foppery

I tend to disagree with this. I don't know how PhD programs view older applicants per se (I can't imagine they're opposed on principle), but I *do* know that many adcoms search applicants' dossiers for potential, not concrete accomplishment. A DGA of a top-20 program told me this in so many words. To a degree, every department wants Galateas, students it can mold into its vision of the perfect scholar. So it's not all that easy to "throw the 25-year-old back in the water."

Also, I'm at UNC now, and I can assure you that most PhD students (though, sadly, not all) get funded for the first year.

Best of luck! Sorry if my post came off as pedantic; I didn't mean it that way. I just feel strongly that people should know as much as possible about programs before applying to them. Learn from my own errors...

Pamphilia and strokeofmidnight are right on, as always. You seem to have chosen your schools at random, based entirely on location. It's good to have some reach schools and some safety schools, but the gap between Duke/UNC-CH and MTSU (does it even have a PhD program?) is immense. And if you're unsure if you could get into ANY of them, you need to do more research on what they're looking for in a candidate, because I suspect they have wildly different admission criteria. Do you even know how good the Renaissance program is at each of them? Or what you want to do with your PhD after you graduate? Because, as SOM points out, some of the schools you're considering won't get you very far in a search for a good tenure-track job. Personally, I think a list of 12 schools is too long. I applied to six, because I was a senior in college with no money and no time, but that was a good number: I got into three. I think between five and 10 is ideal; any more, and you probably haven't narrowed down your list to find departments that are good fits for your work. And who has $1200 to blow on applications to grad school? Choose a few reach schools, a few schools you think you can get into, and one or two safeties--though I question the idea that anyone applying to grad school should have "safety schools" that they aren't terribly excited about.

Yeah, that too...

Sorry, but I don't think anyone told MM she was being pretentious, and I don't think we were pretentious in our criticisms, either.

Sad to say, I think there are people like that in every graduate program. Intellectual douchery knows no bounds or borders.

Yeah, let me be more honest than I was before: I'm a current grad student, too, and I'd find the email an imposition. I'd respond as thoroughly as I could, out of common courtesy, but the sheer volume of questions would overwhelm me. If MM were to read my response, she'd think the email was successful (and, if it answered her questions, I suppose it would be). But it would do her no favors with the department. I can even imagine the dialogue that might ensue between a grad student and her adviser: GRAD STUDENT. A prospective applicant wrote to me last night. She asked me exactly 20 questions--I counted. She even asked me whether I thought you were a good professor! It was like she wanted me to go behind your back and reveal all the dirty secrets of the department. And she seemed to assume that the coursework here wouldn't be challenging. I was a little insulted. ADVISER. Wait, who was this person? Was it __? Because she sent *me* an email that read like a statement of purpose. She listed all her interests, all her hobbies, and all her teaching experience. It was like she was trying to apply before the application season began. Essentially, she seemed to be asking me whether I thought her interests would fit in well here, but she took 700 words to do it. I was up all night answering her. See what I mean? MM, I'll be frank: those emails will give you the reputation of "THAT student" long before the committees meet. Departments are gossipy (what else do academics have to do?), and word gets around. There is no foolproof way to get all the information you want before you're accepted. Those long, detailed emails can wait until you have acceptance in hand: that's when they'll be totally appropriate. At this stage, though, they'll only alienate you from potential professors and colleagues.

Agreed. Are you an international student, or is there some other reason you're applying for this loan program? With GRE scores that high, you shouldn't have to worry *too* much about admission with funding (though, as we all know, the application process is full of unpleasant surprises).

Maybe so, but I've heard from a good source that no doctoral dissertation under 250 pages is going to be taken seriously.

I'm going to agree with bigdgp on this one. Granted, everyone's interests develop and change in grad school: medievalists become modernists, and so on. However, if you can't imagine writing a 100-page dissertation on anything (note, by the way, that most good dissertations are 300+ pages), then you're not ready to apply. You should be very enthusiastic about AT LEAST one field of literature, one era, even one text. Because if you're not enthusiastic about something? Grad school will eat you alive. I applied during my senior year of college, before I was ready for the intellectual and emotional commitment of grad school, and I suffered as a result. Yes, I was accepted to good programs, but I wasn't ready to do those programs justice. "I think I like literature" is not a good reason to apply to grad school. Don't do it until you feel ready. If that means waiting another year or two, so be it. Better to wait than to rush into something before you're ready.

I'm at UNC right now. Since I'm in English, I know next to nothing about the Comp Lit program, but I'd assume it's well-ranked--what makes you think it isn't? (I ask this out of genuine curiosity, as I don't know of any Comp Lit ranking systems.) If you want us to help, you should post at greater length about the pros and cons of each program, as most members of this forum probably don't know anything about the programs that accepted you (congratulations, by the way!).

Fair enough, and if you got good responses, more power to you! I DO wish I'd known more about at least one of the programs I applied to before I paid the $100...

I have to agree. MM, you ask a total of 20 questions in your first email, and your second is overwhelming. In fact, the second sounds more like a statement of purpose than a friendly, casual email to a potential professor. The myriad details about your educational history, Jungian psychological interests, current job, and love for Dave Eggers belong in a CV or SoP, not in an email. You could cut the email down to one-fifth its size and still ask all the questions you need to ask. As for the first emails, it seems risky to ask current grad students their opinions of professors. Grad students gossip, as do faculty, and your probing questions might harm you in the long run. One more piece of advice, at the risk of sounding bitchy: Please, never use "lol" in an email to a professor.

That's really interesting, and thanks for the information; I'd hate to be handing out false advice. (I should also mention that my adviser did his PhD in the '70s, so his information is bound to be a little out of date.) My only experience with mentioning a professor ended badly, due to my own incompetence. A few paragraphs of my writing sample focused on challenging the arguments of Professor X--who, I realized minutes before sending off my application to Program Y, would likely be my adviser there. I did my best to tone down the attack, but since my essay wouldn't make much sense without it, I was forced to leave most of it in. I was actually accepted to Y, but I should have known from X's book that he wouldn't be the best person to work with. Oh, well.

You're right on. I do think there may be legitimate reasons for contacting professors, if you have specific questions about the department that can't be answered by online research. Otherwise, though, I'd be wary. When I was a college senior going through this hellish process, I knew someone who was applying to grad schools in a different field. She had begun contacting professors in the summer before application season. I have no idea what she said to them, but she used to brag about the fruitful exchanges she'd had, and scoff at me for refusing to play the game. I refused mainly for diehtc0ke's reason: I'm pretty shy, and I couldn't think of anything to ask professors that wouldn't come off as "hey guys, I want to go to your school"--and what professor has time for that? I also had a wise adviser who warned me strongly against writing to anyone. My friend continued to hint that she would get in everywhere and I would get in nowhere. Come March, I was in with funding at three programs. I believe she ended up doing an unfunded MA. I'm not claiming that her emails ruined her chances, or that my refusal to write to professors led directly to my success. But I DO want to emphasize that her emails didn't help, and that my refusal didn't hurt. (Or would I have gotten in everywhere had I written the damn emails? God knows, but I'm guessing no.) I should add that my adviser also told me not to mention specific professors in my statement of purpose, and since I worshiped the ground he walked on, I did as he said. He claimed that professors found these mentions even more presumptuous than unsolicited emails. I'm not sure if this is true, and I'm curious what other successful applicants did with their SoPs, but my adviser's rationale seemed sound: THEY decide if they want to work with YOU. So, my two cents: If you have specific questions that can be resolved only by contacting professors, go ahead. If you're just trying to network and make contacts, it's probably not necessary.

I have to take a total of 12 seminars in two years, which means three per semester, and I think this is fairly normal for PhD programs. And then, in the third year, exams! Oh boy.

Agreed. In fact, every university I know of works this way. Associate profs are probably there to stay. (Of course, it never hurts to ask.)

May I ask why it's terribly important to be working with a full professor? I understand they may have more connections, clout, etc., but assistant and associate profs can be perfectly good mentors. And they may well graduate to full professors in the time it takes you to finish a PhD!

Penn and Princeton.

Hi, fellow Princetonians! I'm a Seven Sisters grad, too (Mount Holyoke '09), and I'll be entering Princeton's English department. I signed up to live in the GC, and am hoping for a single, but who knows...

The senseless, arbitrary English Ph.D. system would stop functioning if not for the colossal egos of grad students, who believe--despite all evidence to the contrary--that they will beat out hundreds of other applicants for that elusive tenure-track spot at a nice liberal-arts college. Ugh, I KNOW this, and yet my ego tells me I'll be one of the lucky ones. (Tongue in cheek, of course. So many other factors come into play. But I think ego--or willful blindness, another English-major talent--is a huge factor.)

Frankly, part of me agrees. A year ago, I turned down two Ivies for a (still very respectable) state school, and regretted my decision so much I reapplied to one of the Ivies, which took me again. So I'm going there this year, and though I feel like a bit of a sellout, I'm terrified of the nearly hopeless job market. There will always be brilliant people at lower-ranked programs, people who do well no matter the strength of their brand names. This I firmly believe. But those success stories are few and far between. And the fact is, I DO want a job at a respectable institution, preferably a liberal-arts college like the one I graduated from. Sometimes you have to sell out a little. I hate myself for saying that. And yeah, honestly, top grad programs have always been very selective. I do know people who would almost certainly have been accepted to certain programs if not for the economy, but the fact is, some might have been rejected no matter the year.

I agree with a few points you make, though not all. As someone who was accepted the first time around to three programs, I can't imagine the tenacity it takes to apply three years in a row, and more power to anyone willing to do that. What you have to realize, though, is that not everyone on this forum WANTS an R1 job. That's not the only reason to get a PhD. What if you want to teach at a community college, or work at a university press? And it's not as if Ivy Leaguers are doing terribly well on the job market, either. The market sucks for absolutely everyone, including my brilliant friend who just finished his PhD at Columbia and can't find a tenure-track position anywhere. As for funding packages, my friends at state universities manage to make do: maybe they're not eating at Chez Panisse-caliber restaurants every night, but they're not subsisting on Top Ramen, either. I do agree that people rejected two or three times from all the programs they apply to should be very honest with themselves--graduate work isn't for everyone. I agree that if you want a cushy tenure-track job at an Ivy or a nice liberal-arts college, you should consider the reputation of your program. I wish you had stopped there, because you make some good points that others might not have the courage to make or accept. But you weaken your argument with phrases like "matriculation with extremely generous funding to an Ivy Comp Lit PhD," "my numbers--which were perfect," and "the verbiage of one prominent DGS." It's odd that you couldn't offer candid advice--for the good of others, no doubt!--without boasting about your own success. That, not the advice itself, is what will make you unpopular for this post.

Aww, thanks! I study Restoration lit, so it seemed appropriate.