blomnosgrad

Hi blueoctavo! I'd be happy to discuss Comp Lit at Rutgers with you. Have PM-d you some of the things I loved about the program. Feel free to ask about anything else you might want to discuss.

Congratulations!

Meena is indeed an absolute dear, but I did get the impression that she might not be around much. I did speak to one of the older PhD students who had taken a course with her last semester and was practically raving about it. Siraj Ahmed did write to me telling me to expect good news soon even though I am on the waiting list, so I don't know ... But after much deliberation and several pros and cons list (given I got accepted to a few other great programs as well), I think I am headed to NJ this Fall. Don't feel too bad about Rutgers! There's always the consortium to take full advantage of Keep in touch. Us PoCo kids have got to stick together, after all! PM if you don't want the entire "Highest Stipends" thread to have to continue to listen to our CUNY-Rutgers Parent Trap situation.

Didn't see one for this fall, so here we go. I am accepting an offer from Rutgers to do a PhD in Comparative Literature. Wanted to check in if there are future RU folks here!

The research fit was excellent! Meena Alexander also seemed super keen to have me over. But can't say I am super disappointed with the Rutgers offer.

Well, Rutgers is giving $30K for the Excellence Fellowship at least. Other offers might be a little less, but not by much I am sure. Rutgers, I have learned, from my time at Gradcafe is kind in so far as the $$$ is concerned. However, I should put it out there that I really wanted to get into CUNY, and am now languishing in the depths of their waiting list. 21K is little given the living cost at NY. I know some people were offered 25.

Well, Rutgers is offering me a $30k fellowship. And I am led to believe that they generally offer really good financial packages to doctoral candidates. Just putting it out there.

Thank you! I have offers from Rutgers, CUNY, and Binghamton at the moment, but I had my heart on U of T. It would have been an excellent fit for my research, particularly in collaboration with the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Any idea how many students they take in to the doctoral program generally?

Mind if I PM you a whole bunch of questions?

Is there anyone here from Rutgers Comp Lit? Or anyone who knows anything about the program? I have been offered an Excellence Fellowship to the Rutgers Comp Lit program, and the people at the department seem super keen to have me accept the offer as well, but I was hoping to talk to a few students before making a call.

In December actually, which in hindsight, may not have been the best idea given that my waiting time is that much prolonged. With English at least, I have noticed too many acceptances on the Results Board, and now think it is a goner for me. But hey, good luck to you!

I have actually applied to the English program at U of T. But yes, still waiting under the large looming shadow of the increasingly more depressing "Under Review".

Thank you, you two! At least I can modify my expectations a little based on this.

Hey, congratulations to everyone who have been getting in to the program of their choice! And sympathies for those who haven't received good news (or any news) yet. The lack of news is driving me up the walls, and making me super unproductive! So I figured I'd vent. I got an acceptance with an Excellence Fellowship for Rutgers Comp Lit a couple of weeks ago, and just got a waitlist at CUNY English. I did apply to Emory but I guess that's a bust judging by the results board, although I have not heard anything from them yet. My top choice is NYU, whose stoic silence will probably give me an ulcer. I had applied to their program a couple of years ago and had already received my waitlist email by this time of the month. The Results board shows 2 acceptances on the 3rd of Feb. Anybody else heard from them? Also, is there anyone here from Rutgers because I'd really like to talk to someone who goes/went there.

Has anyone heard from the English Department/Graduate Studies at University of Toronto or NYU?

Received an offer from Rutgers Comp Lit last week. DGS emailed me and then Skyped me afterwards. Such a lovely and warm person! Got the official Fellowship Letter today. $30k funding, and they said that if I get another offer (this was the first place I heard back from) and it comes down to the money, I should let them know and they "will see what can be done about that". I am hoping to hear back from other places but Rutgers has been really nice. Two of the faculty members (whom I haven't contacted beforehand) have been writing in to express how excited they are about working with me and so on. I was wondering what people know about the program, the intellectual community, placement rates etc.

Aside from the one CUNY acceptance (congrats btw) and the one NYU acceptance (which no one owned up to), any word on either schools getting in touch? Either the English faculty/DGS, or GSAS? The suspense is killing me!

Hello fellow Fall 2016 applicants, My area of interest is postcolonial/transnational studies and the programs I have been looking at so far are CUNY, NYU, WashU, Emory, Brown, U of T and McGill. All Eng Lit programs except for Emory where I think the Comparative program is a better fit for me. But given the present abysmal funding situation (especially when it comes to international students like me), I was wondering if anyone has any other suggestions in terms of programs.

I do have an interest in DH but in terms of specific work in the field ... well, I have experience working with two digital archives. And the school I go to has a School of Cultural Texts and Records, and I have taken a few courses with them. Do you think highlighting that would help?

Thank you for the feedback. I had heard about GWU's funding issues as well, but some of their ongoing research is so in sync with my own interest that I cannot resist applying. But I had no idea CUNY has been having funding issues as well. Do you know any schools with a strong postcolonial/transnational interest that has better funding?

Thank you! I will try and work that into my SOP narrative. I am looking at the Comparative Lit Program at Emory, but that has so far been the lone non-English department I looked at. But I will look at more of those to see if they match my research interests. Aside from Emory, the other US schools I have been looking at are CUNY, NYU, GWU, UPenn, Brown and Binghamton. They all have a strong postcolonial focus. What do you think of these?

Hello, I am an aspiring PhD applicant looking to apply to English Programs in US and Canada in Fall 2016. I am currently pursuing an M.Phil in English Literature (research degree in between an MA and a PhD) after doing both a BA and an MA in English Lit as well. Right now, I am working on the narratives born out of the national ruptures. Our GPA is measured on a 10 point scale and I have always been at a 9.5-9.75 zone. I have, over the course of my time in Grad School in India, held several research positions, including a fellowship with the1947 Partition Archive at Berkeley. I took my GRE and TOEFL exams last year and I have good scores. I have over a dozen conference presentations and a few publications as well. However, being an international student, I am led to believe that I am still at a disadvantage. I am shortlisting schools at the moment, with equal focus on US and Canada (perhaps a tad bit more on Canada since I finished high school in Toronto). My research interests are broadly postcolonial studies, but I am interested in seeing how it interacts with genres of speculative fiction. I have, in particular worked with postcolonialism in crime fiction and science fiction. My M.Phil research has also nuanced my interest in migration studies as well how gender interacts with nation-building and rupture. All of that being said, I am still having trouble drafting an SoP. Now I understand that I have to tailor it according to the school and its strengths, relate it to faculty members that I have corresponded with etc. In my attempt to form a skeleton for the same, I came up with a structure akin to this: 1. What you want to do (e.g. I want to pursue doctoral studies in uni XYZ) 2. Why you want to do it (because it will help me achieve these particular short and long term goals) 3. How prepared you are to do it (I have taken these courses / completed these readings / participated in these conferences / published these articles) 4. Why you have chosen university XYZ (it fits my area of interest the best / the correspondence with faculty was positive) I was hoping for some feedback with regards to this rather reductive sketch of an SoP. In addition, I was wondering if any current PhD scholar could tell me what degree of details would work. I can make my research interest very specific, with n number of sub-sets put into it, and end up seemingly with a very niche specialization. But would that seem limited in a sense? I also certainly do not want to be vague and unspecific in my approach. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.