cowgirlsdontcry

I have a friend in the English PhD program there. Why don't you go ahead and apply to LSU at the same time? It's only about 40 miles from Lafayette to LSU. From your info it looked like you were, but then I read that you were only applying to ULL. I was admitted to their English PhD program, but was accepted where I'm at earlier.

I was waitlisted at two schools last year, and one of them accepted me after I had already accepted another offer. My field is English, and waitlists for different fields could be different.

I agree that once we are rejected for something, we have more difficulty reaching out. Don't allow the one rejection that's occurred to do you in. I sent out an email last week asking a professor if he would be interested in chairing or being on my committee, but haven't hard back. He is the director of a scholars program within A&S so he may be very busy and although he is a POI, and in exactly the right spot to be the chair of my committee, his other responsibilities may not allow him to accept. All sorts of things happen that are outside of our control. It's easy to perceive that everyone else is having it easier, but even if they are, you can still get out of this what you need. I'm also a literary scholar, except my area is 20th century American. I absolutely do not expect or even want to publish as a secondary person under a professor. My university offers a publisher in residence program that I am taking advantage of to give me the leg up I need, in order to get started working on pieces of my thesis for publication. I suspect that when you hear others talking about working with a professor for publication in the literary field, it may not be all that you have heard. It takes months to get something published, after the months it takes to write and get peer review. This is your first semester as a second year. Logically, when have other students had the time to meet professors and get to know them well enough to be asked to participate in publishing together, much less write it, take it through peer review, then have it accepted for publication? Remember that some insecure students must make everything they do appear greater or better than everyone else's. In the meantime, when the rest of us hear such stories, we wonder what we are doing wrong. We are doing nothing wrong--they are just tooting their horn for attention. Grad students take 2 classes per semester at my university because we have a 2/2 teaching load and are expected to make efforts to attend conferences and publish. This semester, I'm taking both a British modernist lit and an American modernist poetry class. While the British is not my area, it is still modernism and I'm finding that the professors teaching either class are well-versed in the other. In the Spring of 2018, I'm taking a class that, as best as I can tell, is a pairing of an African-American author with a white author (second class is literary theory). That's not exactly my area either (at least as defined in my mind), but it contributes to my overall understanding of American literature. I've talked to others in the PhD lit program and they are having the same difficulty getting classes that are in their field. Availability of classes may not be an unusual thing at any university. I complained throughout my undergrad and MA about availability of classes. Now I'm finding that my literary education is very well-rounded, and I have gained applicable knowledge that supersedes those whose education actually focused on the area they want to work in. I tell my students that writers do not live in a vacuum. Neither do literary scholars. Our education is way more comprehensive within the overall field of literature than we imagine it to be. We contribute to actual area knowledge with our independent research, reading and writing. Although departments have advisors, etc. to assist us, we must be very proactive in getting promoting ourselves. You can do this!

Some universities have programs called "New Degrees" or something similar where you get to design your own degree. I really have no idea how that would work in a PhD program. You would probably have to pitch the idea to different departments or try to find the one most likely to go along with it.

I have a guideline that my professor gave our Research/Bib class during my MA. I write all proposals for seminar papers based on this guideline. The lit review is part of a longer essay (not a standalone doc), usually created from an annotated bib that allows the audience to see "enough ties to the literature that they feel confident that you have found, read, and assimilated the literature in the field" (McGranaghan). This particular guideline is geared toward the literary scholar, but is general enough that it can be used as a general outline for other areas within the humanities. All you need this week is the proposal. Work on it one step at a time and it will all come together. Let me know if this is useful. Guidelines on writing a research proposal.docx

A freshman in one of my comp classes was having difficulty creating clear, concise sentences and, as a result, I sat down with her for 45 minutes with some model examples of sentences. Then we went over her whole rough draft, sentence by sentence, breaking each apart and restructuring. She understands what I want now, but whether she can accomplish it is something else because it wasn't much time. It's not only ESL grad students who have issues with structure. Students from small high schools all over the US do not get prepared for college level writing either. I asked her to go to the Writing Center after speaking with the director, who said the tutors are first year English MA students and they can assist students with sentence structure. This is also a very good method of learning to how to teach composition. If a grad student doesn't have the funds (honestly, we're all in the same boat here) to hire a copy editor, then the WC is the best place to go. I doubt if they would be willing to correct a whole thesis or dissertation, but they will definitely teach one how to create clarity within sentence structure and that's the best option in the end. Students are not limited to one or two visits. Another option, and probably one a PhD student would not want to take, is to take a remedial English composition class. Those classes teach English grammar and beginning writing. Most universities either have them or are connected with a nearby community college that has them. If studying English as a foreign language is anything like when I learned French and Spanish, then English grammar and writing is very much needed because it's taught from a perspective of the person already speaking English, rather than as a foreign language. Even grad students in English sometimes have difficulty expressing themselves clearly through the written word. It's a difficult, burdensome language that is unruly in its behavior.

I have stated earlier in this thread that public universities all over this country have many different types of online degrees (both undergrad and master's level) and do not differentiate somewhere on their diplomas that the degree was obtained by online classes. My MA was about 1/3 person-to-person and 2/3 online. Because I lived in the area, I was funded as a GTA and received good training. I'm not fond of on-line classes, because I learn better in a person-to-person class. However, I wrote a great deal more in the online classes because of discussion boards. As a result, there is give and take. I am in the first semester of a PhD program and no one has ever questioned the legitimacy of my MA. I contribute as much to seminar discussions as anyone else and I am as widely read (if not more so). I had excellent GRE scores. Education is all about the person and what they are prepared to do. I have attended three universities now, two very large state institutions and one small state institution, two of which are accredited by SACSCG and one by NEASC. I found similarities between the professors at all three universities. Each has various online degrees. JKL you are correct about the pretentious smirks from universities; yet, I find it ironic that while such adcoms are smirking away, their own universities are handing out degrees to online students by the dozen, if not hundreds.

Your application sounds pretty good to me although I am in a completely different field. It took me a dipping of toes in the water when I was an undergrad and another full-blown application cycle to be admitted. I took the GRE as a senior and applied to two universities. I was outright rejected by one and received no information from the other where I was waitlisted, as to how I could better myself. I took my great verbal (163) and poor quant (145) GRE scores and went to the MA program in my undergrad school. Last year (the second year of my MA) I applied in earnest to 9 universities. I was accepted by two, waitlisted by two and rejected by five. My SOP and WS was vetted by three professors. GPAs were BA-3.82, MA-4.0. I had two major conferences, several regional conferences, and no publications. There was some initial anxiety about reapplying, but I pushed it aside. Yet, in the Spring, when the rejections kept coming, I felt that old demon anxiety come creeping back into my life. I was in the middle of writing my master's thesis. Took a weekend and felt totally sorry for myself (ate a half-gallon of Blue Bell ice cream in one sitting-ugh!), then got back to work--I did want to graduate come May, whether or not I was admitted to any PhD program. After all of the rejections arrived, along came one, then two waitlists, but still no acceptances, although one of the universities I was waitlisted at pulled my application back to active consideration. Finally, I received the first and then the second offer. I accepted the first offer and after a rough week of teaching orientation, I got into the swing of the new semester, attending classes and teaching. The anxiety and depression will hit again in the spring when you start seeing the acceptances on this board. Don't let it push you down too far. This is something of a trial by fire. Good luck.

I am an English PhD student. I don't know that I've seen any programs that actually list they want scores in the 96th percentile or higher as Lucky suggests. I have seen wordings to the effect that some universities indicate that many of their students have scored in the 90th percentile or above in verbals. As a result, I worked on exponentially increasing my verbal score over that 90th percentile and scored a 163 in the 93rd percentile. My quant. scores were similar to yours. I would use the scores with the verbal of 161, as that puts you in the 88th percentile, rather than 159 which is in the 83rd percentile. I took the GRE as an undergrad 3 years ago and applied to PhD programs in the second year of an English master's degree (last year). I don't think adcoms give any more credence to the AW than the verbal, because they will have a WS in front of them that wasn't written on some oddball topic in 30 minutes, but is rather an argument with research. I don't know whether sending all of your scores will be of help or hindrance. Make sure your WS and SOP have been vetted by at least 3 professors, preferably your recommenders.

The university where I am an English PhD student, funds their MA/MFA students. I believe Bumblebea is correct. Large state universities and universities that do not have a PhD program, but have an English MA, will provide funding. Sometimes it may be partial, but there is certainly funding available. I received an assistantship during my MA. I was paid a stipend, but tuition was not part of the coverage. Do you not have to take a theory class as an undergrad English major? It was a required part of my BA. Theory simply allows one to understand how they look at writing. I use a mixture of theories, as most academic writers do. If you're having difficulty understanding scholarship, viewing it from a point of theory could help. You certainly don't need to be an expert in theory to enter a MA program. I did not start focusing on a research topic until I was working on the MA. It began with a wide idea and gradually shrank until I had a research topic for my master's thesis, which I hope to carry over into my dissertation.

One of my applicant schools last year wanted a separate document with every English class I had taken listed including the grade I received. Although I think it could have been helpful to the other programs I applied to, I did not send it to any other program for the reason Takeruk discussed.

Let me address your English problems as I am an English PhD student. I read your posts here carefully, and I only saw one or two places where I would even hesitate to say were written by someone who has English as a second language. Even those could be caused by differences found between Canadian and US English. Your English is much better than other international students I have worked with here. If you are concerned about your English writing skills, once you are in a program, you could take an occasional undergrad writing class that will boost your writing skills. I would recommend those to anyone not an English major, to simply better their writing skills. Universities in the U.S. have writing centers and you could possibly get an English major to help with syntactical issues, but you may find you have no problem. I'm sure that social work majors write a lot of papers. You could ask for a 1-hour slot, instead of the normal 1/2 hour slot they give out in order to talk about syntax, etc. in your papers. If you want to get your PhD in the US, don't allow a fear of being unable to write in English keep you from applying. Based on your posts here, I see no problem. Think of Joseph Conrad (early 20th century author), whose native language was Polish. He learned French as a young adult and didn't learn English until he was 28 years old. He then proceeded to write every book in English. You can do this. If you need a little assistance along the way, there are many places inside US universities to obtain it. Your English is much better than my French is. I learned French during my undergrad years and was already an adult, which meant that it's likely my sound house was closed making it very difficult to become proficient.

Except for Eliot (who considered himself a Brit and became a British citizen), those are all British poets/playwright, spread out over a couple of hundred years. I'm a 20th century Americanist. I really have no clue as I haven't looked into those programs. I think you should probably look for a general lit program that's heavy on the poetry side (more than one professor).

I gave mine a schedule of deadline dates, the emails they received from the programs had deadline dates. They had received my information in order to write the LORs back in September. It was simply a nightmare for me. It all turned out really well in the end even without the third LOR.

Let me tell you all what happened to me. I had a professor agree to send LORs for me last year. This professor sent the first three letters and did not send any more, even though I reminded each recommender of the deadline. This was between semesters, but I had given the recommenders a schedule of when deadlines were for each program and I finalized my application days in advance. Luckily I only had one letter miss a deadline before I got another professor to fill in at the last moment. You might ask what happened with the application where I was missing a LOR. As it turns out, that is the program I am now attending. Not all catastrophes end so well. Most of the time, if you are missing a LOR, your application will end up in the trash. That is what I thought would happen in this instance, but they liked me anyway. My daughter thinks it's simply because my application was that good. I don't. This is one of those times where I believe it was a God thing or fate if you prefer.

You are pursuing the right course in order to extend your knowledge. Most MA programs in English require a foreign language basis, usually French, Spanish or German, as those are the languages most foreign scholarship is published in. You will need to look at the particular programs in order to ascertain acceptable languages. Even programs that don't have a foreign language requirement for their MA, usually require one for a PhD. So it's advisable to take the classes during your MA. There may be further requests for languages by advisors during your PhD, depending on what you specialize in. Understanding the American canon from its inception with the Puritans up to the 20th century provides a basis to better understand contemporary American lit because many American writers delve into earlier writings in order to write. Cormac McCarthy said it well when he stated "Books come from books." Have you studied any British lit? British lit is relevant to Americanists because there were no publishers in America until the 19th century, which caused earlier American writers to somewhat lean toward a Brit style in order to get published. You are going to need to understand background in order to do well in a literature PhD.

It really is important to understand how ETS sets up the problems. I believe that is key to understanding any standardized testing. From what I remember of the GRE (took it 3 years ago), the quant. section was all algebra and finite math. I had never memorized the finite formulas, but rather used the TI 84 to solve them in the class. I knew the albebraic formulas, but had to best guess on the finite problems, which caused me to have a lower Q score than I would have, had I known the formulas. That is one thing you can do--learn the formulas, so that when you read the problem the formula is immediately available. You don't have to set up anything--just work it. The answer choices for the finite questions were far enough apart that if you worked most of the problem, the answer would become obvious. The other thing I have learned about this sort of testing is not to spend too much time on any one problem. If I can't get an answer right away that's one of the choices, I move on to the next problem and when I finish, I go back if there is time.

You can continue to study all you wish and your scores won't increase. I used Magoosh. They have little videos that discuss why certain answers are correct. You need to learn what type of answer the questions are looking for. Only when you figure out the process, will your scores increase and go over the 90 percentile range. It's the same way with any standardized test. You must figure out kind of answer they are looking for. People who score well in standardized testing do this unknowingly.

I just saw a message sent to all students at my university, letting everyone know that the Writing Center will be sponsoring an event to help with both Personal Statements and SOPs. They will have professors/administrators from every field to answer questions about what they will be looking for. As most universities have writing centers, this could very well be happening on your campus and you have not seen an advertisement for it.

If there is an atmosphere of underlying resentment/hostility among faculty, it is going to create situations that make a gaining PhD untenable. I'm not going to mention names, but there is a well-known, highly-rated private university that did not approve an English dissertation for at least 5 years because of just such in-fighting. What a nightmare to become embroiled in!

Before you enroll in Liberty, you should check out the professors and look at some of their books (you can probably get them through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) at your university). That will give you an idea of ideologies, etc. I would guess that for Liberty, as it is a super conservative Christian university, it will have conservative professors.I don't believe being a conservative academic, in and of itself, is a problem because I am somewhat conservative and teach texts as they are written. The problem may lie in what the university allows to be taught. As long as you are ok with that, I've heard that Liberty provides a decent Christian education. The pastor at my church in Colorado had a son who won a scholarship there. I would also look at accreditation. SNHU is known for having a big online university. They hire huge numbers of "at distance instructors." Look at higheredjobs.com. If you want to get into a PhD program, you need to stay away from online programs that everyone knows is primarily online even if they bill themselves as a "state university." I know nothing about ASU. What about Sam Houston's online History MA?

Just because the other first year doesn't appear to be lost doesn't necessarily mean he cannot be feeling that way. Perhaps he did what his PI told him to do and chose a project. Shouldn't you be doing the same, as that is what your PI told you to do. Do you need to see someone working on a project to choose one? Did the other first year watch people working on various projects before he chose one? If everyone is busy working on something, aren't there projects you could watch because you say everyone is busy? We are over a month into the semester and you can't wait for someone to offer to let you watch. Everyone feels lost when they begin a new program. Even though I'm in a different field, this is my first year also. I am taking a very difficult class right now (everyone is having the same difficulties) and I sometimes wonder if I made the right choice. It's natural to go through self-doubt and think that everyone else knows what's going on except you. I know I have asked a lot of questions, but these are things you need to be asking yourself.

I completely agree with the idea of fit. Otherwise, why would we be accepted by some programs and rejected by others, if all things are equal? I purposefully chose programs that were equal or similar in rankings and in the same region of the country based on my own wish list. I was about 50/50 in acceptance and rejection. The universities that rejected me may have had different focuses in their literature program that I could not see when applying. I did not query any of the rejecting universities about reasoning behind their decision, as I was accepted into a program that I love. In the long run, those are the programs where you will flourish and do your best work. If fit then becomes the final factor in a committee's choice of who to admit or reject, and since we never know who is on a committee, the way we word our research desires in the SOP can make or break our acceptance to a program. I'm not suggesting you change your mind about what you want to do in research, but rephrasing your ideas to discuss them from a stance of the recent past and its effect on the present, rather than a speculative future, could get you farther with the committee. You will still be pursuing your ideas, because you can only analyze the effects of events on the present as they happen anyway. You must first be admitted to a program in order to pursue any of your research ideas. Anyway, these are my thoughts about fit.

I came into my PhD with a master's. they will transfer 18 hours of the master's for application onto my PhD, leaving me with 30 academic hours to complete. I will finish in about 4 years which adds up to 6 years total, about the same time if I had done a PhD only. I still believe you should give it some time and see how things go. No we don't always get to choose, but I knew what I wanted and simply refused to apply to universities outside of the places I wanted to live in. Quality of life is just as important to me as the education. While I'm very busy (to put it mildly), I do really love both the university and the city I ended up in.

Recommended to do it early? By whom? All any of my recommenders requested from me this early was my WS and SOP. One asked for an unofficial transcript. They prepared the letters ahead of time and when they received the email from the schools, they said it literally took 5 minutes to fill in the necessary information and submit the LOR. There was no stress on them. I had a lot of stress. You are creating unnecessary stress for yourself now when it's not even stress time. Some universities haven't even opened their applications yet.