GK Chesterton

Fist, a moment of clarification to make sure we're on the same page: this is not a statement of purpose, but instead a tertiary (lower than tertiary) supplemental for that is an application for graduate instructorships (and it's a foreign language department, so presumably a large chunk is language pedagogy.) Second, a question: While I am pretty amazed at your ability to spit out a paragraph on the Dickensian serial, do you ever worry that you might have trouble with applications because your statements are too specific ? As an AdCom, that kind of looks to me like your heart is dead-set on teaching Dickens as a serial novelist, period, and if you don't get that you're going to be sort of lost in orbit somewhere. Have you encountered thoughts one way or another on this ?

I'm doomed.

Might be. I'm applying from undergrad, so I don't really know what my teaching interests are... but it's a mandatory, separate form. Also asks for research interests, which I find irritating as well, so perhaps you're right.

Indeed. Common sense, folks. Are they more likely to notice two typos or that you seem to be perpetually unprepared?

I'm going to the hive mind for help on trying to figure out what exactly this question is asking me for: "State fully your reasons for applying for this appointment, including some comment on how your teaching interests and, possibly, experience may contribute to your academic training in a large, research-oriented department." I don't really understand how teaching interests would contribute to my academic training, and what different this would make. Anyone have any insight here?

This is intriguing to me - you only get 700 words after writing about your interests, past and future research, and fit? My fit paragraph is like 250 words. Would you like to exchange SOPs so that perhaps we can learn from each other?

Hey Douglas - I would do it.

Uh, just to be clear, have you actually told this person you are married and not interested or indicated that you are not interested in the advances that you perceive him to be making on you? That seems like a good first step before you drag a name through the mud. Saying things like "his body language and tone of voice are just 'off'" and "I certainly wouldn't want to place myself in a situation where things could escalate" [which is pretty ambiguous in itself - what on earth do you mean by escalate? That he would ask you on a date or that he would sexually assault you?] makes it sound ambiguously like you think this person is sexually harassing you, and if you tell someone in your department this, you will likely either blacklist him or yourself for the rest of his/your time there, and potentially forever. What you're making here is an extremely serious allegation; I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but a flirtatious 'feel' to totally innocuous remarks based on a past experience with a co-worker is a pretty slim basis for potentially getting someone thrown out of a graduate program.

Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) has a graduate certificate in Film and Media Studies.

By related question, did you mean "exactly the same question"? Read the thread, man.

I'll read it. PM me.

I think you're both over-stressing. You'll get your score when you finish the test, at least for the 2 important sections - self report those, and tell them the score reports are on the way and will confirm it. They won't really give a shit about AW and the GRE isn't all that important either. Edit: I did this my first round and was accepted at all three of the relatively competitive programs I applied to. No one asked me any questions.

In response to beseeching personal messages - D, auspicious. Auspicious: promising success; propitious; opportune; favorable: an auspicious occasion. Indeed, the enormity of my ignorance surely deserves itself to be counted amongst histories great enormities. Enormity (second definition) : N. A grave crime or sin: the enormities of the regime The enormity of the GRE vocabulary, and its arbitrary nature with respect to alternate definitions, calls to mind a range of associations: e - norm - ity is a combination of e - vil, ab-norm-al moral standards and inequal - ity. Enormity: Event A brush : applicator B lawmaker : government C costume : gala D conductor : orchestra E novice : adept Surely the person below me wishes that whomever designed the GRE vocabulary section receives condign compensation for such depravity.

Just thought I would point out that word on the street has been that Butler and Brown are going to Columbia permanently - I know that they announced a 1 year "Guest professorship" for Butler, but I've heard that Berkeley's theory and rhetoric has been raided big time in the last year.

Sigh. You still don't get it - my implication was that the ambiguous relationship between % below and percentile meant that those who put the % below number, instead of trying to determine the actual percentile, could potentially be understating their case. Although I meant it tongue in cheek, this is the necessary implication of your own statement. If overstating your case makes you look better, then understating would make you look worse, no? I really feel as if you still haven't grasped my whole point here - I'm not suggesting that you just add 1 to your score, I'm trying to figure out which of the two potential ways of calculating a percentile they're using. Further, you still haven't gotten it: if you receive a score that says % below: 99 and write 100th percentile, you are not necessarily claiming that you scored better than people who scored above you. This is easily demonstrable. If I score an 800 in Lit, and get % below: 99, then by one standard of calculating percentile, I have scored in the 99th percentile. By another, I have scored in the 100% percentile. By no means would I "be claiming to have scored above [test takers] when...they have actually scored above [me]," because it's actually impossible for them to have scored above that 800. Clear? Edit: Did you just go through and red all my posts? Catty. Roowr. Waddle - thanks. That clears it up definitively.

OK, I'll go with the number from the "% Below box" - but what if we humanities majors have been cheating ourselves out of (as hotmess points out) hundreds or potentially thousands of places in the ranking by not understanding the relationship between % below and percentile?

Sigh. Perhaps I'm looking at the wrong portion of my information, but my point is that the percentile itself isn't listed on the document that I have from ETS - it simply says "% Below". Are you all assuming that this is the percentile, or is the actual percentile listed somewhere else?

To wit: I'm the one with the inferiority complex? I... what... Did you even read what I wrote in the second post? If you get the highest score in one system, you're the 99th percentile - in the other, you're the 100th percentile. Both systems allow you to be the 0th percentile. It's fundamentally unclear. The level of cognitive dissonance ... breath-taking. It's not padding; it's a question about the fundamental nature of the relationship between percent below and the meaning of percentile. By what standard have you determined that applications are asking for for the percent below, when they very clearly state that they're asking for the percentile? That's extremely generous of you, but I never conflated the two concepts - my question was actually an attempt to distinguish them. You're the one that's conflating them, and that's why it's not at all helpful. Not if the number they're looking for is the definition of the percentile that would potentially make it higher, would it? Simple example: if 100 people take a test, and 98 of them score below person X, person X is conceivably in either the 98th, 99th, or 100th percentile, depending on the definition of percentile used. If persons x and y receive the same score, they're both in the 100th percentile or the 99th percentile, depending on the definition of percentile used. If person x scores worse than person y, person x is either in the 98th or the 99th percentile, depending on the formula used. Clear? You know that thing that people resent you for doing? You're doing it right here. I have nothing against "Ivy League-educated people", nor do I have any particular misconceptions for you to bolster. I think you seem like an unpleasant individual lacking self-awareness. I wouldn't dream of trying to presume that about people who attend Ivy league schools in general. How do you know I didn't attend one? Because I failed to mention my "coruscating" letters of recommendation? You "answered" my question by implying that I was trying to cheat my way into a higher score, without even realizing the basis for the question itself and operating from the presumption that you needed to explain to me how percentiles worked, without understanding yourself. Can the Subaltern speak?

Wow. Preliminary suggestion might be a reduction in caffeine intake, and although I'm trying hard to resist the urge, your other comment on being the best at everything including gardening in your HYP Ivy triangle makes me dislike you and read (misplaced) smugness into your comment. To get to your answer: I can't actually find that you provided any sort of a claim or source for what a percentile is, and as such, I'm having a hard time following your line of reasoning which suggests that I'm "unknowingly cheating out hundreds or thousands of people". I did my own research, and it turns out that there isn't a solid definition of a percentile - in fact, the Merriam-Webster definition contradicts the one you appear to be reasoning with. http://regentsprep.org/REgents/math/ALGEBRA/AD6/quartiles.htm http://cnx.org/content/m10805/latest/ Working with definition 2, the 100th percentile would in fact be an 800 - the smallest score greater than or equal to 100% of all other scores. The GRE also makes no definitive claims on the score sheet about what a percentile is, because they list only "% Below", which obviously doesn't resolve the issue of what a percentile is..

This is a bizarre and likely dumb question, but upon consulting my GRE scores, I found that it gives me the percentile "below" - when an application asks me for my actual percentile, do I add one to the number I see? Example: I have a 740 Quant, and it says % Below: 80. Does this mean I'm in the 81st percentile? To further complicate things - what if someone gets "% Below: 99"; would that imply that one is in the 100th percentile / is that theoretically even possible? Presumably it must come up often, because basically every lit score from 800 to 730 is showing % below as 99.

I'll offer the differing opinion - if they have a bare minimum, and you're under the minimum, I would suggest that it's unwise to not try and improve that score as much as you can. If the question were of you scoring a 670 when the cutoff is 650, then perhaps it would be better to concentrate on your SOP (although I also don't think that's in any way obvious) - but when you're under it, it's probably best to at least meet the minimum requirements. You have like 6 months, right?

Well then, be bold about it. Tell them you're rescinding your application and tell them why.

Well, I don't think it's advisable to lie to people - particularly when they obviously know or will know that you're lying. However, it's probably even worse to try and contact them and fix it. How many schools did you apply to? If you rattle off 15, they'll probably find that unappealing, so pick 3 or 4 that you applied to that seem like good competitors to the program you're at and say those.

I would suggest reframing rejecting your professor's advice as "Sticking to your guns" and have an open discussion with this person about your desire to one day study literature, and ask if that's compatible with the suggestions he or she gave you. If so, do what they said. What may seem brave or obvious to you comes across as a little foolhardy when you are flat-out rejecting major pieces of advice from a professor like that.

Well, I suppose not fair is up for debate here, but you didn't score in the top 10% on the GRE for math, which appears to be one of their conditions. It's obviously a stupid system on their part, since a perfect score in GRE math only gets you like 92%, but... their money, I guess.