xolo

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."
 
It may be that your supervisor was a bit of a jerk. He certainly sounds like one from your retelling. 
 
However, in my own personal experience, nothing aids intellectual maturity so much as growing older. I would at least give it a try again. But: can you quantify "lackluster"?

Update: they offered me the job and it came with a tuition waiver and stipend 

I think most people just need to take the GRE once. Taking it multiple times is what ETS wants from you to get more money. Prepare appropriately and one test is enough.
 
Also, unless you are applying to rolling admission programs, it doesn't matter if you submit your application 1 month early or 1 minute before the deadline.

I saw your post yesterday and came back to write a reply, but frankly I'm not much into passive-aggressive and definitely not into people not appreciating the time it takes to write here. 
 
So, the shortest reply this deserves: Assuming you're applying in the US (which you didn't tell us), you don't need to have a dissertation topic in mind. What is useful to have is a broad question, or alternatively be able to articulate a specific interest in a subfield. You can give more than one example of particular questions that are derivatives of the more general interest. If your interests sound very broad or if you say you are interested in unrelated subfields or questions, there is a risk of sounding unfocused or unprepared. It'd be better to tie your interests together, for example through a broad research question that can be attacked from different angles. Demonstrate how the different aspects of what you are interested in come together. This will help you address fit with the schools, which is hard to do if you don't have a good idea of what you want to go to grad school for. 

I do think that we can avoid unconscious bias without removing humanity/subjectivity from the system. For people who are willing to learn and change, education is a great way to reduce unconscious bias. rising_star linked to the articles similar to the ones I was thinking of. I was not worried about professors who are purposely undermining certain students, but instead worried about professors who are trying to say great things about their students but end up hurting them due to an unconscious bias in choice of vocabulary (for example).
 
In general, I would advocate for more oversight and "watchdog" organizations within a University to audit the department admissions committee. I believe my school is moving towards this direction and the graduate students here support it. But this doesn't even necessarily require the student to view their own LOR. Just a shift away from the secrecy that some people seem to place on LORs, that it's a communication from one professor to another (or a few others) only. In the same vein, I hope Universities also move to discourage faculty from using information outside of the application to make admission decisions (e.g. private phone calls to a colleague at the applicant's school). In general, I would like to see much more transparency by admissions committee (not necessarily to the applicants, but to some other governing body) so that the admissions committee has documented reasons to support every acceptance and rejection decision.
 
And finally, I think it's important to not entangle "asking to see an LOR" and "acting unethically to manipulate a LOR". I think students have the right to ask to see their LOR without being judged as unethical (if they are simply asking) and I also think it's perfectly reasonable (although it may be awkward) to ask something like "Will you be able to write me a strong LOR?" instead of just "Will you write me a LOR?". Getting an LOR should not be like a test, where the student is not sure of their result. I believe every faculty member should respond to a LOR request with something like:
 
"Yes, you are a great student/researcher and I would love to write you a letter", or 
"Yes, I will write you a letter but I do not think I can write you a strong letter", or
"No, I will not be able to write you a letter."
 
I don't think a faculty member should ever write an actual fully negative LOR. They should not accept a LOR request if they do not want to recommend the student. This is not the same as saying they shouldn't write negative things in the LOR, but it is a letter of recommendation, not "confidential evaluation of student". That is, a faculty member should only write a LOR if they are doing it in the student's best interests, not for their own personal agenda.

The OP says she has had loose contact with the field the last 8 years (which might be different from no contact, as most posters are assuming).
 
OP, I think you can do it, actually, there isn't any question about that. However, I think the idea that you need to fill in the gaps is valid. There's more to a strong app than just LORs (and I don't mean GPA and GRE). 
 
I was in your shoes (actually, I was never in my field so for me it was worse). I basically went back to undergrad for 2 years and completed translation studies. That gave me my LORs among other important things.
 
If you are applying this cycle that is going to be difficult, as you are discovering.

While chatting with a graduate advisor at a major university, she commented that their Spanish program was just for future professors of Spanish.  I questioned her on that and she back tracked and made some comment about there must be other uses for the PhD because there's a lot of people in the world etc. etc. So, is this really true?  PhD in Spanish (or French, or any language) is just to train teaching professors?  What are all you PhD students of languages planning on doing after you graduate?

Did you really apply to PhD programs without any rec letters from either your bachelor's or master's? If so, that's a major red flag that definitely didn't help your applications. If I were you, I would try to get at least one letter from your master's, if not two, and also to raise your quantitative GRE score. Your GRE score and GPA are below some cutoffs but the GRE is the only one of those you can fix. Contacting professors to see if they are taking students is also necessary so you should work on that too. But, I wouldn't be surprised if the GPA, GRE, and odd rec letters are what kept you out.

1Q84 you have exceeded my expectations.
 
This is a great thread, just a little rough and pedantic (in my opinion, but then I'm a plebeian).  
 
I don't discredit or disregard any academic pursuit, but it seems there are a few topics that most researchers focus on: 1) gender 2) social class c) race. (citation for Carlos Eire here). It does seem a bit narrow for the universe-city.

My two new first-year grad student roommates are arriving in just three weeks! I am going to make the apartment so clean and nice and pretty for them when they get here, I hope they like it I would have loved to have someone waiting for me with a nice lovely place all ready for me to move in to, so I hope I can pay it forward and make their move enjoyable.

1Q84 you have exceeded my expectations.
 
This is a great thread, just a little rough and pedantic (in my opinion, but then I'm a plebeian).  
 
I don't discredit or disregard any academic pursuit, but it seems there are a few topics that most researchers focus on: 1) gender 2) social class c) race. (citation for Carlos Eire here). It does seem a bit narrow for the universe-city.

1Q, I went to full view on my phone to upvote, and as the arrows are about a quarter of the size of my pinky, I accidentally hit the wrong one. I am so sorry! Completely unintentional down vote.

All the childish namecalling aside, I don't think OP is off-base in seeing gender studies as a "fad." (This is coming from someone who wants to specialize in one of the most "faddish" studies in academia--queer studies.) We all know that academia does move in cycles of fads, especially when it comes to hiring and publishing, and it would be foolish to not admit that. I don't think it's prudent to ignore all fads based merely on wanting to be a nonconformist or someone who "doesn't follow trends" but it's still certainly possible to eke out an academic career without being a Marxist or a gender feminist queer disabilities studies what-have-you.
 
Do I think ignoring Derrida would harm OP's relevancy in some circles? Sure. But assuredly there are plenty of scholars out there that would take to OP's "old-school" approach to literary studies.
 
What I find even more disturbing is the tendency of people like ED to harangue people into agreeing with her under the guise of giving advice because of some perceived elder/experienced status. If there's one thing I'm really dreading about fully investing myself in academia, it's this penchant for arrogant condescension.

Porque? Por que!

Hi merteuil, it's pretty dead around the forum right now, last year it got crazy between about December and April. Very active. I don't think there was a thread for French last cycle, however. (Not that I remember anyway). Languages are some of the smaller departments, except possibly English, at least in the US.
 
What is your strategy for applying? This time last year I was working on my SOP, which ended up taking 6 months and I still ran out of time!
 

It's unfortunate that religion and ignorance are being conflated as it is completely irrelevant to the argument. The principal might have just been caught off guard, otherwise what a basket-case, and they might even have an Ed. D. (if we are going to conflate arguments, let's throw doctorates under the bus)
 
Actually, one can say that Spanish is a modern version of Latin.

And again, I'll reiterate that critiquing a forum post for grammar (and using that to make some critical comments about the author's writing skill or ethic) is the equivalent of telling a race car driver how to drive car pool. The two activities are related, but aren't indicative of performance. I get it, sometimes we all desire to feel superior, but the OP came here looking for help, not for a lesson from someone who wants to show some sort of superiority.
 
Maybe I just respect other people at this level enough to know that they can tell if the major problem is grammar, at least based on feedback from professors.
 
(Also, fwiw, during my tenure as an editorial assistant on a major journal, the last thing we looked at was grammar (particularly the minor points you pointed out). Tier one reviews were on content alone, with sentence-level grammar only coming up if it interfered with understanding (something that a missing comma or subject/verb disagreement don't do).

Again, to the OP or anyone else reading this, go to your university writing center, where you can get helpful feedback from experienced writers and editors who understand how to be helpful without being jerks about it.
 
Also, what is "wrote grammatical memorization"?

A couple of simple suggestions.  Depending on your research interests, consider writing an academic essay that ties everything together (unless you already have done this in your courses). This should leverage your work experience. Second, consider getting an EU certification at C2 French and as high as possible in the other languages, hopefully C2, which would be great.

I wish this kind of "I'm a bitter graduate student sent here from the future to save you" advice would just go away.
 
I can understand venting your bile when a poster here is questioning his or her drive to consider/begin/complete their Ph.D. programs (misery loves company, right?) but this was not the case for OP. Your post was useless and completely unwarranted.
 
Edit: Even though, as folks are saying below, OP has expressed doubts about graduate school in other posts, ED didn't actually address those concerns at all but instead chose to speak condescendingly to OP's abilities. Still pretty gross.

It's unfortunate that religion and ignorance are being conflated as it is completely irrelevant to the argument. The principal might have just been caught off guard, otherwise what a basket-case, and they might even have an Ed. D. (if we are going to conflate arguments, let's throw doctorates under the bus)
 
Actually, one can say that Spanish is a modern version of Latin.

So excuse my ignorance, but when did Comp Rhet become a mainstream academic path? Has it always been around? I always thought it was the English Department. The very terms seem so out of place in the 21st century of anthropology, psychology, and linguistics. Composition and Rhetoric seem so 19th century in the same way as Grammar and Dictionaries are.

Thanks ToldAgain for a rational response, although I do not consider myself an applicant, I am an accepted student into a top 30 PhD program with years of funding, which I think is a little different.  I didn't realize I was asking a forbidden question. If anyone would be interested in actually reading my question, they will see it was not disparaging, argumentative, or demeaning. It only reflected my perplexity. To be labelled a "troll" or "argumentative" is a bit uncalled for. I really had never heard about "Rhet/Comp" before. This reminds me a little bit of the "question" of whether it is "Spanish" or "Castellano" which, according to the DRAE, are interchangeable terms. But not to everyone!

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

Sure, but I was also paying attention to the original post. Francophile1 said they were getting Bs from the hardest professors, not that every paper grade they received was a B (which I think is what you and ExponentialDecay have assumed/concluded). If some grades are Bs and some are As, then Francophile1 sounds, quite frankly, like many master's students I know and went to school with. Making the jump from undergrad writing to grad writing is not automatic for everyone, though it's clear that some people think it is or should be. I think it's great to recognize a weakness and ask for help on how to fix it, which is something that few grad students do even when they need to (perhaps out of fear that they'll be told to just drop out, as some of you are telling Francophile1 to do). I feel like if you don't have anything nice to say, you could just not say anything at all, rather than telling the OP to give up, quit, or become a high school teacher (because obviously HS teaching is for those not capable of being college professors, apparently). 
 
ETA: And, by the way, telkanuru, telling someone to drop out of college in their first semester based on one paper is probably not the right advice for any professor to give. As I progressed through graduate school and now that I actually am a professor, I am horrified that one would ever think it was professional or appropriate to say something like that to a student based on a single data point. And yet, that professor did. I have a feeling that some of those posting here will be exactly that kind of professor, assuming they get a TT job in the future. Why not instead work with the student, try to explain to them why their paper isn't meeting your expectations, and what they might be able to do to improve, rather than telling them to quit immediately? One poor performance shouldn't ruin someone's aspirations, plans, or goals. If one bad paper or test were to ruin one's chance at graduate school, I suspect many of the folks here wouldn't be here at all because they'd never have even been able to consider going to grad school. 

Your belief shows through in your post.
 
If you felt it wasn't the direction you needed help with (your original post gives no hint as to what area of writing you're having difficulty with), you could have responded to the last paragraph that suggests that if the problems are indeed not structural, than a writing center would be far more helpful.
 
But instead, you chose to attack both the post and the writer.