diehtc0ke

I actually go to Penn but I live and have lived with people who go to Villanova. The train ride isn't terrible. We live in West Philly and the train ride is about an hour and pleasant enough though it does involve a transfer. It seems like most of the grad students I know live in either Center City or West Philly and do the commute thing. That means they haven't needed cars, which is a good thing because I find Philly to be quite a hassle when you have a car (ie, there are too many blocks which require a parking permit to park for more than two hours, there's absolutely no parking outside of a parking garage in center city at any reasonable hour of day, etc). That said I do know someone who goes there and lives in West Philly with a car and it can be useful. I myself have a Zipcar account and that's worked out really well, imo. And Philly is totally a bike city--you'd have no problems there. Hope that helps.

I did end up getting in but chose to go to another school for various reasons that I can outline in a PM if you're really interested. If your avatar is any indication, we probably have very similar research interests.

If Rutgers is conducting its waitlist process as it has been in years past (I was on the waitlist a couple of years ago), they probably will keep in good contact with you, letting you know your chances of an acceptance over the next few weeks. The last thing they want is for a potential student to find themselves in the position you're describing and the DGS was nothing but forward with me about my chances and my position on my field's waitlist.

To be quite honest, I doubt that most admissions committees would be able to remember your previous application and with the amount of applications that these programs get, I would be seriously surprised if any of them went through the trouble of going back to that application, even if you specifically indicate that you've applied to that school before. I say this as someone who sent an extremely rushed application to a top 10 school my senior year of college (and by rushed I mean I threw together a writing sample and a personal statement the night before they were due), was rejected and had similar concerns. I ended up applying to that same school with a completely new sample, a new personal statement, and radically different research interests my second go around and got in.

There's nothing here that would indicate that you have no shot at top 20 PhD programs but without seeing the quality of your writing, anyone's guess is little more than a shot in the dark since it will be your writing that overwhelmingly determines whether you are accepted or not.

With regards to your first inquiry, I'm going to answer your question with a question. If there are two programs that have at least four professors you want to work with, barring something else, why aren't you applying to both programs anyway? Are there really that many programs that have 4 to 9 people you want to work with? Really evaluate what "finding a professor interesting" actually means and if it's really just "that random string of words that they put together on their faculty page sounds like fun," you might want to be a bit more critical about whether or not you actually want to count them as a professor you can work with. Things like whether or not a specific professor takes on a certain kind of grad student is information that you can glean once you get into a program--believe me, you'll run out of questions at those admitted students weekends rather quickly and these kinds of questions have much less of a chance of looking stalker-ish once you've been accepted. Chances are, even with "only" four professors that you can see yourself working with, at least one of them will be taking on grad students. Alternatively, if you do decide to ask grad students these questions, I would ask now, before the semester starts and (hopefully) before yet another wave of work washes over them. With the C.V. stuff, I would agree with runonsentence's suggestion to create a "Related Work Experience" heading. I can't imagine that hurting your application at all. And as for the honors thesis, I really have no opinion other than everyone I know who is in an English PhD program (including myself) did one and went about letting departments know about it in different ways. Some people used a chapter or some significant segment of it for their writing sample. I mentioned that I wrote one on my C.V. but only because I presented that work at a conference. My writing sample ended up being something completely different and unrelated to my honors thesis. Others didn't bother mentioning that they did one at all. Doing one doesn't hurt but not doing one doesn't seem to detract too much (if anything) either.

As someone who went through a situation like this one, I would choose the top-ranked program. In my case, it was between a lesser ranked school with an advisor who was perfect for me and a top 10 program with a few people that I was excited to work with but weren't as close of a fit. I chose the top 10 program in the end because I ultimately didn't want to bank my graduate career on one person. I mean, who knows what will happen in the next five to seven years? I figured I would feel much more secure in the hands of 5 or 6 people who may not directly work on what I work on but could all lend their expertise to my work in different and fascinating ways. Even if it weren't for the fact that the program I'm in now had multiple people to work with, I probably still would have chosen it for many of the reasons that have been detailed in these posts. This becomes more and more true as the gap between reputations becomes larger. Editing yet again to add that there would also be nothing stopping you from keeping in contact with that perfect advisor if you turn his or her school down.

That's exactly how you should approach the situation. I'm also assuming (maybe erroneously so) that you have other schools to hear back from so I'd suggest you revel (privately lol) in your successes a little bit more before you have to make the tough decisions. You never know what can happen between now and April 15th.

I also missed the first post. Does this mean the school that is top in your field isn't giving you any money? Or only a first-year fellowship?

They do mean actually teaching your own course. I went to a CUNY school for undergrad and many of (even upper level) courses were taught by graduate students from the Grad Center and I find that for many that seemed to be a rewarding experience. One woman was teaching courses that directly related to her dissertation work and so being able to bounce ideas off of a willing audience once a week was very useful. Even if you're teaching a survey course, there are ways to gerrymander the curriculum to be tangentially related to your interests (and if you're a medievalist, they're not going to force you to teach American Lit II). On the other hand, it is very demanding and you're going to have to evaluate whether it's worth it. I didn't meet anyone who was in their second year so I can't speak to the rigor of that year in particular but it was running people in their dissertation years ragged because some were teaching three courses while also trying to finish their dissertation. I don't mean to scare you (and those that I've kept in touch with have either finished their dissertations and have gone on to great post docs or are in their final stages so it's definitely doable) but you'll really have to assess whether going to this (rather fine) institution in New York City is worth the hassle that will eventually come up. I should also speak to that travel component. I'm not sure if you're from NYC or not (I hope that doesn't sound condescending; I don't mean it to) but the vast majority of the CUNY schools are fairly accessible by public transportation and I didn't know anyone who had to go to more than two sites--the Graduate Center and then the campus they're assigned to teach at. The only school I'd really worry about is the College of Staten Island but you get to pick schools that you're interested in so hopefully that will work out for you. If you have any directed questions about how CUNY functions or anything like that, feel free to send a PM. I did get into the Grad Center last year and like I said I went to a CUNY school for undergrad so I have at least a tenuous grasp on the bureaucracy that is the city public university system.

In CUNY's defense, decisions are still probably being made. I remember freaking out last year when a bunch of acceptances and rejections had come up and I hadn't received anything. I then received an acceptance a few days (maybe even a week) later. Of course, that acceptance came without funding but I can't tell you for sure that that had anything to do with the tardiness in the decision. Until you have firmly received a rejection, don't count yourself out.

I know that many CUNY 4-year schools (not the Graduate Center) offer graduate courses in English in the Fall and many of those programs are geared towards those who want to receive their Master's for teaching.(Edit: And because they are urban public institutions the cost is about as minimal as is possible.)

They want you to do an interview and called it a prospectives weekend? That's strange phrasing. Usually a prospectives weekend is for those who have already been accepted. I didn't even know Duke did interviews. Jesus. And where the hell are my manners? Congratulations!

That post was from last February.

This is true. I should also enter the caveat that by earlier I mean that I still received my first acceptance in February. It was just early/mid February as opposed to late February/early March. There is tons more waiting to be done by all of you so I wouldn't stress out too much about it (which of course I can say because I'm not applying right now lol). The bolded statement I found to be especially true. Again, I know this happens but I still disagree with the premise that it's only people with stellar GRE scores getting these fellowships.

Just wanted to point out for those worried about the bolded part that this is not always the case or, if it is, having a less than stellar GPA or less than close to perfect GRE scores will not always keep you out of the running for prestigious university-wide fellowships. As is my curse, I only really have my own anecdotal evidence to support this assertion but I had a terrible subject score and my GRE scores and GPA were middling at best and I received more than one of these kinds of fellowships last year. Except in one case where the department was doing an (unfortunate) overhaul on how it handled acceptances, I was contacted before most of the other accepted applicants when I had won a larger fellowship.

Yeah and hopefully the way those NYU interviews went last year, that'll be the end of that for them. Congratulations on the interview, Queequeg and mostlytoasty.

Or it might be fake.

Though I would have to agree with much of what you say here, I'd have to disagree that this forum is a complete lost cause if it's not espousing a truism (which applicants may not know is a truism if they're only consulting one or two professors that they know). Correct me if I'm wrong but there seems to be the underlying assumption in your post that there is only one correct way of applying and, if nothing else, the mountain of anecdotal evidence that can be found on these boards points to the fact that this isn't true. A lot of different people with very different approaches have been successful and this in itself is valuable for those who feel sort of lost as they navigate through this process. Of course there's some looney crap out of left field (this is the interwebs after all) but I'd have to agree with Alyanumbers in that this doesn't completely discredit everything that has been posted. Of course you should spend most of your time studying, drafting, asking acquaintances (and professors I'll have to add) to evaluate your writing and researching but it is not as if nuggets of good information can't be found here. It's up to readers to be able to parse out what's useful and what isn't when going through these threads and, again, there is some useful advice to be found. I'm not quite sure how the people in programs on here are different from the people in programs that you've spoken to in that the ones here give out sketchy misinformation and those you've spoken to haven't but it should be said that if you're able to figure out what is useful information and what isn't, other applicants can too. You say you've been here for the past half year but I don't know if you have read through the threads that were active from about last December to this past March. Those I think were the most constructive and helpful.

While there is some truth to what you're saying, there seems to be an underlying supposition that there is one correct way to apply to literature programs. Much of the purpose of these anecdotes, however, has been that there isn't. The one consistent piece of advice that has been given out ad nauseum is exactly the information that you're trying to relay: study, draft, ask acquaintances (and professors, I'll add) to evaluate your writing, research. This is information you can get from the people writing your letters, of course, but it's also nice to hear about this stuff from people who are either going through the process or have just gone through it. I found that my professors (especially the older ones who got their PhDs from Harvard in the 70s) were not as in touch with the ins and outs of applying or what makes a good application great. Maybe that says something about my institution, I don't know, but because of that I found thegradcafe to be a semi-useful resource in exactly the things you don't seem to trust. It's really up to readers to be able to parse out the looney stuff from the valuable stuff because it's not as if there's absolutely nothing that has been said in the past year that can help applicants improve what they're sending. With that being said, I will admit, however, that I think the threads from last December-March were often more constructive--you might want to take a look at those before coming down so harshly.

This one did not but I did get into other places that did.

As a sub-600er now in a top 10 program, this. All of this.

I sent the entirely wrong statement of purpose to my top-choice school. Needless to say I was rejected. Always double check that lol.

I did them all as .docs and no one had a problem with it. It's not something to really worry about I don't think.

I think the conversation is less about speaking within certain discourses (which is a must) and more about being heavy handed in naming exactly what those discourses are and which theorists are most influential for them and us. In re-reading your post, I think it's a much less elevated conversation than you're making it out to be.