haltheincandescent
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Posts posted by haltheincandescent
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Hello, again.
So, for almost everywhere I'm applying to, the requirement for transcripts reads something like this: "Transcripts are required from all prior college level schools attended for at least one year. A scanned copy of the official transcript is submitted as part of the online application. Please do not mail transcripts to the department. Our department will only be asking students offered admission to submit transcripts." So, I ordered an official copy of the transcript and scanned it. BUT, the document has a watermark embedded so that, when scanned, "VOID VOID VOID" appears behind the rest of the text in bold letters. Everything's still readable, but the intense "VOID" still worries me. Is this a normal thing for scanned transcripts? Will programs understand that this is how the Official version will look when they get a scan of it? Has anyone sent one in with a watermark like this, and been okay? Since nowhere wants a paper copy sent directly to them for the application, I'm not exactly sure what to do about this. My university does offer the option of sending a PDF, but that's 5$ more per copy than the paper version, and I honestly have no idea if there will be other security features embedded that will make that just as problematic... Any advice is welcome, thanks!
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That major GPA is good, so it should even things out, and especially if the lower grades were in your first couple of years. Some programs (Penn State comes to mind), only even ask for your last 60 (or so) hr GPA. UT Austin says this: "Successful candidates typically possess transcripts with a preponderance of “A”-level grades in their upper-division English and related courses....Applicants are unlikely to be disadvantaged by rocky starts to their college careers." And even Harvard says this: "While candidates’ overall GPA is important, it is more important to have an average of no lower than A- in literature courses (and related courses)." (How necessarily true those statements are, really, though, I don't know. I'll leave that for experienced applicants to comment on.). So, really, if the classes pulling your GPA down are classes you took your freshman year, or things for your math/science requirements, I wouldn't worry too much. If they're in upper level humanities-related courses (whether English or, say, Philosophy or History, etc.), you'll probably need to explain it in your SoP, if there were extenuating circumstances, but even then, I'm not sure if it's a complete death sentence (and especially if you have a record of research in your field, a clear sense of direction in your SoP, good LoRs, a polished writing sample, and even fairly above average Verbal/AWA and Subject GREs as needed.)
All that said: per your interests, definitely check out UT Austin (especially if Wallace is a particular interest [which, judging by your username (!) might be the case]--they have all his archives there! which is partly why I'm applying there
) IU Bloomington might also be a good option. I just did my undergrad there (with a thesis on Wallace & American Postmodernism), and while I can't comment, based on your short intro, whether you'd be a theoretical/genre fit, there're definitely Profs there that work/teach courses on 3/4 of the authors you listed (Morrison, Wallace, Diaz, the latter of which was here a few years ago). I had a great time here (though not really familiar with the grad program, I think very highly of the faculty overall), and so highly recommend (if there wasn't the whole problem with doing your PhD at the same institution as your BA, I'd have a strong inclination to stay, myself). If you end up with any specific Q's about IU, just let me know! Otherwise, I'd say that if there are any particular scholars' work on any of those authors you've found particularly interesting, see where they teach, and then if that program more generally would work for you. Or, there's always the more general slogging through program pages and faculty profiles to see where there's a fit--even if not by author, by theoretical perspective or genre (Sci Fi for Diaz, etc.).
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Granted I am in a different field, but, most programs I'm applying to explicitly say that works cited (and I would assume a cover page too) definitely don't count toward the page count. I would think that would be the same for most programs, seeing as just 7-9 pages of actual writing doesn't really match with the usual length of a grad paper (which is what they usually want to see, basically: are you at a place where you can meet the requirements you'll need to for your classes?). Though of course if you're worried about it and there's nothing specifically addressing it on Admission FAQ's etc., and you want to double check, you can always email and check with the DGS or whoever your programs asks that you send your questions to.
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Did you get any scholarships/awards/honors? Did you study abroad? If so, you can list those things under relevant headings.
You can also have a section that lists your areas of research interest (so like, early 20th century American history; United States Labor History; Social Movements; History and Philosophy of Science; etc., etc. [I'm not a history person, so, just throwing random things out there, sorry]). Maybe around 6 or 7 different interlinking areas, as supported by/discussed in your SoP? Then, you can also have a short list of courses you've taken in those areas of research interest, with relevant info about the professor, semester, etc. And, at the very end, you can include contact information for your references. A lot of this info might be repeated elsewhere in your application or on your transcripts, but it can be handy for the adcom to have it all together, and (especially with the "research interests" and "courses in areas of research interest") it gives you a chance to give a slightly more structured/controlled version of your transcript, highlighting what you think has been important for you as a scholar.
Here's a guide I found to be helpful, especially the "Suggested C.V. Categories": https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/studentlife/ocs/media/pdf/step-three/Curriculum_Vita_Guide.pdf
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I found this list of topics covered (as provided by ETS) with links to videos from Khan Academy that focused on each of the concepts to be pretty helpful. https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/khan_academy
You probably don't need to watch through the whole list, given that it starts with extremely basic arithmetic, but to make the most of it, especially in limited time, I took a practice test first to give me a sense of my weakest areas, then specifically targeted those by watching the relevant videos. Also, since you've already taken the test once, you can access the score diagnostic thing on the mygre website, which--although it won't give you any very specific details at all about the question--can at least highlight big problem areas. For example, if you generally got all the algebra questions right, and geometry wrong, then at least you have an idea of a good area to start focusing on.
Good luck!
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Hi! I took and passed my German translation exam for my uni (2 hour exam, about 1 page of single spaced text, with a dictionary). I had a major in German and failed my first translation exam. I soon realized that being able to read fluently doesn't mean you can translate easily. As a result, I had to actually work on not panicking during the test (I'm a bad test-taker) and strategies for translation. My uni gives you a passage related to your general field (like a critical passage on literature. I got shakespeare and fitzgerald).
Hopes this helps! Feel free to PM me with questions.
This is very helpful, thanks! I think this kind of supports my current path - trying to go about working on reading in a very 'practically' minded way, pretty much going straight to the big names in German lit (Kafka, Mann, Goethe, etc., etc.) as well as criticism in German, after a limited time spent on basic grammar, and then just practicing translating pieces of it. Trying to teach myself to translate rather than read, maybe. I guess we'll see how this pans out in a year or so! - but until then, having a sense that it might be around 1 page will definitely help with strategizing a plan of study. Thanks again!
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Hi everyone,
So, my 3 letter writers have all agreed to write for me, and I sent them each the list of the schools I'm applying to, with, where applicable, info about the submission process (basically: "all will be done through each department's online system"). Now I'm about to start submitting parts of the applications that will generate the recommendation request emails from the various departments, and am wondering: need I give my recommenders another specific heads up that these emails are about to come in, or is the original agreement and their subsequent approval of my list of schools (only about a week or so ago) basically enough of an advance warning for them to look out for these emails?
On a related note, how long is normal to get the request sent before the application deadline? Because some of the applications won't let me send the request until after I submit everything, so obviously I can't wait until the exact deadline to submit everything on my end if I want the recs in on time....but is maybe two weeks or so enough time? (This is probably something to double check with the individual writers about, but I was wondering if there was maybe a generally acceptable timeline that I can have in mind as soon as possible, because all three of my writers are, well, not known for their rapid response to email.....)
Thanks!
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I am taking the Psychology Subject GRE at the end of October as well and am wondering if anyone knows when I will get my score? (I am taking a paper version of the test.) How long does it take for scores to be posted online on my account?
The ETS site says the scores will be back pretty much exactly one month after the test date (though I think for the October one its actually a month + a day because they want to release scores on a Monday--so Nov. 25 or something.) I'm not sure if there's any chance scores might come in early (still waiting on mine from Sep. 19th), but I think they definitely shouldn't be any later.
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I wish I was as confident as everyone else who took the test! My experience was more like 1Q84s - I walked out of the exam a bit shocked. Sort of felt like I was assaulted by words, haha. I took a three hour nap afterwards and was sort of person-soup for the rest of the day. To be fair, my background in English is a little abnormal, for example, I've never taken a general course on 'American Literature', so a lot of the writers I studied were brand new to me.
But, on the plus(?) side, the one school that required me to take the exam has now flipped the script and no longer requires it. I guess I can chalk this up to being a 'character building experience'. Sounds better than waste of study time, lol.
When I saw a new post in this thread I was hoping that it was someone announcing that scores had come in early! Still no, but, we're so close!
But yeah, I'd definitely say it's "character building" or at least familiarity building--I had put off reading Pope, Dryden, Johnson etc. for so darn long, but ended up almost having to address that really obvious gap, if only superficially, while trying to study for this (and I even ended up finding out that my groundless resistance to reading them was totally silly; they're great.) So hey, now you at least somewhat know those American writers, right?
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What aspects of spatial theory are you interested in? I generally recommend people read Doreen Massey's For Space and the reader on Foucault, space, and power, as initial forays into spatial theory. If you look at the reading lists for geographic theory courses at the graduate level, you'll find some good recommendations for texts on spatial theory.
This might sound a bit vague--and for the purposes of my applications, I have a more well defined project in mind--but for the time I have to read this year I'm trying to stay general so I can get a breadth of reading in. So, it's kind of a combination of a really general interest in the relationship between critical theory & human geography (so coming from David Harvey), and more specifically how this tradition relates to literary theory, with its own understandings about spatiality/spatial form (so Frank, Mitchell, etc.). I've read a bit of Foucault's work in the area--"Of Other Spaces" especially--and then various chapters/articles from Soja, Lefebvre, de Certeau, the Situationists, Bachelard, Jameson, Moretti, etc., etc. I definitely already have step one cut out for me in going back and reading some of the chapters in those books that I skimmed when not relevant to my thesis research, but, I definitely want(ed) to see what others might suggest--and, good thing, because your suggestions are very helpful: I seem to have managed to overlook Massey--which, with even a quick search seems to be a pretty conspicuous gap--so thank you! This is exactly what I needed: making sure there's nothing big I'm missing.
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Hi all,
So, there were a few reasons that I needed to take a gap year, and while some time off to breathe before jumping into a PhD has certainly been nice, I'm also finding myself with a lot more free time than I'm used to (after 24 credit hour semesters and a senior thesis, the very concept of "free time" seems a bit unintelligible). Some of this great, and I'm discovering that time to run and naps are pretty cool, but I'm also feeling a bit unproductive with regards to my studies now that I'm just going to work, and then coming home to work on applications and like, catching up on Netflix, etc. I also know that this is going to be even more strange once applications are all sent off. So, I've been trying to come up with productive reading plans and such, which has been going pretty well (I mean, can one ever really read enough to be prepared for grad work?), but I also thought this might be a good chance to really dig in on a second foreign language, and get my German up to a level where I can pass both language exams at the beginning of next year and get that out of the way.
As I was trying to figure out what exact level of competency I need to work toward, I found this from Harvard (a series of past exams as a sample): http://english.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Past-German-Exams.pdf. Elsewhere on they site, they say that you have to pass a "two hour translation exam, with a dictionary." I know the exact terms of this sort of exam are probably different for different departments/programs, but I was wondering if anyone might be able to give me insight into how good of a "practice" the link above is. More specifically: do you get two hours to just translate something with a word-count similar to just *one* of those passages? or do you have multiple passages on each exam? With where I'm at now, I think I could do one of them in two hours, but I feel like that's really pretty slow. Clearly, I still have plenty of time, and am going to keep working at it, so I have to reference the dictionary less, which'll hopefully speed things up, but if where I am now is actually very nearly good enough, I might start splitting time with another language, or something else.
Any insight would be appreciated! (I'd also take any reading list recommendations for new Lit. PhDs. My main area is the 20th/21st century American novel, with a particular focus in postmodern/spatial theory, so anything in that area would be welcome; but I'm also trying to cover some "classics" of theory/crit/philosophy that never came up in my undergrad classes--I've recently been spending time with the likes of Aristotle, Marx, and Auerbach. I've read fairly widely, but I'd love to hear if anyone has any particular "must-reads" that I can make sure not to overlook. When there's finally a list of "everything" to choose from, outside the bounds of course syllabuses, some guidance would actually be nice.)
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Yep, I agree with Wyatt. Originally, I intended to apply to 9, based on some other threads I saw around here and on other grad related boards, then one of my letter writers very specifically told me to apply to no less than around 15. I ended up with a list of 14, just because I really couldn't find 1 more that had the right mix of profs to match my slightly idiosyncratic interests and reasonable funding--but if you can find more good matches, and know that you'd be perfectly happy even with your least "favorite" among them, then go for it!
(Also, on the cost note: I have no idea what your interests are, or how good of a match these would be, but I just discovered as I was extending my list the other day, that Vanderbilt waives their application fee if you apply online; and so does Emory if you get in all your materials by Oct. 31st [LoRs and GRE scores will apparently be accepted until the normal deadline of Dec. 15th or something.] Still have to pay to send them the GRE score reports, but these were nice notes to discover as I was adding up and slowly beginning to despair at the cost of all this...)
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If you're interested in phenomenology, it's important, in my opinion, to be aware of the philosophical tradition that literary work on phenomenology has been engaged with. I'd probably start with Husserl's Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, and then move on to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Merleau-Ponty is responding to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and adapting it in interesting ways, and his new model has been an important critical resource for work across the disciplines. Much contemporary work on phenomenology is implicitly or explicitly engaging with Merleau-Ponty's formulations. For contemporary work that is more literary, it really varies by period. Across periods, I'd recommend Sarah Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology. In the early modern period, Bruce Smith has done work on phenomenology and Shakespeare and Erika Lin's work is implicitly phenomenological. There's also been a critical turn in the new materialism away from anthropocentric phenomenologies which N. Katherine Hayles is sort of on the cusp of. The new materialism is, in many ways, a complete retooling of phenomenology and has also been opposed to traditional phenomenology (see Post-Phenomenology, Speculative Realism, and work done by Karen Barad and Bogost). There's also a whole lot of work on phenomenology and spatial practice (which is the focus of my work). Christopher Tilley, Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Kevin Lynch, Yi-Fu Tuan, and Gaston Bachelard are in this vein.
Hope this helps!
This is fantastic! A lot of my work so far has also focused on spatial practice, so I second Lefebre, Soja, Tuan, and Bachelard (esp. The Poetics of Space. Just a lovely read alone). But I've also been trying to pick up a better foundation in phenomemology more generally, so thanks for pointers of where to start and where to then go from there!
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Hi fellow IU-person! (I just graduated from there--in English--myself, last year, though I'm still in Bloomington for a gap year while I apply... So jealous about you working at Kinsey!)
Maybe a good thing to do, if you're really wanting to stay in the department, would be to go talk to an adviser or prof. that you know in the dept. (rather than admissions) and ask them how much GRE's seem to be weighted against everything else--some of the profs will have likely been on the dept.'s adcom in the past or will at least have an idea of the overall attitude toward these things. For example, profs in my department, when I've asked about various parts of the application, have all always stressed that SoP and the writing sample are far more important than anything else at all--though this seems not always to be the case for other schools, where LoR's, GRE's, or undergrad institution plays a bigger role. Point being, profs in your department likely know what your department wants. Alternatively, you might seek out grad student(s) on campus for advice, see how their applications went, etc. (though of course with this route, you'll only get a view of what gets accepted not what might get rejected, and some might not want to admit to having subpar GRE's themselves.)
A caveat though, which depends on, partly, whether you're looking at an MA or a PhD. You might already know and have thought about this, but if it's a PhD you're pursuing at IU, staying in the same department as your undergrad is usually not advised--though it depends of course on your ultimate goal for getting the degree, or reasons for wanting to stay. (See here, the first few responses, for good advice on the subject: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/68602-10-steps-to-phd-failure/?page=1). I found this advice from IU (at least the English department), when I was also thinking about staying here: "It is generally advisable for students who have completed the B.A. /M.A. at IU to pursue the doctorate elsewhere; however, under certain circumstances a B.A./M.A. student may benefit from doctoral study here, in which case, she may apply for admission to the department’s Ph.D. program through the standard application process." Again, probably something that your profs/adviser might have better and more specific advice on, though.
Unfortunately, not being in History, I can't myself offer any suggestions about other good schools that are strong in US History or that'd fit your interests--though once again, your current profs might be good resources. I'm sort of assuming that since you want to stay here, you have a specific potential adviser or two in mind, who match your interests (and maybe, if you've already had a class with them, know your work)? If this is in fact the case, those would likely be the best people to talk to, as they'll surely know other profs in their/your field at different schools and so can recommend schools where such people work. Even if you don't have that close of a relationship with a prof at IU in your field, others that you know will probably be able to similarly help, or direct you to someone who does. This is, at least, the case with my list of possible schools right now--out for review by one of my letter writers to see if I might be missing a school where there's better fit. (Their advice about GRE's could also potentially apply to other programs.)
Anyway, hope this helps! And if you're ever in application freak out mode or want to commiserate about the process over coffee, just send me a PM. Of the beneficial things I've found so far in this process, meeting up with someone else also in the middle of it, and then complaining a lot, has been one of the most helpful--at least as far as maintaining sanity goes.
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As someone who proofs & edits manuscripts for a scholarly press........if your paper has just 1 typo in it, you're doing really well compared to your peers. (Because seriously, there are often so many errors before copyediting.)
Anyway--good luck on the defense!
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Hello. Here's yet another SoP crit. request, for English Lit (20th C./Modernism). If anyone would be willing to at least give it a quick read and let me know if I'm on the right track, please let me know by PM. Thanks so much!
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6 weeks? If I'm taking it October 24, does that mean I won't know my score until around Mid-December?
I took the subject test in April and the scores were online exactly a month after I took it. I guess it could take up to six weeks, though.
Yeah--the ETS site lists the date scores will be available online: almost exactly a month after the test date (Oct 19th for the September test, and Nov 23rd for the October date). The six weeks seems to be the time it takes to send out reports to your schools.
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I also took it this past Saturday, and felt relatively good about it--though I was also thrown by all of the middle English. The biggest thing I noticed that was different from the practice tests was that the amount of questions per passage was much higher. On the samples, it seemed that there'd usually be about 3-4, but on the real thing it was more like 6-9--though again, the passages are longer, so I guess it's about the same amount of reading per question. The biggest problem, then, is that if you struggle with one passage, that's a lot more possible points lost.
A recommendation I'd emphasize: if you're spending what feels like too long on a hard passage, skip it & come back. Not even necessarily because you're losing time, but because doing all the 'easier' questions first helped me (1) warm-up to the speed I needed to be reading and (2) keep from despairing about how hard the thing was. A lot of what I struggled with on the first pass ended up being clearer on the second go, after I had been reading for a while.
And now, yes, I am trying very hard to keep from obsessively trying to check answers to questions I was unsure about (and failing--but, hey, there are poems that I will never forget who wrote them, now, after missing them on the test.....)
Scans of Official Transcripts
in Applications
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Thanks everyone! I was sort of assuming this would be the case, but like I said, as soon as I saw that in huge bold letters across the whole thing, it just freaked me out a bit--maybe a little too worried/obsessive about any possible anomaly on my applications!--and wanted to double check.