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Man, feeling the anxiety today. I'm working through Germany's kafkaesque immigration bureaucracy to be allowed to work under a contract, so that I have a set salary rather than a capricious free-lance income - to make the money I need, I have to wait for weeks to get approval from some faceless "authority'. This has translated into me not having enough money to apply to all of the schools I wanted to. Bureaucracy sucks, but it's worse when you're faced with 12-syllable German jargon words that you're expected to process and discuss in real time, knowing that the process relies partly on your ability to argue with emotionless bureaucrats. This is just compounded by the fact that I've only applied to a few top schools, and if I don't get in anywhere, I will have suffered through two years of poverty and anxiety in Paris and Stuttgart for nothing! My cheap brötchens (buns) and salty butter afford only a fleeting sense of comfort in the sea of adrenaline that surges every time I think back over my applications. I think my SOP was decent, but the more I read it, the more neurotic it looks - too many themes and writers covered over 2 pages, and then only fleeting, unceremonious lip service to the profs I would "benefit from working with". If I get in, then it's all worth it, and I can hold my head high even as I tell my landlord or insurance carrier why my bills aren't being paid. But if I don't get in? Gah .....

The thing with academic rockstars is that they're often in rockstar departments, where only rockstar students get admitted, so if you're good enough, you totally get the face time. Having worked with pseudo-rockstars as an undergrad (nothing recognizable, but still *exciting* in the theory circuit): they are absolutely individuals. If you get into the program, you will at the very least get a handful of really good one-on-one meetings as you figure out your research objectives, and when it comes down to it, those conversations (however spare) are the linchpin in a good mentoring experience. Because you can't expect anyone to spend *that* much time on your project. And Butler, I know from having one conversation with her and seeing her interact with students, is incredibly generous and sensitive. Her lectures/seminars are always a bit tenuous/controversial, and she handles it like a yogi. People sometimes yell at her in anger for her positions, and often facilitators will try to hush them, to which she responds "no, please let him/her finish. It's really important that we all express ourselves". In terms of situational dyamics, she is a leader in the field, and formerly hard-brass polemicists like Zizek and Agamben completely take her cue now - it has turned into a love fest. Long story short: the rockstars themselves are often teddy bears...because they are super well-paid and adored, and have no real reason to be difficult. The attrition is in the admission - say you want to work with someone, there is absolutely no shame in it. But have the awesome credentials and well-researched analyses to back it up. You will do brilliantly.

oh sweet wounded. I submitted Stanford today (or, rather, had a friend submit it - I have no money left, and Stanford are sticklers for their precious $125 app fees - no fee waiver without a 2012 GRE fee waiver .... which I didn't need because I took the GRE 2 years ago!). Anyhow, I went to look at the PDF print out and saw no documents attached....um..... Anyone else have this problem? When you click on your PDF or "View Print Copy", do you see your SOP, Writing Sample, Transcripts, Etc.? Freaking out. A little. Kind of. Maybe it's all the sugar from my overpriced mocha latte and the shrill German girl in the corner of this Starbucks. In any case, good luck y'all, maybe we'll see each other in March for admitted student weekend! (Ich drucke Ihr die Daumen...)

I am an American student doing a double master's in France and Germany, and I have had plenty of culture shock to go around. The French can be especially difficult, even when you speak the language well - to them, you'll never be Français. It's just a fact you have to live with! So I learned to have a sense of humor (albeit a French sense of humor, which involves a bit of bitchiness - not at all my personal style, but I saw it as an investment to get my hands a little dirty). I'm in Germany now and Germans are much closer to Americans in terms of personal style and directness, but they, like the French, often start off on the wrong foot vis-a-vis my Americanness...they always want to tell jokes about fat Americans who don't want to walk anywhere, don't speak foreign languages, are too loud, etc. To our Asian guests, welcome to the U.S., and I can guarantee that Americans are slightly more complex than they seem - most U.S. students grew up in a bit of a cocoon, and think that if someone doesn't speak their language or follow their mores, then they should be happy to get any attention at all; that's the somewhat regrettable conclusion. However, one piece of advice that I will offer, and that I have learned for myself, is try to learn to joke around in English. Just do it. No matter how hard it is, no matter if you trip over yourself, do as one poster said - put your head above your heart. If you can hybridize your identity between your own culture and American culture, and can do so in an expressive way, Americans will love you. I learned to do this in France by drinking wine with friends. I started off getting so annoyed when people would drone on and on about American ignorance. I would react when people would correct my accent (grammar is one thing, but accent...c'mon, I'm never going to be French), and it got me nowhere. So, I learned to joke and laugh - sometimes *at* people, sometimes with them, and sometimes at myself. And somehow, after a few weeks of this, it clicked, and I was finding it easier to get over my own anxiety in many situations; my French was getting better because I stopped thinking so much; and I was making a lot more French friends, with whom I could practice and improve my French. I realize this is not the best solution, and will not immediately erase the pain that you felt at being excluded. But if you learn to laugh at some things, and even to assert yourself a little bit, you'll find most Americans are a lot more responsive than you thought, especially if you can still show that you respect their boundaries. You have chosen to be in the country for a few years - I chose to be in Europe for 2 years (without money, without a program of other Americans to connect with) and at one point, I just had to drop the pretense and learn to embrace the role of the joking, dumb foreigner who is at least interactive. It was a good choice, at least for my situation. Best of luck for you guys.

I totally feel y'all on the constant Freddy Mercury inverted face palm in regards to family conversations. There's my mom, who has been with me through every round of applications from Undergrad through Master's and Ph.D., and she kind of rocks - she will call me up when my family is around (she's in the U.S. and I'm in Germany currently) and will just ask me about it in a loud voice like "oh, and WHICH SCHOOLS ARE YOU APPLYING TO?" because she's proud. But then when my aunt or someone is on the phone, there's a YEA BUT YOU'RE *NOT* 21 ANYMORE that randomly pops out of her mouth. Totally unsolicited. Like her image of me is of a total worthless sloth who just keeps faking his way through school and avoids the real world at all costs. Ok, so this is slightly true, but I sincerely do want to publish and be a professor - her father, my grandfather, was a professor and a Dean, so why can't she understand? I wonder if one day I will get to a point of self-confidence where I'll be able to immediately overcome the awkwardness of the "why are you getting a Ph.D." face and tackle people's assumptions head on. But that day is not today. The best is when you go on a date with someone and they like chuckle under their breath at you while slowly trying to get their hand on your leg. Really though? I have a bachelor's and two master's, I speak 5 languages, and you think I'm so complacent as to believe that silly face you're making betrays actual interest in what I'm saying, that I'll just sleep with you if you play your cards right? I mean, ok, if you're cute but... Anyway, this was clearly à propos of nothing, except that I too have been having a 0% confidence week, and have been tryna cope. This obviously involves going on random dates...though i have been also trying to jog away the anxiety. It kind of helps, in case anyone wondered. Continue as you were.

a) no matter how much you read up or with whom you speak, you really don't have a clue what a program will be like before attending. I got into my second choice program, and I thought I liked everything about it, even months into the program. However slowly but surely a couple of my professors revealed themselves to be slightly bat$%?& crazy and I realized I needed to leave and re-prioritize. I'm applying to bigger programs with profs who seem even more accessible and open to mentoring than what I saw at my first school. 2) expect to be miserable at least part of each semester. This is a Ph.D. Intellectual growing pains, and the concomitant emotional pain that sometimes accompanies it, is part of the game. III) many people say not to worry about prestige as much as "fit", but you will be surprised how little a Ph.D. in the humanities will get you if you can't get a teaching job - academia has become extremely professionalized, which is illustrated by the totally off-balance ratio of Ivy + Ph.D.'s getting the best jobs. Of course, some of you reading this may already be in programs, and have made your own choices for your own reasons. But so much of graduate school "wisdom" makes absolutely no sense in the context of wanting to really excel at, and (at least eventually) enjoy your work and profession. In Europe, no one talks about loving the Ph.D. No one. It is hell, and you live with it, despite the love in your heart for the subject matter. You joke about it with your friends, and learn to be really thick-skinned. That said, you also are respected for being able to talk about different intellectual topics, and all your friends want to take you to see art films. The average European is more fascinated by someone in academia and not intimidated or jealous. Definitely an upside. Sorry for being overly-opinionated, I've been in France and Germany a year and a half doing an M.A. after leaving my Ph.D. program in literature (now going back for a different one, hopefully!)...so, just hoping that sharing my experience/perspective on graduate school helps a bit.

Just submitted my app to Princeton two days ago, and found out last night that they granted me a fee waiver, which was a huge relief. Things seem to be getting slightly easier as the process continues, and other things are also improving, like finally getting my residence permit (I've been in Germany for a full six weeks and *just* got this taken care of...it's a bit of a bureaucratic headache when you don't have a ton of money). However, something always happens to me when I get to this point and the application(s) is(are) submitted: I start fixating. Like badly. Usually it involves a lot of waffling and not a little vamping: "I'm totally getting in and I love puppies and rainbows and I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning with six pack abs and a stack of money on my desk!" followed in short order by "I'm totally getting rejected and everything in my life is going to hell and I'm going to end up in a gutter by the end of next week with an eye infection and only one shoe!". This season in particular I'm a bit out of it, as my job doesn't start until next month, and I'll be really broke for the holidays. However, I haven't been having extreme thoughts about being accepted or not accepted...it's just a kind of general nervousness. I guess I don't have really good reasons to believe either way - I can see good reasons to accept my application, and good reasons to reject me outright. Anyone else having this post-application haze?

LOL people in the humanities do not go on about their volunteer experience. We do research too. The SOP is about your particular take on the research you want to do as you work toward the Ph.D. Those in the social sciences, especially in fields like Urban Studies and Public Policy, have a lot more to gain by discussing volunteer work and unpaid internships.

Just finished like draft three of my statement of motivation. I have to submit by Dec. 15 for a couple of schools due to fee waivers. Nervous ball of energy. I keep referring back to the website for this school, and it's kind of sad how, when you really look at profs' work, repeatedly, you see how a lot of departments are kind of missing coverage in certain areas. There isn't really a great 18th century person everywhere, for instance...I don't plan on being a specialist, but like, how can you do German Studies and not want a rocking prof to teach you Kant and Schiller and Goethe and Rilke? I mean a lot of people can teach poetry and lit, but it takes a certain brand of bat-shit-crazy to teach a great Kant course. I'm in a Heidegger course right now and I have no idea how the professor does it. The guy sitting right next to me yesterday during class (who is crazy attractive btw) seemed to be passing out...then I noticed his eyes were blood red. He was totally on the wake, bake, and Dasein trajectory if I've ever seen it. This is not easy shit. So I want professors who are legit when it comes to Philosophy. Anywho, I think reworking the statement gave me a clearer idea of why I'm doing all this, which was a totally unexpected and pleasant result of what started out as a very half-assed SOP. coffeeplease, where are you setting your sights? Yea Hamburg is a bit weit weg, what made you choose that city? I've been to Weimar (to see Buchenwald and then drink away the pain with Glühwein at the Weihnachtsmarkt - heh love xmas vocab) and I visited Berlin the following weekend...I definitely dig this country...

Yea I'm actually applying to mostly German Studies programs, but with some interdisciplinary links, depending on the school. Sorry I should be more optimistic - I think it's living in Europe for 2 years that's made me this way, lol. If I get in somewhere I think I might have a conniption, I have been busting my butt with so little reward, working toward the Ph.D., that I have just kind of come to see it as almost slave labor lol. Um sorry I'm not making any sense. Long story short, if you ever get a Master's degree in France or Germany (which you should, it's a very good education for practically free - and who wants to spend like $40,000 on a two-year Master's in philosophy in the US?) you'll find the atmosphere is levels of magnitude less positive than at American Universities. On top of which, everything's in the target language...and the French are super picky and moody, while the Germans are kind of cold and unhelpful (though they can be great when you meet people your own age). Guess I'm figuring out my own hybridized identity after all these experiences, and hoping that I don't come off as scattered and schizophrenic in my apps hahaha... I actually don't know a ton of German authors outside the canon, (or probably some within the canon even), so I have some work to do it seems Anyone else who is reading, what has your preparation been for the German Ph.D.?

Hey, so I'm in the middle of sending in some early apps because I'm trying to get fee waivers - kind of freaking out about what I'm going to do if they reject my requests. I really can't afford it, I'm so broke from moving from Paris to Stuttgart. I would love to apply to 7 or 8 though, I have 6 all clustered at the top of my list, and 2 that I'm pretty much dying to get into. It'll be interesting to see who applies this year, and if a select few pick up all of the top spots - sometimes 4 people with great credentials will apply to the top schools, get offers everywhere, and knock all the other applicants into wait list purgatory for weeks lol. Interesting system. All one can really do at this point is hope to be one of the few I think theory is pretty important for most literature graduate programs. German departments in particular are known to house some theory powerhouses. But I don't think one needs to be super well-versed in theory to get accepted. Some schools do have more traditional literature professors...but it's never good to limit yourself or make excuses about not being somewhat versed in all aspects of one's discipline, or at least that's been my approach. Anyone want to write about their interests?

Hi roxyshoe, I feel you on being attracted to German programs due to the possibility of combining literature, art and psychoanalytic theory. I should warn you, though, that for the *top* programs, like Princeton, Columbia and Cornell (and Harvard as well, for that matter) near-fluency in German is a must. I would advise you to study abroad or take a year and do a master's in German. This is very important, and it's what was advised to me when I started looking into programs. If anyone else is applying to German, I'd like for us to be able to continue a thread here, or start another one. I'm applying this fall to all German programs. Anyone else?

So Yale and Harvard have their graduate applications up and running, but Brown and Princeton have repeatedly pushed the date back. Brown first said the application would be available September 1st, then September 19th, and now it says October 1st. Stanford said the application would be up in mid-September, but now that it's almost the 22nd, it's starting to seem like they're running a little late, too. Don't they have teams of IT people they pay ridiculous amounts of money to take care of this every year? Don't we pay between $75 and $125 just to apply? What other product or service would you pay that much for, just to get excuses every couple of weeks about why it's not ready? Sorry, the opening date is actually totally inconsequential, I just want to get the app over with as soon as possible, and in the meantime, I find it odd that a half dozen of the top billionaire universities in the country can't seem to get a simple online application up lol. I would expect this from European universities, which have no money and follow European logic as far as the function of deadlines (which are considered more like guidelines, actually.) Columbia should be up sometime this fall (?), any other applications up that y'all know about?

Hi Robert, I am applying to similar programs. I think your GRE is pretty solid, though conventional wisdom is that 700 is a good cutoff for the Verbal section if you're going into the humanities. I got a 710, and I studied till my eyes bled, so I'm just going to keep it - I'm not nearly enough of a perfectionist to go through it again! The short of it is, if your writing sample and other qualifications are on, a less-than-stellar GRE shouldn't be an issue. Also, the AWA is ridiculous, and published work and your writing sample will make up for that score; the committee is full of brilliant writers who have published books, and it is axiomatic that they would rather see content than some random un-tenured grader's opinion. On the other hand, if you want to take a shot at improving your Verbal score, you could attempt to raise the AWA while you're at it. But of course I won't insist; to be honest, I'll probably be competing with you for at least one of the spots in the schools you listed Good luck my friend!

Not at all! The first time I prepped a few hours, did 670V/530Q/4.5AWA, this was October of my senior year (2007). I ended up in a Ph.D. program at an Ivy but was really unhappy with the dept (yes, this ABSOLUTELY does happen) and I decided to take time off and work, and now I'm doing a double MA in France and Germany - sorry, just giving background so we don't focus too much on comparing scores...again, admission will be based on a really comprehensive picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and as we're applying in different fields that even increases the number of variables at work. The second time I took it was October 2010 I got a week off of work and memorized 1,000 words with the exact ETS (the GRE company) definition of each word, so that I would run into little ambiguity in the syonyms/antonyms section, which I think I got perfect. The hard part was the lit analysis (Virginia Woolf? Really GRE?) and that brought me down a bit; you can't ask a prospective lit Ph.D. to answer multiple choice about Mrs. Dalloway for f%$^ sake lol. For Quant I memorized how to multiply exponents and do long division (I know so easy but I just hadn't done it in years). For AWA I'm convinced you just have to dumb down your writing as much as possible while still trying to be highly formalistic and use big words in the way ETS defines them. Ugh sorry that's kind of a set of reflections more than an answer/suggestion, but I hope it helps! Also, doing written tests is different because the computer adaptive version sucks! 50% of the test is merely measuring whether you have nerves of steel (I happen to be a highly cynical person and was only really perturbed with the writing section haha). Maybe take a shot of tequila before getting there?

I am applying to Literature Ph.D. programs so the verbal is obviously important (to the extent that a low score would be looked down upon, while a high score won't necessarily get the nod). I got a 710V/670Q/5.0 AWA, which was a decent improvement from my first try, and my professors were pretty categorical about that being a good thing. Having gone to a top 5 school for undergrad, my professors essentially told me "look, when you're looking to go to one of the best Ph.D. programs in the country, every single aspect of your application should be as strong as possible, that's all there is to it". However, there are a combination of factors working in the process; as I understand it, the two most important aspects of your application will be the written portion (writing sample) and whether there is a specific professor or professors who work on your interests, and who will thus make your case when it comes time to sit around a table with a stack of files and play an educated version of "eeny-meeny-miney-mo". What's more, I know quite a few people with great GRE scores who have rejected from the same programs that people with mediocre scores were accepted to.

Sorry this isn't playing the game well, but just fyi, for minatory I always think of "minotaur", as in a scary mythical beast haha....

I think taking the time to study 3500 words, unless your vocabulary is pretty awful to begin with, is way too much. It might cause burnout, stress, and polarization of thinking/focus, causing other parts of the test to suffer. I studied Princeton Review's 500 flashcards obsessively for 4 days. I still haven't seen the words Sinecure, Apposite, or probably 70% of the other words used, whether in academic, literary or media contexts, but by god, I know what they mean. I also scanned some SAT books and made an extra list - yea, I know. But for real, some of the same words are used. In all I had maybe 700 words memorized (and some of them were ones I thought I knew, but for which I fine-tuned my definitions to ETS' and Princeton Review's liking). I took a score that at one time was below 600 Verbal / 530 Quantitative, and knocked out a 710 Verbal / 670 Quantitative. It is honestly about getting those synonyms and antonyms perfect, which really just requires insane studying of the top 500-800 most likely words. If you get a good number of those synonym/antonym questions right, you already have a great score, and the test will adjust, forcing you to trudge through the difficult reading passages. And they're not easy! I had a passage on Virgina Woolf - whom I love - and it was literally like something I'd see in a 3rd year Ph.D. quals exam! It was great/interesting, but so much harder/appropriate/apposite (yes, I used it!!) than I expected. Also, I got a 5.0 on the AWA, for which I didn't give a crap - I got a 4.5 the first time, writing on Derrida and basically screwing with the grader's head, and the second time, I minded my manners and wrote a cute, logical, erudite essay on the importance of voter education, and my score barely went up. Really, just write a good SoP and writing sample, and the AWA can't possibly hold a candle to it. Anyway, anything beyond the most common few hundred words is only going to get you a max of 10 or 20 points more than you would have gotten otherwise. I also found that the more that I focused on the vocab, the harder it was to think clearly and flexibly about the reading passages. By the time you get to 700+, you're literally within 6 or 8 questions of hitting 800, so chance tends to play an incredibly unfair role in your final score, regardless of how much you prepare. And math was hilarious. I hated it, but I forced myself to study for about 3 hours solid: I re-learned how to do long division (apparently I forgot after about 6th grade). I also learned the shortcuts for square roots (those little super script numbers that kind of make you want to look for a footnote somewhere), and realized that if I had just done that in junior high my life would have been a bit less stressful. I then reviewed angles and some basic trig. On the actual exam, the math problems are often easily solved, you just have to know what to look for to take the shortcuts - the math isn't hard, it just goes fast. Of course, I only got a 670 on the math, which is in the 64%ile, but I was only interested in getting it high enough so as not to seem suspicious, and it went up 140 points from the 530 I got on the first exam (where I barely read the questions). I also had this deep-seated fear of scoring higher on the math than the verbal .... like, a future Comp. Lit. Ph.D. with an 800 Math and 710 Verbal? I like to think I'm not overly-susceptible to questioning my life choices, but there was certainly some self-sabotage there. It was like a sort of calcu-phobia (like a straight man who would never even think about a same sex experience because of the fear that he might like it). What would it be like to "come out" as a math geek at 26? Ew. Hope this helps someone?

I think having a good, solid timeline is helpful. I honestly was crawling out of my skin the last week, and was *so* unproductive at work, coworkers were starting to notice, then I got a huge pile of cases (I'm a disability rights advocate) and had to go speak in front of the legislature and at the same time write up a death investigation report for a child with cerebral palsy. I've been *so* distracted by the grad school waiting process that I am afraid I'm going to really flub sooner or later . . . so getting this e-mail def. put me at ease for the time being. I hope your e-mail had the same effect on you! Really, best of luck . . .mind telling me what the program is?

I was having this same issue, and was feeling torn, but I hadn't heard from the DGS of my program in 2.5 weeks. On January 21st, he had said "we will contact you very soon, once we have gone to committee". I e-mailed today and asked if they were still reviewing my application, and I apologized if I was being nosy. This was his response: "Dear B****, No need to apologize - I understand completely how hard it is to make it through this waiting phase! Unfortunately, we are not quite done yet with the entire process. I will write as soon as the decisions have been officially made." I am just going to feel positive about this. He put an exclamation mark in there - profs never do that! Always so staid . . . .anyway, I know how things work at this particular institution, and my guess is, I'm probably on the short list of candidates, but an 'official decision' has to be made, ie, they have to send their list to the grad school and get approved for the number of offers they want to make. I'm fully aware I might get rejected/waitlisted still, but I'm going to just assume I was a strong candidate either way In my case, it was ok to send an e-mail, but only nearly 3 weeks after getting an e-mail saying they were close to making decisions! I wouldn't e-mail a week after the deadline, but I'm sure it depends on the program and a student's relationship with the POI . . . uuggghhhhh I want to get accepted!!