mightysparrow

Hi Anghellix, I'm from India, and I'm currently in the first year of the PhD program at Ohio State. Although my experiences of applying to grad school here are atypical (I applied to just the one school), I know that the application and admissions process can seem particularly difficult to navigate from so far away, so feel free to message me if you have any specific questions and I'll try my best to answer them. I didn't take the GRE Lit, so I can't answer your questions on that front. I do want to second what ExponentialDecay says about working on other aspects of your application--from what I've been told, your writing sample and SoP are by far the most important parts of your application. (Good GRE scores are important, but they will be read in light of other parts of your application.) Competition for PhD programs here is keen, and admissions committees will primarily use your writing sample to judge how prepared you are for a research degree. In my experience, Indian colleges don't emphasize writing and argumentation in the same way as colleges here, so you'll want to devote as much time as possible to working on your sample. I would also recommend familiarizing yourself with how American universities demarcate literary/cultural periods, as applications are often evaluated by faculty in the period you apply to research in (yet another thing that's different from the Indian system). It might also be worthwhile to look up the most recent issues of an influential journal in your period in order to get a sense of what debates and issues are current in the American academy. Often, these debates are very different from those in the Indian academy, and are not reflected in the syllabi back home. Good luck!

Hi, EchoFromZero. I know I'm late to this (I haven't stopped by gradcafe in several months), but I wanted to reiterate ProfLorax's observation that private universities may be more accepting of international students than public universities. I can only attest to the procedure here at Ohio State (I joined this fall), where there are significant limitations imposed by the graduate school on the English department in its intake of international students (I was told this by a senior professor who has held various administrative positions). Intls do not become Ohio residents after a year (US citizens who move to Columbus do) and so the tuition waiver for Intl students over 5 years amounts to about thrice as much as the tuition for US citizens (A LOT). It's very possible that other state schools have similar restrictions on the number of funded international students they admit. By my count, I'd say OSU takes in at most 1 international student in a cohort of 18-20 (although I have heard that something like 10-20% of applicants are internationals). Hope this helps! Good luck

While there are few international applicants on this forum, I can see how this is pertinent to intl students as well. I, for one, wondered if my CGPA (on a 10 point scale where nobody can possibly score 10) and international status would affect my application to a public university in the US. Thanks for this, hreaðemus (even if this wasn't what you were looking for!). I just posted my acceptance & related information.

Just heard from Dr. Amanpal Garcha. I got in! A fellowship nomination as well. He told me to expect a call with details on Saturday. Toasterazzi, I wrote to him at 12:45 am Columbus time, and he replied in four minutes!

Thanks, Chadillac!

Hello all. I'm new to this forum--only recently discovered gradcafe. Congratulations to those accepted into graduate schools! I browsed through some of the previous threads and, man, you guys have great academic interests. I'm an international applicant with zero knowledge of the US graduate school system, and I have a question for the Ohio St applicants (incl those accepted): On appstatus.osu, my application still says 'pending', as I guess it does for those of you who haven't been accepted yet. On the 'Application Requirements' tab, though, there are a number of new sections that were added about twelve hours earlier, the first of which reads "Graduate Program Funding" with the comment "You have now been awarded financial support from your graduate program". The other sections added were "Copy of Passport", "Affidavit of Support", "Confidential Bank Statement", all of which said "waived" pending "funding review". Now, the funding section says "Graduate dept funding does not cover all expenses: short $297" and the other sections (banks statement etc.) now read "incomplete" (asking me to show proof of $297 per year in a bank account). I haven't heard from the department--by phone, email or their website--and I wonder if this is some kind of error or glitch that occurred when the other acceptances were posted. Has anybody else got the same sections in their 'app requirements' tab? Thought I'd ask around here before emailing the graduate admissions office.