Medievalmaniac

I take a bit of offense to this statement, that "adcomms realize the AW section is a joke." That might be because I earned a perfect score on the AW section and only 89th percentile on the verbal portion...does that mean that adcomms will view my GRE scores as a joke and question my writing ability? Shall I be more scrutinized as a candidate, deemed suspect because I scored highly on the joke section of the exam? (Is there only one joke section of the GRE...? I was under the assumption the whole thing was suspect, myself... ) That said, whether we like it or not, and whether they explicitly state it or not, the GRE for better or worse does count in our evaluation as candidates, to a greater or lesser degree. Going into English, I would think they would expect decent writing scores as well as verbal ones. Have you spoken to adcomms that told you they don't think the writing score is important? That said, I think a 4 is a respectable score on the writing section, and if everything else on the GRE was strong, there's no point in retaking it in hopes of a higher essay score. Focus on your writing sample.

I'm soliciting further SOP critiques, preferably from people who are applying or have applied to English programs for the PhD. I will be happy to have any eyes on this that would like to see it, however. Please pm me if you can take a look and are willing to provide specific critical feedback.

Hi, all - I've been trying to come up with a writing sample that really underscores my work as a scholar and shows what I am capable of producing. I am wondering about the wisdom of using a "writing process, fully realized" as my writing sample. I have a signed article that is being released in Brill's Encyclopedia of Medieval Chronicle next week. The work I did researching this article led to a conference paper on the Cronicon Elegiacum (the piece this article is on), which argued for the importance of further study on minor chronicles. The conference presentation includes my transliteration and translation of the text and the facsimile from which it was produced, as well as the presenation. I am now revising this paper as a more academic article. Would it be a good idea to submit, together as a demonstration of how my work evolves from one form to the next, a writing sample consisting of the encyclopedia article (I have the PDF from the publisher and permission to use it for this sort of purpose), the conference presentation paper and accompanying translation and facsimile of the original manuscript pages, and the academic paper based on the conference presentation? The whole would amount to about 25 pages, which is the cut off for the programs to which I am applying, but it would also showcase in one fell swoop my published, polished writing, my work as a researcher-scholar, my transliteration and translation ability, and how my work is conceived as a natural progression from form to form. I am wavering between this and a more traditional, here's a sample chapter of my thesis approach. This work is more recent than my thesis at this point, and I just wonder - what do you think? Would that be a good presentation as a writing sample, or should I stick to the safer/more traditional route?

This apparently depends on the school in question. Some schools want more of a personal statement, like a college essay on steroids. Some schools don't want to hear a word about you, just a rundown of your ideas and research interests. Many schools allow for both a statement of purpose and a personal statement. Every school states that your statement of purpose should reflect how you view yourself as a scholar. Most (all?) programs expect you to address any gaps or issues with your preparation for graduate school. It seems that programs in the realm of Math and science, those that focus mainly on research/lab work, require the more scientific, research proposal approach, and that programs in the humanities and social sciences are more inclined to want a personal statement that includes your research interests...but that's not an absolute statement, and top programs in any subject seem to want you to eschew the personal in favor of the academic. Because it's so wide-ranging in terms of what is apparently expected, I recommend that you read, very carefully, everything the websites for the programs you are looking into have to say about the statement of purpose, and then if you are still not certain, contact the department for clarification.

Every medievalist in literature needs manuscript studies. It's a moral imperative. Plus - I mean, gee! It's FUN!! lol By the by, how are things going for you at Fordham? I was meaning to pop in and pm you now that you've gotten your sea legs under you, so to speak.

Yes. the last set of tests apparently had several questions on modern American poetry and African-American fiction, as well as several questions on theory and literary criticism.

Here are some excellent resources I just stumbled across. Kip Wheeler's webpages are exhaustive in their treatment of general knowledge, there are some great study questions and paleographic/textual editing exercises you can put yourself through, and the manuscript studies page is essentially nothing less than an online graduate-level course in codicology and paleography. The bibliographies and timelines alone would be worth a look, but these are marvelous resources, so I figured I would pass them along in hopes some of you didn't aready know about them and could benefit. Kip Wheeler's pages: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_medieval_lit.html Stephen Reimer's manuscript studies pages: http://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/ms-course.htm Enjoy! And also - if anyone has anything you've run across that might be helpful to fellow grad students, this thread could serve as a great catch-all for resources!

RJ - did you find a cheaper copy of Abrams The lowest I'm seeing on Amazon is 30.00. Not bad, as far as academic books go, but cheaper is always better...!

It can't hurt to point out the upward trajectory, but I wouldn't devote a paragraph to it. Just a sentence stating that your GPA progressively improved would be sufficient, if you choose to include it.

I think the reason no one has answered is because none of us really has an answer. I used the Princeton and ETS practice tests, and so did everyone I've spoken to here. The problem, of course, being that no practice test out there has really been like the actual test, from all accounts. You can try looking for used copies of older review books for different sample tests, perhaps; they won't have some of the newer questions but practice taking a subject test is practice taking a subject test when it comes to standard format and style of questions.

I'm the respondent, not the original poster - but you have given good advice. )

There is an overall director of graduate studies for the program, and that's the person to speak with at this point. If you have already spoken with your advisor, and s/he has been unable or unwilling to help you through this, then the next step is the director of graduate studies. Look in the faculty list - there will be a department head, and assistant department head, a director of graduate admissions, and a director of graduate studies. The director of graduate studies is the one you want to see, if your advisor hasn't been able to straighten things out for you. The director of graduate studies may well not be in your particular department, but since your department has apparently not been much help, it is his/her responsibility to oversee the graduate program and make sure the needs of the students are being met (within reason, of course).

One page or less is optimal; two pages is usually the upper limit. I would think as long as it is less than 1500 words it will do, but certainly if you can narrow it down even further, you should so do.

I feel that the best professors are those who marry their research and teaching into a seamless program, and one that students couldn't get anywhere else. Example: a graduate student in Irish studies decides to focus on medieval Irish lyrics. There's not much out there, so he expands his focus to medieval Irish lyrics and their reception insular and external. This leads him to Breton lais, and he starts researching intercontinental parallels. Now he is working in Irish medieval and Norman/ Anglo-Norman literatures. There's enough there to keep him busy for the next thirty, forty years. In his survey course, he starts making connections between the work he is doing and other medieval texts as well as later literary traditions in Britain. Now he's working in Anglo-Saxon, and even Middle English, because you really can't do Anglo-Norman without looking at Anglo-Saxon. His classes have started becoming more and more comparative in nature. As he finds the parallels and the resonant themes and underlying ideas, and starts connecting and critically comparing scribes and scribal choices, his classes are taking a profound shift towards this sort of material. His students are learning how to compare a literary tradition with another, and they are applying this to other courses. Reading Yeats, he clearly sees the thought patterns that directly tie into the tradition he is researching of reverberation between the medieval cultures he's working in, which makes sense since Yeats steeped himself in them. He is able to incorporate THAT into his survey classes. Now he's started a program of research for himself that has turned into a program of teaching that is clearly having a positive effect on his students' ability to foster connections and to spot similarities and differences and critically analyze them for whether or not they are intentional or not. His teaching has grown and shifted with his research patterns, and the whole thing is going in the direction he, himself wants to go as an academic -prepping for class becomes a natural part of his research work, rather than a separate duty. This way, the teaching is part of his research - he's testing his theories and ideas in the classroom, taking the critical feedback and questions his students raise, and refining it all into articles, talks, conference presentations, perhaps a book or two. I think great professors do this sort of thing as a matter of course, and I think it makes for the best teaching and writing, because you are working specifically in what you want to be working in, and it all goes together. You're not constantly fighting with your teaching schedule and duties versus your research and writing schedules and duties - it's all a program that works together. I feel like that is good scholarship.

OK...take a deep breath.The situation is awful, and I fully sympathize. You need to start, right off the bat, by having a pity party for the next twenty-four hours, complete with a full pint of your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's and whatever chick flic you love best in all the world. In other words - shut out the entire world and do the Ostrich thing. Cry and feel horribly sorry for yourself. The next part is going to sound crazy, but just try it (what do you have to lose?) It's a riff on the theme of positive psychological visualization. Write down what you expected graduate school to be like. Just a page or so, but what your original expectations were. Then, make a list of all of the ways in which your actual experiences have and have not lived up to those expectations so far. Compare the lists. Now think about this: how much of your original expectations do you think is reasonable, and how much do you think could possibly have been unrealistic/Pollyanna like thinking? Once you have a good idea as to what is and what is not your current reality(here's where the crazy-sounding part comes in) , light a candle, and place a small glass bowl next to the candle. Make a list of the things that have most disappointed you so far, and state them in a negative format (i.e. "I don't have communication with my department". "I don't have good advising in my field." "I don't feel heard." "I don't feel accepted", etc. etc. etc. Cut the list into slips of paper, with one individual statement on each slip. Now, light a corner of each slip of paper on fire, one at a time, using the candle, and then drop them into the bowl to burn. After each one, rephrase the statement into a positive one (so, burning the "I don't have good communication with my department", now you say or think, "I will have good communication with my department from this point on, because I matter as a student in this program." At the end, blow out the candle and think, "I am a good student, I deserve to be in this program, and I have a right to be an active member of this department." Now, take a bubble bath. During the bubble bath, re-vision your experience as a positive one, seeing yourself as the graduate student you expect to be. After the bath, you should be feeling calmer. Now, you put things into motion. I suggest beginning with the department's director of graduate studies. Make an appointment to go in and speak to him/her. Write down your most pressing concerns. Don't frame them as complaints, frame them as concerns. Go into the office and tell him or her - "I have a number of concerns about my experience so far in the department, and I want to run them by you because I am afraid they will negatively impact my performance." Tell him or her, specifically, what you have been most upset by - again, not complaining, but concerned: "I applied to this program specifically for xxx, as stated on my admission application. As an accepted student, I expected xxxxx, but I have found instead yyyy." Ask for suggestions as to what you can do to rectify this situation. For example: "I applied to this program to work in mysical devotion narratives. I had thought I would therefore be working with either Dr. Francine or Dr. Gary, who are the department's medieval devotional literature specialists. When I approached them, however, both told me they would not be willing to work with me, and neither suggested how this might change, what sort of project they would be interested in working with me on, or any other solution to the issue. Since I am focusing on mystic devotional literature, and neither of your specialists wants to work with me, can you recommend another avenue by which I can achieve the goals I laid out in my application?" in other words, you don't really point fingers, but you do demonstrate the issues you are dealing with clearly and specifically. Allow the director of graduate studies to work with you on this - that's his or her job. If, on the other hand, the DGS doesn't have an answer, now you pull out the big guns and go to the department head. If the department head doesn't have answers for your concerns, you go to the Dean of Arts and Sciences. And so on and so forth. It should, frankly, not go past the director of graduate studies, and certainly not past the department head. In other words - allow yourself to feel the disappointment and sadness, then frame yourself in a more positive and proactive state of mind, and then behave in a professional and proactive fashion by addressing your concerns with the people responsible for seeing to it that the graduate program runs smoothly. I hope this helps, I really do, and I am so sorry you are dealing with this. Best of luck, and keep us posted!

Every experience is different. My reason for suggesting the GPA be addressed is precisely because, in my case, that undergraduate GPA kept me out despite my own subsequent successes (and I was told specifically by two programs that this was the primary reason for my rejection). I applied to 5 schools, one reach and four I thought were very comfortable fits. One turned out not to be a possibility at all, in the end, because the professor I most wanted to work with was retiring, and one was not a possibility for just about everyone who applied there, because they received a record 700 applications for 12 slots last year (?!) That left three - the two rejections, and an admit no funding. My stats: Undergraduate GPA (at the number one public college in the nation): 2.66 Master's GPA, 13 years later: 4.0 GRE: Math 480 (I know! Ack.) Verbal: 640 (89%), AWA 6. Praxis (teaching licensure exams): General: Reading/Writing: 99 % Math 93% French Subject: 94% English Subject 100% Certified in both French and English Teaching experience: 15 years from middle school trough university levels, including beginning a program from scratch and writing the curriculum from its inception. Publications: one full single -authored article in a peer reviewed journal, 10 Encyclopedic entries, with several more academic pieces accepted and in the pipeline, including a chapter in an MLA collection of essays on Teaching Tolkien and my thesis expanded into monograph length. Several fiction pieces also published. Conferences: ten conference papers delivered over five years, including three at the international conference in my field. Conference activity includes organizing and presiding over sessions. Languages: French (native proficiency) Latin, German (intermediate), Italian (intermediate) Spanish (intermediate), Old and Middle English, and Classical Greek (reading ability) In other words, while there were certainly other parts of my application that weren't as strong as they should have been, ultimately, as was explained to me by two of five adcomms, my undergraduate GPA was the major reason I didn't get in. When I asked how they could not take everything else into consideration, I was told I should have explained why I did so badly out of the starting gate. So, my advice stands - based on what the adcomms at the schools to which I applied told me, you should explain it.

You need to address it, and preferably in a separate statement. It doesn't fit with the statement of purpose; you need to include a personal statement as an addendum to your application that specifically explains what happened with that GPA. It needs to be matter of fact and not to go onto a lot of personal feelings on the matter - professional and polished, no emotional tweaking. Adcomms understand that there are circumstances beyond our control, but they want to know what those reasons are, and that we can handle ourselves now. Good luck!

I've done a comparison of the five sample exams I have managed to dig up, as well as the personal comments of everyone I know who has taken the subject test in English. Here's the break down, from what I can gather: The average score on the subject test for students I know who are currently enrolled in graduate programs in English was the high 500s and low 600s. Most of them scored between 580 and 620. The most wrongly-answered questions seem to be those that deal with the 17th and 18th century literatures, and of these especially drama and the novels. Second most wrongly-answered questions are the theory-driven ones and those dealing with English philosophers. The most often-quoted poems seem to be (in no particular order of appearance): Canterbury Tales, Elegy in a Churchyard, Ode to a Grecian Urn, Paradise Lost. The most frequently seen poets include Chaucer, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Grey, Keats, Tennyson, Shelley, Wordsworth, Byron, Pound, Wheatley, Eliot, Dubois, Sidney, Spenser, Herrick, Marvell - and they are often referred to as answers to questions about other writers' works which feature them as examples to illustrate points. These WILL be on the exam: Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway(look for Mrs. Ramsay or Clarissa). The Canterbury Tales, in some fashion(look for descriptions of people in Middle English). Elegy in a Churchyard, in some fashion. If it's in Old English, and you don't see any mention of Beowulf, Grendel, Hygelac, Grendel's Mother, or a dragon, then it's from Caedmon's Hymn. These titles were featured on each of the exams I looked over. Apparently, ETS is hugely fond of mock epics and alexandrines, because these also featured on every one of the exams I have looked at. Anybody have anything else? Let's make this thread a repository of everything we can get our hands on to help eachother get through this!!

Aaaaah....! Welcome to ...er...umm...teaching! lol My students pull that crap all the time. I feel for you, though- NOT FUN!! No worries on the SoP - whenever you get to it is fine.

Alette is right; it's standard for an academic CV in the humanities to list languages and the degree of proficiency achieved in each. So, if you speak a language and/or studied it prior to university, but it's not on your transcript, the CV can list it - you just have to be prepared to back up your claims if they decide to check up on you by having you use those skills in some aspect (e.g. written test, interview, etc.) An example of this would be: Languages Arabic - fluent, first language in home Spanish - fluent, near-native proficiency French - intermediate proficiency Latin - reading ability And so forth. HTH!