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My undergraduate SLAC dropped out of the USNWR rankings altogether, a move I supported from start to finish. I do think, however, that graduate programs, which are all pointed at least to an extent at the common goals of educating their students in a specific discipline and installing their graduates in tenure-track jobs, are a bit easier and more useful to rank. That is not to say that rankings are justified in their present form; indeed, they are not. I think that what StrangeLight means when she says that "rankings are meaningless" is that "rankings should be meaningless." Sadly, that is not the case at all, and any applicant or current student would put themselves at a professional disadvantage by simply pretending that the rankings don't have an effect on the field. Here's why, in my opinion: 1. Those same professors who fill out those (highly unscientific) rankings questionnaires are also the professors who sit on departmental hiring committees. So if they think your program is sufficiently excellent to rank highly, that's more likely to reflect well on you as a graduate of that program and as a job applicant. 2. Following on Americana's contention, if a school has a fantastic record of securing funding and grants for its students, placing them well, etc., then they will do better in the rankings than a school that is less successful in such ways. This is a meaningful, and somewhat quantifiable, matter that no applicant should ignore. 3. Many undergraduate applicants, and the parents who foot the bills for their children's educations, want to see name brands attached to the school's faculty rolls. They see Harvard/Stanford/Yale and assume that they're getting the best education possible, helping to justify the cost of study. This is an unfortunate, but real, truth. A graduate from a ranked, branded school has an unfair job advantage in this regard. Again, unfair, but real, and certainly not "meaningless." Lastly, Americana's tone has indeed been provocative (even unnecessarily so, though it had certainly inspired some impassioned and articulate responses, which is a good thing). But no one on this forum deserves to be flamed in such a way. A number of posters have questioned her character or made unqualified and baseless presumptions about her academic qualifications, and I find that to be fairly repulsive. Particularly 2BPHD's comment that "Yes you are too gud (sic) to admit… in any university." Do recall that ours is a phenomenally small community. 2BPHD, for all you know, Americana, however pompous she may be, could very well be sitting on your tenure committee some day. Learning to respect people is therefore more than polite; it's just good strategy. This is a forum for academics and professionals, albeit nascent ones, and that kind of language does far too much to deteriorate the effectiveness of this conversation.

Most schools require that students have medical insurance, if anything to mitigate the liability of having uninsured students running around. I did my undergrad work in New York, and my impression is that it was the law there for students to be insured. I honestly think it's utterly unthinkable that a graduate program wouldn't offer a health plan. They know perfectly well that you'll have no money and that an individual plan would be utterly out of your range. It strikes me not only as odd that Syracuse lacks a graduate health insurance plan, but in fact it seems downright unethical and incompetent. That's not the kind of school you want, I think. Are you certain there's nothing available through the university?

I'm not stalking anyone. Yet.

So what size cohort is RU aiming for? I'm under the impression that it's a dozen, but I can't recall where I got that information.

I just sat down and wrote a whole new paper exclusively for the application. I spent a couple months researching and a couple more writing. I found all the "right" people to cite after brushing up on the general conversation in that particular part of the field, even working certain articles written by professors at my hoped-for schools into the paper itself. And I made sure the writing sample complemented the goals I laid out in my SOP. I don't think any (really, any) of the work I did as an undergrad was anywhere close to being sufficient, even though I graduated with a 3.85 from a top-tier liberal arts school. The new paper worked. I was accepted to multiple top-20 programs.

I think that virtually every person on this forum would recommend that you take (at a minimum) a year or two off before applying to graduate school. I don't think I've ever heard someone say that waiting was a bad idea, or that they should have applied directly after their undergraduate work. Everybody says the opposite. You'll be more competitive for admission and funding, you'll know yourself and your skills better, and, above all, you'll be an adult. Don't apply now. Just don't.

I should amend too: I meant that I'll also be accepting RU's offer, not that I'm also a romanticist. That's a one-person boat. A lonely, enraptured, heart-stricken, one-person boat.

That makes two of us. Did you make it to the open house? I wasn't able to go, and I've been curious about how it went.

I'll be accepting, too, and was able to visit before the open house on a one-on-one basis. Do feel free to email me!

CUNY takes nowhere near 31% of its applicants. I'm not sure where Peterson gets its information; it can often lead applicants down the wrong path. CUNY makes between 30 and 35 offers each year. This year they had 300 applicants. That's a relatively huge cohort, though, but it is a graduate-only facility, which seems to allow for more room.

There's a math section on the GRE?

That's such an inappropriate way to treat applicants. People apply to a school as a gesture of respect, and they place a great deal of hope on that process. That message on Penn's site is so arrogantly snotty and exasperated; how hard is it to send out a mass-email or field a few phone calls? I can guarantee that everyone who applied spent a lot of time and money doing so, and the least Penn can do is extend a bit of respect in return. I'm glad I didn't apply, and I feel bad for those who did.

Oh man, you've never had a roommate? Well, welcome to the world of cleaning other people's spaghetti sauce off the ceiling. I'm looking in the same direction, though. The key, of course, is to find the right roommates. I wouldn't recommend my roommate from my freshman year in college, for example. Stay away from that guy. But the truth is that it can be a very economical arrangement. The most economical, for that matter. Figure on about $650 a month or so for rent (or so I gather), which isn't too bad at all in the Northeast. Are you planning on taking a car? It could definitely open up some other neighborhoods (Milltown, Edison, Piscataway), which would add a lot of potential properties while sidestepping the undergrad competition.

I won't be at the open house, which is why I visited in advance. Feel free to send me a message if you'd like my email, though, as I'm happy to help you with what I discovered, and I'd love to hear how the open house goes. And thanks for the advice on the legal-aid office. I would never have thought of it. (And what kind of housing set-up are you looking for?)

Same here. I'd accept right now if it weren't prudent to wait for the other decisions to come back. PM me if there's anything else I can help with!

I was admitted to the English Ph.D. program and I've had a chance to visit the campus and department, so I thought I would give a run-down for those who have been admitted. From a financial perspective, everyone at Rutgers (in the English department, anyway) gets the same funding, which is quite generous and is absolutely on par with anything you'd see at the Ivies. (I hear Johns Hopkins is giving about 18K a year, which is several thousand less than you'll see at Rutgers. Suckers!) The health insurance is cheap and solid, and the TA jobs are very well protected by the face-breaking union (you talkin' to me?), which means that annual raises are the norm. The campus has great gyms and free clinics and there's counseling available for when you start to go crazy. I found the reception that the school extended to me to be delightful (even stunning). A couple schools I've been accepted to sent me an admission email, then nothing else at all. Rutgers, though, sent me a whole chorus of emails from faculty members offering their advice and assistance, giving me their cell numbers, etc., and the administrative staff in the English department could not be more competent and caring. I get the clear impression that the department is filled with really lovely people with a strong and nurturing sense of camaraderie. The graduate students I've had a chance to speak with seem very happy with the program, their stipends, the faculty, etc., and seem to be able to live fairly comfortably on their stipends. New Brunswick, sadly, is nothing to write home about. Most of the graduate students seem to live in Highland Park, across the river from the College Avenue campus. It's a very residential area, but it's peaceful and quaint. There's a Stop and Shop supermarket nearby, a few ethnic restaurants, and a new bookstore has opened. It seems like quite a pleasant place to live. One-bedroom units tend to run about $900 - $1250 per month, while individual rooms in houses or apartments go from $500 to about $850. With walking and the campus bus system, a car is not necessary at all, but it would make grocery shopping a lot easier and would open up cheaper parts of Central Jersey to your housing search. It seems pretty clear, though, that most first-year grad students choose Highland Park as their place of residence. I'll admit that Rutgers' location and rowdy New Jersey undergraduate population was doing a lot to turn me off, but the simple truth is that, regardless of what the town has to offer, you're not likely to have time to partake. Moreover, most of the grad students described the undergrads as "kind" and "thoughtful" and "charming," so that's nice. The grad students in particular seem really smart and interesting, and there's no shortage of young people around. Rutgers has a long reputation of getting fantastic speakers (Adrienne Rich was just there), but sadly the grad students themselves apparently don't always have time to go. So the truth is that there's tons of stuff going on, and you won't have time for any of it. The train to NYC takes 45 minutes or an hour and costs about $17 round-trip. The New Brunswick train station is very convenient to the College Avenue campus. The train drops you at Penn Station, which is always nice, as NYC's entire homeless population has chosen to maintain a winter residence there. Rutgers' library facilities have generally been described as adequate; one professor mentioned never having been unable to find something there, but for those looking to do hard-core archival work, you may have to travel to Princeton or the NY Public. Rutgers maintains a consortium with those schools (and Penn, Columbia, NYU, CUNY), so you can use their libraries and take classes with them. The general consensus is that the library (which is not the most attractive building in the world, but is perfectly modern and clean and decently equipped) will absolutely get the job done for 95% of what you need, but that Rutgers would likely rank a bit higher if it were able to offer its students more obscure archival collections. One way or the other, between RU's material and the wealth of stuff located in a one-hour radius of the campus, you will almost certainly have everything you could ever ask for in the way of library material. I'd really love to see admitted grad students use this forum to get organized for the big move in the fall. It would be great if we could help each other out in finding places to live and figuring out how to get this done. There are plenty of resources offered by the University (and individual departments are particularly helpful), but getting a head start right here wouldn't hurt, either. My honest, objective impression is that those of us who have won admission here are really very lucky; the school seems to be a true gem for graduate students.

Last year, Rutgers enrolled about 15 of 230 applicants for the Ph.D. English Language and LIteratures program. There's no terminal MA. I'm not sure how many they extended offers to, but given their fantastic funding, I would presume that it's not too many more than the 15 they enrolled.