unræd

I'm not going to touch the "where to put the footnote" question since you're doing MLA, and I use/am more familiar with Chicago. But assuming space isn't a major concern, are you sure it's wise to relegate the translations to footnotes, especially if there are so many of them? My writing sample has Old English, Latin, German, and some Old Saxon thrown in just for shits and giggles, and I translate everything right in the body of the text, in the "original language" ("translation set off by parentheses") way that's standard in the field if you aren't putting your translations in footnotes. It does take up more room (but you can translate the poetry in block quotes as prose in block quotes, which takes up much less), but it's what I was advised to do. I know you're applying to more medieval studies programs, but I'm loath to give a WS to an English adcomm that might have Victorianists, Modernists, Postcolonialists and a bunch of people on it who don't necessarily have reading knowledge of those relatively obscure languages and then make them have to flip down to the bottom of the page and back up constantly to follow your argument. And that's not a dig on those fields: there are plenty of medievalists who would sit on a MS adcomm who won't necessary have Occitan, for example (which I think you're also working in, correct?) or whom I wouldn't think would want to spend time on translating while reading scores of writing samples, or who come from fields outside literary study, where language work isn't as much of a daily reality. Sure, having to flip down to the bottom of the page, read a chunk, and go back up isn't terrible, but isn't very streamlined, either. In editing my own sample, I was told (by medievalists) to make the linguistic parts as easy as possible for any potential generalist readers, who might not have any medieval languages, including Latin--to put translations in the body, and to translate every little tiny scrap of language, even if it seems perfectly transparent to you. I was surprised, when I went back through, how many single words I'd left untranslated because they seemed so clear! (I briefly even considered putting the actual text of secondary literature not in English--German articles and whatnot--in footnotes, and just leaving my translation in the body, but while it's certainly acceptable/normal to see I couldn't bring myself to do it. I might, though, for the programs with really small WS sample sizes!) Plus, look at this way--if you're using your skills in translation as a selling point, put them front and center: showing them the Latin and your English right next to each other on the page will also make it easier for those with Latin on the committee to see just how wicked hot your language skills are!

Pshaw--no snafu, and hence no apology needed. I just didn't know what was what!

I'm not trying to be a douche, I'm just genuinely confused--I added Harvard to my list late, and if I'm going to send paper transcripts I need to get those puppies in the mail!

I'm coming to this conversation late, but where are you guys seeing that the Harvard English website says to send paper copies? The text at the English graduate admissions website here says, under the Admissions FAQ question on required documents at the bottom of the page, "Transcripts from each college/university you attended. The Graduate School requires that you upload your transcript(s) with your online application. Please do not send paper transcripts." Under the question about where to mail supplemental materials, that same English dept page says: "The entire application system is conducted online. Please do not send any paper materials to the English Department. Please note that GSAS no longer accepts paper materials." Am I just totally missing something somewhere?

Hmm--I can check w/ the people I know who did their Master's at Cambridge in the last few years, but surely there are others here who have more direct knowledge? But I do know for sure that students aren't generally denied admissions for financial reasons. It's not that they won't admit applicants because there isn't funding; they're happy to admit students who'll need to rely on other funding streams. So either way the funding decision itself goes, if you're at that stage of the game this is maybe a reason for cautious optimism? Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Excellent! A task I can put off for a good reason!

And I meant to say: yes, I was already planning on filling out the FAFSA, given, as Proflorax says, it's used to demonstrate need for other scholarships even if you aren't taking out loans. But how delightful that the thing doesn't even become available until the new year--one less thing to worry about as we complete our applications!

Also, priority deadlines for the FAFSA vary both by state and by institution--my current school's priority deadline is Feb. 15th, for example, which is months before the general state deadline. It looks like the deadlines for the 15/16 year haven't been released yet, but here's the state breakdown for the 14/15 academic year.

Yes, yes, and yes to all of the above--both the stress, and the ways of coping with it. And yes, people who say "oh, I'm sure you'll get in everywhere" really are the worst! I know they mean well, really I do, but… ugh. When I was drawing up my list of schools to applied to, I discussed a bunch with a prof and they pointed to a couple of the schools with somewhat lower admissions reqs and said "Well, I wouldn't bother to apply there--you can do better than that. I don't see any reason you wouldn't get into both Super Fancy University and University of Way Beyond Your Reach." Which, yes, great, vote of confidence. And I should be (and am) thankful for that, because confidence is exactly what I'm lacking. But also: pressure. I find myself swinging wildly between two poles. Some days I think I'm a really strong applicant--great grades, great scores, solid language skills and preparatory coursework, clearly defined research interests, writing sample that a prof thinks is publishable, professors who feel so strongly about my candidacy that even though I didn't use them for letters they want to email POIs they know on my behalf. All great! All your programs are belong to us. But then I consider what a crapshoot, in some ways, this process is. I think about how the Forces of Fit could conspire against me, or that the sheer narrowness of my field of specialization means I'm up against a bunch of other really, really well qualified applicants for a vanishingly small pool of slots, and that things could very easily not go my way--them's the breaks. I don't have a solid, specific plan B lined up, but I also remind myself that if I don't get into graduate school, it won't be the end of the world. Sure, I'll be crushed, but I've had another career, done something else, and I have things I can go back to. I've reinvented myself professionally before, and--as sad as it is to think I'll need to put aside all my medieval interests to do so--I know I can do it again. I am not the sum of either my applications or of my past, present, or future professional lives; I'm a person with a life and relationships and friendships and interests, whose place in the world is not determined by what I do. But man, that damn stress though. Five classes--all but one of which require a seminar paper--this semester, plus a (part time, admittedly) job, plus applications. This week was especially grinding--a test yesterday in one class that left everyone reaching for the bottle, readings for my Latin seminar that the Classics grad students and even the professor don't quite know how to construe (seriously--we get through maybe two paragraphs of text per hour), fast approaching research deadlines that seem to pile up one after another. This is a week after which I need some relaxation, and I'm taking it. I won't list all the things I do to destress, since Proflorax did an amazing job of listing them, but here are some personal standbies/faves: Lean on the people who are there to be leaned on. I got home from my craptastic day yesterday and my partner, who can't cook to save his soul, had prepared a lovely candlelit spread of cheeses and cured meats and wine and whatnot for dinner. Just what the doctor ordered! Also: friends. Friends friends friends. Because I'm an older student, and we moved here last year not knowing anyone, absolutely all of my friends in the city where I live currently are PhD students in my current program. That's a bit of a bittersweet thing, and it'd be nice to have people to talk to who weren't obsessives about medieval lit in the way I am. But it's also great because they know exactly what it's like to go through this process. They know the right things to say to make me feel better, and they understand the particular and peculiar pain of having to slice your SOP in half for an application with a lower word count. Cook. I mean, this should really just be "non-academic hobbies," but that's mine. Research. Also mixed--if I don't get into grad school, all of my work on the manuscript output of this obscure Belgian monastery really won't matter. But until I get that last rejection, it will, and research provides clearly defined, attainable goals that you can chip away at, day by day. Plus there's the thrill of discovery, which is not to be underrated! Work on my languages--Arabic doesn't give a fuck if I get into grad school or not. Laze about. I'm going to work this morning, coming home this afternoon, and then do you know what I'm going to do? Not a damn thing. I'm going to order Szechuan delivery, open a case of beer, and stream scifi reruns until I'm drunk and fat and happy. Take a walk. Go down to the river and skip some stones. Get fresh air, and blood in the limbs. (Also, this is sorta necessary after the last point.)

There are roughly ten thousand people on the forum more qualified to answer this than I, but since you brought up medievalists, I'll give my two cents: I don't know if it's at all true for all applicants, but I have a hunch it isn't. For example, I go on at great length in my own SOP about my language preparation, but that's both because absolutely none of the literature I want to work on is actually in English, and also because it informs the (relatively) philological approach I take. In other words, I talk about my language work/abilities not because it just checks the adcomm's language box (since they have the language information on the online application that they can use to do that), but because it's an integral part of my package as a (hopefully, knock on wood, and pray to the gods/goddesses/chthonic forces of not getting shut out) future scholar. But that's not true (and nor should it be) for everyone--different fields have different emphases. If mentioning your language work feels to you like something that's just added on/shoehorned in and not something that comes up organically as a prerequisite piece of preparation for the kind of research you want to do, then I'd say to trust your gut: it's not vital.

Yeah--Penn's really, really great for ME lit, I hear, but I don't know about their broader medieval coursework. (And they have no Anglo-Saxonists, so I didn't apply.) But something to think about, mollifiedmolloy! And NYU has Hal Momma for OE! I applied, and did send my lit score, but they explicitly say that not including a score won't hurt your app.

You'll want to check the section for graduate admissions on the departmental website for each of the universities to which you're applying--it'll specify whether they want paper letters (rare), letters uploaded through a third party document system (uncommon), or the letters uploaded by the recommenders directly to your online application (most common by far). Usually what happens is once you start the actual online applications, there will be a section for "Recommendations" or "Recommenders" or something, where you enter and save your recommenders' contact information, including email address, and waive your right to see their letter (which you should waive!). Once you save that section of the application, it automatically sends emails to your recommenders with instructions on how to upload their letters. A couple odd points: it's helpful to give recommenders a list of where you're applying/encourage them to check their spam folders, so nothing's missed. Also, while a lot of schools will generate the email requests as soon as you enter and save the contact information (which means you can get that done way before you even start the apps proper, which is kind to your letter writers), some (perversely) won't generate them until the entire application has been submitted, which is something to keep in mind as you think about timing. Hope that helps!

My understanding is that that number is just made up of the quant and verbal scores, and that for all but the tippy-top schools, it's generally an admissions policy of graduate schools, not the English departments themselves, who care much more about the verbal than the combined score. I've heard vague rumors of departments going to bat with the administration for applicants they're keen on who don't have the threshold scores, but fellowship/funding decisions are often score-based, since that's an easier tool for departments to use to communicate applicants' strength to the grad school.

And from what I hear, it's a good option--students in English still get to take advantage of ND's ginormous medieval resources. And I feel your Toronto pain: it (and the English program, which I was also going to apply to for exactly that sort of double dipping) came off of my list for the same reason, which was a sad, sad day. But as an adviser said: "Hey, look on the bright side. Maybe you'll be really unhappy wherever you do your Masters, and you can transfer!" I mean, thanks, I guess?

Nope, just Medieval Studies. I was going to do English too, but their OE program is in such flux at the moment it's honestly not a perfect fit for the work I want to do, and one needs to draw the line at applications somewhere, and that's apparently where I drew it! But even given the fact that its not as strong an OE place at the moment--I mean, how can you not apply there, right? My main advisor did their Medieval Studies PhD there, and the stories I hear! Although I made the fool-ass, amateur mistake the other day of looking at the course listings--that was a bad plan. Increased my desire to attend by roughly 3000%. But, it's insanely competitive, so I won't feel bad if I don't make it. And another benefit of being axed in the initial cull: not having to go through the interview process!

I've already kowtowed to my academicorporate masters, but I raise my wan, number-2-graphite-stained fist in solidarity.

September scores appeared exactly on the day they were scheduled to. Very early in the day, sure, but not before it, alas--and believe me, I kept checking, too!

Dibs on #1.

Or was she talking about UK programs, where you're applying with a clear, specific research program already drawn out? shrugs I dunno. Does seem odd to me, but what do I know?

Yeah, I just went with "Personal Statement." That seems a more fitting title for the actual content than any potential future diss title--aside from the fact that my SOP is just carving out an area/approach of interest rather than defining a set dissertation topic, I should hope my dissertation wouldn't talk nearly as much about me as my personal statement does!

How'd you get a copy of my writing sample?

And it's by no means just those fields; most of the scholarship I read is on medieval topics, and "I" is not a word you never see. Yes, I'd avoid "we" for the same reason I'd avoid "of course," "obviously," etc.--it begs to be contested. And I certainly don't use "I" often in the bulk of an argument, but especially when it comes to the more "meta" parts of a paper, "I" really is necessary unless you want to descend into vague, passive circumlocutions that make it sound like your argument just appeared fully formed on the page, ex nihilo et ad nihilum. If you're going to delimit and situate your argument--discuss the assumptions underlying it, its scope and limitations, and its relation to a broader critical conversation--there's no way to do that without explicitly discussing the argument you're making, which requires acknowledging that there's a "you" (i.e. an "I") making it. And it's hard to be be self-referential without referencing yourself!

I know--I expected a raw score as well. As if ETS didn't do enough already to keep the process inscrutable and opaque!

"Oh no" and other commiseratory noises to all: it sounds as if the October test was a bit of a bungle all around. When I took the test in September, I was (mildly) frustrated because we started about fifteen minutes late--I see I should have been grateful! It also sounds like the October and September tests were at least little different in content. There was a touch more interpretation than on the practice tests, but I expected that since the fora here the last few years have consistently said the test is moving toward more interpretation. But it didn't seem to be quiteas skewed toward interpretation as what you guys are describing--there was more reading, sure, but also plenty (if, as Wyatt's Torch says, perhaps not as many) identification questions, and some of an even more direct identification "Who wrote X, Y, and Z?" variety that I hadn't seen on the practice tests I did.

Congrats on finishing, to you and to everyone else who took it today! "Fun and bewildering" does sort of sum it up, doesn't it?