Concordia

http://www.fulbright.org.uk/going-to-the-usa/pre-departure/academics Here is another, simpler explanation. Which may not be exactly what your target universities will use.

The British have their own way of classifying undergrad degrees. A First-class Honours degree is something like an A average, or >3.7/4.0. On exams, those usually are scores >+ 70. Second-Class Honours are divided between upper seconds (2:1) and lower seconds (2:2). When firms that care about academic competence recruit for BAs, they will often ask for 2:1 or higher (i.e., 60-69). MPhils or doctorate admissions committees will often specify a minimum "high 2:1 or first." The 2:2 (a "Desmond", 50-59) is decently respectable, but by itself won't make you attractive to employers or grad schools. You don't see a lot of third-class degrees anymore-- those used to be sort of the "gentleman's C" equivalent. Anyway, the Brits are used to translating between their scores and those used in the rest of the world, so they will doubtless have an opinion what they want your marks to be. If you want some more info, check the departmental websites and/or shoot an e-mail off to someone in admissions for help.

Oxbridge and London always make conditional offers-- not just passing/graduating, but that you get (say) a high 2:1 or a first, or a particular point average, plus English language competence tested at a certain level if you haven't earned a UK or English-language degree. That can make you feel a little anxious over the summer while you wait for your results, but you won't be alone. Even if you have already attained those levels, they will make your acceptance conditional on a bunch of other things-- notably, finances and visas. Try www.thestudentroom.co.uk for specifics on UK universities. There are usually postgraduate threads for most of the big schools.

As usual, you have to Know Thyself. I had out of academia for a bit, and while I'd done some recent night classes, my best papers weren't quite what I wanted to hand into a very critical committee. A January course at Harvard Extension (nowhere near $4.5K, BTW) with a writing component came up at a very convenient time. The prof and TA gave me enough of a kick that I ended up writing a really good final paper. That became a successful sample without too much over-thinking, and it probably didn't hurt to have another A in the file. It was also kind of an entertaining class, although I wouldn't have taken it if I weren't feeling a little fear.

Still, some evidence that you've got your shit together academically never hurts, especially if it shows interest/aptitude for your chosen subject.

Wouldn't you display an embarrassment of riches if you could tell them about a published article, and then -- once you whetted their appetite-- show them a completely different piece from your dissertation?

Yeah, but this is a rhetorical question folded into a marketing problem. Faking confidence and sincerity are key, here.

Why be negative? You were working on a part-time MLA and then the PhD offer came along. End of story.

Is this the kind of thing you might have to go to Vermont to find?

Yikes. You'd think that even if the university didn't want to do anything, posting both papers on a blog or sending the correspondence to the journal would leave enough dirt to accomplish the same thing. Once the decision to leave academia was final, anyway.

In addition to being a potential doctoral supervisor, my master's supervisor was also on the hook to write recommendations for other programs. Not the ideal situation, but it turned out OK.

My gap was measured in decades. Slow learner. Even after my master's, I used a year to get my act together for doctoral applications. This is in the humanities, but still... There are a lot of reasons not to go immediately. One is that you said you don't feel ready yet. Unless you're a Class A sociopath, that will probably trickle into your applications, making them less successful. If you wait, you'll (a) have a better academic year as a senior, and (b) have the chance to take a good look at the job market after you graduate, albeit from a really low level. Combined, that will probably enable you to get stronger recommendations [but keep those contacts warm!], and have a more focused idea of what you want to do with them. There may also be financial benefits to working for a year, but that will depend on your exact plans. Good luck.

I'll try again, speaking from ignorance of this situation (and Canadian regulations): if the official machinery of reporting harassment is more than you want to undertake, can you request to get moved from this guy's project? When asked for a reason, you can just say that you weren't thrilled that he propositioned you. If someone in admin wants to take that to the next level, they can. If not, it leaves it on the record.

I love it. A stats guy quizzing the internet on a probability. Anyway, best of luck! Sounds like you have your shit together.

Sounds like a first-world problem. Can any of your recommenders make intelligent comments about your work for #2? If so, I'd go with #1 but there's no especially deep thinking involved with that.

As it happens, that is exactly what I did for my research-based master's degree. I got even luckier because the one person who had touched it in the last few decades got it completely and embarrassingly wrong, which put some structure on my research and writing right off the bat. But that was a much shorter time commitment, and the university needed to be sure that they could supervise the period/topic I was thinking of. Now, because that source won't yield a sequel 5x as long without a lot of gymnastics, I've got to dig around some tangential topics-- which is actually a little terrifying. Still, I have a sense of where to start digging even if the magic bullet hasn't hit me yet.

I first heard that retirement story back in the early 80s, from a college president who would have known how things were looking. Then, I suppose, faculty members forgot to retire just as humanities departments began shrinking and the PhD output exploded. The good part of this for undergrads is that there will be some excellent professors finding work at otherwise forgettable colleges and universities. If that starts to pop the prestige bubble that drives college admissions (and tension levels among high-schoolers and their parents), that will all be positive. But it is not a great time to be looking for work unless you're well-connected or in possession of some useful handle on your CV.

Keep good notes. Even if you don't want to file a formal complaint, using it as a reason that you want to leave his project may have some of the same effect.

The links appear not to be working, but here is an example of how detailed it can get: http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/graduate-students/mphil-handbooks/hs-hb-home/notes-of-approved-style-for-history-dissertations

Some universities put their guidelines on-line, or in some sort of handbook. Worth a look.

On the other hand, there are considerably more private schools that might need an English teacher. Whether you need an MAT for that, or could do as well with an MA or PhD is another question.

A history professor of mine, Roger Lane, did some work that looked at accidental or violent deaths. So, workplace accidents, murder, manslaughter, car accidents, etc. His general conclusion that this kind of random death declined as America became more industrialized (i.e., more predictable). There was a blip when the automobile arrived, but otherwise it was gradual decline through WWII. De-industrialization at the end of the 20th century brought a lot of randomness back into daily life. The exception to this narrative was in the black community, which was largely frozen out of the unionized factory jobs that made life more predictable for everyone else. Accidental death rates stayed pretty high in that population for the whole period.

My sister and brother-in-law went to school from their wedding. They were each in a branch of the sciences, but luckily there was a decent intersection of places that would have served them both. One didn't get into Stanford, so they both wound up going to Madison-- a top-drawer choice for what they wanted to do. Not sure how they would have handled a less fortunate outcome during the graduation/wedding process. It was all pretty tense at is was.

If you are inclined to spend money, apart from securing a display and a keyboard that won't drive you nuts, consider a getting one solid-state hard drive. I don't know how much a standard hard drive is literally at risk, but it feels much better (as well as being quieter, faster, etc.) not to have moving parts that can get dislodged.

http://www.mbacrystalball.com/gre/gre-score-percentiles