lousyconnection

I read all of the period essays and author notes in the Norton Anthology of American Literature and the Norton Anthology of British Literature. I did this over about three weeks before the test. You want to be sure to have as much knowledge of prose as poetry. Also, so long as you have a good idea of authors' concerns, styles, movements—as well being able to tell about what period any excerpt comes from—you don't need to actually read the poetry or prose in the Nortons, just the editorial essays/contexts/etc. Take a practice test and figure out what subjects are tripping you up and what time periods you don't know about. Go back and read those sections in the Norton again. Also, on test day, *do not panic* when you hit very weird questions. If they're weird for you, they're weird for everybody. The GRE is graded on a curve. Good luck!

I got an email from DGS on Saturday afternoon.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff. But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better. That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though. But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Columbia English 2015 had some really good ones, particularly: and this sad one and these salty af ones: That's such a bummer. Best wishes to the poster. I lived a block north of USC the summer after I graduated a couple years ago, that security was elaborate. But then you leave campus. Someone was bludgeoned to death 200 feet from our gate, right about the time of night when I would take a walk. Luckily I was out of town at the time...

@haltheincandescent I just received an acceptance from UChicago too! *high five* Maybe see you at prospective student day. I really can't believe I can sit back a little bit now. I've been a piano wire for months! And congrats to all the admits that are popping up on the board!

Not me either :/ What a weird time to send it out...

Just cracked open the first wine of the season (Yellow Tail Merlot, v sophisticated) because I had stuff to do all January but I finished it and now the anxiety, dread, and waiting tedium is hitting full force. Yikes.

Y'all are great. @cloverhinge sounds like we had the same interview. How I felt before my interview: How I felt during the interview: How I wanted to look when one of the professors pushed against a point I made: How I actually looked: How I felt after the interview:

Getting no emails Getting school-unrelated emails Getting "we got your transcript" emails Finally getting an email from the program!!!!!

Just wanted to say I just got the email. I don't know if they were sent out in a batch or what. Good luck everyone!