Katla

Amazing news! Congratulations! Canterbury is a lovely town!

Thank you all for your very wise input on this! It's quite a relief that everybody seems to have more or less the same approach. Clearly the brain is just eager to latch on to anything to bring more terror to this whole process, but I'll tell it to pipe down for now (and failing that, I'll consider mikers86's suggestion about the shots).

I've been wondering, how much do people actually change their SoAPs depending on where they are applying. I mean, obviously there's the bit that focuses on the programme and different programmes might ask for different lengths etc but a lot of the content requirements seem to be fairly similar. I started out trying to write specific SoAPs for each place but it's mostly just one paragraph (the uni specific one) that I change, and even with that one I find it hard to see any real change because I have chosen programmes that I find have a similar profile and where my research and background might fit. The result is that with two still to go it's all starting to look scarily generic... and I'm getting worried that this will be obvious to the admission boards. Did anyone else have this problem? I'd be interested to hear, because in case everything fails this year, I think it'll be one of the things I'll make even more of an effort to change next application season.

A big congratulations to whoever made it! Looks like it really is time to dig out that acceptance thread!

I was stupid and trawled through the Results thread for the programmes I'm applying to and depressingly few Is come up. Optimism just now is at a low. I'm pretty confident I'll bounce back but am I the only one fantasising more and more frequently about the bleaker outcomes as we get nearer to the notification times?

Wehey! That's wonderful news!!!

I don't know your situation (if you explain it somewhere please do direct), but I'm 99% sure that admission coimmittees will review your application without all the LORs submitted. Are four needed? If you've added a fourth as a security I can't imagine they'll not consider it complete. I'd imagine they'd contact you about this rather than contact the professor. And if there's a genuine reason except your LOR being busy you could even consider emailing them. I contacted one of the programmes i've applied to about something and in their reply they also pointed out that only two of my three LORs had been submitted and that I should maybe consider contacting that professor. I've also noticed that quite a few (possibly all) applications allow you to resend and edit LOR information in your application after submission, so you might also be able to change your LOR if that's a better option for you. Sorry, I can't give you anything more definite than that. Bottom line though: I wouldn't worry about a missing LOR just yet

Thanks for sharing this. This is so crazy. I think I'd be a little paranoid if I was contacted by someone official through here. I mean, I guess I understand that we might be googled etc, and that there's a chance of identification even if we write under pen names, but my email is on my application. If I wanted them to acknowledge my GC (or anywhere else) presence on GC I'd have written it in my application.

Wow, congratulations! That's such amazing news!!! And I love that we're kicking off this part of the season with an acceptance! Same here, but a week from now I'll be free to focus solely on the angsty waiting game!

I'm with neuronparty on the transcript woes! Nothing more frustrating than sending in your original transcripts and being informed they're incorrect because they didn't arrive in a university envelope, which was not written as a requirement anywhere (now have I ever had to do so before)!!! But I do so enjoy spending ridiculous amounts of money on buying another set of transcripts (seriously, my undergrad uni charges a ridiculous high sum) that I know will be the exact same as the ones I previously sent, even more so because I distinctly remember my rationale for sending them my own very original graduation transcripts were that they would be sent off sooner than if the Examinations Office had to process the order.

Yes! I'm fully aware that mess and yet more mess is waiting down the line, and I guess one has to be aware, but there doesn't seem much point getting my head fried over it until it becomes more of a reality. I'm not even sure I'll get in to a PhD programme, I'm going to try to not worry myself over the next bits until that at least is in order. I'm also thinking that if I get that PhD but fail at the next step at least I'll have had that much longer to research subjects which interest me, not saying it won't be a disappointment if I didn't succeed in getting further and of course priorities/needs can change but I can't predict the future, so all I can go by is how I think of the future now and at the moment it seems like a risk worth taking.

Most of my lit theory classes, though above all a course called Critically Queer which called out to me on so many levels and which introduced to so many interesting scholars and activists. Also, while I studied Butler in lit theory classes before I still think of this course as the place where I really fell in love with her theory. Another class was The Study of Gender in Spanish American Literature and Culture, though I confess it's a Spanish rather than English class. The course itself was amazing and introduced me to a number of fantastic writers dating from the 17th century to the present and gave me yet another angle to the 'look at all the exciting stuff that is happening outside of German/French/English-speaking Europe' in the 19th century (I'm from a small European country whose lit definitely did not reach the comp lit syllabi at my uni, so I guess I tend to be on the look-out for these things). Moreover, the course was taught by one of the most inspiring professor I've ever had and who I can only hope to emulate if I have the luck to become an academic!

Oh, I'm all on board with that. It's not looking good, I've eaten way too little meat to live out a fortuitous January...

I'm a tigery ox, so no luck for me either, but I was born in February, so maybe I can get a bit of Chinese zodiac love anyway? I love you for this! Currently nearing the end of my rewatchathon!

I'm still applying so sharing my SoAP etc still feels too dangerous, but I'm having such research envy from all the amazing outlines being posted here! I'm a partial Latin Americanist and my MSt supervisor was very much into (Argentinean) poetry, so it's a disgrace how little I've worked with Lat Am poetry, but your WS description makes me want to acquaint myself with Pizarnik so badly!

I saw this answered elsewhere for English, but I'm guessing things could be different for Comp Lit. Does anyone know if interviews are the norm for Comp Lit programmes?

That's almost equal parts scary and amazing, congratulations hypervodka!

Thanks hreaóemus and Wyatt's Torch, you've silenced the nervous voice in my head

Sorry to crash the anxiety party (Personally i find denial is the way forward...) But I do have a question... does anyone know whether there's a big difference in admission depending on whether people have been in contact with a uni/a faculty member or not? All those questions in the application forms made me worried that contacting is the norm rather than not...

Just sent off my sixth applic, I'm officially more than halfway through this here malarkey...I can't decide whether I should celebrate or deal with the onslaught of paralysing angst ...

Personally I'm applying to ten, which my supervisor thought was a lot (I think he's more used to 2-3 applications), but then I have the impression that people apply to more unis/programmes in the US -maybe that's wrong? Some of my unis were rather later additions though because I suddenly had a panic attack about getting in and not being funded (this seems quite likely as many of the public unis that I've applied to tend to write things to put off international applicants -or is that just me?) -now I'm back in the I'm probably not getting in to anything anyway camp, so maybe I'll regret this extra expense. There are so many amazing programmes out there though, I was on such a high as I was reading up on some of these places I could hardly get my arms down.

That's me too, except I'm not a native speaker of my informally acquired lit, so for all I know this will doom my application from the beginning... I considered applying to national lit departments at a few places, or one really, where they offered a phenomenal ceritifcate in Comp Lit but frankly I'm not sure they'd consider my training in my primary literature sufficient... Actually, I think I was more in doubt about whether to apply to a Gender or Cultural Studies department rather than Comp Lit, but we all know that Comp Lit is where its at

Ahoy, I've been lurking for years, but I feel the time has finally come to officially declare myself a Comp Lit PhD applicant :S Have no clue if there's a busier thread elsewhere though...