kriskraft

Early American lit., and I finished the last of my apps a couple days ago. Chicago Cornell NYU Northwestern Rutgers Stanford WashU Yale Good luck to everyone!

As far as I know, they're completely separate admissions processes, since the School of the Arts runs the MFA while the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences oversees the programs in English—so my former professor wouldn't know anything that'd be useful to you, I'm afraid. Sorry. (I'd also be loath to ask him for any more details outright; I've only posted things that he's mentioned to me offhand. And by "things," I mean a single piece of information. I'm no great fount of insight. Best of luck, though.)

I didn't apply, but today I traded e-mails with an old prof of mine who teaches there, and he said that the department wouldn't be making offers until close to March 1. I dunno if that's at all helpful, but I thought I'd share it, for what it's worth. Good luck, everyone.

That figure doesn't account for both English and comp. lit. I did my undergrad at Columbia, and the name of the English department is styled as "English and Comparative Literature" to give English professors some latitude in teaching courses that rely heavily on translated texts; no other reason. The actual department of comp. lit. has a similarly curious name--"The Institute for Comparative Literature and Society"--and, while there is a bit of overlap between the two re: faculty appointments, they conduct their graduate admissions separately. According to one of my letter-writers, the ~700 applicants to Columbia's English department are more than most other programs have to deal with because (direct quote) "we get a ton of foreign applications (esp. from east Asia, often with limited English skills) from people who just want to be in NYC." So there you have it.