Strong Flat White
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Posts posted by Strong Flat White
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Be kind. I'm sorry if you end up in a program that practices book hiding. Courtesy to faculty, admin staff, and your fellow students will go a long way, both during and after your program.
What is book hiding?
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I don't know if telling people to chill is the way to go about anything, really. Doesn't make you look any better... Anyway, not trying to create tension. I've also found this thread incredibly helpful, and am so grateful to SFW for all the questions and nagging so we can get some answers we may not have gotten otherwise. Also, kudos Academicat; you're a great help! Thanks for all of your insight.
Thanks! Kind of weird to take nagging as a compliment, but indeed that's how I take it.
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Strong Flat White, I've seen you have to apologize more times than any other person on here. Just chill and realize people are trying to help as much as they can.
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.
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Not to say that the information provide thus far hasn't been helpful, but after reading everything I still feel like I'm waiting for the mystery of how to get into programs to be unveiled.
It's just so hard to know what helped people get in without seeing their writing samples and SOP. I feel like I followed all of the advice that was given here--except having a cover letter--and I'm still not getting in anywhere. I thought I had a really good SOP and writing sample, good fit with the departments, good GPAs (3.7 undergrad, 3.92 MA), decent verbal score on the GRE (89th percentile), and still no success. I went to a good undergraduate program, but not ivy by any means (it was a Big 10 university). My MA school is unknown and not great--so my LOR were from people who were not well known. So, my theory is that since my letter writers and my MA institution were not prestigious, they are my demise.
I guess I'll never know...unless I ask the departments in a few weeks/months for advice. Ugh. Grr. Boo.
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 way a department wants you to be flexible is now what I'm striving toward...explicitly...
Now for a totally unrelated thing - how long do people suggest studying for the subject test? I'm thinking of the April '15 test and was going to start probably around November-ish on Norton anthologies. Too soon? Too late? I realize this is going to vary hugely between individuals, but from your own perspectives of course is what I'm asking. That would be 5 months-ish. Time better spent on WS/SoP? Or time well spent?
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I thought Jazzy's first post was very helpful and that she (or he-- sorry I can't tell from you profile) was very clear both times. It's sort of, well, rude to compare how helpful people are, if they're all being helpful. There's a way to compliment someone without taking a jab at someone else. All of this info is volunteered. No one's obligated to answer questions, not even follow up ones.
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.
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Anyway...
I'll try to explain with a hypothetical example, but if that doesn't clarify enough then I'll just use specifics.
But say you're interested in how women writers conceived of Victorian era medicalization of X. Okay, well one approach to finding the perfect fit would be looking for faculty who also do research on this exact same topic. Or, you could just look for places with really strong Victorian and feminist faculty whose research intrigues you. Versus looking for faculty who are exactly inline with your (current, subject to change) research interests, the second option (what I went with) is about finding faculty who would be able to successfully guide and advise you in a dissertation project even if it doesn't look exactly like their own projects.
Does that help at all?
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'd have been more inclined to find a larger number on the broad side of things rather than a single narrow alignment in the first place, but in any case that seems to be part of what this thread is bearing out. Perhaps it is just a semantic over-reading of "perfection" that I got hung up on. Still, I think it's productive to work through this. The thread, after all, is called "perspectives," and even when "fit" gets talked about explicitly, "2-3" is much more specific than the "half dozen or so" that I would have imagined to have to find within a given department (again, for broad interest overlap, not "narrow" or "exact"). And when this can be articulated, things begin to make more sense, and future applicants like me get a better picture of what to expect.
I do appreciate the clarification. If nothing else, I bet just about everyone can agree that fit = the trickiest part of the whole application. I get the sense that I wear out my welcome posting about fit, bemoaning the impossibility of it all, but I find it completely opaque. I'm just letting you know. By drafting any given piece a million times and with a million pairs of eyes, you can really fine-tune a piece of writing or a statement of purpose. But no amount of drafting will clue anyone in to the inner workings of a given department.
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Not sure how helpful this thread can be when we know the most important things are SOP, LOR, and writing sample, the very things that can't be shared.There will be a correlation between the above and the GPA/GRE/institution/pubs/confs types of things, but probably not to a helpful extent
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.
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Not sure if that's a dig at me...? I fully intend to answer your response to my post but you know, got caught up in other things. I wanted to make sure I took the time to fully explain, but figured it wouldn't be right to spend however many minutes writing a long post on GradCafe when I had an abstract due that at the time wasn't even started.
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 whatsoever, just an observation of one poster's coolness in relation to what is established, here. Fair is fair, credit where it is due and so forth.
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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 programs, I will do some unmentionable mode of celebration, it will be epic. And hell, if you get shut out one year and you get 4 acceptances the next time around, and one of your main differences is this tangible and identifiable, and we're asking, and Academicat is will to share, then I guess the neighborly thing here would be to continue seeking clarification:
Academicat, you mention taking a calculated risk with your writing sample...do you think the cover letter was another calculated risk? Would you have drafted and submitted a cover letter if you were pissed but did not get information that most applications contain them? If decorum by and large deems a cover letter irrelevant to other departments' application protocols do you still recommend it based on your current success, or do you think your applications were to an unusual set of departments in this regard? In short, what do you make of this mess we have on our hands? Please help to un-confuse me and possibly others.
- despejado, Academicat, guinevere29 and 1 other
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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.
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The CV & Chances to See Me
After crawling out of the hole that the crushing blow of being roundly rejected by all of the PhD programs I'd applied to last year had shoved me into, I called up my mentor to talk about how I could do a better job the next time around, and the advice he gave me was to give them as many chances to see you as possible. Last year's application didn't have a cover letter, but after being rejected, I was frankly pissed, so the cover letter I wrote was aggressive and bold, and it outlined my work experience and stated, very openly, that to progress, I needed the kind of scholarly foundation that I could only get from their PhD program. I put it on departmental letterhead for a little extra clout, and followed it with my CV.
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 ask so many questions about the cover letter is because I've been focusing so much attention on SoP and WS. Didn't realize I should be drafting an altogether different document, but if it works, I'm definitely on board. Thanks in advance.
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(And more reason that you shouldn't beat yourself up about any given rejection-- there's just so much you can't control.)
(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.)
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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 since, after all, there is another perspective from which 2-3 people doing great work in your area, broadly, is how some people are defining "the absolute perfect fit." Or another way to ask, I guess, is, what do you specifically have in mind when you didn't stress about an absolute perfect fit? I take note and keep in mind that you didn't dwell on this, and in fact I've posted a bit where the OP has also posted and am coming to my own conclusions about fit - namely, I also won't stress, either. But I am curious and still learning, so hit me w/ it.
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Tommy Guerrero for mellow and Jaydiohead for up-tempo. For writing: Pandora w/ a Ben Harper-Charlie Musselwhite seed (never fails).
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This year is my second round of phd applications, and I have used Interfolio both years for the schools that will accept it, and have asked my recommenders to upload directly for schools that don't (in my experience, most schools DO accept it, and I didn't want to overburden my letter-writers).
Aside from a couple of unfunded MA offers, last year was a wash. This year, I've had one rejection (UT Austin, which does not accept Interfolio, so those letters were submitted directly), and am currently on two waitlists: Chapel Hill (does not accept Interfolio) and CUNY (does accept Interfolio by mail). I have no idea to what extent my recommenders personalized my letters for the schools that don't accept Interfolio, but I do know that the generic Interfolio email was at least good enough to get me on the CUNY waitlist.
Who know what all that ultimately means, but take from it what you will.
Cool, thanks!
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I honestly have no clue. It might depend from department to department? I’m definitely no expert on any of this.
Thanks for humoring me, guys...Kamisha, you've had acceptances, correct? And your acceptances were based (at least partly) in your LoR being drafted specifically for your programs? Or, at least, you got in with that sort of an application (as opposed to an Interfolio application) and I would imagine that's what most people here would say...
Maybe I should invert this whole mess: Is there anybody out there who feels that they had a successful round of applications using just Interfolio for their LoRs?!
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I don’t know that a generic LoR is technically a bad thing, but I think the preference is personalized. I know my LoR writers requested specific information about each school so they could tweak their recommendation for each school. One of them compared it to tweaking the SoP: if it’s generic, the schools understands you, your history, and your interests. What they are missing is why that school is for you.
Right...so what would you do? Reopen the discussion? Do you think fit could be adequately expressed via other parts of the application, or do you think the LoRs are pretty central to that whole thing?
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If I recall correctly, not every program accepts LoR from Interfolio, so that's one potential drawback. I'd like to think that if one of your writers had a stronger connection to a specific program on your list they'd write a more tailored letter in that instance in lieu of the Interfolio one. It's not an absurdly expensive service, (I think a year is $19.99, but I may be mistaken), so it's likely a viable option. But again, I remember looking at different institutions and reading they don't accept from Interfolio, so make sure you contact programs and ask about their policy.
I've never come across a department that says they won't take Interfolio. No doubt they're out there - I'm not doubting you. I'm just saying, I've spent a goodly amount of time on departmental websites and I have never seen this.
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Could you still “Waive Your Rights” to view the letter? A lot of schools still consider that big deal. If the letter comes from interfolio, will universities know that you’ve been able to see it? Moreover, do all universities accept Interfolio letters? It seems like a few of mine this season specifically said that they won’t accept inter folio letters.
It honestly seems like a great option if grad schools are behind it.
No- Interfolio has a mechanism whereby you waive your rights just like any normal applicant. I've never seen what they've written about me. And yeah, most will either take Interfolio or else you can work it out so that Interfolio's delivery goes to an administrative assistant who can then upload things.
Logistically, I'm not worried. I'm worried about the fact that people seem to be expressing the willingness of their recommenders to redraft multiple versions of letters suitable to the departments being applied to, whereas I seem not to have allowed myself that opportunity...unless I go back to them to reopen the discussion. Or, is generic a bad thing in a LoR?
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To quote the wise Abed... I think I may have done some damage here.
I didn't mean to introduce a tizzy about re-asking for letter recs. To clarify, it was the part *I* most hated about reapplying, but every single person I asked was incredibly wonderful about it. They didn't say boo to the fact that I had to do it 3 times, and they were encouraging and helpful every single time. I couldn't have done it without them. I got encouragement, and even suggestions for schools I had never considered before, one of which is my only current acceptance.
And I know it's becoming my mantra, and I'm the repetitive crazy lady in the corner, but there is NO harm in reapplying. These days, less common is the one who gets into something their first round. There are just so many of us, and so many spots. And we all converge on the top 20 like frantic nerdy sharks, and a bunch are bound to go hungry. So you swim and circle for a year, take the time to become more awesome, and you do it again. And maybe there's a cooler shark, and you have to try again, and maybe again. But eventually you eat.
/Shark metaphor.
...and reapplying is a drug. Every year I wondered if I had the gumption to go through it again. And then October came around, and there I was, gathering materials and being all optimistic and annoying. If it's what you wanna do, you just...have to keep doing it. Either that or I have an obsessive disorder and should seek help soon. But I can go both ways.
Only b/c I've seen it surfacing w/ some frequency, I thought I'd enter this re-asking-for-letters discussion. I had a professor tell me to start an Interfolio account so that the letter could be stored and distributed to schools/departments at my convenience without me having to go back to him for another request. So then I asked my other two recommenders what they thought about this, and they were on board and said that it made sense and they liked it, but I was still worried that this approach would require a generic, one-size-fits-all kind of letter to be sent to a range of schools (and as I've stated here previously, I plan to cast a super wide net), so I asked specifically about that and everybody said no problem, that's how they typically write their letters anyway and they'd still give me solid recs...
...I actually began writing this as a suggestion, but as I write it out, questions arise. Can this approach work in this hyper-competitive landscape - is it even possible? If not, are my recommenders behind the times, or are they less than supportive of me? If so, why isn't everyone doing this?
Of course, even if it's a perfect plan, it's less than perfect in that it costs money to maintain an Interfolio account. I realize that by itself would deter a lot of you from using it.
So, my recommenders know my strengths and interests...I would assume that any letter would have to speak to these things regardless of which program it was going to = rationale for this approach could work. Plus, if recommenders are continually asked to submit letters to a wide array of schools for multiple students, then they're probably already using some form of efficient recycling = more rationale that this could work. On the other hand...it's all about custom-tailored fit. A "generic" application hardly seems like it would cut it = rationale that I will be screwed in my application cycle(s). But a LoR is one component of a much larger application; perhaps I can articulate "fit" in my statements of purpose = maybe it can work after all.
Sorry that this is so all over the place. I thought I had a potential answer (or at least input) to an ongoing discussion and sort of freaked myself out by trying to write it out. Now I wonder: what do you guys think of the Interfolio approach? The thing that sucks for me is that I don't feel like I have a choice - my pro-Interfolio professor told me to do it this way, he didn't ask. Thoughts?
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Also: I realize Syracuse has dropped from #1 to #4 since I've been extended consideration. So maybe it's actually in my interest that they lose games...
It's in your interest in more ways than one. Syracuse will do better in the tournament for having lost some games beforehand. Nobody wants that undefeated albatross hanging around a team's collective neck heading into a post-season. It's just way too much tension and distraction. Now they're on planet earth, right where they belong, the pressure has been somewhat alleviated, and - like you and all of us here - they're free to just go and play their game. I didn't actually intend for this to bleed into a metaphor for the current application cycle - I am in fact parroting a perspective that I agree with from sports talk radio - but now that I think about it, it's not even a stretch. The logic is that adversity makes you stronger. Boom. You and the 'Cuse, in it together.
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Hi Strong Flat,
It was me (Nodin) who posted about the waitlist. Paul informed me that I'm on top, and I hope that I'll get an offer soon.
Noice! Well, if you're on top, odds are in your favor, right? Good work, good sir, I hope you get it. And soon.
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Because if you're in a drive thru, then presumably the car behind you has ordered by the time you make it to the window. Kamisha is also prescient.
I guess I've never been through the drive-thru. Thank you.
Your Scholar or Theorist Mt. Rushmore
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
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N. Katherine Hayles, Arthur Kroker, Brian Massumi, Walter Benn Michaels.