filouxx

Thanks for demystifying the process. The fact that you've outlined a few general criteria has made it seem much less daunting- I was worried that the success of somebody's application was purely decided on the whim of the professor reviewing it. Am I correct in thinking that these top departments are looking for candidates whose applications suggest innovative scholarship, very strong intellectual curiosity and cogency of argument rather than applicants who are interested in particular authors that members of the faculty are experts on? For instance, going back to Nigel Smith, whose book on Marvell I am particularly familiar with... would a candidate who was interested in researching the divine field of metaphysical poetry (Herbert and Vaughan, let's say) and whose submitted written work was incredible be treated more favourably by Smith (let's pretend he's the member of the faculty reviewing the applications) than a candidate whose work was less good, but focussed on Marvell? Sorry if this question is a bit nebulous! Also, are you aware of the extent to which these top departments 'curate' the admitted year? As in, would they reject a very strong application from a medievalist if they had already admitted 2/3 medievalists already that cycle? Ah yeah, I figured that the writers in residence wouldn't do too much formal teaching... I just love the idea of going to a university with frickin' Paul Muldoon there!

This is all very helpful- I must apologise if my questions are exasperatingly naive. As I say, I'm still very much an undergraduate, aha. I'll be sure to speak to my one-to-one tutor about the process when I get back to UCL. Do you have any idea about the assessment of applications within the departments themselves? Say, for instance, somebody applies to Princeton with a SoP asserting a desire to research and write about animals in Richard Lovelace. The application then gets passed on to Smith or Dolven. Provided the candidate's grades are excellent and their submitted work is fresh and exciting, how would the faculty go about judging the proposal? Does it simply have to have a certain 'je ne sais quoi' that captures the imagination and the whim of the professors?

Hi there, Just as a preamble, I'm a UK undergraduate studying English at UCL. I'm about to go into my third year and am 90% convinced that I'd like to get a Ph.D and attempt to break into the academic world. As such, I've been looking more and more at more at graduate literature programmes in the US, as they seem to far outstrip their UK alternatives. If I graduate from UCL with a first, as I am very much on track to, I'd ideally pursue a taught masters in the UK (either at Oxford or again at UCL) in order to hone my research interests and eventually make an application to some US departments for a Ph.D. Now, I fully appreciate that there is no sense in choosing a graduate school based on arbitrary notions of the institution's 'prestige', but several of the English departments at the very top of the US league tables are very attractive to me (and many others, I'm sure!), simply due to their fantastic facilities and brilliant faculties. At this fledgling stage, I'm wavering between interests in both Anglo-Irish modernist poetry and early modern studies, both things that Princeton seems to excel in (the Renaissance drama collections, Paul Muldoon as a writer in residence, etc.). I guess what I need to know is what areas of literature and what critical schools these top departments are mainly focussed upon so that I can gauge which ones will fit my research interests when I do apply in a few years. Can anybody help me? I can infer that Harvard are very much into new historicism and early modern studies (Stephen Greenblatt) and would assume that U. Chicago retains some of its opposition to the New Criticism... but what about places like Princeton, Yale, Columbia and Berkeley? In short, if anyone can give me a broad overview of the strengths and characters of the top US English departments, I'd be really grateful! Thanks a lot!