TeaOverCoffee

You really need a hook in the beginning of the SOP. They're reading so many of these things, so you want them to remember you. That was one of the many good pieces of advice that my mentor imparted upon me. Perhaps ask friends in graduate school to share their SOPs with you so you can get an idea of what you should be doing. While there's no set format for SOPs, if you look at enough of them, you'll begin to notice a pattern. Many people may be timid about sharing their work, though, if you don't know them, simply because they worked really hard on these things and don't want to risk having their ideas "borrowed."

You really need a hook in the beginning of the SOP. They're reading so many of these things, so you want them to remember you. That was one of the many good pieces of advice that my mentor imparted upon me. Perhaps ask friends in graduate school to share their SOPs with you so you can get an idea of what you should be doing. While there's no set format for SOPs, if you look at enough of them, you'll begin to notice a pattern. Many people may be timid about sharing their work, though, if you don't know them, simply because they worked really hard on these things and don't want to risk having their ideas "borrowed."

Whew, that's encouraging to hear, @Old Bill! I was thinking that, but the "this replaces the personal statement" bit made me worry. 
I think I'm getting extra anxious simply because it is my top choice program. 

Actually, this sounds exactly like a SOP description to me...just in different words. When you really parse what they're asking for, it's the same as what pretty much every program is asking for: why are you interested in what you're interested in, what you plan to do in the future etc. I don't want to be too cavalier about it, since it's your top choice program, but my gut tells me that you'll be fine using your standard SOP format with a few minor tweaks as necessary.

I suspect they make a distinction between what they're calling it and a "personal statement," because the latter can sometimes tend toward biographical life story etc. (such as in some programs that ask for both a "personal statement" and a "statement of purpose."). So they want an SOP, not a personal statement (ignoring for the moment the many programs that consider the two documents one and the same... )

To be frank, in order to make the connection work you're going to need more than just overlapping methodology or an interest in applying a particular theory. First of all, "postcolonial methodology" is vague--in some ways it's the new historicism of its age. Second of all, The Tempest and the 20th-century American novel (I assume we're talking novels and not plays or poetry) are too far apart temporally, geographically, and generically that you would have to work very hard to justify the idea that writing about one sets you up to specialize in the other. 
That's why I suggested that the OP try to make specific intertextual connections between The Tempest and some more recent American work--because that would then justify turning in a writing sample about The Tempest. Instead of thinking about applying theory, maybe the OP could think about Renaissance afterlives in the US experience or something like that.
At the end of the day, English departments are still sorted by literary period, and in this sense the period about which you're writing trumps your other interests. A writing sample about The Tempest is probably going to get sent to the early modernist for evaluation, not the postcolonialist. (And most departments don't have someone who purely does postcolonial--instead they'll have someone who does U.S. ethnic or some kind of Anglophone-world lit. And those people are not going to be keen on reading a Shakespeare paper.) 

I'm not sure why I'm about to offer advice for applying because I felt anxious and stressed the entire time; however, I hope it makes a few of you feel better about where you are in your application processes.
I am the epitome of a type-A personality, and I thought I was nearly prepared to submit my applications by the beginning of August. I couldn't have been more wrong. I finalized my SOP in October and my writing sample (a paper that I had written for a graduate course my first semester) wasn't complete until maybe a day before submitting my first application on December 1. My dear, dear advisor and I tore my paper apart for almost two months. In fact, I think I went through approximately seven rounds of thorough edits and avfew in between.
 
Basically, don't be too hard on yourselves about where you are with your applications because you probably should go through many rounds of revisions. These things often take more time than we expect. I gave myself a lenient date to complete everything in October, and I still wasn't done until a month later. Woe is life.
Best of luck to you all! I'm sending good vibes your ways. 

I'm not sure why I'm about to offer advice for applying because I felt anxious and stressed the entire time; however, I hope it makes a few of you feel better about where you are in your application processes.
I am the epitome of a type-A personality, and I thought I was nearly prepared to submit my applications by the beginning of August. I couldn't have been more wrong. I finalized my SOP in October and my writing sample (a paper that I had written for a graduate course my first semester) wasn't complete until maybe a day before submitting my first application on December 1. My dear, dear advisor and I tore my paper apart for almost two months. In fact, I think I went through approximately seven rounds of thorough edits and avfew in between.
 
Basically, don't be too hard on yourselves about where you are with your applications because you probably should go through many rounds of revisions. These things often take more time than we expect. I gave myself a lenient date to complete everything in October, and I still wasn't done until a month later. Woe is life.
Best of luck to you all! I'm sending good vibes your ways. 

I'm not sure why I'm about to offer advice for applying because I felt anxious and stressed the entire time; however, I hope it makes a few of you feel better about where you are in your application processes.
I am the epitome of a type-A personality, and I thought I was nearly prepared to submit my applications by the beginning of August. I couldn't have been more wrong. I finalized my SOP in October and my writing sample (a paper that I had written for a graduate course my first semester) wasn't complete until maybe a day before submitting my first application on December 1. My dear, dear advisor and I tore my paper apart for almost two months. In fact, I think I went through approximately seven rounds of thorough edits and avfew in between.
 
Basically, don't be too hard on yourselves about where you are with your applications because you probably should go through many rounds of revisions. These things often take more time than we expect. I gave myself a lenient date to complete everything in October, and I still wasn't done until a month later. Woe is life.
Best of luck to you all! I'm sending good vibes your ways. 

I'm always thrilled to see another c18 scholar! Best of luck to you on your apps this fall!

"Fit" is one of those difficult things to determine, yet is pretty much essential to the application process. You've got your era narrowed down, which is an important first step, and have an idea about specific subfields, which is important as well. One general bit of advice I have at this stage is to think about academic articles you have read that seem to mesh well with your interests, then find out where the authors of those articles are working...and if they're still doing the same type of work. If they are, then that's great...but you still need to look at what the rest of the scholars in the program are doing as well. If there are a couple of others who seem to be in the ballpark of your interests, then that program may be a good fit. There are still other subtle factors as well, however. Things like location, stipend, general program stature (I don't necessarily mean "rankings" here), competitive vs. cooperative environment etc. are all a part of "fit." Once you've got a few programs that are in the ballpark of "fit," then it might be a good time to reach out to current grad students in your general field, and potentially a professor or two -- for the latter, just a brief, polite email mentioning your interests and asking whether or not the kind of work you'd like to do would be supported in that program would suffice. For an email to a grad student, you might want to ask about what the location is like, how students interact with each other, whether the stipend is truly livable in that location etc.

"Fit" tends to come into sharper focus the further along you get in the application process. It's alright to start out with a list of twenty or so programs. Once you've got your Writing Sample sussed out, and have started drafting your Statements of Purpose, and have simply gone through program websites over and over again, some programs will start to appeal to you more than others -- you'll start to "feel" them a bit more. I personally had a large spreadsheet for each program; the headers were as follows: School, Location, App Fee, USN Rank, App Deadline, Lang. Req., Application Reqs., GRE Subject (Y/N), Funding, What Appeals to Me, What Doesn't Appeal to Me, Specific POIs, Overall Interest. In other words, I made a point of being very organized, and whittled things down as I gathered more information and honed in on the things that specifically appealed to me. There are many x-factors that are hard to take into account, of course, which is why I always recommend applying to at least ten programs (ideally a few more). In my case, I learned after the fact that two of my POIs at my top choice program are retiring next year...meaning that it probably wouldn't have been as good of a fit after all. There are so many variables that applying to more programs is just prudent, in my opinion.

Anyhow, these are just a few thoughts on that eternally amorphous notion of "fit" -- you'll never find a definitive answer to what constitutes "fit," and yet it is a legitimate (and perhaps even the most important) factor in applications...

Adding to Bill's excellent response:
You need to specialize in the field you are most passionate about.  It's not about improving your odds at a job five years from now.  It's about doing your best work in a field where you would then be spending 30+ years of a career.  I really like Chaucer.  I'm incredibly fond of Victorian novels.  I dig comics and graphic novels.  But I can't imagine spending 30 years working on any of those topics.  But Renaissance drama?  I LIVE for that.  When I teach it, I come alive and I never tire of seeing it, thinking about it, and writing about it.  Whichever field gives you that feeling, THAT'S the field you should specialize in, because the work you do in that field will stand out on the job market, whether you are up against 20 competitors or 200.

Hello and welcome!

This isn't a bad question -- not at all -- but it's also a nearly impossible one to answer definitively for a variety of reasons. I can imagine writing a 1000+ word response (because I have a lot of thoughts on this topic), but I'll try to keep it brief.

First of all, you simply have to separate "odds of admission" and "employment further down the road" into two distinct categories. The academic landscape is constantly shifting, as is the job market. For the past few years, there has been a marked academic trend among applicants and in departments toward rhet-comp -- it currently seems to be the fastest growing, and most job-friendly field. But that's at the moment. Remember that a Ph.D. is going to take roughly five years minimum to complete, which means that an applicant right now is trying to forecast what the job market is going to look like in six or seven years. I personally think that's somewhere between a vain improbability and an outright impossibility. My gut feeling is that the job market for rhet-comp is going to be oversaturated within the next five years, simply because the advice-du-jour for the last few has been that it is the most employable field...which has prompted legions of new rhet-comp applicants (and acceptances). But how big can rhet-comp actually get in an otherwise shrinking discipline? I use rhet-comp as an example, just because it is the most distinct of the sub-disciplines within English.

Secondly, remember that (as I just mentioned) a Ph.D. program usually takes at least five years to complete. That's the same amount of time as your junior and senior high school years. It's long. While there is certainly some wiggle room in terms of era / field / genre once you get into a program, most of those years will be spent studying something fairly specific within a specific era or field...and because you have specialized, that's how you will be labeled when you go on the job market (i.e. 20th century Americanist, British Romanticist, Medievalist etc.). Moreover, you'll likely be tethered to that era / field / genre for the first several years that you are gainfully employed as a professor (in the slightly improbable event that that even happens). This leads to the all-important question of whether trying to choose a currently uncrowded field that will also be a future uncrowded field makes any sense from a personal interest standpoint. Again, things aren't quite as rigid as I'm making them out to be...but the core idea is correct.

Third, there are many reasons for why certain fields of study are "crowded" and "uncrowded." Take Restoration Drama, for instance. It's not at all a crowded field. If you happen to enjoy Etherege, Dryden, Congreve and others, you probably wouldn't have a lot of company in the application pool...but by that same token, there simply aren't many Restoration Drama scholars period, which means that you'd invariably need to narrow your list of programs considerably when you're applying, and if you're taking a long-term employability approach, you have to consider why there are so few working scholars in that field / era...and whether you have a decent shot at nabbing one of those few jobs when those scholars retire.

There are many more aspects I could detail (in my head, I have at least five other points...), but what it boils down to is that you should try to work on what interests you the most, with a slight bit of attention to what is available both now and in the future. I'm a Shakespearean myself (for the most part), and while there might be some "overcrowding" in terms of applicants interested in Shakespeare and his contemporaries, there are very few programs that don't have at least one or two Shakespearean scholars on faculty...and usually many more. A few eras / fields such as early modern drama (i.e. Shakespeare and co.) and 20th century British and American literature aren't going to go away anytime soon, nor are they likely to shrink any faster than the discipline in general. But that invariably means that they will be eras / fields with larger draws than others on the applicant end.

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful. It's a complicated industry, in a lot of ways, which means that there are very few easy answers to broad questions like this one...even if those questions certainly deserve to be asked!

Hi y'all! I'm applying for PhD programs as an 18th-centuryist, so shout out to others in that oft-ignored period! I'm also halfway through a 2-year MA program (there are so many of us here!) This summer is drafting my PS and editing my WS - and beginning work on my thesis of course. 

I'm going to throw in German as a suggestion. I don't know much about German fiction of the era, but I know that there was frequent and important exchange of ideas between England and Germany. And if you want to delve into the areas around the Victorian era for contextualization purposes, the German Romanticists set some precedents.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Victorianist.

What genre(s) do you work in? If it's the novel, that might be another reason to consider French. Given the richness of novelistic output in France during that period, it could be a useful area to have open to you for the sake of a comparative context. Russian could provide this as well but would probably be more difficult to learn. As much as it pains me to say it, German probably makes less sense if you're doing the Novel in this time period.
 
(Also not a Victorianist)

Having a French lit background, I feel all early modern, modern and early contemp. periods in France have interacted a lot with Britain historically and artistically (and I'm specifically referring to literature, of course). The other way around seems to work as well, even in the history of book publishing. So I'd vouch for French, too! With my very small experience of the matter.

What are cheap yet nice neighborhoods that are one bus or metro away from UMD? Is there any neighborhood that is similar to Columbia but closer to UMD?

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/20/suit-alleges-ohio-u-sat-complaints-professors-sexual-misconduct-decade?utm_content=bufferba9dc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=IHEbuffer (This is a link to more info from Inside Higher Ed about the charges being brought against the alleged harasser- Prof. Andrew Escobedo.)
https://www.ohio.edu/cas/about/directories/profiles.cfm?profile=escobedo (This is a link to his profile on the OU site.)
I would encourage grad students, particularly female grad students, to be wary of OU's English department in light of these allegations.  It looks like he is in the process of being fired, as the Inside Higher Ed article states: "Ohio has already moved to fire the tenured full professor and says its processes ensure that all complaints are 'investigated thoroughly and handled appropriately.'"  Nonetheless, a department that would allow this type of alleged conduct to go on for a decade is one to be leery of.  (I highly doubt they would be in the process of firing him had the allegations been found to be untrue in the subsequent investigation.)

I used my senior thesis that I'm currently working on (like right at this moment). Is it terrible that I don't want to put my topic on here? I just remember talking to grad students about how some people can get really competitive and steal ideas and stuff. I trust all of you, but I'm not sure I trust the lurkers out there who might steal my ideas. Or maybe I'm just paranoid and have a crazy high opinion of my idea. Anyway, at the risk of sounding vague, mine was a queer reading of 19th century British monster novels.

I really need everyone who is not from an admissions committee to STOP. EMAILING. ME.

Yes, because your username is phenomenal.

Oh! oh! My mom also tells me i should have gone to law school and last week she asked me when I can take the LSAT! 
@crugs I don't think you're being overdramatic. I wake up every morning feeling pretty bleak.  My parents are divorcing and being very juvenile. I had a bad breakup last year and have avoided dating because "who know's where I'll be in 9 months"... except the answer is starting to feel like "here, here is where i'll be." I'm staring down the big 30 this year and feeling like a big big failure. 
I tell all these things to my dog and she gives me this look: 

The application process was incredibly stressful for me to do while in my master's program, but I knew I wanted to continue a doctoral program immediately after my master's. 
There has been such good advice given, so this may become redundant, but I want to explain what I did. 
My writing sample went through four extensive edits with my advisor. Without her, I probably would have had a mental break every week. I am fortunate to have such a caring, supportive mentor through my master's degree. 
I had a fairly specific SOP, by which I mean it was tailored to each program. This required a lot of research, but it also helped me better understand which programs were the best fit. I did not, however, mention what I wanted to do for my dissertation or anything because I don't think I have been exposed to enough in my field to fully decide upon that yet. I think we went through three revisions, but I'm going to be honest, my SOP is really fantastic. 
My GRE scores were absolutely abysmal, so my other materials had to be exceptional. I'm fairly satisfied with my writing sample and SOP, and from my understanding, I had stellar recommendation letters. Otherwise, I don't think I would been accepted to any programs. 
I emailed the DGS of nearly every program with any questions that I had (ones that couldn't be answered from the websites). Several of them actually cc'd POIs for me, which is the only reason I spoke to any POIs--despite how much I wanted to email all of them. It was reassuring to speak to all of the wonderful, enthusiastic faculty members who went out of their way to email me, especially when I occasionally feel like an imposter in graduate school.
And I'd finally like to reiterate the absolute importance of fit--faculty, location, the program and courses, the graduate student environment, etc. I think considering all of these things were a prime reason I was accepted to my top choice; UMD is such a good fit for me.
I don't know if this will help anyone, but I hope it does provide some insight for those applying to graduate programs next year. 

The application process was incredibly stressful for me to do while in my master's program, but I knew I wanted to continue a doctoral program immediately after my master's. 
There has been such good advice given, so this may become redundant, but I want to explain what I did. 
My writing sample went through four extensive edits with my advisor. Without her, I probably would have had a mental break every week. I am fortunate to have such a caring, supportive mentor through my master's degree. 
I had a fairly specific SOP, by which I mean it was tailored to each program. This required a lot of research, but it also helped me better understand which programs were the best fit. I did not, however, mention what I wanted to do for my dissertation or anything because I don't think I have been exposed to enough in my field to fully decide upon that yet. I think we went through three revisions, but I'm going to be honest, my SOP is really fantastic. 
My GRE scores were absolutely abysmal, so my other materials had to be exceptional. I'm fairly satisfied with my writing sample and SOP, and from my understanding, I had stellar recommendation letters. Otherwise, I don't think I would been accepted to any programs. 
I emailed the DGS of nearly every program with any questions that I had (ones that couldn't be answered from the websites). Several of them actually cc'd POIs for me, which is the only reason I spoke to any POIs--despite how much I wanted to email all of them. It was reassuring to speak to all of the wonderful, enthusiastic faculty members who went out of their way to email me, especially when I occasionally feel like an imposter in graduate school.
And I'd finally like to reiterate the absolute importance of fit--faculty, location, the program and courses, the graduate student environment, etc. I think considering all of these things were a prime reason I was accepted to my top choice; UMD is such a good fit for me.
I don't know if this will help anyone, but I hope it does provide some insight for those applying to graduate programs next year. 

It's so strange to me that this time last year I was reading threads like these, trying to glean some nuggets of wisdom, and now I'm commenting on one having endured an entire application cycle....
Echoing the importance of fit and also the importance of asking your advisors for input on your school list! I'm coming from a kinda niche field (science fiction) so I really trusted what my advisors told me about what schools were particularly good fits for that field of study and also asked them for suggestions of specific professors that I might name in my SOP. If your advisors are plugged into their field, they'll probably have met and interacted with a lot of important scholars in your area of interest, so they have lots of good advice on  what programs are worth applying to, what POIs are worth naming. I didn't reach out to any POIs at any programs but in my acceptance emails, the DGS would say something like "You mentioned you were interested in working with Professor ______; they read your app and are really interested in working with you too!" which showed me that fit really is important and being able to identify a few faculty members that could be really good interlocutors  is important (regardless of whether you name it in your SOP or not - I got into programs where I named people in my SOP and I got into programs where I didn't name people in my SOP). Also re: how to identify fit in the SOP, I basically used the same SOP for each school but made the last paragraph the "fit" paragraph and that's the only part I changed for every school. Saved me a lot of time/energy but still allowed me to individualize SOPs to an extent to address fit. 
Apply widely if possible! I feel like graduate admissions are such a numbers game sometimes and I'm a first-time applicant coming in with just a BA so out of nervousness/fear of getting totally shut out, I applied to a handful of funded MA programs and ended up getting really nice offers from all of them. I'll probably not end up going to an MA program but I think for people applying with just a BA, it's good to cover your bases and apply to a mix of MA/Phd programs if it's financially feasible. I was lucky enough to have received a PhD offer early on so I wasn't stressed for the entire month of February but had that not happened, having some MA acceptances and knowing that I'd be studying somewhere next year would have been a comfort. 
This one's more geared at people coming in straight from undergrad but if possible, do your honors thesis a year early. I went through the whole thesis process my junior year because I knew I wanted to apply to graduate schools and wanted to use my thesis as a writing sample but if I had waited until senior year to do a thesis, it would be nowhere near ready to be submitted for apps. Doing my thesis junior year and then having the summer to transform it into a writing sample allowed me a lot more time to polish it, work through tricky parts, get feedback from professors, etc, and saved me a LOT of stress during fall of my senior year. 
Be specific but not too specific. In my first drafts of my SOP, I said I wanted to use my thesis as a basis for a future dissertation and all my professors were like "that's cool buuuuut you should really rephrase and say 'I'd like to use my thesis as a starting point for further research' or 'expanding outwards from my thesis, I'd like to explore _____." I think it's important to articulate that you've had a lot of experience studying something + are really interested in pursuing it further BUT also that you're open to new avenues of thought and that you don't know yet exactly what the answers to your research questions are. Achieving the right level of specificity was something I really struggled with in my SOP. 
I'm sure I'll think of something else later but since this is already getting so long...the last thing I'd suggest is having something really really fun to look forward to in March. I made plans to visit my friend on an opposite coast because in January, when everything looked bleak and I was super stressed all the time, I could at least look to March and see something positive. It doesn't have to be a big thing: maybe you'll treat yourself to a meal at a restaurant you've always wanted to go, maybe you'll take a day trip somewhere, or have a movie night with friends or something, but I think having something to remind yourself that there is more to life than grad school admissions is really helpful for managing stress and getting some perspective.