Dr. Old Bill

I was just reading a book about grad school applications, and came across a few sentences that suggested that the most well-received LORs are by "titled" professors (i.e., John Smith, the Joseph Blough Professor of Humanities), while associate and assistant professors are given far less weight. Even more concerning, it mentioned that one should not use professors who are emeritus, or no longer work at the same college or university where you received your degree. I'm honestly not sure how much stock I should put in this. Two of my primary LORs just retired after this past semester, including my undergraduate advisor. Additionally, another LOR was a visiting professor who has just moved off to a different college. So...should I be concerned? They'll all have good things to say about me, of course, and the two professors who just retired did so after working at my college for 41 years apiece...but should I be on the lookout to find yet another LOR writer or two as a buffer?

Congrats on making what was likely the right decision. Turning down such a fantastic school must have been very hard, and I applaud you for having the courage to focus on the long-term big picture!

Thanks for that, Guinevere29. I'm definitely leaning toward retaking it toward the end of the summer...perhaps mid-August. Part of me thinks what I have is "good enough," but the larger part of me has always hated the very concept of "good enough," soooo... One other compelling reason to retake it is that I had a bad cold on the day I took the GRE. I would have rescheduled, had it not been for the outrageous "rescheduling" fee. As it happened, literally about ten seconds after clicking "begin test," I had a coughing fit that lasted at least five minutes. I kept expecting an ETS employee to come in and oust me for disrupting the room. The other downside was not being able to bring in any tissues, so...yes. I was a bit addled when I took it, and perhaps a bit more lucidity would allow me to do a bit better than "good enough." It's the least important part of the application, yet it isn't wholly unimportant...and if one is going to be spending several hundred dollars and likely investing hundreds of hours in grad school applications, putting in a bit of extra money and effort might just prove to be worthwhile.

One random thought about retaking the GRE general test: while ETS does have ridiculous charges for the test and everything revolving around it, it's worth pointing out that while a retake is technically another $190, it still includes four extra score submittals...meaning that it's really more like $82, for all intents and purposes. Still a lot of money, and maybe not worthwhile if you did halfway decently on your first GRE attempt...but if you're anything like me, and sent your first four "free" scores to your safety / less-desirable schools, then you can use your next attempt to send your "best" scores to four more schools. Just a subtle little strategy, I suppose, and might not be all that compelling for most...but there it is!

Thanks! Yes, if it weren't for the 4.5 analytical, I'd probably just let it go. Harvard states that 166 is generally the verbal they look for, but I truly believe they wouldn't nix an otherwise great application for a 162. And yes...the analytical score bugs me. I sincerely thought I nailed it. One problem, however, is that one of the two topics was very political...something about government workers. I suspect I may have focused too much on one side of the issue. Either that, or I just got an ETS employee who was in a bad mood that day... I will indeed be writing the English Lit Subject Test. I downloaded the practise exam, and it doesn't actually look too horrible. One of the nice things is that you don't have to get everything correct to be in the 99th percentile. I think getting around 80% right gets you to that top point. I'm spending the next month and a half going through a reading list I found in an old thread and simply reading as much as I can. Some have suggested more basic familiarization, such as looking at Wiki pages for assorted texts, or finding solid synopses...but since I have the summer off, for the most part, I'm just going to go through and fill in some of my gaps. Doesn't seem like a bad use of time anyhow. Although I've lined up Joyce's Ulysses for tomorrow, and given how much I disliked Portrait of the Artist... I may be singing a different tune in a couple of days. I've customized the list to the essentials, by the way, so feel free to PM me if you'd like me to send you the spreadsheet.

That's some fabulous advice, Queennight! I'm on the fence about retaking the GRE general. As mentioned elsewhere, I did well enough on the verbal -- 89th percentile -- probably well enough to not worry about retaking. But it's the analytical that bothers me. If I'd gotten a 5.5 or even a 5.0, I probably wouldn't worry about retaking it either...but despite thinking, at the time, that I had "nailed it," I only got a 4.5. And since most of the places I'm applying for are top schools, it might just be worth the time, money, and overall hassle. If nothing else, it makes me glad I took the GRE so early so that I can study up on what to amend if I decide to retake. I think your suggestion on the analytical section is very helpful and on point. I admittedly took the "try to cover all angles of the question" approach, and while my writing would have been good, it might have been too long and clinical. Definitely fodder for thought!

If most Ph.D. programs required a Master's thesis for entry, I suspect this forum would be pretty sparsely inhabited... Perhaps things are different in certain Canadian institutions, but nothing I've seen in the U.S. has any similar indication. And remember: the majority of Ph.D. programs admit students with only a B.A., which often means no thesis. So I think you can safely disregard your mentor's advice on this count. Like Poliscar says, there are some advantages to having a large written work to your name. You might want to consider the Courswork / Independent Study option, as it would allow you to demonstrate a specialization interest while also giving you ample material with which to draw from for your writing sample. It would also give you some good fodder for your SoP. Having said that, 50 pages is pretty large for an IP...basically thesis length at most institutions. So there's certainly no shame in opting for coursework along, so long as you can still provide the requisite 15-25 page writing sample most Ph.D. programs require.

I second what bhr says. Obviously having a low GPA isn't a good thing, but fortunately adcomms look at your application as a whole. Do your best to explain it on your SoP, and while doing so, I would tend toward the frank rather than the sentimental, and try to focus on how you are planning on bettering yourself. In my various readings while researching such things, I've heard several accounts of people with a GPA right around yours still getting admitted into solid schools. And honestly, the fact that you're an international student will probably give you a bit of leeway in that regard -- you may be able to talk about different standards there? Just one possibility -- I honestly don't know. The writing sample, as is often mentioned here, is something that is firmly in your control, and carries far more weight. You can't really help your GPA at this point (barring your plan to do well on a MA in Seoul), so do your best to write an excellent sample. It's not easy, but if you struggle mightily with writing fifteen pages of quality work, you might want to reconsider why this is the path you are going down. Good luck!

For what it's worth, I'll be going straight from B.A. into a Ph.D. program. Or that's the ideal, anyhow. There may be one or two M.A. programs with mid-March application deadlines I might apply for if I strike out of my dozen or so Ph.D. choices, but I'm going into this with a "failure is not an option" mindset, even though failure is, of course, always a possibility. I won't be applying exclusively to top-10 programs -- Rice, Vanderbilt, UMD-CP, Penn State, and WUSTL are all on my radar -- but there will be several top-10s on there as well.

I'm new to the application process, but my unqualified advice is the same as rising_star's qualified advice -- it's really not worth it if it's not funded. Columbia looks to be an amazing school in many respects (understatement). I'd give one or two of my inessential organs to study with Edward Mendelson -- W. H. Auden's literary executor. But if you want to go the Ph.D. route, a Master's -- even from Columbia -- isn't necessarily going to help you in that endeavor, while it will set you (or your parents) back a huge chunk of money...while you'll still have to go through the same process in a year or two anyhow, while being geographically separated from your boyfriend. Ultimately, despite your Ph.D. rejections in this past application season, you know that high level, fully funded programs exist, and you probably have a better sense of the process as a whole moving forward. A year off sucks, in many ways, but so does paying a large chunk of change for a degree that might not really help you achieve your end goal, prestige aside. Just my two cents.

Thanks for that, Tybalt. One other tack I'll take was suggested on a thread I found here about a year ago, and that is, simply enough, to look at the pictures of the current grad students at various programs I'd like to apply to. Not all schools have pictures for their grad students, of course, and age is obviously something that can't always be determined from a photo (most people think I'm in my mid-twenties based on my looks), but the presence of one or two "older" individuals should indicate a lack of bias on a selection committee (though the absence of any older folks doesn't necessarily mean that any bias exists either). All in all, however, I've stopped fretting about it. All I can really do is focus on making my application as strong as possible, and if a few schools tacitly overlook it because of my age alone, well...like ComeBackZinc mentioned above, would I really want to go to such a place?

Oh, absolutely. I hope I didn't give off the impression that I was only applying to a couple of programs. I'm having a hard time whittling down my "shortlist" from 15 or so. 12 sounds like a reasonable number for me to apply to, I think, balancing the time / cost / effort elements. As for a spreadsheet, I actually put one together back in February, and when I started reading Grad Cafe, I saw that the spreadsheet recommendations were almost identical to what I already had! Here's a follow-up question for anyone who cares to reply: if you have five or more professors willing to write LORs, is there a good way to pick and choose which letters will go where? There are some obvious instances, but generally speaking I want to limit the workload for each professor as much as possible, while I also want to give each one several places to send the LOR.

Thanks, hj2012! Yes, I'm strongly thinking of applying to Harvard -- I've read a lot of Helen Vendler's work, and one of my LORs will be from one of her former students / proteges. Plus it seems their poetics department is quite strong and geared toward formalism. As for UVA, given my location about 60 miles away from their campus, it should be a no-brainer to apply there. I have some reservations though -- can't put my finger on why...I just do. Beautiful campus though. So yes, those are two compelling reasons to try to bump my GRE up from 162 to 165+. But I'm on the fence, because I understand that it's really the least important part of the whole application, and if the rest of my material is strong, would a mere three points off of the ideal affect me? Impossible to say. There's also the "can I do better?" element regarding the verbal. I've got a large vocabulary, but it's hard to gauge how much study would bring me from 90th percentile on a standardized test to 95th percentile... Having said all of that, thanks for your advice. My SoP has been on my mind a lot lately...I'm just not sure when I'll finally put proverbial pen to proverbial paper and sketch out a first draft.

So I've been going through a lot of old threads on GradCafe, and have been bolstered and encouraged by most of what I've read. I'm so glad this forum exists! I recognize that this is sort of an inactive period between the 2014 acceptances and the 2015 application process, but since things seem to be quiet on the forum lately, I might as well ask a few general questions. I have the summer off, for the most part, meaning I've got a lot of time to do some preparation for application season. As of a few days ago, thanks to the PM-based advice of another forum member, I've decided to take the GRE subject test in October. Having printed out a reading list posted here a year or so ago, I've gone ahead and purchased about 20 of the books I didn't already have, and will start reading as much as I can over the next few months (fortunately I'd already read about half of the works on the list, so it might be possible to finish everything if I'm lucky...). I haven't started my SOP yet, and still have to do some significant work on my CWS (I'll be assembling two previous essays into one, and adding another large section). I may retake the GRE general, since I only got a 162 on the verbal and a 4.5 on the analytical writing. Borderline scores there, so I'm on the fence. I'm also in the process for zeroing in on what schools I want to apply to. I have three or so possible specialization interests, and I may simply roll with that -- figure out four or five programs for each possible specialization interest, and apply accordingly. Based on all of the above, my all-encompassing question is this: what else should I be doing? Any suggestions for what takes priority? I'm a fairly good self-starter, and I like getting things done well in advance, but knowing what to do, and in what order, is a touch murky for me right now. As a result, I'd love to hear any and all advice. Thanks in advance! Shaun

No worries -- PM sent.

Thanks, Davidipse. My best undergrad professor thus far (who will also be writing me a LOR) was a former student of Vendler's at Harvard. It's tempting. It really is. In fact, my Shakespeare Sonnets CWS cites Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I just don't know if I can make a strong enough all-around application for Harvard. My GRE verbal is 162, with my analytical writing a paltry 4.5. And they require the subject test, which I'm frankly not sure I'll do well on at this juncture. I know a lot of folks say the GRE isn't overly important, but I suspect that for the cream of the crop schools, it matters that much more. I can make a compelling SOP and have a compelling CWS, and my 3.93 GPA is probably good enough...but it's hard to say if the other elements are up to snuff. But it's probably worth a shot. My wife dislikes Boston as a city (and I'm not a fan myself), but I suspect that if I got admitted to Harvard, we'd figure something out... UVA and Brown are also strong possibilities for me as well. I was hoping to avoid taking the subject test, as most of the places on my short-list don't require it, but I suspect there's no way around it if I want a good school for poetry. Thanks again to all of you for your input. It's a lot to think about.

Ah, thanks for that Poliscar! I'm actually somewhat undecided in terms of time period. Or rather, I'd love to be able to transcend time period and look at the sonnet trans-historically, as you mention. But that might be a bit too specific and incongruous from an application standpoint. I'll be doing an independent study this fall on the subject of contextualizing Edwin Arlington Robinson, and it will produce a 20-page essay that I will probably wind up using for some applications (with the Shakespeare Sonnets paper used for others). If there's a possibility that I can find a few programs that don't care about time periods so much as the content I plan to study, that's ideal, but I suspect I'll be applying to programs that are either based on a certain period of poetry or a certain period / location of literature.

Queennight -- it may not answer my question per se, but it's good to see someone else in the same boat! I suspect / worry that what I (and perhaps you) am looking for is found more along the MFA path, but I'm hoping those worries are unfounded. I should also mention that I'm always mildly annoyed about the separation of time periods into American and British lit. I love early-to-mid 20th century from both sides of the Atlantic about equally. I wish I didn't have to forgo deeper study about one for the sake of the other (i.e. Auden is my favorite poet, but E. A. Robinson is right up there too).

Hi folks, Apologies in advance for being new around these parts and starting a couple of threads already, but having gone through a bunch of pages on this site, I haven't found anything similar, sooo... I've done a lot of research on grad schools, but I haven't found many places that specialize in poetry and poetics. My specialization interest is in formal poetry, if at all possible, and sonnets in particular. A lot of the poetics departments I've come across are either quite small, or are predominantly free verse based. I have a couple of other specialization possibilities, and will likely send applications to places that have a strong late-19th - mid-20th century lit programs, but if anyone knows of some good formal poetry programs (or ballpark), I'd love to know. My WS will likely be a 15-page analysis of three of Shakespeare's "misfit" sonnets (99, 126, 145).

Thanks, all. This has certainly set my mind at ease!

Well, here is what he had to say specifically. Incidentally, this is part of a response from him to me, in which he thanked me for a retirement gift I gave him: "I have misgivings about any student I’ve taught going on to graduate school in English. But there is a special factor in your case that only adds to one’s concern, and that is your age. It can hardly work in your favor, I think, inasmuch as any good program will rightly calculate that it would be training in you someone who would be an academic for a considerably shorter period than is customary. Age is very often something quietly taken into consideration in evaluating an application. You’ll get in some place, of course, but perhaps not the place you otherwise would have had you graduated at the age of 22." Again, he has no concerns about me academically, or in any other way (he'll be writing one of my LORs), but it's just my age that concerns him. I don't know how valid that is, and I'm hoping -- based in part on what I'm reading in this very thread -- that he's simply mistaken about the tacit consideration of my age...

That's very true, ComeBackZinc. I suppose it's probably a moot point after all.

Thanks to both of you for your prompt replies. I'm not so concerned about my age when I get out of a Ph.D. program, as I'll be right around 40 - 42, giving me a solid 25 potential years at a given school when it comes to the job market (understanding the other unrelated obstacles, of course). My concern -- based only on professor comments -- is regarding the "getting in to grad school" end of things. I suppose there's nothing I can do to play down the fact that I'm a 34-year old undergraduate, but I suppose what Toasterazzi says is probably the best advice -- just don't mention my age directly in my SOP. There's no way around talking about experiences that will point to my age, but so long as I don't make it an issue, it probably (hopefully) won't be. Thanks again!

Greetings all, New member, long-time lurker here. So I'm a little unique in that I am a bit older, being in my mid-30s. That's not overly unusual for Ph.D. applicants in general, but my concern is that I'm just now entering my Senior year as an undergraduate. In other words, I'm just now completing my B.A., whereas most other applicants in my age range completed their B.A.s in their early 20s, and then worked, as opposed to working right out of high school and getting a couple of vocational degrees in their 20s as I have done. I've received some mixed advice from various professors and others about whether or not my age (and related circumstances) will be a factor against me. My undergraduate advisor (who, incidentally, just retired) has urged me against pursuing a Ph.D. in English -- not because of my academic ability or personality, but partially because of the disappearing job market for tenure-track professors (which is admittedly legitimate), and partially because being twelve or so years older than many of my peer applicants will be a detriment in the admissions process. Other professors have told me that it either won't be an issue, or could even be a benefit. So what do some of you think about this? I'm also wondering whether or not I should try to avoid mentioning my age in my Statement of Purpose (not conceal it...just not draw attention to it), or if I should be up front and spin it as a strength. Any feedback would be appreciated! Shaun