BillyPilgrim

After I submitted my first application I realized I put "my" instead of "me" in one sentence. d'oh.

I might be wrong, but I think you're supposed to record the percentiles of the year you took it. i.e. a 600 might have been in the 85% percentile when you took but is now in the 80%. On your application you would record it as being in the 85%.

Vanderbilt is not accepting applications for Fall 2010. This is what their website says: "Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. Program in Comparative Literature is currently under review. Though we are not presently accepting applicants directly to the Program in Comparative Literature, comparative literary study is flourishing in other Vanderbilt Ph.D. programs"

Were you accepted into CMU?

all of those programs have good reputations. For more detailed info phds.org does customized rankings of universities by department

I got an email today from the French Department at Vanderbilt University which is strange since I have never contacted them myself nor am I interested in going into a French PhD (well....maybe I am now!). Even stranger, they contacted me based on information they received from the GRE Services and my GRE scores aren't even that great (V620, Q580, A4.5). I remember after I completed my GRE I was able to send my scores to a few universities, but Vanderbilt was not one of them and I listed my area of study as comp lit. Is this as strange as I think it is? Should I be flattered? Has this happened to anyone else?

I've spent countless hours on different department websites and most of them do not have as much information as I would like. I feel confident in my app except for my average, underwhelming GRE Verbal score of 620 (I will probably retake it in a few months). I just graduated UC Berkeley with a BA in CompLit and I'm now looking at PhD programs. I'm still trying to narrow down my list of schools. Right now I'm seriously considering Berkeley, Stanford, NYU, Johns Hopkins, UConn, Penn State, U of Mich, U of Chicago and the list doesn't really seem to end.... I'm trying to find the best ones to match with my areas of interest, which seems to be difficult as I have (I think) somewhat of an unusual emphasis. Here is a little snippet from my SOP: "If accepted into graduate school, I would continue my studies in the vein of my thesis, looking at the history of Biblical interpretation and its effect on contemporaneous fiction. This would include the significance of the King James Bible on the English speaking world and its literature, and America

If possible, could those who have been accepted in a PhD program let those of us who are applying soon know what schools you got into, what school you received your BA from, your GPA, and GRE scores? Being on the opposite end of the process causes such anxiety. I don't know if this will help alleviate it in giving us a rough picture of "what it takes."