Dr. Old Bill

Sounds like an orientation most American students need to take.

The description may say that guests are allowed -- and they certainly will be -- but this is a situation where you have to read between the lines a bit and get a feel for the context of the situation. As pretty much everyone else has said, it would be unusual to bring parents along to a graduate orientation, just as it would to bring parents along to an office party or other work event. You can safely assume that "guests" means "significant others or dependents" in this circumstance. Regardless of the reality of your situation, bringing your parents along would give the impression that you want or need parental approval / observation / guidance etc. I was just about to type something about "politics," but really, it's not even that. It's just being attuned to certain social norms. "Don't bring your parents to grad school functions" is one of those unwritten guidelines you simply have to pick up on.

I would definitely not cancel a trip for it, if it's optional. As others have said, there's likely going to be very little information imparted there that you won't be able to glean through other means. For what it's worth, I'm not going to the general graduate orientation at my school. Part of the reason is because I work at my school already, and have had ample opportunity to learn all I need to about the campus as a whole, but the other part of the reason is that I'll be able to ask questions at the department specific orientation that I will attend.

I had planned on applying to 14, but since I got through most of my applications quite early (some of them were completed in August, and most by October), I wound up adding three along the way that had some late appeal. In my next cycle, I'll probably reduce that number to about 12 or so.

Just to add another "me too" to the choir, my experience bears out that picking a period and sticking with it is most prudent. There are some subfields that allow for transhistoricism, and you might be able to figure out a niche that requires specific study across a few eras, but it is, unfortunately, quite unlikely. I think that's one of the possible mistakes I made with my applications last year -- my focus itself was specific, but the era was too broad. I used the term "grounded in the early modern era," but the rest of the language suggested any number of periods. The merits of era-based structures is debatable, but since they exist, they can't be ignored. Personally, one of the things I'm going to focus on in my M.A. program is becoming a pure early modernist, including throwing in a history course or two if possible. Honestly, I'm more like the OP in that I have a wide range of interests, but in the warped scenario in which I have a gun pointed at my head and a madman demanding that I pick a period for specialization, I would blurt out "early modern!" in a millisecond. So that's what I'm doing (and not just to thwart the madmen with guns). It's worth pointing out that honing in on a particular era doesn't mean that you can't essentially scoop up and blend knowledge of other periods. You certainly can. Most of the literature I read for general enjoyment and erudition is from the last two centuries. But I've started to learn that keeping literary interests and literary research interests separate is helpful. And completely for what it's worth, I think that bringing a religious studies perspective to literature is a good thing. In my last semester of undergrad, I wound up writing three different papers for three different (and completely disparate) courses on the role of convents in three different works of literature. They were all good papers, but I had the nagging feeling with all three of them that they would have been better served had I had more first-hand knowledge of Catholicism or Christianity more generally. In other words, you can probably get a LOT of mileage out of bringing an academic religious background to literary study...

I know first-hand that UMD has done that in recent years. Lectureships are not guaranteed, but tend to be readily available to Ph.D. students (and even M.A. students) in the department. It's one of the things I particularly like about the program. I don't know about the specific numbers for rhet/comp, but I'm quite sure they do exist.

Porque? Por que!

Kurayamino, you're a saint. I was worried this thread would sink without comment. I'll look into La Capra!

As mentioned in other threads recently, I'm starting to brush up on some contemporary critical theory this summer, as I know it's something of a weakness for me...and something I need to improve. One area that interests me is critical historiography, but I haven't come across many recent well-regarded theorists who are applying critical historiography to literature. Mark Jarzombek seems to have some work in this area (Psychologizing of Modernity is his key text), but...what else is out there? Any hot historiographers I should know about?

I thought that pun was rather UND-erwhelming.

Funnily enough, it never occurred to me to take courses outside of my department... I'm in an M.A. program, mind you, so have reqs to fill, but regardless, it's nice to know that I can take that graduate seminar in Mongolian tap-dancing if I so choose.

Some of these comments remind me of a paper I wrote awhile back, in which I was using two recent critical essays that covered much of the same territory. They were literally about the exact same aspect of the exact same Shakespeare play, but they simply had different opinions about some of the nuances. The core of my paper revolved around finding a third avenue between the two arguably narrow critical opinions, and I cited both liberally...just as the latter of the two articles cited the former quite liberally (even though it wasn't exactly a "response"). What I'm getting at is that, like Echo, Unraed, and others have said, a well-written paper that has a lot of critical overlap with others is perfectly fine, so long as it is done in an interesting and thoughtful manner.

Just a thought: drop in a couple of citations to the other paper? In the off chance that someone, somewhere says "hey, I remember reading something by X about that...", you'd at least show that you've read and utilized some of the similar paper. Again, it depends on how similar the two papers are. I suspect they're not as similar as you suggest, but if they are, then yes, I would consider using another sample.

I wish I could be quiet busy these days...the noisy busy gets a little cumbersome at times.

Actually, my potential advisor, Theresa Coletti, is a specialist in renaissance literature and women's studies as well. So...UMD is a possibility, Jheff, if you plan on giving it another shot.

Yup, I've picked my courses! Two of them are ones I needed to take in my first year -- an intro to graduate research methodology and an intro to teaching freshman comp, but both are courses I would have taken regardless, since the first of the two is with Theresa Coletti, who is a potential advisor for me, and the second is required to teach anything at UMD (and Jessica Enoch is supposed to be quite fantastic). The third course is a research seminar with an up-and-comer named Gerard Passannante, and it has the long and slightly pretentious title of "Seminar in Renaissance Literature; On Thinking in Images: Analogy and Metaphor as Critical Practice." But Passannante is a strong candidate for a potential advisor for me, given our shared interests, and it really DOES sound like a course that is completely up my alley. I'm a little concerned about balancing three courses with a busy full GAship, but since I now live very close to campus and have my own office, I'm hoping it works out. Honestly, I don't know the process of selecting an advisor. I've met with Professor Coletti at length in person, and we have had a few solid email exchanges, so I suspect she would be a great option, but I want to meet Professor Passannante before I "pop the question," as it were. Both are well-regarded academics, and I think they could both help me a lot. Then again, Kent Cartwright is also in the ballpark of my interests as well, and we got along very well at the UMD open house...AND he's a huge fan / friend of my UG advisor, so... Long story short, I'll probably be dithering about this question until mid fall.

Hey! Me too! It's taking me longer than I'd planned (I started it a week after it was released), but I'm now about 200 pages from the end.

I'm firmly in the "advisor" camp as well...but now I have a whole new reason. World-defending robot. I like it!

It's quiet around these parts, so here's an irreverent question for those who care to chime in. Do you prefer to use the spelling of "advisor" or "adviser"...and why? I'm legitimately curious, as I see it both ways, probably close to a 50/50 split (with perhaps a slight edge to "advisor"). Which do you use? How did you come to start using that particular spelling? Inquiring minds...

Wait, you're saying that they shrunk the size of their entering class...for particle physics?

For all of you poets out there, ETS rhymes with... Abscess Mess Depress Stress Pointless Useless ...

Yeah...this is why it's so infuriating for applicants. For every person who gets a mediocre subject score and suspects (or is told) that that's part of the reason why they were rejected, there's someone who had a mediocre score and got into four schools! It's all very arbitrary and school dependent. It's probably even committee dependent, meaning that there's not necessarily consistency from year to year. I imagine adcoms sitting around a table, 12 Angry Men style, with a regular back and forth repartee, until one member mentions an item that convinces or deters the other members...and the argument begins anew. In my own case, it's slowly coming out that my writing sample was my weak spot, which is astonishing to me in many ways. I've been told by one adcom member that it was "beautifully written" but might have lacked the critical angle that they are looking for. This comment was just reaffirmed (not quite verbatim, but close) by the DGS at WUStL. I'm relieved that both think I'm an excellent writer (I've been told as much too many times over the past few years that it would have utterly crushed me if that sentiment wasn't shared by adcoms) because critical decisiveness is something I can definitely improve on, whereas writing quality at this stage is probably too firmly entrenched to be changed very much. That the DGS at WUSTL reached out -- completely out of the blue -- to point these things out and encourage me to reapply is indeed encouraging, and I take his suggestions very seriously. I'm quite grateful that I'll have a bit of time to work on these items before my next round of applications in a little over a year.

I'm glad some of you find this helpful! Incidentally, the DGS mentioned that one of the two areas I could / should improve is my GRE subject score. This surprised me a little, because conventional wisdom around these parts is that the scores don't matter much (you can read plenty of old posts from yours truly suggesting that they are more "checklist" items), but if it was brought up by a DGS, it's clearly important.

During last year's application cycle, I made a point of mentioning how wonderful the admin personnel at Washington University in St. Louis were to deal with. Sarah Hennessey in particular, who is/was the academic coordinator, was very friendly, efficient and quick to respond. The reason for this post, however, is that I just received an email from their DGS, kindly talking about the strengths of my application, and a couple of things I could do to improve it for the next cycle, if I didn't wind up getting in to any programs this time around. I'm very impressed. Perhaps it's just a quirk of my temperament, but motions like that -- personalized emails that didn't have to be sent -- are major selling points for me. It's one of the reasons why I'm very happy at UMD (they stress a congenial collegiate atmosphere), and is one of the reasons why, when I reapply to Ph.D. programs next year, I will include WashU in my plans once again.

That seems to be par for the course, unfortunately. Using the very unscientific methodology of observing acceptance results on GC in this past cycle, it really seems as though a lot of institutions that used to take 12 - 14 students took 8 - 10 instead...and those that used to take 9 - 11 took 5 - 7 etc. There are plenty of exceptions, but it's quite clear that in this past year, acceptance rates were much lower. Correlation is not causation etc., so maybe it has something to do with a higher-than-average number of people at these institutions taking longer to finish their degrees, or a variety of other possibilities...but yeah. 2 - 5% is a pretty standard acceptance rate for the top 50 (and even beyond).