Strong Flat White

N. Katherine Hayles, Arthur Kroker, Brian Massumi, Walter Benn Michaels.

Write a novel?

What is book hiding?

Thanks! Kind of weird to take nagging as a compliment, but indeed that's how I take it.

I know that people are trying to help. I have some hotheaded tendencies and you can consider me chilled. I don't mean to offend, if you can believe it. Thanks - again - to everyone's input here. It is really very appreciated.

glasspagodas reminds you of the luck factor too...a good addition, probably...and I can't exactly speak from any position of authority since I've never been admitted, but I still feel like this is pretty helpful. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but everything from some nuanced phraseology to the macro approach to discerning patterns within SoPs to trying to relate SoPs to WSs is useful information. I see my early drafts of each of these documents, now, and I see how they can be improved based on this thread alone. That very tough-to-strike balance between having direction and being flexible in the

I completely agree. #1: that first post was helpful, and I thought I said as much. #2: I can totally see how I was rude. My bad. My apology to Jazzy for my rudeness. Jazzy, I am sorry. I tried to explain it, I thought it was fair, but I'll happily concede the rudeness. And I'm still happy and thankful for the follow-up, and I still think it was productive to work through some clarification. In my rude world, this is all good stuff. Go team.

Anyway... Yes, it does help, thank you. It seems to be the difference between how broad or narrow interest would align between you and faculty. I guess my confusion probably centered on your use of 2-3 faculty on the broad side of things vs. what I would guess to be only 1 faculty on the narrow side of things, and I mistook 2-3 for a so-called "small" number, when in fact it now seems as though the even smaller number of, say, 1 seems (to you, unless I'm reading you poorly) to be more conducive to some hypothetical perfect fit. Which is not intuitive to me. Which is why I asked. I think I'

I've found it incredibly helpful already, most specifically because of what people have shared about altering/revising SoPs and WSs. I shall be considering these things throughout my own drafting processes.

Not so much a dig at you as an accolade directed at Academicat...but yes, I had you in mind and sorry if it came off as a dig. Of course you've gotta do what you've gotta do and posting to an online forum probably isn't the highest on anyone's priority list. I can be patient and I totally look forward to your reply. I just thought it was interesting how the dynamic of this thread was shaping up very recently here, what w/ Academicat basically being off-the-charts forthcoming. I have no problem pointing these things out. There it is, right there on my computer screen. But no, nothing personal w

Well this certainly got interesting in a hurry! Let's be fair to Academicat, who took the time to write a hell of a post and then followed up with explanation when asked (unlike others)...and who said the cover letter was partly the result of being pissed about a year of rejections and who was told that most applications do include them. It strikes me that this has to do with the particular people/departments that got specifically contacted for advice. On top of all that, Academicat is admitted to 4 programs. I for one don't sneeze at that. If, when it's my turn, I have a choice of 4 progr

How have I never in my life heard of submitting a cover letter along with my other materials?! Why is everything enshrouded in secrecy and mystery?! Way to go Semenza and proseminar, thanks for not ever mentioning these things! Thanks, Academicat. I'll have to get on that.

So this is easily shaping up to be my favorite thread since it's so helpful...Academicat, when you say that last year's application didn't have a cover letter, are you saying that you wrote cover letters for all applications this year whether or not the program officially listed it as a required application piece? And if so, how did you include it? Did you just put it on the front of a WS or did you find a way to upload it separately, send it in hardcopy, what? Finally, can you say more about it generically - length, etc.? I imagine a cover letter to be a page-ish, right? The reason I a

(And more reason that you shouldn't beat yourself up about not being able to determine fit in the first place-- there's just so much you can't know.)

I very much appreciate this thread. Jazzy, when you write, "The thing about my field of interest is that even in the best of circumstances, a department is really only going to have 2-3 people who fall broadly in that area, so it’s more important to find a department with great people who are doing great work than the absolute perfect fit," then presumably you make a distinction between "the absolute perfect fit" and "a department with (2-3) great people who are doing great work" "broadly in [your] area." I can think of a few reasons for the distinction but I'm curious about your take sinc