HumanCylinder

Hi jhefflol -- I will be on my third application season, and I also thought long and hard about going for it again. In the first two seasons, I only applied to a handful of schools because I couldn't move at the time. I felt like I didn't want to throw in the towel without giving myself a chance at"playing the numbers" and applying very widely and broadly, which from what I can tell is pretty much conventional wisdom about this process. But beyond that, one of the biggest factors in my decision to reapply came down to writing criticism and doing research. I would much prefer to have both of those things included in my job description. I've also been teaching freshmen comp. as an adjunct for the past three years at a four-year university. While I enjoy teaching writing and rhetoric, my ultimate goal is to teach literature and I feel like a Ph.D would give me more leverage in that endeavor. I just wanted to share my experience in making a similar decision -- best of luck in the process!

Taking the subject test has been a saga for me. Somehow, I ended up taking it three times (1st time = very sick and not even close to finishing the test, 2nd time = blaring music at testing location, leading ETS to give me a free retake, 3rd time = this past April and I finally got a score I was satisfied with). Here's what I experienced. The second time I took it, which was fall 2014, there was a lot more reading comprehension on the test, and I felt it did take longer. That being said, the comprehension was a lot easier if you had read, and were decently familiar with, the excerpted text. What's interesting about my overall experience, though, is that the test I received most recently was very similar to the one I received the first time (fall 2013), and both of these versions did in fact have a lot more author matching/text regognition questions on them. In case that was really hard to follow (and I'm sure it was -- sorry!), all I'm basically trying to say is that it can entirely depend on what version of the test you are handed, so it may be best to go into it with expectiations that are not too ossified.

I appreciate the offer, 1Q84 -- I'm interested in your experience, so I'll be sure to do that. Some of the local schools I applied to have already rejected me twice, so I took that as a pretty clear sign that the interest was not mutual. I do plan to improve my application materials, but I'm not sure if I should apply to those schools again. I'm not tied to the area any more, so I'm excited to apply much more broadly, but I would definitely prefer to stay close to home if possible.

I've lurked around these forums for the past year, but I thought I should finally participate this application season. I'll be applying to literature Ph.D programs this year. This will actually be my third round applying, but first applying widely (which I probably should have done from the start). I applied to a handful of mostly local prorams for the past two years, obviously with little success (one offer, but without full fundng). Here's to hoping I fare better this round.