[Fall 2015 Applicants]

You are going to retake the GRE? Unless your essay score is poor (like, <3) I can't see how that would benefit you. 323 combined, with a perfect verbal, is going to be good enough for any program you would consider (afaik). No one is going to be looking at your quant score.

 

Do you think so? I've been told that the quantitative/overall GRE scores are used to determine who gets fellowships within a cohort, and I guess I'm nervous that without an excellent score I'll be passed over for funding. As I said, though, I'm sort of just making this up as I go... so that's helpful feedback! I'll keep your advice in mind. I haven't gotten my essay scores back, but I paid for the ScoreItNow! ETS service beforehand and got a 5, so I'm hopeful that my actual scores will be similar.

[Hey, Medievalists... (Fall 2015)]

Another odd duck here! Hello! 

 

I'm also applying to Ph.D. programs to study Anglo-Saxon and Old English lit in the fall... I just sort of fell into all of this after transferring from a community college to my current school last fall, but I'm currently involved in a summer undergraduate fellowship/senior thesis project on color resonances in Old English (I'm using a corpus-based analytical approach, since we actually HAVE a comprehensive corpus of OE texts - U of Toronto has my undying gratitude for that), and I'm hoping I'll be able to continue that research in grad school. I'm a bit nervous about how my "new kid" status will look to admissions committees; I have a 4.0, a 170 verbal on the GRE, research experience, etc., but there's no getting around the fact that I had no idea I wanted to study what I want to study until 12 months ago. 

 

I've managed to teach myself a significant chunk of OE this summer, but I'm excited to take actual, real classes in the fall - I'm signed up for OE and an intensive 8-unit introductory Latin class, which I need in order to take the medieval Latin class being offered in the spring. I won't have years and years of languages when I apply, but I'm a quick study and I'll have had two semesters of OE and essentially three of Latin by the time I graduate, so hopefully I won't seem to far behind. I'm crossing my fingers.

 

Currently I'm getting ready to present at the undergraduate conference that concludes my summer fellowship, so I'm supersuper nervous... I'm on the plenary too, which means I have to stand up in front of EVERYBODY and pretend I know what I'm doing. Eep. But I really do care about/am proud of my research, so hopefully it won't be too bad.

 

Nice to meet you all! 

[Fall 2015 Applicants]

I can vouch for that! I've been poking my nose around these forums for a few weeks, and was only able to validate my account today... so this is my first post. Hello! *waves*

 

I'm afraid that the "hopeful medievalist" applicant pool will be at least 9 this year, as I'm hoping to apply to Ph.D. programs to study Anglo-Saxon literature this fall. I'm fairly new to all of this, to be honest - I'm in my late 20's, and transferred from a community college to my current (quite good? I think? I'm not exactly sure how the R1 R2 thing works) undergraduate institution in fall 2013, promptly fell in love with my "Anglo-Saxon England" introductory course, and have since been lucky enough to receive an incredible amount of support, both monetarily and emotionally, from the faculty and research programs in my department. I'd really love to stay here for grad school - my mentor is basically my favorite person on earth, and spot-on in terms of the research I want to do - but it's not generally encouraged, so of course I'm applying elsewhere as well.

 

As I said, I'm new to all of this, so I'm basically flying by the seat of my pants in terms of applications! I recently took the GRE and got 170 V, 153 Q, which is... well, acceptable but not ideal. I'm going to focus now on really strengthening the rest of my application, and then will test again in October if I feel I'll be able to improve my Q score.

 

I feel like applying to grad school is sort of like planning a wedding BEFORE you ask your partner to marry you: oodles of time, oodles of money, and in the end he or she still might say... no. 

 

Anyway, nice to meet you all! I'm glad we're in this together!