unræd

THIS. Or, rather, these. On the first, formulating an area of specific interest has definitely been the hardest part of the application process thus far (I say, as I'm not actually very far into the application process). My interests have always been very narrowly focused on the medieval period, and specifically on an even narrower slice within that, but I was never able to formulate a specific project; I kept meeting with professors/mentors about grad school apps and saying--quite honestly--that I'd be perfectly happy studying anything. We'd discuss possible ranges of topics, they'd give me reading lists/scholars to look at, but I'd still flap around like a bird distracted by a shiny object that doesn't quite know where it wants to go. What I found most helpful in formulating what I want to do was to get out of my head a bit, stop over thinking it, and look at the problem a bit more concretely. I literally lined up all of the papers I'd written for classes more or less on my period on my desk, and said, "Well, okay, Unræd. Just what are you really interested in?" I took a good hard look at the papers' topics--and perhaps more importantly, their methodologies--and some real areas of coherence began to emerge, ones that I found I could plausibly construct into a (good God, hopefully) compelling SOP narrative. It's been hard to realize that as I come up with a firmer project I'm in the process "fitting" myself out of several schools I'd otherwise love to attend, but we'll see. As to the second, from everything I hear the impostor phase doesn't really go away. I'm currently at a school with a program that is well respected within my field, if not tippy-top-tier, and the graduate students I know--who are all busy spending their summer researching in fancy European libraries or presenting at conferences--say that they still think everything that comes out of their mouths sounds "insane/dumb/ignorant," too. So we're in good company?

I know exactly what you mean about even just posting about it making it seem real and concrete--which is an odd thing, when you think about it--in a way that all my prior discussion about it hadn't. I'm not making two packets, but I briefly considered it. I am (probably, we'll see what my profs say) considering having two general 'tones' for my SOP, to try to make myself attractive to both the most hidebound and modern of programs--so not two wildly divergent applications, but maybe a slight shift in emphasis between the two.

Ugh, that sucks. Sorry to hear that!

Woot! Thanks for the notice.

Hah! The organization is much less kudos-worthy than it appears; it's not out of any actual drive so much as that I know my default state is slothful indolence, and if I don't start planning months in advance my tendency toward procrastination will keep me from doing things on time. It's a bit like setting your watch fifteen minutes fast, really. And I totally understand the hat-in-hand feeling about requesting letters, even from professors who've been enthusiastic about writing them in the past. I remind myself they do this all the time, the more notice the better, etc. But--again with the slothfulness--I started the letter process early because it's the one that requires the least actual work!

Nope, I have no idea beyond their cryptic "July," and it's annoying me as much as the programs who say their online apps will open "in September."

I seem to recall seeing a really old book published by ETS w/ practice tests floating around Amazon, but the reviews all said that the tests contained therein were too different from the current test to be useful. Anyone else familiar with this? Given their scarcity, my current plan is to use the one in the Princeton Review book (yes, cocktail party!) to prepare and then take the practice one on ETS's website after the bulk of my studying, only seeking out others if I completely bomb that one.

Will do! It'd be nice to have someone else who's going through the process as an "older student" to talk/commiserate/weep with.

How delightful to know that others do the whole borderline-obsessive Excel spreadsheet gambit, too! For what it's worth, here's where I stand thus far: My list of schools has been pretty well finalized, which is a good feeling--although I have the vague worry I'm not applying to enough places. The writers of my LORs have all been given notice that I'll be using them, but they all will want to see/give feedback on my SOP before they start drafting in earnest, so that's a bit on hold. My writing sample, which was a research paper I did for a graduate seminar I sat in on this last spring, is in pretty good shape. I need to clean up a bunch of little errors, of course (bleh), but my main informal advisor/mentor/professor for whose class the thing was written only has two edits she'd make for applications. The first is easy; the second will involve a bunch of additional research time spent trudging through dusty German etymological monographs, so it'll take a bit more of a slog. The real trick will be editing it down; it's a perfect length for all of my schools but one, which requires writing samples of only 10-12 pages. This morning I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly sitting down and banging out about half my SOP, although mostly in the form of a bunch of disjointed sentences, unconnected paragraphs, ledes trailing off into nothing, etc. My goal is to have a draft by mid July that doesn't make me want to vomit (a tall order, looking at what I've currently got), submit it to my English department's advisor for undergrads considering grad school, and then to my letter writers, with my grad school friends reading it at some point in there, too. I start my GRE studying in earnest next week--which I realize is tomorrow, actually. Ugh. Pace your approach, Wyatt's Torch, I'm going the more cocktail-party knowledge route for the subject test, and won't actually be rereading much except short verse. It's flashcards and plot summaries for me! As far as what I'm focusing on when, I'm deliberately trying to frontload the much more intellectually intensive parts of the application--the writing sample and the SOP--earlier this summer, so that during the fall semester I'll just have the tail end of my GRE studying, the CV (required for some of my schools), and the actual application-filling out minutiae left to worry about. That being said, I've never done this before, and--like Wyatt's Torch--would be very interested in recommendations from those also starting the process and from those who've been once through the mill!

I'm in a somewhat similar boat--I'm just a few years younger than you, and also just entering my senior year. Neither the professors who have been shepherding and nudging me through the grad school application process nor the graduate students in my subfield at my current university have thought my age an issue, though! That being said, it was a concern I've had, too, and so I'm very much on the same page as sacklunch's advice: at this point (and unless the readers for my SOP advise otherwise, of course) it's not something I'm going out of my way to mention in my SOP, since my prior work experiences out of high school are entirely irrelevant to my application, previous education, and research interests. I'll let you know if I get different advice as I continue the drafting process, though!