fancypants09

One additional note: You may want to check to see that the LOR writer isn't mistaken in his/her belief of having submitted already. From what I understand, there could be some confusion on the LOR writer's end---s/he may not realize that additional buttons need to be clicked for the letter to actually go through the online system. Hang in there! Big hugs.

If this LOR writer has a secretary, it may help to follow up through him/her as well. If the LOR writer does not have a personal secretary, you may want to check with the secretary/admin for the department to which your LOR writer belongs. While it may be helpful for the ad comm and DGS at the schools to which you've applied to know what is going on, contacting the institution to which your LOR writer belongs will ensure that the letter gets submitted. Two of my LOR writers, both of whom I've known for over a decade, still asked me about deadlines until the last minute. One is a super senior faculty who literally writes hundreds of letters per semester (on top of his research, teaching and service duties---serious respect for this man) and just wanted to double check; the second is a junior faculty with a lot of his own work he needed to push out in the fall. I reminded them several times before the crunch, but the truth of the matter is that it's easy even for those who are our greatest supporters and champions to slip up.

OK, FWIW here are the results from calling ETS and my top choice program: ETS says that the scores are "good" for five years after your testing year. To clarify, since everyone's lingo is different: Being "good" or "valid" means that ETS still has your scores on file and that you can send an official report of them to the schools of your choice. Being "expired" or "purged" means that your scores are no longer on the ETS database and that you can't send an official report to the schools from ETS. So, in my case ETS said that my scores would be "good" until June 30 2015; afterwards, my scores would be "purged," or "expired." I called my top choice program, which had very vague language on their admissions website about the scores being valid for five years only. The lady who answered my call basically answered my question with, "whatever ETS said." Of course she said something to the effect of, isn't it too late for you to be asking this question but seriously people is it too much to ask for you to confirm or deny a simple question?

Bumping this thread... Similar boat as the OP, except the dates are even closer. I took my GREs on December 18, 2009 and did very well. I did apply to a few MA programs for Fall 2010, but decided not to go after being accepted to all programs. This time around, I decided to apply to PhD programs in a different field. I checked the online instructions for all the programs to which I have now applied and every one of them had the generic "scores are valid for five years" language---in other words, none of the other variations mentioned above. Without thinking too much about it at the time of application, I just assumed that the "five years" meant five calendar years, and submitted my scores from the 2009 test. Of course it is only now with all the deadlines having past that I am thinking about this issue---whether something else was meant by the "five years" in the instructions. From what I have gathered from previous GC postings and the ETS website, the information is as follows: 1. In my situation, the ETS "testing year" is the most generous: My scores would not expire until June 30, 2015. 2. The next generous is the calendar year interpretation, which was the assumption under which I submitted my scores: Per this interpretation my scores would have been valid until December 31, 2014, long enough to clear the majority of my deadlines. (More on this below) 3. The next generous is the test date interpretation, which would lead to the conclusion that my scores would have been valid until December 17, 2014. Under this interpretation I just squeezed by, quite literally, for my December 15 deadlines---just thanking the stars that I didn't take my GREs any earlier. I did have an application due on January 2, 2015, and unless the schools go by the ETS calendar in determining expiry, I'm afraid that I've lost that one...one of the other departments at that school mentioned that the GSAS would consider all "non-expired" scores, which I think is in reference to the ETS calendar... Worth calling departments to find out?

My sentiments exactly. More excited than terrified at the moment (we'll see how I hold up in the next few days/weeks). I checked the UCLA website this morning and they've already got the decision status checker up. I guess that means it's official---the review process is on!

I second the previous posters' comments on anxiety being caused by the high stakes involved in the application process. For me personally, the stakes are all the higher because I'm switching fields and career, leaving behind what is generally considered to be a "good, stable, and well-paying" corporate job to do this. And as fuzzylogic mentioned, there were just some unexpected curve balls along the way. One of my LOR writers---a professor from law school who had been one of my biggest supporters in all of my endeavors---dropped the ball on me 11 days before my first set of deadlines, telling me that he had some personal emergencies pop up and could no longer write my letters. To say that this was less than ideal, when I had been preparing to transition from my current field and career for about a year, is an understatement of all of the craziness I felt at the time. I was lucky enough to find an alternate recommender, but still, I totally would have appreciated skipping out on this particular crisis moment.

No dreams, but just a never-ending, nerve-wrecking cycle of thoughts 24/7 which goes something like this: 1. I wonder when I'll hear back. 2. There's nothing I can do. My applications are done, so I may as well just try to enjoy the downtime. 3. But what if I don't get in anywhere? 4. But I worked so. hard. on everything! There must be at least ONE program that will see that and take me. 5. Oh but what if there is some mistake on my application that causes all the programs to reject me? Repeat 4 & 5 several times before going back to 1 to start the cycle all over again. I wish I could just hiberate until the decisions came out.

Good luck to everyone finishing up for the January 2 deadline! I have one due tomorrow but finished my portion of it with the rest of the applications on December 15. Waiting on one last recommender to submit, then I'm officially done and done!

That would be amazing to work with Murakami! Hashtag lifegoals indeed. Adding to missed encounters with Murakami...he was actually in residence at my undergraduate alma mater during my senior year, in my own department for crying out loud, and I did not go to a single talk or reading. Granted, I was writing my senior thesis at that time and my interests were history and poli sci...I only began reading Murakami post-graduation and have regretted passing up such amazing opportunities. I am such. an. idiot...arghhhhhh!

For me, giving into my emotions and feelings is the best way to deal. I've just accepted the fact that I'm going to be a mess for the next couple of months. I applied to literatures as well---mixture of national and comp lit programs, with most of my deadlines on December 15. I'm a bit jetlagged from having traveled from my current home to my parents' but I've also been plagued by insomnia---I just can't get myself to sleep at night. Last week I couldn't get any sleep before 5AM, but I have to say I've been doing much better, getting tired and falling asleep around 3AM. I'm sure next week I'll be back to more "normal" hours... If you're up for reading, now would be a fun time to tackle some fun/"recreational" reading. I've just started The Goldfinch, something that I've put off for a while because I was working on my applications. I also like wandering in museums and bookstores, or just window shopping sometimes to get some air and to get my mind to think about other things. I suggest that you also join the discussion in the Lit/Rhetoric/Composition section of the GC---there are a group of us literature PhD applicants there.

Happy new year everyone!! And congrats, Proflorax I, for one, am happy for it to be January---one step close to hearing back! Though I'm absolutely tired, I've had major insomnia just from the stress of waiting

I'm also a JD/attorney hoping to become a PhD, but in a completely different field (literature), but thought I'd share some things I learned while preparing for, and completing, my PhD applications this year. A bit about me so that you can put my two cents in context: I graduated from law school five years ago, and worked as corporate in-house abroad for just over four years before quitting this summer to focus on my applications. I was very lucky to find a lecturer position at a university, also outside of the US, so I taught in the fall and will be teaching again in the spring while I await my results. I applied once to graduate school post-JD in a completely different field; I studied history and poli sci in college and applied to an MA in IR after law school, thinking of eventually getting a PhD in IR/political theory. I applied and was accepted to two different programs and deferred for two years while I worked. After working for a bit, I decided that I wasn't interested in going down that particular academic route, but kept on exploring other career options as I knew that I couldn't stay in the corporate grind for the rest of my professional life. I decided to return to literature because I've always been passionate about the field. Again, I was extremely lucky in that I had completed some advanced coursework in my college years, though I didn't major in the field. A few things you want to keep in mind as you prepare: 1. Writing Sample Many POIs and my old college professors underlined the importance of the writing sample. As a previous poster mentioned, law school and graduate school---even in the social sciences---are fundamentally different. Three years of legal education really does change the way you think, write, and speak. I had to write a brand new writing sample for my applications this time around and the first couple of drafts read like briefs or legal memos rather than literary analysis or criticism. When the time comes to work on your writing sample, be sure to read classic and recent scholarship in your field---sociology---and be sure that your writing sample reads like a sociology paper and not like a legal one. 2. Numbers (GPA/GRE) Like one of the previous posters, I had very average grades in law school. I'm not sure how those are going to figure into my applications this time around, but they definitely did not hinder me from getting into MA programs four years ago (FWIW, I applied to The Fletcher School at Tufts and the Geneva Graduate Institute). I should also say that I was on the law review at my school, co-published an article with a professor I RA'ed for, and participated in two poster presentations. I also had very high GRE scores (V 169, M 164, W 5.0), so those may have helped. I took the GREs right after I found out I passed the bar exam, and riding on the post-bar-passing high definitely made studying for the GRE a breeze. All of this to say: Even if law school works differently, and even if you don't want that law-firm job, you should try to get the highest grades possible. Same for GRE scores. (But I'm sure you knew that---after all, you're in law school! ) 3. Work Experience I don't think this matters too much if you're applying to an MA; your summer experiences that show an ongoing interest in your intended field of study in graduate school should be more than sufficient. It may be different if you're applying for a PhD, though, especially if you're going to try to persuade the Ad Comms that your training as an attorney will somehow be influential to your research. There are pros and cons to working before more school, but I feel like there are more pros than cons. First, they really test your desire to go into a particular academic field. I was pretty sure about going into IR when I deferred to work, but working made me realize that I would be able to have more real-world impact in the field than in the ivory tower. Second, it never hurts to earn money and to put some aside before going into graduate studies. Third, and perhaps most important from the legal side, having worked as an attorney for a year or two will give you credibility with the attorneys, even if you never decide to practice law/work in the legal field again. This is especially important if you ever want to fall back on your law license to earn money during graduate school if it comes to that. Simply put, legal employers are more likely to hire someone with experience than someone without, even if that person has a license. 4. Bar Exam Agreed with previous posters who advised for you to take the bar after your 3L year. You want to get those out of the way when you're in the law mode. For me, the bar exam was perhaps the most challenging exam I've ever prepared for, but having survived through the process I feel like I could take on pretty much anything, academically. Obviously I've not started (or even been accepted into) a PhD program yet, but from what I hear from friends the first year of coursework sounds incredibly daunting and I would not want to spend my summer after an exhausting year prepping for the bar exam. Hope my experience would be somewhat helpful to you, and that most importantly, hope I didn't hijack this thread!

Quena and Katia, Same here too, working with at least two different "national" literatures, or shall I say, two bodies of literatures in different languages, neither of which is in English---in fact, I had to translate parts of the work I used in my WS into English myself since the text I used is not available in English. I guess I'm not "formally trained" in the sense that I don't have a degree in either of the literatures or anything literary in general. I have some coursework in one of the literatures, and I'm a native speaker of the other language in which the other body of literatures is written. For me, I chose to apply to both because I haven't figured out, at this stage, whether the focus of my research will be on the inductive reading, analysis and criticism of national literatures, or on theoretical formulations for which Comp Lit is famous. I'd like to pursue both at an even measure, hence the decision to apply to the mixture that I did.

Looking forward! Will definitely let you know what I think of The Goldfinch once I finish. I'd say definitely skip on buying The Strange Library---it may be worth borrowing it from the local library (or even just reading it while you're there---it goes by really quickly; took me about half an hour from start to finish). I love Murakami's short, non-fictional essays, several volumes of which are available in Korean translation though I've not seen any in English, which is really a shame. Perhaps a motivator for me to improve my Japanese skills to do the translations myself sometime in the future?

Finished Murakami's Strange Library today in about half an hour after having bought it yesterday. I'm a die-hard Murakami fan, but I wasn't so impressed with this one. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture here, but I didn't understand how the illustration and the non-traditional binding and type of the book related to the story. Getting started on The Goldfinch today. I've heard mixed reviews about it, but curious to see how it reads.

My new year's resolution is to eat/drink lots of greens and then exercise tons. That will come at the end of January when I get back to my place and I can be the master of my own time again---until then I'm spending time with family. While I'm at it, I may start writing again. And perhaps a studio art class for fun, to take my mind off of things.

OK. So I finally broke down and went to the local bookstore and bought Murakami's Strange Library and Tartt's Goldfinch. I almost added Catton's The Luminaries to the pile as well. I think these two should keep me occupied for a bit...if I finish them within a week or two, there's always War and Peace.

I read my SOP again today and realized that I didn't include any information about careers post-PhD. I spent most of it describing in detail the research project I'd like to pursue once there, and then had a fit paragraph that was about 1/3-1/2 of the last page. I hope that it's pretty self-evident that I'd like to be an academic once I finish...

Hi nuclearves, Like so much of the application process, it all depends! FWIW, I applied to seven programs as well. I believe that everyone has a reason for their number. I decided on the seven I did apply to for several reasons: 1. I want to work with very particular literature and languages, and not all US universities have departments/faculty who work in that field; 2. I want to be at an institution with ample resources for the subject of my research, e.g., libraries, research centers; and 3. I need deep-pocketed institutions that are able to offer full funding for 5-6 years. Again, FWIW, I applied to a whopping two programs when I applied for an MA in IR four years ago. Friends and family suggested that I apply to more schools, but I only applied to two because I could only see myself attending those two out of the myriad of possibilities out there. By selecting such a small number of schools, I was able to tailor my materials for each program. This time around, I tailored my materials for my top choice and then tried to make them fit, more or less, to the rest of the schools.

Hi! Joining the crowd here...I applied to a mix of comp lit and the "standard" lit/languages departments. My proposal in the SOP RE: research remained the same for both sets of applications---the reason for me having applied to both is that I have a very strong background (personal and academic/professional) in one of the languages for the literatures I want to work with, and so I wanted to make the most of that comparative advantage. Anyone take a similar approach? If not, what made you stick just to comp lit?

I thought I had the waiting game down to a pat, given that I've gone through two cycles of grad school applications in the past before this one (for different types of schools/programs). I've proven myself completely wrong. I haven't gotten to the obsessive email checking. But I've been reading the websites of the departments to which I applied, and then trying to see whether I submitted everything that had been requested. Also, I've apparently been talking about the whole application process with my parents ever since I've been home for break. While they're willing to lend an ear, they've been commenting that I look stressed and tired. I can't believe that results will start coming around in a month. Given my former day job, I've always been the type to mentally prepare for the worst and always have a plan B---but in this case I've not thought about the worst (I mean, I have, but not in the way of preparing myself for it) nor do I have a plan B. It sounds silly but I put heart and soul into those apps and I simply don't have the energy or the willpower to think about anything else right now... It's going to be a long couple of months.

Hi everyone, Checking in here to remind everyone checking emails to look in your spam as well. I just received an email from UCLA informing me that there were "minor discrepancies" in my personal information that prevented my application from being sent to the mainframe. And yep, it was in my spam box. I did follow their instructions in writing back but OF COURSE the offices (including the department to which I applied) are now closed until the new year... Sigh. Why did they email it at 9PM PST, literally the day before they go off for the holidays?! [insert favorite expletives here in any language of your choice] I could be more upset, but I reminded myself that: 1. I turned in all of my grades for the classes I taught in the fall semester, so now I'm officially on vacay/holiday, and more importantly, 2. From my limited life experiences, if it is meant to work out it will, regardless of how much fretting/worrying I do over the whole thing. I did follow their instructions in getting back, so now it remains for me to sit back and wait. I wanted to reach out to the potential advisor there I spoke to over the summer, but this being holiday season and all, I don't want to come off as annoying. Though I may drop an email to him in about a week or so... Here's to a scare-less holidays to all!

1Q84 and WT---add me to the "not a spring chicken" list! Early thirties here, meaning that I'll be the same age as many of the professors (hell, I have friends who have graduated with PhDs and are now professors, in different fields but still). I did have professor friends who asked me if I were sure I wanted to enter the tenure-track seeking market at the springy age of forty (that is if I finish "on time"). But what kept me going were assurances from my former professors that they believed in me and that I am not old for this. I don't have a plan B either. I mean, I won't find it too difficult to keep a roof over my head and food in the fridge, but I've put everything on the line for this. I quit my job, I stopped "thinking" and "writing like a lawyer," I have spent thousands of dollars on books and articles in my intended field of study (limited availability of any academic texts out in Korea), hundreds of hours reading, writing, and talking to lit folks. Friends and family have told me it's now time to let go because I gave it my best. But that doesn't mean that I'm scared shitless of being rejected by all of the programs to which I applied. Not to mention that one of the programs is my alma mater (school and department), so a rejection from there would be all sorts of painful. I'm grading my students' finals for now so am somewhat occupied but being on break with family is somewhat daunting. On the one hand I'm happy to be here but on the other hand I just want to stare at a blank wall or something for a few days to de-stress, rather than having to force holiday cheer over the exhaustion and uncertainty of the future.

Junot Diaz! Yes, what an amazing writer.

Such a great thread! Mine are all over the map, but to start off, in no particular order: My favorite Americans: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, and Charles Bukowski. My favorite amongst the Francophone: Guillaume Apollinaire and Albert Camus. Love, love, love these two. My favorite contemporaries: Haruki Murakami and Colm McCann.