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haltheincandescent

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Everything posted by haltheincandescent

  1. I'm planning on submitting about 15-17 pages to everywhere that asks for 10-25. Decided against anything much longer mostly because I read on Columbia's (....I think? Might have been another program, so don't quote me on this. But somewhere definitely said it.) admissions page that, although they ask for 15-20 pages, you can submit a longer sample. But, if you submit something longer, it likely won't be read past "the first 15 pages." It probably won't be read up to the upper-end of the writing sample range, but rather the lower. I'm not sure if this means that the first 15 pages will be read most closely for any paper, even those within the limit, or for only those unedited ones that have the potential to drone on, but, this possibility of only the first 15 being read made me decide not to max out the limit. Dunno if this is an overall good idea, or not, but, just my thoughts based on this one set of instructions.
  2. I'm not waiting for a response from your particular program....but I definitely have a lot of experience waiting and waiting and waiting and then obsessively checking messages, etc. My recommendation: Leave all devices that will let you access your email at home, and go for a walk or a run or to the gym, whatever's your preference. Turning off the phone and taking a nap or cleaning your house might be an okay idea, too, but I like putting literal distance between myself and email because, despite my best intentions, and good will-power when it comes to most other things, when it comes to waiting for a big decision like this, even turning off the phone is too easy to reverse. I'll just check once more...... So, alternatively and additionally to exercise: go to the library (except now they have computers at the library....) or a coffee shop, or the mall, or really wherever you can waste a few hours. Treat yourself to a nice meal out. Grab a drink with a friend. Go to your local animal shelter and ask if you can play with puppies or sit in the cat-room for a while, if that's your thing and they allow it. Go see a movie. Just do anything at all away from home and from email that will let you have a few hours away from being able to check. Then if you get back and still nothing, repeat as needed. As the cliche goes, time flies when you're not-just-sitting-there-clicking-refresh-on-your-inbox. Alas, as I'm sure your usual not-so-anxiety-filled self rationally understands, there's nothing you can do to get the response there faster, so just try and keep occupied as best you can. It'll be there soon enough.
  3. Yeah, I guess either go with beginner, or just match it to the level of your reading/writing if you can't leave it blank. They definitely want ancient language knowledge as well, and will probably realize the reason that there's an apparent discrepancy in your levels of reading and "speaking" knowledge, if you list the latter as beginner. However you list it though, since it's kind of an unanswerable question--or one just unintentionally incompatible with the application system--, I don't see it being something that'll come under any serious scrutiny.
  4. ETS says that scores will be sent (electronically) to the 4 schools you designate at registration 10-15 days after you take the test. I'm pretty sure if you wait to get the scores back (that same 10-15 day wait time) before sending, sending score reports is pretty much immediate. It might take additional time on the side of the grad program, though, for scores to be processed and matched to your application--this will depend on each individual program. Some are definitely almost immediate, but some say that there's a possible 3-5 day processing on everything. So, Dec. 17th is 15 days out, add on a cushion of 5 days for any processing....and you'll probably want to take it at least by Dec. 10th. (I would, personally, take it a week earlier, but admittedly I tend to overly worry about some of these things.) And, I'm not in philosophy, but I think since most apps go through the overall graduate schools, rather than individual programs, my experience will apply: I haven't seen any that don't have space to input your unofficial V/Q scores. Good luck! (I recommend the free Magoosh vocab app for cramming for verbal--pretty quick & fairly thorough.)
  5. Ohmygosh. I think I now have some good ideas for how to format my personal statement for Michigan (ugh, seriously, you all want a statement of academic purpose and a separate, actually personal, personal statement?.....) I mean, I was considering limericks, but a performance art piece might be a bit more effective in conveying "the [absolutely non-academic] personal journey that has led to my decision to seek a graduate degree."
  6. The line on the CV is the best place to put it, and if it fits in well in your SoP, also good. Further, some individual programs (especially those with language requirements) will have a specific part of the application form that asks for language background (usually requiring info about how many years taken, estimated level of fluency in reading, writing, and speaking [each separately]).
  7. Maybe it's just because I work in publishing, & we auto. standardize literally every file we get (it takes about 5 seconds) for readability, but, it almost wouldn't surprise me if some programs run macros on everyone's application files in order to standardize font to whatever is their decided preference, format margins and spacing, add page numbers, take a word/page count, etc. In which case, it really wouldn't matter which font you choose.
  8. EmmaJava's advice is good. To add to that, as far as getting (what I assume is) the 'right' tone, level of detail, and way of talking about my interests, I read through a lot of faculty bios/statements on different departments' websites to see how they go about structuring and offering a thumbnail of their research, past achievements, and current/future directions of study. Obviously, as an applicant, yours will have to be a lot more tilted toward future work, and might have a more personal narrative weaved in, but I still think that this is a good way start thinking about how to talk about your research in detail. Also, as far as "Just write as if you're talking to a reasonably intelligent family member about what you want to do in a PhD program" goes, also think about how you would talk about your specific research plans to a prof in your department who works on something completely different. I think this might help with how to simultaneously present a detailed/specialized course of research and a description that will be able to be understood by ad comm members outside your field.
  9. If they explicitly said they don't care about the quant, they don't care about the quant--which is usually the case with lib. arts anyhow. (There's a prof in one humanities department at my undergrad who would tell worried applicants that he literally scored in the Q 20th percentile...and still got into his top choices [of course only one anecdote, but, yeah, it usually isn't that big a deal]). You also shouldn't worry at all about not getting a 6 on the writing. For one, a 5.5 is still the 98th or something percentile, and for two, your writing sample will almost assuredly be more important than a score (even a score as good as 5.5) on a test that hardly evaluates your ability to write in the way that you'll be writing for a doctoral program. I can't really speak to the rest of your application, given that my experience is much different than yours as far as the age of pursuing this, but, with regards to your scores, you really have nothing to worry about.
  10. So, I ended up with a fit paragraph that partly talks about recent/current courses offered in the department, and how the range of the curriculum supports my range of research interests--I worded it as "Professor X's class on X, Professor Y's course on Y, and Professor Z's course on Z..." then wrapped up that part by essentially stating that both the specific courses as well as their reflection of the faculty's current research interests and areas of specialization will benefit me both in the coursework part of the program, as well as when I'm working on my dissertation (so implying that these profs could be future committee members, without outright stating it). For those programs where there are people whose work has legitimately influenced my thinking, I added a sentence saying as much: I'm especially interested in working with Professor Z, as her article "ZZZ" was influential to my thinking on my thesis project" or whatever. Any thoughts on whether this is a useful way to go about pointing toward a range of potential advisors while avoiding the pitfalls of "well those specific people might retire/go on sabbatical"? (I mean, obviously those same courses might not be offered again, but I tried to reference ones across several recent semesters, and I also assume that course offerings might be a pretty good reflection of the department's overall vision of itself at present, and so that the dept. would pursue at least somewhat similar goals in structuring a curriculum even if those specific profs weren't teaching for a semester or two? [the last part is admittedly a big assumption])
  11. First, you should look at the percentiles as well as the scores. As far as the ones ETS currently has posted, the difference between a 164 and a 165 on verbal is only 1 percentile point, and I don't think that's enough of a jump to make the extra 27$ X 7 programs worth it (at least as far as the verbal goes--I'll get to the other in a second). But it changes a bit every time--you might find that 164 on the first and 165 on the second put you in the same percentile (which wouldn't be worth it), or perhaps the 165 jumps you from the 94th to the 96-7th, which could perhaps be worth it. Second point: it also probably depends on what field you're applying for. If it's something where your quant score won't matter that much, relative to the rest of your application (i.e. the humanities), then I'm not sure if it'd be worth the extra $ to send them again for the 1 verbal point (again somewhat dependent on the percentiles). I'm not as familiar with STEM fields, but I'd imagine the Q is more important for those, and so those 3 points might give you a needed boost--especially if you have any concerns about your CGPA or your specifically math-related GPA. It's also probably a good idea to look to see if your specific programs and schools (both, since the latter has a say in funding and might have different requirements) have any info posted about desired percentiles or score cutoffs, and then judge by that, and maybe even only send the new ones to a few if only that few have more stringent requirements, esp. for the Q.
  12. I can't imagine that it would be a problem. It might be a different situation for you, but a lot of courses in my undergrad department were coded with the same number, but because there would be completely different topics each semester, you could retake it a few times. So, the course might have been "20th c. American Lit." but you could take it once as Science Fiction, and once as Literary Postmodernism, etc. I did this once, and, on my transcript, both just show up as "ENG400." So, even if your course isn't explicitly a topics course, this seems to be a pretty common thing, to have retake-able courses, and with that, I don't think anyone will look twice at a twice-listed course number on your transcript, especially since you got an A- in the first one.
  13. Thanks, everyone! Yeah, I wasn't really thinking about publishing in an undergrad journal, especially because by the time I get things submitted anywhere & get an acceptance/rejection, all my applications for PhD's would be sent already--and I can't imagine a publication in such a journal doing much for me once I actually am in a grad program. So, I think I'll try submitting it to a credible one in my field, and then, if it gets rejected even with out review comments, hold onto the idea until I can rework it, after I know more about crafting a more methodologically sophisticated argument. (I'm fairly convinced of the importance of my particular reading as far as the current criticism on my subject goes, but it just might need more complication in terms of situating it in larger, and more recent, theoretical discussions, which is what I hope to develop a bit more in grad school).
  14. Hi all, After submitting my BA thesis at the end of last year, my advisor, in his feedback, said that if I was able to edit it down from 50 to 30 pages, he thought it would be publishable material. Now, after working on paring it down for writing samples, I have a short version that I'm pretty happy with. Or, at least I'm happy with it for a writing sample. I'm back to thinking about perhaps trying at least to submit it to a journal, but I'm worried that maybe my advisor was just trying to be nice, and that it really isn't quite up to the level of work that a person already with or well on their way to a PhD (rather than just my BA, so far) would be able to produce. It engages heavily with relevant theoretical/critical work in my field, but at the end of the day, I'm pretty convinced it'll be obviously the work of an undergrad (not that I'm worried about that, per se--I wrote it as an undergrad, and it was good for that level of study). I'm just worried that, for a journal read, edited, and produced by "real" academics, it'll be an auto-reject. So my question is: is it worth it to still try to submit? (I mean, maybe my advisor was being 100% honest, and maybe I'm just selling myself short [I've been known to do that...], so maybe it'll at least get me reviewer's comments for revision suggestions? Or at the very least, it'll be an experience?) Will editors be generally annoyed with what might be an obvious undergrad submission? Any potential at all that it will hurt later attempts--once I actually have PhD level work to submit--to try to get something published with that journal? (Also, I just opened the online submission form just out of curiosity, and it asks for degree & position/Institution. Will even having BA/"Independent Scholar" on there be a red-flag for editors?) Thanks!
  15. Waiting for decisions from programs I've already applied to, waiting for feedback on writing samples for programs I haven't submitted the apps for yet. Waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. (& it should not be taking 2+ weeks for the latter........) Ughhhh. Completely removes any ability for me even to vent articulately, apparently. Just pure anxiety coupled with a desire to only sleep until responses/feedback surface.
  16. Submitted my first on Saturday (to meet a fee waiver deadline)...! That one had a different writing sample requirement than most of the others, so, I still have a lot to do for the rest (well, maybe. I sent an edited copy of my main writing sample off to a prof who offered to read over it and see if my cutting of a 30 page thesis chapter into 15 pages is working. If he gets back and says it sounds good, then the rest are pretty much ready to submit as well.) Hard to believe I'm almost to the waiting forever and ever stage.
  17. First app submitted! ("We will let you know the results of our review in due course" ) As for the others....now the SoP is basically done, then, having submitted it once. Just some tinkering here and there needed to highlight particular parts of my past work for the slightly different emphases of different programs. Still waiting on a response from my advisor about whether or not my radically shortened writing sample is going to work. (It's been one week since he said he'd send comments "tonight." Starting to worry....!)
  18. Yes, this. Much of my BA advisor's current work deals with American postmodernism and film/cultural studies, and this is what I worked with him on, but he still advises dissertations on earlier, more strictly literary and English modernism, since that's what his earlier work focused on. If its very clear that they've moved on in terms of methodology for a reason that invalidates their earlier work (I'm thinking of maybe R. Barthes's shift from structuralism-->poststructuralism?), and you write a SoP saying you want to work with them because your own research is inspired by their earlier (now reversed) methods, that might be trouble. But if they've taught recent classes on something, and still list what you're interested in on their faculty profile as a research area, then I can't see it being too much of a problem at all.
  19. Recently I was looking at the CV of a potential PhD advisor, whose work had been an influence on and was cited in my thesis, curious to see what sort of dissertations he had advised in the past, & if my work would be a good fit. And, hey, look, unbeknownst to me: he was my thesis advisor's dissertation advisor...
  20. Unless I'm overlooking data somewhere on my score report, they don't give you your raw score, so it's hard to say, unfortunately.
  21. I went ahead and did this. Ordering a 2nd copy's probably worth the peace of mind. Thanks!
  22. Svent is right, in part, but it also depends on a number of other things, as well. For example, only a certain percentage (less than half, maybe even?) of English programs require the test anymore, so it depends on what other programs you're applying to, which of them require the test, and whether or not the ones that don't require it would be as good a fit as the ones that do. As for the ones that do, I'd check in with each specific school, because even though IU might waive it in favor of the rest of your app, others might not be as lenient about it (every department seems to have a slightly different policy on the scores for this test). Further, if you're only applying to one or two that require it--given that they say they'll still accept your app without--then it might be worth the potential loss of application fees (depending, of course, on how much each fee is exactly). If you go this route, I think it might be helpful to briefly (but only briefly) highlight a range of canonical knowledge in your SoP. It seems that this test is intended to show that you have a breadth of surface knowledge to complement your focus on a particular and narrow field of research, so, programs that want the test are probably looking for at least a sense of this breadth, and it'd likely be to your advantage to find another way to show them you have this. (Or, if you have a very clear sequence of historical distribution requirements satisfied as shown on your transcript, this might cover it as well.) What it really comes down to then is this: if you had to take a year off, would you be okay with waiting? Is IU (or another school that reqs the score) your very top choice, and do you think you'd ultimately regret accepting an offer from another school that doesn't require it, instead of taking the gap year and waiting to apply to IU? Then the big one: How strong do you honestly think the rest of your app is?--IU gives very specific data about what they're looking for in terms of GPA and GRE scores; if you're right at the cutoff, this might not be great, but if you're above or well above what they list as averagely acceptable, then that might be the boost your app needs to make up for the missing score. And, how are you in terms of fit? If you think your work really meshes well with one or several of the profs in the department, and you can argue strongly for why this program is absolutely perfect for you, this will help. Really, this is what you need. If your work--both past (writing sample) and proposed (SoP)--is interesting and if it fits well with the department, this is what will help them overlook a missing test score. But if you think your app's weak in any of these other areas, then it might be worth waiting to apply until you can satisfy the score requirement, or going for other schools.
  23. As in naming people at specific departments as potential advisors? I am, and I recently showed one of my drafts to my thesis advisor, and he thought it--with naming 4 people, briefly--was good. Another of my letter writers just outright assumed that I was going to name at least one person (he's a recent alum at a school I'm applying to, and when he asked for a draft of the SoP, just said "I'm looking forward to seeing who you'll name!") Just a couple of additional opinions, really, though. Although, I can't say I've ever really seen any explicit advice not to do this (if anyone thinks no, why would it be a bad idea?); I feel like it's one of the best ways to demonstrate your fit with and knowledge of the department. (I was warned, however, not only to name Assistant profs, which could be something to watch for.) Otherwise, I'm just now getting to the writing sample editing stage. Really wishing I would've thought a lot farther ahead, and just written my thesis in 15 page sections rather than 10, 10, 30, because cutting has not been fun! (so many rhetorical flourishes gone....some, though, honestly for the better, hah!)
  24. Well, it depends, I guess, on why you can't bring yourself to not apply to those programs. Is it because they are absolutely incredible fits with your interests, or is it because more like feeling obliged to apply to, say, Harvard or Berkeley because they're ranked as topmost programs? If it's the former, as long as the rest of your application is quite strong (meets or even exceeds their specific cut offs), and you can demonstrate your close fit with the program as shown in specific past research, it might not ultimately be too utterly damaging, and so it might still be worth applying. See also if you can gauge the importance of the test to different departments. CUNY, for example, says they require it, but that it's ultimately weighted the least among the various other parts of the application. Furthermore, it might depend on your area of specialization. If you're declaring an interest in something more canonical, my inclination is to think a low score on an exam that essentially tests your extreme surface level of "canon" literature would be more problematic than if, for example, you're interested in film studies, digital humanities, obsure-ish theory, "popular" culture of varying sorts (comics, sci fi, YA lit, etc.) or such. Although, despite these sorts of specialization, somewhere like UT Austin for instance still says something to the effect of: "because all our students, regardless of field, are required to enter with a broad knowledge of literary history in order to effectively serve as instructors in our introductory undergraduate courses early in their graduate studies, a mid-range or above subject test score helps to ensure that there are few major gaps in knowledge." Again, see what you can dig up about those specific programs you don't want to give up, and try to measure the importance of the score. There's always the possibility, as well, of contacting the DGS to see if there are stringent cutoffs if nothing at all is stated on their admissions pages. To return to the original point, though: if you're just applying to a program because you feel you have to (I had a few on my original list like that which I ultimately, painfully still, cut because I realized that, even though Princeton and Berkeley are strong programs and a degree from either would be pretty fancy, I don't really fit with either program, and would ultimately be less-than-happy there even if somehow accepted without fit...), then cut it in favor of something better for your interests. There are plenty of great programs all over the board in terms of rankings that don't require or even want the subject test scores, so you're still fine. So, point being: I think at the end of the day, you should apply to where you truly have a strong fit, and where you would legitimately regret not applying to, (or, as I framed it for myself on a more cynical/materialistic day, where you're legitimately willing to potentially outright lose the admissions fee), regardless of the simple requirement of "a" subject test score, especially since, as you say, it's only a small handful on a list that has a lot of others that don't require it. Obviously I wouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, since that score is definitely going to be a liability, but if/since you have a reasonable ratio of require to not-require, I think (though just my opinion, ultimately) it might be still worth trying.
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