ExponentialDecay

Sooo how does any of this translate to, and I quote, "thinly disguised cultural theory" tho?

I concur with the above: I'd cross Middlebury off the list just based on location. Work experience and network are as if not more important than your studies, and you won't get any of that in Buttcrack, Vermont (no offense to Middlebury - it's beautiful country, and a great place to go for undergrad).

To add to what @Poli92 is saying, working with large datasets in an analytical manner doesn't mean knowing how to code them in Stata. Learning the software is trivial, and since which one of the many interchangeable suites you use is heavily organization or even client-dependent, being able to pick the coding up on the job is one of the realities of this type of work. Being able to analyze datasets means knowing the math. I would say that the amount of math in an MPA program is insufficient for a masters-level statistician job. Your strength would be your ability to couch whatever numbers you produce and the methodologies you use in your research context (e.g. agriculture, 4th industrial revolution, sub-Saharan Africa). Also, learn to write well.

Given that "data analyst at a private org" is an extremely broad category, yes, of course they can, and even the not-so-quantitative ones. Broadly speaking, I've met French majors who were data analysts at private orgs. There is a huge spectrum of organizations out there, and depending on the needs of a particular one, they may want someone who can build and test models, or they may want someone who can code bar charts in R. Tangentially, what's with the random accounts putting up legit brochures for given schools in the comments? Is this the fabled phenomenon of schools paying unemployed graduates to shill their programs on grad school message boards? At least hire the clever ones, that know that most social science undergraduates these days are coming out with python, R, SAS, and ArcGis.

I understood that OP wants to do literary journalism. I advise them to start a blog.

Since when is Cornell a top school for comp lit?

Well, a PhD is first and foremost a research degree, so I don't think it's strange that, in order to receive a PhD, in a professional subject or not, you are expected to do some research... Policy positions that require or prefer a PhD typically expect to make extensive use of those skills. I wouldn't say that work experience doesn't count for a policy PhD - it does if it is relevant - but in the end, it's a typical interdisciplinary social science PhD that is what you make of it. The main difference is that these programs tend to be more accommodating of you having a job while you are in the program (i.e., as is rare in the states, some of these programs are both reputable and truly part time), and that finding a job in academia with a policy PhD is near-impossible.

Where did you get that impression? Complit is by nature more interdisciplinary than English, so they do attract students with broader interests, but I haven't seen a program that doesn't *require* its students to do research in two primary languages (ie literatures). The fact that complit programs offer more theory courses rarely reflects on the dissertations of the actual students that they release. National literature department dissertations are these days just as theory-heavy as complit dissertations. If a person enters any graduate literature program without interest in theory, people will look at them askance. As regards your question to me, 100-200 looks about like the number of the real competition, though that depends on how you define competitive. That's likely the number of people who submit all the required materials, and all of those materials are more or less coherent and polished, but the number of people that a department can actually see paying 100k in just salary for? Probably like the results of a typical faculty search, scaled appropriately: 10-20.

If your writing sample could've been better, why didn't you work on it until it was? The GRE is low. But chances are hard to predict on this information alone, so you'll just have to wait and find out /:

Eh, you have to cull those numbers significantly for the applicants who are underqualified or just plain loopy, which, at 700 applicants, is probably 2/3 of that pool. The number of serious and actually admissible applicants is in comparison most likely very small.

Any particular reason you feel the need to analyze this?

dude @knp all this time I was convinced that you're in literature. So that's one thing I learned from your comment, aside from a lot of things about how academic history works!

@serenade tenure is always up in the air, for anyone, up until that contract is signed. It's not very realistic to expect a professor to just... not take students? for 5-7 years that their TT lasts? Faculty, especially junior faculty, don't just get to decide that, lol, they're not going to advise graduate students this year. It's a basic part of their job, and they are probably allocated some quota by the department. From OP's perspective, this situation is no different than his professor getting poached by another school, losing funding and not being able to continue running the lab, or having a stroke and, like, dying - all of which are a lot harder to predict than that an assistant professor that OP himself elected to work with might not get tenure. To be clear, when you choose to focus on an untenured faculty member, this is the risk you assume. This time the risk didn't pan out. Watching out for that was OP's responsibility, not the professor's, and the professor is not to blame for that. OP, it sucks, but just work with someone else.

if you've been researching schools, you will have come across them addressing your question in their application materials. usually they will say something like "to apply, you need x credits in [subject]"

google average admitted GRE scores for the programs you are interested in.

I'm sure you've heard that the admissions process is holistic and depends on your GRE in the last instance. I mean, it's not exceptional, but it won't keep you out of most programs, assuming your written materials are good. This kind of isn't sufficient or the right information to give you an idea f your chances, sorry.

Oh come on. You got merit. At this point, it hinges on your writing sample, SOP, and letters. The merit/distinction issue is tangential.

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you under the impression that knowing 5 languages obligates you to do research across 5 national literatures? That isn't the case. Most humanities scholars, even those in national departments, know a few languages - comes with the territory - but do research primarily in one. The 4 languages required are typically your two primary languages that you will do substantive research in, and then 2 (or more) that are necessary for the research process but aren't the focus of your scholarship, like Latin for a Medieval scholar, or tangentially relevant, like the customary French and German. Imho more than 2 primary languages is too much, unless they are very closely related in a cultural as well as linguistic sense (e.g. German, Yiddish, and Hebrew).

I think you need to leave Prof 3 alone at this point. And your application to an academic program would be hurt by a non-academic letter. That your other two professors have retired doesn't matter. The college will have their contact information, or the professors writing you letters will. Your 3rd letter doesn't need to bring down the house (assuming one or both of the other two do). It just needs to be a solid letter from someone the committee will view as qualified to speak to your academic strengths and potential as an English scholar. That person is probably not your boss.

As another international in the US, I'm not that worried, for two reasons: first, the "immigration" of generalized political rhetoric rarely targets international students as its main demographic, and second, frankly, how much worse can it get? The shitshow that is H1B has been around long before this election, and may I note, Obama never lifted the post-crisis cap either. Extrainstitutional funding and research opportunities for internationals have always been extremely, extremely limited - I doubt Trump will take away that one single international NSF grant, and if he does, it won't have any effect on the average F1 doctoral student. The American immigration system has been broken for a long time, and as the result, the hot-ticket issue from the domestic side isn't even H1B abuse, but decades of undocumented migration. It's been hard to be an international student in the US for at least a decade, and the reasons it will get harder will have more to do with the behavior of the academic job market and the economy overall than with Trump. If there is one thing I'm worried about, it's the humanities disciplines. But, as whodathunk points out, we've been worried about those for a long, long time.

Dude, OP, this school is in New Jersey. How many international relations jobs are there in New Jersey, for crissake? The main reason that American and UMD do okay job-wise is that they're located in DC, which allows people to intern while they're in school (another dirty secret is that at least some of the students already have work history and connections in the field and are literally just getting the piece of paper, sometimes while continuing to work full-time in the field). You don't say what you're interested in, but in many government careers, unless you are a protected class, your trajectory is determined almost exclusively by your connections. Your best bet in building them is through work, not school.

orly, the humanity you studied is useful, and all the other humanities are not? Why, that is SUCH a surprising perspective! Also - and I say this as an economist - how much money is allocated to a thing does not determine its value.

You say that the humanities are useless, but lemme tell you, you could definitely benefit from Comp 101 /:

107 posts is a lot for a lurker. Anyway, I don't weigh in on this forum either (but I am entertained by the constant rivalries and shitposting that goes on!), but you're both right. The weight of school brand depends on what job you want to get. If OP needs a piece of paper to move forward in the federal government, then Seton Hall-Schmeton Hall, who cares. If they're looking to change careers or get into some competitive slice of this industry (though, again, depends) a brand - but moreso location and connections - can help.

HAHAHAHA oh this is a funny troll