cowgirlsdontcry

I'm a non-traditional student who, during my first career, lived all over the place (mostly Houston/Denver). I grew up in central Louisiana and when I divorced seven years ago moved back to that area. I did BA/MA at the state university located near me. During my undergrad program I spent a year at UMass to see how I would like the area for grad school. While I did like both the university and the area (winter was awful), I was happy to come back and do my MA at my undergrad school. The weather and even the heat is nice in the South to me, so when I made application to PhD programs, I applied to universities in the South from Texas east. I would have loved to be in Houston where my daughter lives, but I did not have the same interests that Rice University focuses on (early American lit), so I was not admitted there. I also did not care for U of H so did not even apply. Eventually I ended up at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I love it here. The city is not a mega city and my students are from all over the US. UA has a good general American program and although my interests and focuses are in contemporary American lit (primarily 20th C), I do some research in early American lit, which is important for my dissertation work. The only person not happy was my daughter, but after she researched things to do here, she came around. I found a cute little cottage about a 5 minute drive from the English Department. My belief is that although a good portion of our life is spent at the university, we must have a life that has other things as part of it. If I had gone to a university in a place like NYC I would have been excited for the short term, but unhappy down the road. Here, I can go sit on the porch swing and just relax, watching people out having fun or read a book. I would be indeed lucky in NYC to have more than a shared apartment. Here I get the whole cottage to myself (and, of course, my doggy Gus). It's really about what you want. Don't settle. Find what appeals to you on a broad basis and apply to those schools.

I had an undergrad professor give me some good advice about schools that were likely to accept me. He told me to look at the bios of the current grad students. If their backgrounds were somewhat similar to mine, I should feel confident in applying. When I looked at the Ivy League schools, I realized that my background was seriously lacking by comparison. When I looked at the big capstone state universities, I discovered the niche I fit in. I am now a first year PhD student at one of the largest state institutions in the country and even though it's only been a few weeks since the semester began, I feel a good fit within the department.

I applied to 9 English PhD programs last year. I was accepted at two, wait-listed at two and rejected at 5. The average cost is about $100 per application, especially if you have more than one transcript to send. There is no set number of places you should apply. It all depends on what your budget can stand. Apply only to schools in places you really want to live in and that have professors in line with your research. Otherwise, you might end up somewhere you don't want to be. Remember, there is no such thing as a safety school. You can have terrific grades (BA 3.85 & MA 4.0); pretty good GRE scores (V-163, Eng dept don't really look at math), SOPs and WSs that have been picked over by half the faculty in your department and still not get admitted to the majority of schools you apply to. The unknown factor of what the committee is looking for still prevails. You can only do your best and then wait. Good luck.

You cannot mix and match the scores according to what ETS says. "No matter which option you choose: You will select by specific test dates, so your scores are all from the same testing session. The schools you designate will only see the scores that you selected to send them. There will be no special indication if you have taken additional GRE tests."

Here is the URL and what ETS says about taking using ScoreSelect Option to send only the scores you would like others to see. https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/scoreselect

I do understand how helpless you feel in the middle of the night and I'm sorry. This is my first semester as a PhD student. I kept receiving emails about my account. When I would check, I would see that for each installment of grants/waivers/scholarships, my loan amount went down. The accounting department was very good here at telling me what was happening, but you may need to contact them to get it all straightened out. Hopefully, by now you have some answers.

Cultural is correct. I am a first year PhD student in English (American lit) and I have a masters in English. While some (most??) universities allow grad students with 18 hours of graduate English courses to teach, I have found we are pretty much limited to freshman/sophomore English classes, although I have heard that some universities allow PhD students to teach at least one upper level literature course prior to graduating. While I believe that I have received a decent education, there are places where I have found deficiencies. For instance, although I have learned to do an annotated bib, I had never heard the term lit review until my master's thesis defense and one of my committee asked why I didn't do one. What else is there to say in such a case, other than what is a lit review? I was embarrassed that I didn't know what it was and chagrined, at the same time, that during all of the drafts, no one had mentioned it to me. Why hadn't I ever been taught what it was and how to do one? The answer is that more than likely, I slipped through the cracks. I remedied that lack yesterday, when after reading posts on here about lit reviews, I spent a couple of hours researching how to do one. There are a couple of excellent YouTube videos (BTW) and I watched them all. I believe that I could create a lit review now. What I'm trying to say, through this little exercise, is that we come through undergrad and perhaps even our masters and miss some things. That is a fact. As an undergrad, I made sure that all of my English classes were taught by PhDs. Once you are in grad school (Masters or PhD) the requirement is for PhDs to teach those classes. At my MA university only TT track PhDs can teach grad students. Allow that to be absorbed and think about the fact that I still did not learn what a lit review was. Doll there are professors who can help you strengthen your WS. Why don't you take an undergrad paper in the area you want to be and rework it? That will give you a basis from which to go without having to come up with all new ideas. Send emails to some of those professors who liked your undergrad work asking if they will look over your writing sample and make comments. You are going to need academic references and this is a good way to gain them. If they have had a hand in your WS, they will be likely be interested in providing a reference.

I use JSTOR a lot in researching articles for papers on literature texts. Usually click on literature in databases because lit is my field. It may be assessable in other ways also. .

Then I'm doubly glad the department pays for up to 15 hours per semester whether in-state or out of state. They only accepted 5 PhD students and I have met two others (1 in-state, 2 of us from out-of-state), so either the other two declined or they are on fellowship for the first year.

In most universities, if you're a grad student, it doesn't matter if you're a resident or not, as the university usually waives tuition up to a certain amount. I don't plan to change residency because I have a house back in Louisiana that has a homestead exemption, for which I pay almost no taxes and if I were to change residency, I would then have to pay large sums of taxes on the house. It's just not a practical idea for me.

Everyone who is an incoming grad student is anxious/nervous. I found the orientation terrific, but intimidating because EVERYTHING from the syllabus to lesson plans was completely different from my MA school. Once I got that in order, I was better. I have taught my 2 classes 3x now and getting in the groove with my students. I have also attended my classes once and think they will be great. So it does get better.

Look at the universities that have scores of students in different fields to see what they want. UT-Austin has them I know. When I applied there, I noticed the scores were quite high. Here's the stats for UT-Austin all fields: https://gradschool.utexas.edu/admissions/where-to-begin/admissions-and-enrollment-statistics

At my undergrad/MA university they do a masters in some things with alternative certification. You would need the English classes in addition. I'm sure there are other universities that do it. Would you be happy teaching freshman/sophomore at college level? With an MA you can do that, but I don't know how the pay compares since high schools get a lot of federal monies.

Why would you need to take a year off to study for the GRE? If you use an online program, you can work on it as much or as little as you need to. While I do not believe GREs are the final choice makers in choosing prospective students to offer admissions to, I do think that because of high competition, committees use the GREs in some fashion to weed out students. Obviously, it's then important to have better than lackluster scores, if you want a top program. You must have it all. There is also no guarantee that you will be admitted anywhere else either.

Sometimes life throws us weird curveballs and we have to adjust everything. I would say to continue in your program for the time being without saying anything, until your husband has a job and you know what you're doing. Even though the job market is picking up, it may take him six months to a year to get a job, depending on the field. Because you have funding, that is some income, together with his severance package. Even when a company shows interest, it takes time for offers to come through. Because you don't have any idea where you will be located, you can't make application this year. That means it will be two years at a minimum before you can restart any program, but get your materials together in the event that he finds a job right away. Otherwise, just sit tight for this semester and continue as you have been. The semester is relatively short and it would be nothing short of a miracle if your husband were to get a job and be ready to move before the end of semester. When you have something firm to go on, that is the right time to contact everyone. Anyway, for what it's worth, that's my honest opinion. Don't make any hasty decisions that you cannot take back. I think if you end up applying to other programs, then in your SOP, you are going to have to explain to a certain extent.

In addition to the time management tips both GSC and Sigaba give, I would say there are things you can do with your family. You don't indicate whether there is a spouse or significant other, just your school age child. If you are a single parent, time management will be significantly more important than if you have a spouse. I would say that you and your child can cook dinner and clean up together and then perhaps he/she/they can do their homework while you work on things you have to do. Although you aren't talking because you are both working on something, you are together and will be able to help when they have a problem with homework. If you make it a kind of game and involve them, they will look forward to this time together when you are both working toward goals. Meal time can be a huge help. You must eat and preparing a meal with your child will solve many problems of spending time together. If you are not primary custodial parent, then you will have to shift some things you normally on weekends to during the week, allowing you more time to spend with your child. You can still do the things I suggest, but since you don't see your child every day, you will want to spend more time when they are with you. I would make some sort of time flow chart. You don't have to stick to it by the minute, but it will keep you on course.

I raised my verbals from mid-150s to 163 with Magoosh. Math is my weakness, but I'm in English, so a 145 was a somewhat respectable showing. I didn't have time to work with the math portion.

I understand your anxiety NH. Semester began yesterday for me. I am teaching two sections of first year writing with 22 students each. Luckily my department wants us to limit our academic classes to two each semester because of our teaching load. I also have a teaching practicum that meets each week for an hour and office hours. It's part of the nature of the beast. I taught at my MA university last year, and my anxiety was centered around not knowing and now that I have taught both sections, I feel much better. You have been trained and are ready to meet your students. Relax and enjoy them. I love teaching this age.

Most of the PhD programs are fully funded in the US. Takeruk was simply discussing outside fellowships you can apply for. The in-house funding of each program is considered when you apply to the program. There is no "additional" application. However, even if programs accept you, they may not fund you. You never know if you will receive funding until you receive an offer letter, although if the university calls you to make the offer, they will usually talk about whatever funding they are offering and follow-up with a formal offer letter via an email. Sometimes, they may simply email you. Your formal letter has all of the terms of your acceptance. Read it very carefully. If it doesn't include funding or says funding is conditional upon other things, make sure you understand what is being offered. It is unlikely that funding will be forthcoming, if it is not included in the offer letter. However, I could be incorrect about how other departments make offers to their prospective PhD students. Each department/field has its own criteria for funding.

I worked 20 hrs per week as a GA during my MA. Now as a first year PhD student, I'm working 20 hrs per week teaching two classes. However, my school likes for the PhD students to take only two classes per semester, which is good considering I teach two classes.

Your foreign languages won't have any effect on getting into a program, as far as I know. I agree with Bumblebea, that's it's a formality for most grad students. You could need it, like Ole Bill does. While I have a foreign language requirement, I have already met it through a foreign language undergrad minor, and there is almost no scholarship (none that I have seen) on the author I'm researching. However, my field is contemporary American literature and while there is scholarship in foreign languages (French, Spanish, German), I don't need anything special.

Eviltoaster is looking at English programs and had general questions about foreign language requirements of PhD programs. I discussed it from that POV. I do no research in foreign languages because there is little scholarship on Cormac McCarthy in other languages. What little there is, has no impact on what I'm working on. Yet, I still needed a foreign language, because English Departments require it. Sometimes, it is as simple as fulfilling a requirement. Eviltoaster is trying to ascertain if he meets certain requirements. What you write of, cannot be predicted prior to admission to a particular program. All that can be done in anticipation of applications is to look at program requirements to see whether it may take additional work after one is in a program. In your particular case, the additional requirement does not appear to be a set-in-stone requirement from the program, but rather one your advisor deems necessary now for you to succeed. Obviously, you could not have anticipated that prior to applying, as you state it will only have a moderate impact on what you are studying. That is a completely different set of things that often become necessary once a person is admitted to a program.

There are some bike paths, but I don't know if you would consider it bikeable. One does see the Mormon missionaries biking around town, but not others really. I spent the school year 14-15 at UMass in Amherst. It was the coldest winter on record and I nearly froze. Utah is a much drier climate than the northeast, so in that respect the weather isn't as bad. But, it's still pretty miserable in the winter. I dislike having no sunshine.

Every university's foreign language requirement is different. Somewhere on the website of every program is a description of how to satisfy the foreign language requirement. If you have 4-6 semesters of college level foreign language acquired in the last five years, that will usually satisfy the requirement for one language. If you don't have the required academic background, you will have to take some sort of translation test. Some programs will supply you with copies similar translation tests. You can use a dictionary and will be given a couple of hours to complete. Unless you are going to study Old English lit, Latin won't help you much. There is a good bit of scholarship in German. The other languages that are useful in the English field are French and Spanish.

Utah State is in Logan. I have been there many times. It is located in the Cache Valley and the mountains to the east are pretty all the way to Bear Lake. The valley itself is OK, not gorgeous, but not ugly either. Lots of farms. Gets very hot for a couple of weeks in the summer (over 100 degrees) and there is an inversion in the winter that creates a very cold, grey area. As you are from WA state, you know how the western part of the state is prone to that. It seems that the snow does not melt, and stays on the ground until it begins to warm up in the spring. It is not like the Denver area at all, where the snow melts after a couple of days. I'm not Mormon, but the area has a high percentage of Mormons or former Mormons. Many things are closed on Sundays, or they were a few years ago. I never noticed or felt there was a problem. I really know nothing about Utah State. If you are a party person, this is not the town to be in. I don't believe I ever saw a bar there, and to buy beer, wine or alcohol in Utah, you used to have to go to the state liquor store. Don't know if Logan has one. The whole valley's population is about 100,000. Logan itself is about 30,000.