Medievalmaniac

Not necessarily accurate. I know for a fact that UVA alerts the Jefferson scholar candidates earliest, with other applicants notified two or more weeks later in most cases, and just about any school with a university-wide graduate fellowship program is also going to alert those applicants eligible for such ahead of anyone else, because the process is so long and arduous - these are the spots for university-wide fellowships, super-prestigious and open to every grad school candidate in every department - that's a lot of applications, so the process begins earlier for those (this is one major reason for the earlier, December deadlines at most schools - allows these candidates to be pulled in a timely fashion, the screening process being something to the effect of, "Oh, look at this, 4.0 GPA and 800/800/6, subject test 780, that's a fellowship candidate"). The term "rolling admissions" is a problematic one, because in general academic use, it indicates that applications are reviewed year-round, with several possible start dates for a program (here's an example of a graduate program that offers rolling admissions, check out the right-hand side of the page, blue box).While many master's programs offer rolling admissions, very few graduate programs offering the PhD do, if any - UVA and UNC-CH certainly don't, and they specifically state this on their webpage. They have a strict deadline for Fall-only enrollment, and then the applications are reviewed on a rolling basis within the respective departments. I do know that they prefer to have all of this done and out of the way as soon as possible, and there are only two or three department sessions scheduled for application review, generally late January/early February.. That the admits and rejections go out in waves can also be accounted for by the waitlist. Some years, this is much longer than others, and they have to wait for someone to accept or decline before they can proceed with other offers. The actual reason for most of the later admits is that so many earlier-admitted students choose to sit on their acceptances until everything is in so they know what they have to choose from- totally their prerogative, but that more than any other factor accounts for the number of mid- to late- April notifications. In the end- I think we are most of us in this for the long haul. Hang in there!!!! Not too much longer now!!!

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NO, everyone does not get a 4.0 in graduate school. There are certainly departments at just about every campus where grade inflation occurs, but there are also nearly always members of each cohort who are dangerously close to being on probation and/or asked to leave for grades/ under-performing. There are also departments where it is really hard to get an A. In just about any situation, the 4.0 means that you are doing what you are supposed to do, the way you are supposed to do it, and that you are good at it. Consider it a positive job evaluation.

My blog is about my second round of applications this year. It really is just as bad. No - it's worse, because we KNOW we can be shut out. Last year I really thought I was the ideal candidate - 4.0 GPA at the master's level, publications, conference papers, teaching experience. This year, like my signature says - just reading tea leaves and consulting the oracle. Hang in there - we'll all know soon!!!

I think that realistically, there are positives and negatives to your application. First - you're an international, non-European student - which is a desirable trait for an international applicant, because it adds to campus diversity. Second, you have teaching experience at the college level - also a plus. Your GRE scores meet the unofficial cutoff requirements for many schools. The eyebrow-raisers in this portfolio (for me, and I'm no adcomm member, and therefore no expert on red flag elements of an application, it's important to keep in mind) would be firstly, that you already have two master's degrees and are now working on an MPhil. Even though they are all in the same general subject areas (English, literature, teaching of English) that looks a little strange - why three master's degrees? Why not just have gone straight to a PhD from the first or second MA? Also, American universities place a great deal of weight on your undergraduate grades/GPA, which you have not mentioned here. In the end, I think it would certainly boil down to your statement of purpose and your letters of recommendation. But it's probably worth at least applying, if that is what you want to do!!

ooooooooh - that definitely makes it a lot more complicated on your end. I didn't realize you were overseas. Is there a way to get an extension, in your case?

Some of the earliest admits in English on the results board are UNC-CH, which has sent out acceptances as early as January 24 in the past. That's next week, if the pattern holds true! So yes, admissions season is nigh. Best of luck!

Why would you change your mind? Ostensibly, you want to go to graduate school. Ostensibly, you have applied to programs which you would like to attend. If you are accepted and pay the deposit, why would you turn around and decide not to go, barring some unforeseen, dire family emergency (or ragnarok?)

Might be awaiting something for your application, re. GRE scores, recommendations, etc.?

I converted the documents to a PDF, but my program may be an older version...? All I know is that I converted the documents from .doc to .pdf, but somehow when they went through Applyyourself, those characters disappeared into stars and dots. HOWEVER - it may also be that the computer I was checking them on had an outdated viewer that didn't read those characters, and the actual upload was fine...? Either way - I thought it was worth noting for future applicants' benefit - better safe than sorry.

Just joining in the feeling of solidarity concerning anxiety, moodiness, and general "pissed-offery". I find everyone and everything pretty much annoying as sh*t just now - except the people I'm working with in rehearsals (I'm in "Almost, Maine" this February for our local theatre troupe). I LOVE them. They have decided my moody and b*tchy attitude are awesome because they render me a method actress. (My charaters are by turn b*tchy, and neurotic, lol).

This. To me, their prompt is checking for your ability to self-assess, which is an invaluable and frankly necessary skill in higher levels of academe. They seem to want to know that you know what you are good at and what you need to improve, and that in turn can show them whether or not they have the resources to help you acquire or develop the skills or thinking/behavioral patterns necessary for success at the graduate level and beyond. You don't have to say "I'm really strong in interpersonal conversations and group work, but I am weak in my ability to conduct an independent study without a lot of teacher feedback", or "I could stand to improve in time management and study skills, but I'm really great at fashioning an argument and supporting it with texctual and secondary evidence." It can certainly be integrated into the rest of your statement, as the above poster has suggested. So, for the first, something like "In my capacity as the discussion leader for our group presentation on taxonomy, as evidenced by my group's evaluation of my performance, I demonstrably improved our group's overall communication patterns over the course of compiling our research and crafting our presentation, as well as facilitating a larger discussion involving nearly every member of the 150 student seminar, a feat that the professor specifically singled out as noteworthy in her grading report. While I did require a lot of professorial assistance on that assignment, I learned a lot about how to go about conducting research in taxonomy at the university level, a skill I am keen to improve upon in graduate school." etc. etc. etc. In other words - it doesn't have to be a separate and glaringly evident part of the SOP, it just has to be there. Embedding it in the overall narrative is a smoother and more professional way to handle it. ALSO, for what it is worth - don't bother "turning your negatives into positives" (ex. "I have a tendency to take too much on, but while this can be viewed as a deficiency, in the end it's really a positive thing because it speaks to my enthusiasm for education" blah blah blah) - maybe it's what every PR person expounds upon as the way to go, but adcomms have seen all that before, and I think it is counter-productive. No one is perfect. The question is, can they work with you and your particular strengths and weaknesses? Answer that, honestly, and you will be fine.

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Being a medievalist, almost all of my titles invariably point towards Monty Python. A paper I gave at a conference last year: "I'm Not Dead Yet: Patterns of Victim Agency in Medieval British Texts". My thesis: "King of the Who? Crafting National Identity in Medieval Arthurian Texts." And so on and so forth. I also sometimes quote Mel Brooks - "It's Good to be the King: Images of Monarchy in Medieval English Romances". Etc. etc. etc. - I always try for something that I think is funny, followed by a brief description of what my paper is about.

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Wow...y'all are making me glad I didn't apply there!! I'm crazy enough over this whole process - don't need large envelope mind games!!

As the other person has told you, English schools tend to favor heavily the latter part of a degree as the indicator of success; they will place emphasis on your final marks in your final semester of classes. I suggest that you send the full official transcript when it is available, but also that if you have access to the final term grades as a stand-alone webpage, you copy, paste, and send that information on its own as well, if you want that considered more so than the rest of your transcript. It won't count officially, but will serve to highlight the later grades, especially if they are exceptional.

There's at least one rejection posted for Comp Lit. in this forum already this year, but it is very early for Humanities folks to be hearing back. I second the late February/Early March suggestion.

You say, "all that FAFSA work" - but the FAFSA only takes a few minutes to fill out online - it's not that bad. And once it is done, you're done - no need to re-do it for the full calendar year.

Hey, All - If we have new items that are exciting and/or relevant to our application that have been added to our CV since our initial submission, do you think it is advisable to email those in at this point? I have now been notified that my essay abstract has been accepted in a book proposal for an edited collection of essays on Chaucer, to be fielded by Boydell & Brewer, the premier publisher in medieval studies. It's a pretty exciting list of scholars contributing, and I feel that the fact my abstract is included alongside such figures as Lorraine Stock and Karl Tobias Steel is kind of a big deal. Is this something worth sending in as an addendum to my application/ the CV I sent in with my application, or at this point since it is a proposal and not a publication does it not really matter? Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I have an article in the Virginia English Bulletin, a chapter in an MLA edited collection of essays (forthcoming), and multiple articles in subject-specific encyclopediae from Brill and Routledge, as well as nonfiction essays and poems in regional and national journals. Also, book reviews in Hortulus, the online graduate journal in medieval studies. I am currently working on a chapter for an edited collection of essays on Chaucer from Boydell and Brewer.