Medievalmaniac

Another vote for the yellow legal pads. I couldn't live without them as a scholar. I buy them in bulk and use them for everything.

I think it is important to keep in mind that there is no "right answer". or actual formula for success, here...myriad writing samples and statements of purpose are sent and accepted each year. There's no "tried and true" method for assuring anyone of a writing sample or SOP that will guarantee an admit - there are many potentially successful ways of approaching these tasks. In the end, it really does depend on the exigencies of who is reading what, when. It's unfortunate, because it means a lot of people don't end up getting an acceptance when they probably would do very well - but I think adcomms have a general idea of what they are after, and it's sort of a "we'll know it when we see it" mentality in many cases. Hang in there - it's all over but the waiting at this point, and then we'll know what did and didn't work this year.

I'm sorry for your news. ( Here's hoping the rest of your season is a positive one!!!

I went back as a mid-thirties mother of one to finish my graduate degree, and there are a few things I noticed specifically (that may or may not apply to you, dependent upon your seriousness in the field/ about school overall) - I am a very serious and driven student, and was even more so with a one-hour commute and a young child, plus a full-time job, while I was doing my degree. needless to say, my only real contact with these people was during class and during the breaks in classes/ times between them, but you do learn a lot about one another through discussions and such - I never felt I was missing out socially, mainly because I was older and didn't WANT to go to frat parties and sorority stuff. We occasionally went to the local pub after classes, which was a great time to just relax before driving home, but not often, because I had to get up and teach the next day. I do remember being just floored at some of the shenanigans going on during class (especially in one upper-division undergrad/grad class blend, which ostensibly only had junior and senior English majors and graduate students enrolled in it). I could not believe some of the behaviors - personal conversations, texting (despite its being expressly stated in the syllabus this was not allowed) - and the number of classes some students skipped. One girl had a pizza delivered on an evening during which the professor had us watching a film in class - harmless stuff, really, but there was definitely a lot of immaturity going on, more often than probably should have been the case. I remember feeling really almost despairing over all the wasted time, both in the class and outside of class, with some of these students. I know undergrads are a different sort, and certainly, I myself had some less-than-stellar moments in some of my classes, but it seemed really in-your face and disrespectful (and the professor did eventually have to say something about the texting, which prompted the person in violation of the syllabus doing it to accuse her of picking on him, go figure). I remember that some of the undergrads were amazing, so focused and prepared, and I was really impressed with them. The serious younger students congregated together, they formed something of a core, and I never had trouble talking with or forging relationships with them; in fact, they sort of adopted me as their role model/mascot, in a way, which was fun and funny. Mainly, the undergrads were in-between being younger and starting to professionalize, and class discussions were really good some nights, not so good other nights - typical. I did enjoy class. I remember that among my fellow graduate students there was a lot of complaining about the reading for some classes in comparison to others, which I was annoyed by - you're in graduate school for English, what the hell did you expect it was going to be? There were several women in their late thirties in the program, and I am certain there were older students as well, just not in the classes I was taking, they had a more modern bent. I do remember that I was disappointed my fellow graduate students weren't more advanced and weren't trying to be more advanced - I wanted to have really in-depth, serious, academic discussions about Middle English and Old English meter and so forth, and none of my cohort was vaguely interested in trying for anything like mastery or proficiency, they just wanted to do the work, get the grade, and get out. One woman in particular got her nose all bent out of joint because she was working in Early Modern and claimed Chaucer was a contemporary of Malory (neither of whom is an early modern author and who are in fact NOT contemporaries at ALL). In a room full of undergraduates who thought the grad students knew everything and were writing down notes, I felt compelled to correct that comment; the professor corroborated, and that woman never spoke to me again (I guess she showed me...) because "I made her look bad in front of the professor". But, the mistake she made would not have been made if she had bothered to do ANY research on EITHER of the figures in question. I was disappointed in the lack of initiative so many upper-division students showed...didn't they WANT to know more? (answer, because I asked one of them - not really, they were just trying to get their degree). I was just different, I was surely in it for the degree, but mainly for the information and the research and writing and debating and discussing - in short, I was academically inclined, and they were job-inclined. Once I understood that, it got better because I realized I was only there for me and therefore had to work at my pace, my pace was faster and on a different track than theirs, and that was totally OK. (More than OK, really; my professors loved me. I had one petition me, pregnancy and all, to please, PLEASE just take the class, they'd make any necessary arrangements when I gave birth, but please just be in the class to bring up the level of discourse more - which was maybe the best academic compliment I ever received as a student. ) Long and short of it is - why are you going to graduate school? It will be whatever you think it is. I had an amazing time, some of the undergrads I was in courses with are my Facebook buddies, and the rest...well, I think they probably are not on this forum trying to get into graduate school for further study of English anyhow, so, meh. .

MLA Handbook, seventh edition, 3.7.8 (pg. 104): If you believe that a significant portion of your audience will not be familiar with the language of a quotation you present, you should add a translation. If the translation is not yours, give its source in addition to the source of the quotation. In general, the translation should immediately follow the quotation whether they are run into or set off from the text, although their order may be reversed if most readers will not likely be able to read the original. If the quotation is run into the text, use double quotation marks around a translation placed in parentheses following the quotation but single quotation marks around a translation that immediately follows without intervening punctuation. Generally, in having done a lot of research in the area of medieval studies in which Latin texts figure prominently, I see more often the translation and then the Latin original in articles dealing with such, FWIW. Good luck with your paper.

I recommend firstly that rather than picking up Spanish or continuing with Latin, you go to German, or stay with French, for the areas of study you have chosen (19th/20th century Prewar American and English). German, or French, is going to serve you much better for this, and will probably be the recommendation made to you by your director of graduate studies if and when you enroll in an American University. After that, you're looking for doctoral programs that are strong in Victorian Literature, Modern British Literature, Modern American Literature, and Twentieth Century Cultural Studies(those are terms that are often employed for those areas of study). That will get you started. I don't have time right this second to go into a rundown of possible programs; there are dozens, on the East Coast, for those specialties, at every tier. Good luck!

Hey, all - just wanted to note for posterity and future grad school applicants, that if you are uploading a document with special characters in it to the applyyourself online application form as supplemental material, review it carefully for changes and omissions of such characters. In my case, I just checked to verify that it had uploaded completely, then thought it was fine. I went back when I was alerted by the grad school that all application materials had been forwarded to the department but supplemental materials are my responsibility (I'm very compulsive about these sorts of things). Looking through my uploaded writing sample, I saw that the German umlauts and the Old English loghs in my original, carefully proofread paper were all transformed into stars/dots when the program converted the document to PDF. A quick email to the department secretary got a note placed in my file alerting readers of the paper to the situation, so all is well, but I thought it might be useful to others to know to look specifically for those sorts of things in a converted document.

If you want to apply, and really think you can and want to do the work at the graduate level, then you should apply. The recommendations and SOP are important. However, you should certainly consider applying to a range of schools. You might consider an MA program to begin with to show that you are capable of sustained academic achievement. The fact that your grades show an uphill trend does play a role in this. It would be highly unlikely that you would receive a fellowship or TA / RA position with a GPOA under 3.0, but not unheard of, particularly if your test scores are high. That said, my experiences have been less-than-felicitous, and I was informed by two adcomms last season that the reason I was not offered admission was my undergraduate GPA from 13 years ago (< 3.0). HOWEVER, there were extenuating circumstances, I did not specifically address the GPA in my statement, and I was encouraged to do so by an English DGS for this go-round. Perhaps, if I had addressed it last time instead of assuming my more recent 4.0 at the graduate level would automatically offset it, I would have achieved different results. You have the support of your professors, and if they are willing to write letters of recommendation for you, they also can address the GPA issue and help to mitigate it for you. I also recommend trying to arrange an interview with the DGS of programs you are interested in applying to, either via phone or in person, and speaking with that person directly as regards how best to handle your GPA in your application. I got a lot of great feedback from one DGS in particular about my situation that really helped to strengthen my application. Good luck!

A Phoenix PhD won't nab you a tenure-track position anywhere but at an online university. It's not considered an academic degree by anyone but Phoenix and other online university systems. It's really for private-sector, mainly for education (i.e. principals, school board members, etc.) and the business world folks. And even some of them look at it askance.

I just got off the phone with UVA this morning concerning my official transcripts, which are still recorded unreceived, even though they have been received at the other institutions to which I applied. The admissions counselor was amazing, very calm and very efficient, and she told me that since the information is uploaded already into the applyyourself online application, the department has everything it needs to make a decision. If I am admitted, I have simply to make certain that my official transcripts are on file before I matriculate. My understanding is that as long as the documents are marked "received" by the deadline, that's fine, and that they may or may not have made it to your file by that point, and that file may or may not subsequently have been updated to reflect that. I also got the idea that if you are an attractive candidate for them, they will tell you what else they need to make your admit official - so I think you are OK. However, calling about a week prior to admissions deadlines might alleviate your concerns a bit - I definitely felt better about the whole thing after I spoke with an admissions counselor. )

Check into Wisconsin-Madison, also.

My professor in medieval literature got her PhD from Trinity, Dublin - which is a world-class program in medieval studies and outranks most American programs in that area (John Scattergood is there, among others.) She had a helluva time getting a tenure-track job in America; in fact, her professors in Ireland counseled her to stay there and teach, instead. All the US schools hiring at the time wanted Ivy league professors. She went on the job market at the same time as a fellow from Yale, with more publications; he got the top job and she ended up working as adjunct for a few years; she's now tenured. At a conference shortly after he was hired, they ran into each other and he (at least he was honest about it!) pointed out that technically, the job should have been hers because her degree outranked his as far as medieval studies goes; he got the job because of his connections at Yale. This is how American universities work, unfortunately. So, while you will likely get a top-notch education at a foreign university, you do have to consider the job market in America, if that's where you want to teach - they want professors who have gone through the American education system, themselves.

I don't mind at all. I applied to five programs, from a decent range of top-25 schools, and then Catholic University. I was accepted at Catholic, but without funding - so obviously, with a family and the job market as it is, that was not going to happen. This year, based on the feedback I got from one of the schools I applied to ("Nothing you have done -neither your resume, nor your publications, nor your conference presentations, your recommendations nor any other aspect of your application is sufficient to compensate for your undergraduate GPA" - that's a direct quote from one director of English graduate admissions) I made my application much more proactive; I specifically addressed the undergraduate GPA in my SOP (which I didn't do last time) explaining why I got it and and highlighting the fact that I went from that 2.66 to a 4.0 at the Master's level, so clearly, it was an anomaly; I took the subject test and missed the Harvard median by 10 points/2 questions (so clearly, I am capable by THEIR standards of doing the work), I highlighted and underscored my teaching experience and research and publications, and I got another letter writer who could speak to my academic strengths. Because - screw that. EVERYTHING I have done since that undergraduate GPA from thirteen years ago qualifies me to do this work. I have the languages, the reading background, and essentially all of the elements I need to be a really freaking good medievalist; I just need the professional training, to work with professors who can show me how to really focus my efforts and help me get the skills I don't yet have. I don't know everything, but I do know that admissions director was dead wrong about me - so, I'm trying again. Our problem, of course, is that we are severely hampered by location - I have three programs I can apply to without our having to move, and so - I've applied to them. Here's where you really wish you lived in the northeast with that super high saturation of universities... le big sigh. But - I am very hopeful. I have to be very hopeful.

The only people who know I have applied this go-around are you folks, my husband, and my immediate family. Everyone else thinks that since I didn't get in last year, I didn't apply again. I prefer it that way. No one but my husband knows WHERE I have applied this time around, because last time was so upsetting. My sister thinks I am ruining my family and my future by trying to get a PhD, and that if I wanted one I should have gotten it before I had kids. My mother doesn't understand why anyone would want a PhD and used my telling her as the chance to wax on all over again about how odd I am in comparison to the rest of the family. My husband wants everything to be about him and his new job right now. So, basically, I'm freaking out and stressed beyond belief as to whether or not I will be accepted this time around, and have no one to share my feelings and inadequacies with. And I am applying with a perfect 4.0 GPA at the master's level, multiple publications in my field, 13 years of state - licensed teaching experience students aged 10 through college, multiple conference papers, and a very decent GRE subject and GRE general verbal score, perfect AWA of 6, perfect teaching examination board scores...and was completely shut out last year despite all of that, because my undergraduate GPA from 1997 was low. I don't want to hear another thing about my applications until I hear back from the schools I have applied to - all of which have January 2 deadlines for applications, so NO, I won't hear about it until March at the earliest, and yes, I am so deeply and profoundly anxious about the whole thing I can't even see straight.

RosemaryJuniper - I know it's Down South, but if you're really interested in medieval and especially manuscript studies, can I suggest Florida State, also? Elaine Treharne...Also, I heard David Johnson giving a talk at the Southeastern Medieval Association conference this past fall and apparently they have a program in book studies, including specifically manuscript work as well.

UNC-Greensboro, although not as prestigious a program, has two AMAZING Renaissance scholars working in gender theory - Dr. Jen Feather and Dr. Michelle Dowd. Both have important books scheduled for release this year. Deadline for their program is January 2; might be worth a look.

Thanks to the other medieval lit folks who have posted so far for not applying to the same schools I'm applying to.

The only time in your life your GPA, GRE, etc. will matter is now through the end of your formal education/ post docs, if you go that far. Once you are on the job market and/or in an active career outside of academia, no one gives a flying you-know-what what your GPA was - the conversation will go, "do you have a degree? What is your degree in? Oh, OK. Thanks." I got my first job out of college because I had a degree from William and Mary and a teaching license; no one asked me about my GPA (which SUCKED). Half the people you meet in real life don't know what the GRE is. None of them is going to care what your scores were. the question becomes "What experience do you have in this field?" An 800 on the quant section of the GRE, does not guarantee you can get the computers in the office back up and running after a complete systems failure. It just proved to adcomms you might be smart enough to go to their CS program to learn how to do that.

UNC-Greensboro UNC- Chapel Hill UVA Medieval Literature Hang in there, and good luck to everyone!

My latest blog entry deals with this issue! Check out the Alchemist's Journey. )

It's not so complicated. Just email the graduate admissions office the correct SOP with all of your identifying information on it, and request that the other, which was a draft version, be swapped out for this, which is the final version. They handle this sort of thing all day long, this time of year. Don't sweat it, don't make a big deal out of it, just very calmly and matter-of-factly give them the correct version.