Minnesotan

Re: Emerald Downs Yes, it is loud. Everything in that development is student housing, and is therefore a bit rowdy.

I save most of my energy for lifting student essays at the end of the term. Quite the workout, that!

Any respectable grad program will refer you to a few current students who would be happy to answer frank questions about the program. Folks won't necessarily talk bad about their department, but you can gather a surprising amount of information that way.

I got a Kindle DX when I started my PhD program, and now I don't know how I ever lived without it. The article clutter reduction alone might have saved my relationship, my sanity, and the usability of my office. Moreover, getting books instantly is very handy if the library screws you over with a request and you need a book yesterday!

Pretty much anyone who's anyone in RhetComp is listed here, alphabetically from Arizona State to Washington State: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/pt/sp/resources_gradprograms Contact information is provided.

Rainy has some good advice. I would add to that: if there are psychological issues or recurring health problems, it is better not to mention them. This is one case where the communis opinio suggest one is better off being vague. Rather than saying "I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after an attempted suicide," you might want to go for something like, "after one semester with health issues, I was able to get back to work..." I know it sounds odd, especially considering the high concentration of people with mental issues in grad school (you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!), but committees are human, too, and they tend to shy away from someone who claims recurring illness or psychological issues on their app. There was a long discussion about this on LiveJournal last year. Interesting what a large proportion of that community is mentally unwell.

Start leaving articles lying around the house, where they have to see them. Put one in the toidy, one on the coffee table, one on the computer chair, etc. The Chronicle always has good material about preparing and navigating grad school and early career. Eventually, they'll get bored and pick one up. You might be able to relate better (and stop calling your parents idiots) if you have a common topic of interest.

My gf and I are in grad school together, and so far I've learned that only two things will make it easier: time and patience. Carve out a little no work, no argument time each night, no matter how busy you are. Play a board game or something equally nerdy. And be patient with each other. You're both going to have a lot of stress until you get settled in again.

If one semester made a big difference, be forthright. "You'll note a sharp drop in my performance in Spring of 1912. This is because my dog committed suicide." Obviously you'll want to tell a plausible -- and preferably true -- story, but you get the point. Address it and move on with confidence.

The older you go, the less Theory you deal with, if that's at all helpful. It's pretty hard to do a post-colonial reading of Beowulf. (I'm not saying some dillhole won't try it, I'm just saying it's glaringly out of place.)

Agreed wholeheartedly. The first thing the OP needs to do is find potential committee members and work from there.

I meant the history of the discipline is based in rhetorical studies. Literature came from the division of rhetoric into the modern social sciences and humanities. Thus, I thought it important to note that rhet preceded lit as a discipline by about 2300 years.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table. David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel, And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya' 'Bout the raising of the wrist. SOCRATES, HIMSELF, WAS PERMANENTLY PISSED... John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. Plato, they say, could stick it away; Half a crate of whiskey every day. Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, Hobbes was fond of his dram, And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am" Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

While I agree with the points being made about diversification of knowledge, I also find it troubling that so many people seem to take personal offense because someone does not want to study culture/race/gender. It is possible for people to disagree with the notion that context trumps text and still have a fine career in academia. Sure, that person will be castigated by the authoritarian radical left-wingers they will inevitably come up against, but that's a fight they might have to make. It would be nice to have the closed-minded 60s activists challenged a little more often in their good ole boysandgirls club at the top. Mind you, I'm a liberal-leaning moderate sort of person, so me criticizing the dominant "left" in academia means a pretty special case of radical leftism that exists only in the Ivory Tower. And, while everyone is entitled to their own point of view, these folks (most of whom are big culture/race/gender studies advocates) disagree -- "you're either for us or against us, and since we have the power, all grad students had better publicly proclaim they are for us!" I understand the op's frustrations. Some people like books without the politics. Cut him or her some slack.

Whoa! I would steer clear of numerical determinism in the application process. What will really matter are the subjective portions of your app, so why not worry about them? A 4.0 from Cornell means dick if the SoP and WS aren't amazing.