your help!

haha! Burke loves you. He's just like Heidegger.. Except it usually takes a bong hit or four to get Heidegger.

reading the past replies to this topic, I'm a bit baffled by the ambient anti-cramming stance. I get it, a lot of people are "naturally" good at the GRE from their particular life experiences and education but I don't think it's very fair to the rest of us. I probably read as much as the next English Lit major, especially with a concentration in the victorian/modernist periods, but English is only my third language. I've been learning with flashcards and randomly reading the dictionary and things like that but I still got a mere 580 on my last practice test. Also, the GRE is especially confusing to people whose first or second language is French (like me): a lot of English words also exist in French but mean something completely different... Like enervate, sanguine, derogation, accolade, diligence to me sound like enerver (to annoy), sanguin (bloody), derogation (a type of law), accolade (a type of hug) and diligence (a type of cart driven by horses). And don't even get me started on weird English inventions like "raconteur". Ugh.. this is going to be fun.

Hi all, I'm planning to apply to Comp Lit at a few v. top-tier programs. Currently studying for the GRE. I know a lot of people in my situation also claim their math is quite bad.. However, there is bad, and then there's me. I just learned how to divide the other day. Yeah, it's that bad. Anyways, my verbal is quite up there (I know latin and read a lot so that helps) but the math is abysmal and I don't see any way I can improve it dramatically in the time I have these next couple of months (4th year classes start next week). So my question is... does anybody know just how important (if at all) is the quant. score for acceptance into comparative literature? I mean, say I get 700v and like 450q. Will I look like a highly specialized would-be scholar, or just another dumb blonde?