jb3ka

Just accepted an offer at Duke! Turned down Princeton and UCLA last night.

If you're interested in late medieval, Duke's the place to go.

souslespaves: I'd really recommend applying to at least a few PhD programs when you apply for the MA. My stats are nearly identical to yours and strokeofmidnight's, and I was accepted to 6 top 20 programs. It's at least worth a shot, even if you aren't sold on completing the PhD; if you get into a decent program with good funding, you could try it out for a year or two to see if you like it. If you hate it, what's the harm of leaving after a semester or a year? Do your advisors consider you 'ready' for PhD work? I'd spend some time talking it over with them. If they think you aren't, why not take time off from school and work on that writing sample? And don't think that you have to know precisely what you want to study in graduate school. Plenty of people change fields when they get there.

Just turned down an offer at UC Irvine's English program. Hope this helps someone out--it's a great place!

Declined my offer at IU-Bloomington (PhD, English). Hope this helps.

This relates to an earlier topic in the thread, but one that I'd like to share as an encouragement, anyway. I have been admitted to four programs this year: two top ten, two ranked somewhere in the twenties, and wait listed at two others (both top ten). My GPA is okay (3.6), GRE's pretty good (Verbal: good, Quant.: miserable, Writing: miserable), but nothing exceptional overall. I also come from a little-known college in the South. At every school, the DGS indicated that my writing sample was what got me in. My numbers just (barely) got me through the initial cuts. All in all, if you and your professors think you've got an excellent writing sample, you have a crack at getting into a top program. While fit is a crucial matter, departments still want the best. The most tried-and-true indicator of success in graduate school and beyond is, in the end, the writing sample.

My subfield is late medieval English literature. I have been accepted to Princeton, UCLA, IU Bloomington, and UC Irvine. Wait listed at Duke and WUSTL.

Yes! Try to have at least three professors vet your work. Then write another draft, then another, then send it back. When your professors begin correcting the corrections of other professors, you know you're in good shape.

I'm pretty sure I'll be attending. It's hard to write a place off without having visited.

Yep. I posted the wait list notification. The caller said I was at the top of the wait list, so I'm sure they'll be calling everyone else soon. I'll probably take my name off the list in the coming weeks (I've received other offers, though I want to make sure I don't want to attend Rutgers). Hope this helps someone...

Simpleton: I'm one of two wait-listed students, and I appreciate your consideration. I'm afraid, though, that strokeofmidnight's correct here: Duke may not go to their wait list if one accepted student turns down an offer. According to Prof. Mitchell, I have been a "victim of departmental math:" they simply have too many medievalists right now (I'd be curious as to whether they've accepted any medievalists this go round). Nevertheless, I received very encouraging emails from faculty members later this afternoon. I suppose this is all one can expect from the process of graduate admissions: you make the shortlist, impress a few committee members, and hope the departmental politics swing in your favor.

I just emailed, and immediately received notice that I had been waitlisted. In no way did my encounter shed light on the process of graduate admissions. WTF

If you want to brush up on Latin prose, I would recommend reading a couple of books from the Vulgate. Or, if you can find a library copy, sections of the Summa. If you find these too easy, go for the Confessions. There's an excellent annotated edition out there published by a company called Bolchazy-Carducci. For me, the differences between the two ('two,' of course, belies the history of the language from the 5th century on) have always seemed worth attending to, but not worth fretting over. The great Latin stylists of the Middle Ages made ready use classical grammar and syntax in ways that had fallen out of common use by the 9th or 10th centuries. If you have more of a classical background (like me), you'll have the most problems with vocabulary and spelling.