diehtc0ke

I definitely don't think it's too late but I'd advise you to really get started on that sample as soon as possible. When I applied I pretty much took the summer to research programs and got started with heavy GRE prep and sample writing towards the end of August. This definitely wasn't the most timely approach to the application process but it worked because I wasn't in school anymore and, other than graduate school apps, really only had a part-time job and a sympathetic partner to attend to. I think your GPA is high enough that it won't immediately knock you out of the running for many programs but I won't lie and say it's not an issue, especially at the top-20 schools you're looking at. I don't want to sound discouraging but given the nature of this beast, I'd urge you to also take a glance at slightly less competitive programs (though, as is often said, safety schools in this discipline don't exist). It is a great sign that the professors you contacted were interested in your proposed research, though. At the schools I got into, the first thing professors wanted to talk to me about was my research interests and how excited they were because relatively few people are tying together what I'm tying together. The fact that people are already showing interest in the potentiality of your work is promising. Make sure you have a few professors in your camp to guide you with your writing. If you've never written a 15 page paper before, you'll probably need help with thoughtfully sustaining an argument for that long. You might even want to aim for a slightly longer paper (~20 pages) because seminar papers are often longer than that--it would be good practice. As for your last question, it depends. Are you at least somewhat confident about your GRE test taking abilities? Knowing your own writing process, do you think you can produce a quality sample in three months? It will most likely have to be better than anything you've ever written before. If I were you, I'd really give it my all this go around while keeping diligent notes on the process in case things don't pan out and I have to go through it all again next year. From what you've outlined, I think your application shows promise (and I find your research interests fascinating).

I'm fairly certain the only GRE subject test in the humanities is English Lit.

I'm really only replying in this thread because I think it's worth it to have at least two people be this emphatic about how relatively unimportant the GREs are. So here we go: Your assumption is flawed and you should not continue going through this process thinking that it has any validity whatsoever. I've heard about this minimum threshold for fellowships before and I've repeated it a couple of times but I applied to 11 schools and not one of them wouldn't have funded me based on my GRE score; every program was going to fund every student that accepted their offer. Now, this sometimes becomes sticky when/if they over-enroll (which is the case in my program where 16 people accepted their offers of admission in 2009 and to compensate a significantly lower amount of offers were given out this year) and I actually happened to receive a fairly composite GRE score because I did much better than I thought I would on the math but from my experience it's just really not worth it to fret over this test as much as you and the other OP have at this point. I'll also put it out there again (because I guess personal anecdotes are comforting ) but I know of a few people (myself included) who had verbal scores below 700 and god awful math scores who are now in top 20 English lit programs. Please please PLEASE be much more worried about the writing sample and statement of purpose.

I'm assuming you're talking about your projected chances with the GRE Lit as your general GRE scores are beyond even the maximum of thresholds to be considered. To be honest, I think that the Lit GRE is probably the least important part of the entire application. At least the general GRE is used at some schools to mark eligibility for specific fellowships. Some of the schools that you're applying to don't even require it. I would go through the motions of studying for it, however, in hopes of receiving a better score. A 600+ can only help you, even if only marginally. As for the rest of your application, everything seems fairly strong (I wouldn't worry so much about that overall GPA if you are worried) but this process can be so arbitrary at times that I'm not going to waste your time by telling you you're a shoe-in or even that you have a great shot at getting into x amount of schools. I can comfort you by saying that your GRE scores are higher than mine and I received a sub-600 score on the Lit GREs and I was accepted to more than one school that's on your list. The writing sample and statement of purpose are what get you in, not the Lit GRE.

Two things: 1) I'm not quite sure how ethical this is but no one holds your writing sample/statement of purpose as a signed contract binding you to this line of research. I imagine you can continue applying as a Renaissance specialist and gradually move your interests into the 18th century as you go through your program (or do it suddenly; who cares?). Alternatively, you can use your statement of purpose to connect your paper to the 18th c. work you'd rather be doing. Outline how the approaches, practices and lines of inquiries you used in that paper can be applies to the 1700's. 2) You should know that it's generally agreed amongt people on the fora that the two most important parts of your application will be your sop and writing samples so you should probably be somewhat less flippant with it. More than just showing that you know proper grammar, it's really the adcoms only way of knowing whether or not you're capable of doing graduate level research. Some may disagree but I'd focus on the sample much more than I'd focus on the GRE's (not that you should bomb that either).

I'm going to +1 the value of going through various English department websites to find matches. Another way of going about this kind of research would be to look through your works cited pages. See what kind of research you've found most compelling in the past and then see who is doing what and where. I became enamored with one program because the leading scholar in my field worked there and when I looked at that department's web page I found two other prominent professors doing work that I was interested in as well. This kind of more targeted search is pretty much how I went about looking for potential schools. Also, don't count your professors/letter writers out. Hopefully those that specialize in early American lit (and, of course, even those who don't) will know of programs that are strong in that field. Good luck in your search.

Ahh! That's a life saver. Thanks so much for this.

+1 for legal pads. I used to work at Staples and bought a ton of legal pads when they went on clearance so that a pack of 12 was about $4. I'm not quite sure where I'll turn once my supply runs out. Before the pads, I also used Moleskines and I think I might just make those my luxury item.

Lol what's great is that I touted myself in undergrad as the only English major who couldn't stand Jane Austen. What's almost unfortunate now is that my fondness has grown to the point where I can say that I actually love her work. I only really put Middlemarch on the list because of a friend who had a similar experience as you but with The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch sounded more interesting to me.

I've had a Netflix subscription for a really long time and I'm just now getting into streaming. I made a really really long queue when I first started and still haven't gotten to the end of it. Needless to say, my world hasn't been the same. There's no shame in giving in to the addiction. As for jobs, I moonlighted as a cashier/office supplies associate at the local Staples. I swear, there's something about shopping for pens and paper that makes people extra nasty in their interactions with others. Did you also get people who would treat you like working in retail/food service was your career or your life and somehow that makes you a lesser person? Even if it were my career, I'm not quite sure how that works but I had to get over people's disrespect rather quickly. I really lost a part of my trust in humanity after I worked there and I'm sure serving cocktails couldn't have helped with that trust either. Amen to graduate school treating us better. I'm a 20th c. Americanist who never really liked the Victorian novel and I've been trying to give it more of a chance recently, especially those novels that I know I should have read but never did: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Mansfield Park, etc. Right now, I'm re-reading Charle's Chesnutt's The House Behind the Cedars which is more in vein with my research. Middlemarch, however, is definitely on my list; did you enjoy it once it was all said and done? And the whole buying furniture thing is actually really annoying and I seriously envy your ability to hold on to those pieces. I would have taken more but my younger brother needs them for when he moves in to my room and my mother is getting rid of all of his (really) old furniture to make room for a study. Thankfully the folks realized that this was a burden and they're helping me financially (in exchange for the fact that they didn't have to spend a dime on college tuition) but all the assembly during this past week's Northeastern heat wave has been frustrating at best and I'm nowhere near done. Most of the assembling will be done at the new place tomorrow. I'm assuming that you're going to Bloomington and I hope that you know that there are some really great restaurants tucked into that small town (though I'll admit that I didn't have any Spanish food when I went there to visit). If you're not going to Bloomington, well, that sucks lol.

Well, classes don't start until the first week of September but things are already starting to move into motion. I have a living situation set up in the new city and Round 1 of the move happened earlier this week. New city is about a 2 hour drive from current city so a friend and I road tripped over with several boxes of books, a garbage can, a wall clock and an IKEA floor lamp. Lamp has been set up (gotta have priorities) and room in the house has been chosen. I'm moving from my parents' house and because I have a younger sibling who will be moving into the room I'm abandoning, pretty much all of my furniture has had to have been purchased. This includes new bookshelf, new bed frame, new dresser and new desk. IKEA has been a good friend to me. Other than preparing for the move, life is pretty chill right now. I've taken a rather long-ish break from reading articles/books in my field in hopes that this will reinvigorate me when the semester begins. This isn't to say that I've lost interest in what I'm studying but anything that will help me keep the momentum going for 5-6 years is worth pursuing. I've pretty much taken a break from everything that doesn't resemble either socializing, fun reading (which does actually involve those overwrought Victorians [i kid, I kid]), packing or Netflix streaming. I quit my part-time retail job of four years months ago when I realized that I was so sick of it that entering the building was making me physically ill. I've been subsisting on random odd jobs which have recently dried up along with my bank account; it's funny how the two correlate. At this point, I'm really just looking forward to the move and the rest of what should be a mostly carefree summer in a relatively unknown (to me) area.

I think it also depends on whether you'd really want to use an e-reader in this capacity. I know that personally I need physical copies of my articles and books because I like inserting marginalia (which I know can be done electronically but I prefer the freedom and ease of just doing it by hand, especially because I draw arrows and bracket off entire sections) and writing my thoughts on the backs of pages. I've used a laptop for several years but I've never gotten comfortable with reading pdfs on the screen--I have stacks and stacks of random articles that I'm only getting around to throwing out now because I'm moving this weekend. It's painful clutter that could easily be solved with an e-reader but the reading experience just isn't the same. Of course, I'm not moving very far and I don't have shipping costs to consider but the fact that I'd probably still have to buy a good number of critical texts would probably still keep me from Kindling (or Nooking, or iPadding). Also, your e-reader edition of a text might be different from other people's so it might be a slight nuisance when referencing things in a class discussion. Just something else to think about.

I wish I had been more organized. With this being said, I was actually worlds more organized than I usually am (ie, I had a piece of paper in a notebook where I scribbled down all of the different deadlines and requirements whereas during the semester I usually rely on my memory for when papers/projects are due). This ultimately didn't end up hurting me too much but I do think I got rejected from two schools because I wasn't as put together as I could have been.I wish I had started this process earlier. I came off of a really difficult last semester of undergrad and used that as an excuse to completely take the summer off. This left me with about a month to study for the GRE and two or three weeks to study for the subject GRE in my field. I did well enough on the former and crashed and burned on the latter and in both cases I know I could have performed better. What was worse was that I didn't even end up sending a full draft of my writing sample to my advisers until two weeks before the first deadlines.I REALLY wish I hadn't limited myself to applying only to schools in the Northeast. I was born and raised in New York City and though I love the city I'll be leaving for in three weeks (!!!) and the department I'm entering is one of the best, it would have been nice to experience a totally different kind of life. I guess I'll have to wait until the job search.This, of course, has only come up in hindsight but I wish I had applied to more reach schools. As others have already said, I was almost plagued by a certain level of skepticism about the quality of my work and how it would be received. Now that I know that there are at least a few people who are excited about it, I kind of wish I had applied to the Yales and the Harvards to see how it would have been received. But, then again, I applied to eleven schools and pretty much wiped out my savings account so maybe this would be more appropriate in a "perfect world" scenario.With all that being said, the fact that I was able to tell my best friend "You know what? This writing sample is a damn good piece of work" before I sent out my applications made all the stress and sleepless nights kind of worth it.

As the person above me said, I'm having a hard time picking out these obvious academic failures. For what it's worth, I'm from one of those schools that, in the grand scheme of things, make the schools that you've graduated from look like R1 universities. I'll be attending a top 20 doctoral program in the fall. As many around these parts have said, it is definitely the SOP and writing sample that are the most important aspects of an admissions profile by far. Keep doing what you're doing to study for the GRE verbal, do what you can to study for the GRE Lit (which I'm still convinced is damn near impossible to study for totally and damn well meant nothing for my acceptances/rejections) and take this year to polish your statement of purpose and writing sample. I'm sure this doesn't have to be said but keep in contact with not only the professors who will be writing you letters of recommendation, but other people in the department so that they will be willing to help you revise and edit the work you'll be submitting. If I could change one thing about the way I went about applying to graduate school, it would be that I should have probably given my (5!) professors more than just the two drafts I was able to muster up before my first application deadline. That actually sounded slightly disingenuous when I read it back to myself because I did work on those drafts for about three months prior to handing them in but everything felt slightly rushed towards the end and that panic is definitely the reason I got rejected from one of my schools (for reasons that are so embarrassing that I won't repeat them haha). You truly look like you're on the right path and it's almost disheartening to see you so beaten up by the process already. If you keep looking through the fora, I'm sure you'll find many many pieces of advice that will help you along the way. Plus, you have a ridiculous amount of time to focus on all of this; use it wisely. As an addendum, I want to assure you that you don't have to look like someone who has been gearing up for this next step for the past 4-6 years. What you should be concerned about is coming off as someone who is passionate about the work that you will be doing and is able to be a productive contributor to whatever field you're going into. When I did my rounds amongst the schools that accepted me a few months ago, the impression that I got was that not only were my writing sample and statement of purpose strong, they showed an attention to nuanced work that hadn't really been done before or, at least, wasn't being done to the extent that they wanted to see it being done. They wanted their name to be attached to work that was new and refreshing and I was able to convince them that these are projects on which I'm willing to spend a lot of time.

The ranking issue comes out annually but they (for whatever reason) don't update the rankings for English programs for each issue. From what I gather it's something like triennially updated with new English department rankings.

It is required: http://gc.cuny.edu/admin_offices/admissions/program_deadlines.htm I wonder if anyone else is going to have a field day with last year's applicants' meticulous attention to USNWR.

The deposit came from Apple so I don't think other phones will have the same problem.

I don't know if this has changed but when I got my iPhone last year, Apple wanted a $500 deposit because I also had no credit history. In the end, I put my dad down as the primary user to get around that.

I'd like to pop in again to serve as one of those 2 or 3 applicants. I'm not ashamed (anymore lol) to say that I scored in the 55th percentile on that ridiculous standardized test. The website of one of the (top 30) schools I was accepted to says: "Scores on the GRE should exceed 600 on the Verbal, Analytical and Subject tests." My score on the subject test (and the analytical portion of the GRE, for that matter) fell rather solidly short of this "cut-off" but I was accepted and received a competitive Graduate School-wide fellowship based solely on my writing sample. The DGS had to nominate me for the fellowship and, for reasons I won't discuss here, when I got there for the visitation weekend she told me about her letter of recommendation and why I was nominated. Now, I'm not going to that school and the department I'm entering in the fall is known for not using the subject test's scores when considering an applicant for admission (which, I'm not going to lie, has made me wonder whether they would have accepted me if they did) so maybe I'm not the best example. But, I wanted to put this out there just in case there were others who were considering retaking the subject test.

No clue but I +1'd for you. Personally, that test was so emotionally draining that I shut my phone off and slept the rest of the day away after I took it. Couldn't even fathom taking it again.

"High scores in the Verbal (700) and Subject tests (650, i.e., English and American literature) are positive additions to the applica­tion but are by no means the most important aspect of one’s candidacy." I found this on the Graduate School's profile of the English Department. This was the only sentence I could find that gave any specifics on the scores they were looking for and I don't see it creating a score threshold in which anything lower won't even be considered. Based on this, I wouldn't bother retaking the test. You're close enough to a "high score" that it shouldn't be an issue if every other part of your application package is stellar. Edited so I can wish you luck on your applications, Branwen.

Mellon?

Well, now that I know who you are, I'm going to preface this by saying you, me and aforementioned MFA student should go get some coffee and discuss things. I'm also going to start off by saying (and I'm sure you know this already) I believe that the field of rhetoric/composition still has better job prospects for what it's worth, but that margin between rhet/comp openings and literature openings is nowhere near what it used to be. You might want to remain cognizant of this as you try to figure out how you go about this process. I also wouldn't worry about our professors. Most, if not all, are more than pleased to help students get into PhD candidates in any way possible and I don't think having to make two related letters of recommendation counts as an overwhelming burden. With that being said, I (perhaps, personally) want you to go into literature. Quite honestly, if you can't see yourself doing that kind of historically based rhetoric research for much longer, there isn't much point in marketing yourself as a candidate who can. No one is going to hold you to the intentions you lay out in your personal statement but, like you say, some places have rhet/comp programs outside of their institution's English department and it might come as somewhat of a hassle to switch departments (not speaking from experience, of course). You'd also probably have to end up with two writing samples: one would (possibly) be that master's thesis you've already discussed for the rhet/comp programs and another would have to be more lit based unless you can find a way to make one sample straddle both lines. It really comes down to the kind of research you DO foresee yourself wanting to do for a long period of time. If you really want to go into rhet/comp, don't let LORs or having to send two applications to two different departments at the same institution keep you from going that route. I think you can do wonders with taking that rhet/comp background and applying them to lit classes but I've never wanted to do rhet/comp so I may be slightly biased. I really can't tell you whether your (rather impressive) rhetoric background will hurt your application to lit programs at all because I have no idea. I gather that you'd take the research you've done so far and apply it to a more literature-based track, which I would think would be more than fine as long as you promote that as being the case. You definitely don't want to come off as someone who's whimsically changing fields. This isn't to say that that is how it's coming across in the post but I can see how someone might interpret what you're doing as such. Just be mindful of it. Long story short, I did not apply to rhetoric/composition programs so all of my advice might be invalid. Be mindful of that too. PS. I'm kind of intrigued as to who your adviser is.