Medievalmaniac

Yikes - why did they do that? I'm sure there was an outstanding reason, but if you were getting 90th percentile, it stands to reason that you'd still get a decent score on this test.

Now that I'm more recuperated, let me share my thoughts. I certainly agree with you about the restructuring. I will hypothesize that they did it to combat the Princeton Review book and the (two!) websites out there, which is somewhat understandable (but seems like an overreaction, especially considering even with that "wealth" of help it's still challenging). However, when the practice test that they send is drastically different than the one administered, I will cry foul. (An aside - the "practice" test sent to me was the same I took several years ago - thanks, ETS! )

I'm too exhausted. Repeat what medievalmaniac said. I just don't have a clue. It seemed even more trivial (trivia-esque) than the test I took a few years ago. (If that's possible!)

I thought it was absolutely hell on Earth. I got a perfect score on the Praxis II English exam last year to get certiification to teach public school English courses. For the GRE subject test, I took two practice exams and studied my a** off based on the works that were featured on them and on the Vade Mecum website - and then only about 40% of the exam today was on the same sort of material. After 13 years of teaching and the same amount of education, I can honestly say that I didn't recognize the vast majority of what was on the exam, or only vaguely so. No Woolf, no Gray, NO DONNE...what kind of English literature subject test doesn't feature Donne?! ONE question on Chaucer. Three questiopns with anything to do with Shakespeare, and no Marlowe. Beowulf in a modern translation only, and no Old English at all, just Middle. And after all the focus on Restoration during practice exams and in the Princeton Review- only one question on the Restoration comedies. No Wordsworth or Shelley. Oh. My. God. I don't even know what time period I was working in for most of this morning. I only know I correctly identified a litote, and got a couple of history questions right. If I scored in the 60th percentile, I might have to be thrilled.

GAH.

I thought there was one question on Donne (at least, the one I noted), but I don't think there were any more. I was happy to see Marquez on there. It was such breath of fresh air, after all the meandering, inverted, archaic language of the poetry passages. And also the Nabokov. Otherwise, yes, it was absolute hell for me, too, and we are in completely different areas. The test was relishing in its own obscurity, laughing at all the knowledge we had stored away but could not use. I couldn't believe it when I (a gd poet) recognized a poem by Keats. The worst part was getting bogged down in all the long reading passages with 5-7 interpretation questions, which means I had to rush through the remainder of the test. I get so anxious during these things that I sometimes I don't register what I'm reading and need to reread the passages to find the "treasure," which really hurt my time. I left thirty-six blank and am thus starting the test with a 710, so I expect to see a score ranging from 550-640 (please not lower than 550!). Most of the questions I skipped were straightforward ID questions or comprehensive questions on passages I didn't have time to read in full. I didn't recognize that translation Beowulf because I had it drilled in my head that Beowulf would always be untranslated. Though I considered it might have been BW, I decided to play it safe (always trust your instincts on this test, I think). Which means I got one question wrong in that section, at least. I have a lot of expletives for ETS right now. I wasted a lot of time preparing for this test; I could have walked in there with the knowledge I already had and received the same score. I just hope my guessing didn't hurt me too much.

Edit: I am also upset it was not at all like the practice test they sent, because I knew the majority of answers on it and could move through it quickly. I didn't do a simulated practice test for it, but I was surprised how much I knew on that test -- I think that if I took it I would have gotten a 700+. It was just geared to my interests. This test was the opposite of that test for me. I floundered about, hoping for the best.

I thought it was absolutely hell on Earth. I got a perfect score on the Praxis II English exam last year to get certiification to teach public school English courses. For the GRE subject test, I took two practice exams and studied my a** off based on the works that were featured on them and on the Vade Mecum website - and then only about 40% of the exam today was on the same sort of material. After 13 years of teaching and the same amount of education, I can honestly say that I didn't recognize the vast majority of what was on the exam, or only vaguely so. No Woolf, no Gray, NO DONNE...what kind of English literature subject test doesn't feature Donne?! ONE question on Chaucer. Three questiopns with anything to do with Shakespeare, and no Marlowe. Beowulf in a modern translation only, and no Old English at all, just Middle. And after all the focus on Restoration during practice exams and in the Princeton Review- only one question on the Restoration comedies. No Wordsworth or Shelley. Oh. My. God. I don't even know what time period I was working in for most of this morning. I only know I correctly identified a litote, and got a couple of history questions right. If I scored in the 60th percentile, I might have to be thrilled.

GAH.

This is an important issue for women in academia - especially if you're married to an academic. In many instances, especially those in which the husband is older or better-known in the field, having his last name can potentially hurt you (I think of Roger Sherman Loomis, the great Arthurian scholar, and his wife Laura Loomis, who was extremely competent, but who ultimately only published a handful of articles because she was eclipsed by her husband's star). However, there are also cases in which a married academic couple are well known as such (I think of the Potkays at William and Mary, for example, who co-authored a very popular Bible as Literature study). There's also the ever-looming concern over what happens if you get divorced and take on a different name, but have published under your first married name? Name changes can get dicey for women.

Ultimately, I think a lot of academic women choose to keep their maiden name for professional purposes and use their married name for their personal life. For me, that would be so confusing! I would never be able to keep up with it all - paychecks to my maiden name, bank account in my maiden and married name, bills to married name except for professional association dues, to maiden name - ack! WAY too much for me to keep track of...plus, what about my kids? Maiden or married name for them? What happens when my colleagues become my friends - by which name do they call me then? I know a lot of women do it, but it's definitely not for me.

A lot of women will hyphenate to avoid that sort of scenario - but I personally don't like that one, either - maybe it's the lit critic/feminist scholar in me, but I see the hyphen as too-obvious a compromise, and a physical dividing within my very name of my Self. Also, our kids are our kids, they're not hyphenates. I want the same last name as my kids! lol Finally, the hyphenate is also a clue to adcomms and to search committees as to your marital status- they're not supposed to ask, but they can assume, and it can be detrimental to getting the job in some cases. I want to be judged on the merits of my scholarship, not on my marital status...so I wanted an identity that spoke to my place as a wife and mother but also established me firmly as an individual to be judged as such.

So, I didn't hyphenate. I kept my maiden name as a second middle name, as it were, and added my married name to the end, in (on paper) a seamlessly interwoven construction of my whole Self (think along the lines of Jada Pinkett Smith, for example). I think many women are doing this now as an alternative to the hyphenate, because it acknowledges the married relationship but also maintains the individual identity without subjugating it to the married one.

Ultimately, of course, this is an intensely personal decision and one you have to make for yourself...

Good luck!!

I thought it was absolutely hell on Earth. I got a perfect score on the Praxis II English exam last year to get certiification to teach public school English courses. For the GRE subject test, I took two practice exams and studied my a** off based on the works that were featured on them and on the Vade Mecum website - and then only about 40% of the exam today was on the same sort of material. After 13 years of teaching and the same amount of education, I can honestly say that I didn't recognize the vast majority of what was on the exam, or only vaguely so. No Woolf, no Gray, NO DONNE...what kind of English literature subject test doesn't feature Donne?! ONE question on Chaucer. Three questiopns with anything to do with Shakespeare, and no Marlowe. Beowulf in a modern translation only, and no Old English at all, just Middle. And after all the focus on Restoration during practice exams and in the Princeton Review- only one question on the Restoration comedies. No Wordsworth or Shelley. Oh. My. God. I don't even know what time period I was working in for most of this morning. I only know I correctly identified a litote, and got a couple of history questions right. If I scored in the 60th percentile, I might have to be thrilled.

GAH.

I did this for a professor of mine, and I handled it by giving the full name in the first use of it and going with "Dr. so and so" afterwards. I felt this was appropriate because it conveyed my respect for this individual.

So - start with "I am writing on behalf of Dr. Jonathan Harker, an English professor specializing in Vampire Studies here at No-Name University" and then after that, just "Dr. Harker is..." "Dr. Harker does..." "Dr. Harker impresses..." etc. etc.

I agree with both of your responders. While the statement of purpose I wrote, edited once, and sent out last season was good enough to get me a single, unfunded offer, when I read it now I cringe. I sound so unfocused as to what I'm trying to do, and at the same time so adorably pompous, that I imagine adcomm members laughing over certain of my statements before easily tossing me to the rejections pile. This year, I am actually on probably the fifth complete version of my statement of purpose, and that only includes completed versions, not partially-begun versions, and doesn't account for all of the editing and shifting of phrases and so forth. I have spent more time working on this than I did working on any of my writing samples. But at present, I have three very enthusiastic endorsements of the current version from two professors and a current PhD student, all of whom are now stating they can't imagine I would not get an offer based on this statement (Which NONE of them said about any of the other versions).. And for the first time in the entire process, I actually agree with them and think this one is really, really good. And I thought all of them were really good. So - yeah. I'm looking currently at about 20-30 hours on this single document - but I definitely do not consider them wasted hours.

You know, I'm going to sound really crass here but: SCREW the people who say it can't be done. It most certainly can.

If you want to do it badly enough, then you will get it done. There are plenty of women out there who do actually manage to have a demanding career AND raise a family. They just don't have their faces plastered all over national publications and they aren't getting interviewed in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

Hey - you got your MA, right? And you got accepted to a PhD program, yes? So, you know you are capable of doing the work required for academic success. There are plenty of extremely single men and women out there who will never achieve what you have already achieved academically.

YES, a decade or more ago, a woman with a child and/or children pre-tenure was in danger of not obtaining it. But the guard is slowly changing. You just have to find a good fit for you and for your family. Having a supportive SO helps. Family in the area to help out with childcare helps. A good, solid daycare program helps - especially if it is on campus. Seeking out supportive professors helps.

My first go around with graduate school, I was married with no children. I had a 3.56 GPA when I had to leave the program because of a very ugly separation and divorce. I didn't finish, despite wanting to, not because of children but because of an adult in my life.

Six years later, I applied for graduate school for a second go-around. I was re-married with a 2 year old. They made me start over from scratch - none of my 21 credit hours transferred. I also had no funding because they went by my undergraduate GPA rather than my graduate GPA, which was significantly higher and from a better school.

Midway through the program, I learned that #2 was on her way. I reluctantly told my professor that I was not going to be able to take the EXTREMELY AWESOME course she was teaching in the fall, due to the excellent excuse of having a baby mid-semester. She looked at me as though I were nuts and said "Why on earth not? You can just come until you have the baby and then either come back when you are up to it, finish by electronic means, or take an incomplete and finish the following term." (My other professor - male - just nodded solemnly and understood why I was going to be missing a term). Guess whose classes I took from that point out....

I loooooved the comment from the (obviously single) fellow lounging outside of the English building one day, when he noticed my very - pregnant bulk: "you know, some people just aren't that serious about graduate school. You'd think they'd wait to have kids." Smug, arrogant know-it-all....he ended up transferring elsewhere, and good riddance.

Long story short, I gave birth mid term, came back the following week (fortunately not a repeat C-section) and finished out the course and the degree with a 4.0. I did not cut corners and did not receive preferential treatment - I busted my butt for those scores. I never took an incomplete for a course, or turned in a late paper. My thesis is also under development as a monograph in cooperation with a publishing house, and I'm already published academically in terms of articles. My children are 5 and 2 now. I find that I am a better scholar with them than I was prior, because I don't waste time. I'm more efficient and more organized because I have to be.

I'm not writing this to brag - although some will certainly say it sounds that way - but to point out that a woman with a child is still an individual with the agency of such. You are still a person with goals, hopes and ambitions, and clearly with the ability to achieve them. The only thing that can hold you back is allowing others to make you doubt that you can do it....you have already proven that you can. You've got the acceptance, remember?

No one can tell me what I am and am not capable of doing. My limits are defined by me. There ARE professors out there who will not hold it against you that you are a mother, and there are professors who will even be sympathetic. Then there are professors who will resent you for it and professors who will dismiss you for it - it's the same in the regular population. You are going to have to just figure out who is in what corner and plan accordingly.

You won't get to hang out and party with the other grad students. You won't have a lot of free time. You'll always be busy and have too much to do. But - you most certainly CAN get your PhD. Courage, Woman!!!

Feel free to pm me if you want to talk.

I guess everyone is just different. If someone sent me an email asking me specific things about my department, I'd be glad to answer as honestly as I could because a.) I'd want the same courtesy extended to me and b.) I'd want that person to have as accurate a picture as possible of whatever s/he wanted to know about, because I take academia and university seriously, and I work hard to check things out at any given program prior to applying, including asking as many people as I can about it, and such an email from someone else would indicate to me that s/he was doing his or her homework and taking it seriously, too.

For me, it's important to get as much information as I can, from as many sources as I can obtain it from. I'm an older candidate, and I already have an MA. I need to feel very certain that a PhD program is going to work for me, especially after last year's disastrous results, and I'm really serious about my work and going somewhere where I can get it done. I'm sure there are people in any given department who are going to see it as brown-nosing, or as being an imposition, or as a waste of time, or whatever -but I can't help that. I have to do what I can do to research programs and try to find the right fit, and I feel like the best source of information is going to be the current students and the professors.

As I said, if I got an email like that, I would be delighted to respond as best I could, and I would think that candidate was really focused and really motivated to research programs thoroughly. But I think that way. I'm not prone to thinking the worst of people. I'm sure there are folks who will probably think "Oh, she's just trying to get in good with us" - but in my opinion, that's an unfair, snap judgment, and a personal response that indicates a lot of cynicism and shortsightedness - and frankly, if that were the response from the majority of people in a department, then why would I want to go to that school and study with them? I'm looking for a place where people can agree, disagree, shout, throw things, maybe even burn a few things in effigy - but at the end of the day, go out and have a beer together and be supportive. As others have noted, not every department is like that. If people were negative and snarky about a query email sent to the department, or felt it was too much of an imposition, then that would be a red flag for me in terms of how the department and the individuals within it function as a group.

Anyhow, I'm just rambling now. The original point of my first post was to give the other peson an idea of what I had done because s/he asked for opinions on the matter. I gave mine. It doesn't sit well with some other folks here, and that's OK - we don't all have to agree (wouldn't it be so boring if we all did agree on everything? No point to grad school, then!)

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 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 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 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 starting this thread as a chance to help others learn from my mistake(s), and I hope others will be generous with their lessons learned as well.

I JUST thought to look at my transcripts, and realized that two of the classes in which I did the most work in my area of study do not reflect that on the transcript!! They just say "ENGL _____, Literature and Culture" and ENGL ____, British Literature. I didn't even think to talk about the work I did in these classes in my SOP, I focused on my thesis, my conference activity, and what I want to do for my dissertation -so, while I'm sure my professor's letter of recommendation discusses it to some degree, essentially I applied for medieval literature with only one course actually labeled as such on my transcript. My SOP focused very heavily on what I wanted to do in a doctoral program, while (now I see very clearly) only nominally, superficially, expressing why I was qualified to do it. WOW. No WONDER some of the programs I applied to didn't even consider me as a serious applicant!!

So - from my experience, check what your transcript says about the classes you took/the titles they are filed under, and make sure you discuss in detail for about a paragraph the pertinent coursework you did - texts read, etc. etc.

And boy, do I feel dumb!! But at least now I can see where to go in my next round of apps!!

Anyone else got some good, specific pointers?

I guess everyone is just different. If someone sent me an email asking me specific things about my department, I'd be glad to answer as honestly as I could because a.) I'd want the same courtesy extended to me and b.) I'd want that person to have as accurate a picture as possible of whatever s/he wanted to know about, because I take academia and university seriously, and I work hard to check things out at any given program prior to applying, including asking as many people as I can about it, and such an email from someone else would indicate to me that s/he was doing his or her homework and taking it seriously, too.

For me, it's important to get as much information as I can, from as many sources as I can obtain it from. I'm an older candidate, and I already have an MA. I need to feel very certain that a PhD program is going to work for me, especially after last year's disastrous results, and I'm really serious about my work and going somewhere where I can get it done. I'm sure there are people in any given department who are going to see it as brown-nosing, or as being an imposition, or as a waste of time, or whatever -but I can't help that. I have to do what I can do to research programs and try to find the right fit, and I feel like the best source of information is going to be the current students and the professors.

As I said, if I got an email like that, I would be delighted to respond as best I could, and I would think that candidate was really focused and really motivated to research programs thoroughly. But I think that way. I'm not prone to thinking the worst of people. I'm sure there are folks who will probably think "Oh, she's just trying to get in good with us" - but in my opinion, that's an unfair, snap judgment, and a personal response that indicates a lot of cynicism and shortsightedness - and frankly, if that were the response from the majority of people in a department, then why would I want to go to that school and study with them? I'm looking for a place where people can agree, disagree, shout, throw things, maybe even burn a few things in effigy - but at the end of the day, go out and have a beer together and be supportive. As others have noted, not every department is like that. If people were negative and snarky about a query email sent to the department, or felt it was too much of an imposition, then that would be a red flag for me in terms of how the department and the individuals within it function as a group.

Anyhow, I'm just rambling now. The original point of my first post was to give the other peson an idea of what I had done because s/he asked for opinions on the matter. I gave mine. It doesn't sit well with some other folks here, and that's OK - we don't all have to agree (wouldn't it be so boring if we all did agree on everything? No point to grad school, then!)

I'm starting this thread as a chance to help others learn from my mistake(s), and I hope others will be generous with their lessons learned as well.

I JUST thought to look at my transcripts, and realized that two of the classes in which I did the most work in my area of study do not reflect that on the transcript!! They just say "ENGL _____, Literature and Culture" and ENGL ____, British Literature. I didn't even think to talk about the work I did in these classes in my SOP, I focused on my thesis, my conference activity, and what I want to do for my dissertation -so, while I'm sure my professor's letter of recommendation discusses it to some degree, essentially I applied for medieval literature with only one course actually labeled as such on my transcript. My SOP focused very heavily on what I wanted to do in a doctoral program, while (now I see very clearly) only nominally, superficially, expressing why I was qualified to do it. WOW. No WONDER some of the programs I applied to didn't even consider me as a serious applicant!!

So - from my experience, check what your transcript says about the classes you took/the titles they are filed under, and make sure you discuss in detail for about a paragraph the pertinent coursework you did - texts read, etc. etc.

And boy, do I feel dumb!! But at least now I can see where to go in my next round of apps!!

Anyone else got some good, specific pointers?

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.

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!

Well, I've already posted this somewhere, but I'll repeat it, because I know everyone is looking for everyone else's take on this All Consuming Topic.

I'm honestly not sure how much better my application can get. My undergraduate grades, which are now almost 16 years old, were not great (2.77, although that's only for the last six semesters, following a transfer from another school where I was a Dean's List student with a 3.5 - they would not combine the GPAs, which would have put the cumulative at a 3.1), but I have an MA with a 4.0 GPA from 2009. My GRE scores were OK - abysmal Math, but verbal in the 89th percentile, and a 6 on the writing section. I do, however, have twelve years of teaching experience at the middle school through college levels, in English/Writing, Art History, and French; for the past eight years I have designed and written my classes from scratch and been able to focus on the subject matter I love best, medieval literature and medievalism. I have seven languages with an intermediate to fluent proficiency including Latin, French (Old, Anglo-Norman, and Modern), Spanish, German, Italian, Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, and I have multiple publications already out (Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, Encyclopedia of Medieval Chronicle, Student Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry, a reference book on Literary Romanticism, and an article in the Virginia English Bulletin, among others). My chapter on teaching Tolkien in an Epic Lit class is currently being edited for the MLA Approaches to Teaching Tolkien Volume. I have also presented at multiple conferences, and been a session organizer; next year I will be presiding over a session at my third appearance at Kalamazoo, and I am an active member of multiple organizations in medieval studies. I have also served as a reader and editor for Hortulus, the online medieval graduate studies journal, for the past three years.

In other words, I am a serious, committed and dedicated scholar, and I have clearly demonstrated not only that I have an aptitude for this work, but also that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life; but that seems not to have been enough for admissions officers in the last go-round. I know it was a tough year, and I also know that my undergraduate GPA isn't up to snuff - but there isn't anything I can do about that nearly twenty years after the fact. Since the undergraduate GPA was the deciding factor in my rejections, despite its having been so old and my having the 4.0 at the Master's level, the only way I can apparently redeem the application is to do better on the GRE.

I have therefore spent the summer studying Math with a tutor, and will begin in on reviewing for the English section next week, with an eye to registering for and taking the GRE general examination at the end of September. I am also taking the subject test in October, and have begun reviewing for that. My entire focus at this point is to push those scores up, because everything else in my application, undergraduate GPA excluded, is honestly as good as it can be. My writing samples are from my published and under revision for publication work, and my statement of purpose says exactly what I want to research, why I want to research it, and how I am going to research it.

i have also contacted a different third recommendation, in order to freshen up that aspect of my application.

If I don't get in this year, it will not be for lack of preparation, desire, and working my ass off to that end. But, if I don't get in this year, there's always next year...and the year after that...and the year after that...

And meanwhile, I am still teaching, researching, writing, and publishing, as well as conferencing...so not getting a PhD will be depressing and heartache-making, but it is not going to stop me from being a medievalist.

A lot of people recommend not contacting professors ahead of applying. The argument is that it seems like sucking up, or like you expect them to drop everything and cater to you and you are not even in their program yet, i.e. they are too busy to meet with prospective candidates at all but the smallest departments. I disagree with this, and am glad you are taking a proactive approach.

In my opinion, based on my experiences applying to programs, on talking with professors at multiple programs and especially at conferences, and my discussions with fellow graduate students, a lot of unnecessary stress, misery and dissatisfaction (and wasted money on transcripts and application fees) can be prevented with a simply inquiry to the persons of interest prior to application.

Any good professor, or good department, will be willing to accommodate reasonable requests for information. They are, ultimately, looking for the next round of cohorts in their program, and they want the best candidates they can get. This means they should be willing to look at the work of prospective students and to have the chance to evaluate them ahead of the game. They are under no obligation to give an interview, to have a face-to-face meeting, or to promise you they want you if you apply. But answering some well-chosen questions concerning the department, their own expectations, and where they are in their careers is not (or should not be) a major hardship or extra burden, and anyone who feels you are out of line contacting him or her before applying to a program seems (again, in my opinion) to be somewhat arrogant.

For the applicant - if you are researching programs online, and the faculty page lists research interests, but was last updated 8 years ago, or even 3 years ago - how can we know what the professor is currently working on without contacting him or her? I tend to cyber-stalk people I want to work with, checking through Amazon and Academia.edu to see if they have anything new out, and scanning conference proceedings. But you can't do that for every professor in every program you are interested in as an applicant. An email to a professor stating "I understand that your past research has included x,y, and z, which complements the work I do in a,b and c; can you tell me if you are still working in this area?" is acceptable. Another set of issues are those of tenure, and of retirement. It's not going to do you any good to apply to Big University to work in Bioethics if none of their Bioethics professors is a tenured faculty member - what are you going to do if your advisor ends up leaving the program before you finish? Or, what good is it to apply to Top Ten School to work with Professor I'm-the-Bomb, if she's not taking on any more graduate students because she's retiring? Ditto the professor who already has a full slate of cohorts and isn't taking on new graduate students now. It's a good idea to check with the professors you want to work with to see if they are able to acommodate you - and I think it is also a courtesy so to do. You respect the professor and admire his or her work, and you don't want to waste his/her the department's time applying if that's the main reason for your choice. Why is that bad? I think it is professional, and shows that you are a respectful individual who understands the academic world.

I think appropriate, pre-appplication contact includes a brief introduction (like a sentence or two) of you and what you are interested in, two or three focused questions about the professor and/or program (E.g. Are you still working in the psychological profiling of individuals whose record includes repeat offenses of petty larcency? And are you currently taking on graduate advisees to your project?), and a polite "thank you for any information you are able to provide me with to help me narrow down my choices in this matter" closing. Obviously, you shouldn't send them emails rambling on and on about why you are applying and why you think they should accept you and asking very general questions you can find the answers to elsewhere on the website. But if you have questions only the professor or someone in the department can answer, it's better to ask than to get accepted, go, and be disappointed in your choice.

This is, quite simply, your future on the line. You have the right to have the information you need to make an informed decision about it.

A lot of people recommend not contacting professors ahead of applying. The argument is that it seems like sucking up, or like you expect them to drop everything and cater to you and you are not even in their program yet, i.e. they are too busy to meet with prospective candidates at all but the smallest departments. I disagree with this, and am glad you are taking a proactive approach.

In my opinion, based on my experiences applying to programs, on talking with professors at multiple programs and especially at conferences, and my discussions with fellow graduate students, a lot of unnecessary stress, misery and dissatisfaction (and wasted money on transcripts and application fees) can be prevented with a simply inquiry to the persons of interest prior to application.

Any good professor, or good department, will be willing to accommodate reasonable requests for information. They are, ultimately, looking for the next round of cohorts in their program, and they want the best candidates they can get. This means they should be willing to look at the work of prospective students and to have the chance to evaluate them ahead of the game. They are under no obligation to give an interview, to have a face-to-face meeting, or to promise you they want you if you apply. But answering some well-chosen questions concerning the department, their own expectations, and where they are in their careers is not (or should not be) a major hardship or extra burden, and anyone who feels you are out of line contacting him or her before applying to a program seems (again, in my opinion) to be somewhat arrogant.

For the applicant - if you are researching programs online, and the faculty page lists research interests, but was last updated 8 years ago, or even 3 years ago - how can we know what the professor is currently working on without contacting him or her? I tend to cyber-stalk people I want to work with, checking through Amazon and Academia.edu to see if they have anything new out, and scanning conference proceedings. But you can't do that for every professor in every program you are interested in as an applicant. An email to a professor stating "I understand that your past research has included x,y, and z, which complements the work I do in a,b and c; can you tell me if you are still working in this area?" is acceptable. Another set of issues are those of tenure, and of retirement. It's not going to do you any good to apply to Big University to work in Bioethics if none of their Bioethics professors is a tenured faculty member - what are you going to do if your advisor ends up leaving the program before you finish? Or, what good is it to apply to Top Ten School to work with Professor I'm-the-Bomb, if she's not taking on any more graduate students because she's retiring? Ditto the professor who already has a full slate of cohorts and isn't taking on new graduate students now. It's a good idea to check with the professors you want to work with to see if they are able to acommodate you - and I think it is also a courtesy so to do. You respect the professor and admire his or her work, and you don't want to waste his/her the department's time applying if that's the main reason for your choice. Why is that bad? I think it is professional, and shows that you are a respectful individual who understands the academic world.

I think appropriate, pre-appplication contact includes a brief introduction (like a sentence or two) of you and what you are interested in, two or three focused questions about the professor and/or program (E.g. Are you still working in the psychological profiling of individuals whose record includes repeat offenses of petty larcency? And are you currently taking on graduate advisees to your project?), and a polite "thank you for any information you are able to provide me with to help me narrow down my choices in this matter" closing. Obviously, you shouldn't send them emails rambling on and on about why you are applying and why you think they should accept you and asking very general questions you can find the answers to elsewhere on the website. But if you have questions only the professor or someone in the department can answer, it's better to ask than to get accepted, go, and be disappointed in your choice.

This is, quite simply, your future on the line. You have the right to have the information you need to make an informed decision about it.

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!!

A lot of people recommend not contacting professors ahead of applying. The argument is that it seems like sucking up, or like you expect them to drop everything and cater to you and you are not even in their program yet, i.e. they are too busy to meet with prospective candidates at all but the smallest departments. I disagree with this, and am glad you are taking a proactive approach.

In my opinion, based on my experiences applying to programs, on talking with professors at multiple programs and especially at conferences, and my discussions with fellow graduate students, a lot of unnecessary stress, misery and dissatisfaction (and wasted money on transcripts and application fees) can be prevented with a simply inquiry to the persons of interest prior to application.

Any good professor, or good department, will be willing to accommodate reasonable requests for information. They are, ultimately, looking for the next round of cohorts in their program, and they want the best candidates they can get. This means they should be willing to look at the work of prospective students and to have the chance to evaluate them ahead of the game. They are under no obligation to give an interview, to have a face-to-face meeting, or to promise you they want you if you apply. But answering some well-chosen questions concerning the department, their own expectations, and where they are in their careers is not (or should not be) a major hardship or extra burden, and anyone who feels you are out of line contacting him or her before applying to a program seems (again, in my opinion) to be somewhat arrogant.

For the applicant - if you are researching programs online, and the faculty page lists research interests, but was last updated 8 years ago, or even 3 years ago - how can we know what the professor is currently working on without contacting him or her? I tend to cyber-stalk people I want to work with, checking through Amazon and Academia.edu to see if they have anything new out, and scanning conference proceedings. But you can't do that for every professor in every program you are interested in as an applicant. An email to a professor stating "I understand that your past research has included x,y, and z, which complements the work I do in a,b and c; can you tell me if you are still working in this area?" is acceptable. Another set of issues are those of tenure, and of retirement. It's not going to do you any good to apply to Big University to work in Bioethics if none of their Bioethics professors is a tenured faculty member - what are you going to do if your advisor ends up leaving the program before you finish? Or, what good is it to apply to Top Ten School to work with Professor I'm-the-Bomb, if she's not taking on any more graduate students because she's retiring? Ditto the professor who already has a full slate of cohorts and isn't taking on new graduate students now. It's a good idea to check with the professors you want to work with to see if they are able to acommodate you - and I think it is also a courtesy so to do. You respect the professor and admire his or her work, and you don't want to waste his/her the department's time applying if that's the main reason for your choice. Why is that bad? I think it is professional, and shows that you are a respectful individual who understands the academic world.

I think appropriate, pre-appplication contact includes a brief introduction (like a sentence or two) of you and what you are interested in, two or three focused questions about the professor and/or program (E.g. Are you still working in the psychological profiling of individuals whose record includes repeat offenses of petty larcency? And are you currently taking on graduate advisees to your project?), and a polite "thank you for any information you are able to provide me with to help me narrow down my choices in this matter" closing. Obviously, you shouldn't send them emails rambling on and on about why you are applying and why you think they should accept you and asking very general questions you can find the answers to elsewhere on the website. But if you have questions only the professor or someone in the department can answer, it's better to ask than to get accepted, go, and be disappointed in your choice.

This is, quite simply, your future on the line. You have the right to have the information you need to make an informed decision about it.