cowgirlsdontcry

You are making too big of a deal about housing. Housing is the least of your worries. Even here in the US, most of us are coming from a distance and because we are usually already students, cost to travel to a place simply to get housing is prohibitive, so we negotiate from a distance. In the last 2-3 weeks, I have seen many sublets and roommate situations come available on one of the FB sites for my new university. Ask the department about various social media pages/sites that could help you find housing. You are in the procrastination stage. We all go through that. The reality has hit that you are going to move to a different country and you are having doubts and subconsciously finding excuses. This is a BIG thing. I went through it in May--simply contemplating packing up and moving a few states away. I'm still having moments of trepidation and it will continue until I show up for teaching orientation on August 14. You have to power through this and do it anyway.

I only used Magoosh. Went from verbal score of mid-150s when I began to an actual GRE V of 163 (92nd percentile). Never looked at math as English departments don't care much about those scores. I liked the videos Magoosh used to give reasoning and help one learn why certain answers are better.

At my incoming school, grad students can have a bio page if they wish, otherwise they are just listed according to whether they are MA (literature/Hudson Strode), MFA (prose/poetry), PhD (literature/writing/Hudson Strode).

Some programs I applied to (English) stated "DO NOT designate pages to be read." Condense and rewrite your WS to fit requirements. I have also seen statements on department websites that state "longer WS will not be read past cutoff." This is understandable due to the large number of applications submitted. As to whether programs want Works Cited pages or Bib at the end. I actually called several departments and they all stated yes. It doesn't count toward WS length.

It would increase your vocabulary if you did start working on it now, but it's not necessary. Six months to a year should be sufficient for the general GRE. The subject tests are much more intense and two years is not too soon to begin learning the material and do any additional reading in order to place with a high percentile. I never took the actual GRE English subject test, but did read the manuals and took several practice tests. I found it to be somewhat grueling and geared toward Brit Lit (I'm an Americanist). I found enough programs that did not require the subject test to apply to.

Take one of your American papers and revise it to fit within the parameters of the program requirements. Just your name in the header-upper right with page numbers. I had a program last year want my particular field there, as well. Do not go over the max page length. They will stop reading, especially if they have hundreds to review.

Each program will have bios of faculty on their sites. Depending on the university, some of the bios will have publications of the faculty listed, as well. One of my mentors in undergrad told me to look at the current grad students. If my level of accomplishments look similar to existing grad students and the program has professors in my area of focus, then it's probably a good fit and I stand a good chance of being admitted. That is exactly what I did last year.

Have either of you checked with the grad school? My MA school was a terminal master's program. Everything in the way of funding was handled through the grad school, not the departments. Although I never received any tuition waivers, I did have an assistantship for both years. The university never advertised there were any assistantships, but I knew several who had them, so kept looking until I found information on the grad school site.

I don't go into it--just say I'm going to teach in higher ed and that I need a PhD in order to do that. If they ask why at my age (I am older), I say because I can. That usually stops the nonsensical questions. Most people do not see the need or feel the call for advanced education. I give simple answers that invite no further questions.

Most of us apply during senior year or prior to finishing master's, so there is no gap in education. Just have your official transcript sent as of the date you apply. If you are admitted and accept, the university will want official transcripts showing your graduation. It's not a problem.

There may be the occasional school that admits as they receive apps, but for the most part, it seems they initially review them all at once (at least in English). Last year when I applied, I had all of my GRE scores sent in late October, as it may take up to 2-3 weeks for universities to receive GRE scores. Some programs only want official transcripts, so if you have attended several schools, early November is a good time to send those. There are also universities that only send hard copies of transcripts by mail (I had one school that did that), Getting the correct address to send those to is also important. In the meantime, you will have been getting suggestions back from your recommenders about your WS (if you have one) and making those edits. There are things you can do earlier to make sure you have a smooth application season and everything arrives at each university. I had university deadlines that went from December 1 to March 15. I had all applications that were due by December 31 finished before Thanksgiving. Each application takes about 1.5 hours to do and double check answers (at least they did for me). You may also have finals coming up late November-early December so need to consider when you are going to get all of this done. I did all of the applications (those due in January or later) during the winter break. Be sure to talk to your recommenders, giving them a list of deadlines for each school, because there will be applications due prior to the spring semester beginning and some professors are completely out of touch during winter break and do not look at their email. You want to be sure they are aware when these will be due. I created a folder under documents that was labeled Phd Apps. Within that folder, I had individual folders for each school that included the documents to submit for each school. I had also created a document that had information about each university's requirements, that was ordered by the deadline. You may create a generic SOP for your recommenders to read, but you will need to personalize the SOP towards each university. Overall, all of this takes an enormous amount of time, all while you are still taking classes, working as a GA, RA or TA, or even in a regular job. So a generalized calendar would be of great assistance, as well. It is best to wait until applications open before finalizing your documents as universities and departments change things from time to time.

This is just my own opinion, but you should be having faculty review and make suggestions on your paper. It doesn't matter if it's newer or not. I used a chapter of my master's thesis.It started life as a seminar paper during my MA, then was edited for a presentation. Finally, it made it into my thesis. I used the chapter prior to making changes that would align it with the other chapters in the thesis. It was 19 pages long, minus the Works Cited pages. It began life as a seminar paper that had a minimum page length of 20 pages. I don't know what History grad programs require, but even at the MA level, English papers are usually 20-25 pages, so I assume they will run 20-30 pages at the Ph.D. level, which my advisor said hers were.

I'm in English so my master's thesis was 95 pages long + all of the beginning pages and Works Cited pages (so another 15 pages or so). My thesis advisor had said she wouldn't accept less than 60 and no more than 120. One of my readers, who was also my supervising professor says I have at least two publishable papers and perhaps 3. Before I start to work on rewriting for publication I want to sit down with my PhD dissertation advisor and discuss how any publication from that thesis will affect my dissertation since I plan to expand upon the thesis and write on all of McCarthy's works.

I was an exchange student at UMass during my senior year as an undergrad. Since foreign language was my minor, I looked at the French program there. Included within the French dept were a number of French lit classes, and it seems their grad program was pretty strong. UMass also had a comp lit program. The French professor I worked with at my undergrad school, received her master's from a university in France and her PhD at UT-Austin. So there are strong options for you in the field at some big state universities.

It is difficult to catch professors in their office unless it's during office hours and they usually have a student in their office then, so I feel email is perfectly acceptable. When you email them and get a confirmation back, I would suggest setting up a brief conference, if possible, and send them copies of your WS and SOP (they usually want to see those). In English, and perhaps history also, the WS may be the most important part of the application package and they will definitely want to see that. More than likely they may also have suggestions for edits, etc. All three of my recommenders had suggestions for my WS. Since I did my BA/MA at the same university and I was TA/RA to two of the recommenders during my MA, they all knew me well and what I really want to accomplish. Therefore, the WS and SOP were the public versions of what we had talked about many times during my MA. They will want to know what your GRE scores are and in some schools can look at your transcript directly, but in others, you can download an unofficial transcript and send a copy of that, as well. As you said, you are student teaching and cannot meet on campus; therefore, you might suggest using Skype or WebEx (some of them may have WebEx accounts for their online classes) rather than a phone call, in order to have a more personal meeting.

I have great trepidation and nervousness about all of this that I did not have as an entering MA student. While I know it's nonsense, until I'm in the program, teaching and going to class, I don't believe my nervousness will change. Perhaps your self-doubt is clouding all of your perspective about how critical others are being of you. Can you talk to your advisor? While it is serious work to get a PhD, I think we should be having a little fun also, as we have almost completed this monumental task of education and are on the last leg. If you are full of self-doubt and fearful, you won't get to enjoy anything. That cloud will pervade every aspect of your life. You may need some counseling to help you on that front. It's nothing to worry about. I have gone when I needed some help in figuring out things. You also have a disinterested 3rd party to listen to you.

There was a post on GC recently with someone looking for a roommate in NYC. Was a nice apartment. Looked to have an outside patio. Seemed reasonable.

I did not apply to any programs in the NE. I did, however, spend my senior year as an undergrad at UMass Amherst through the NSE program. Essentially, I learned that there are good professors everywhere, which later influenced my decisions on where to apply because it told me you get out of something what you put into it. Two things were amazing to me coming from a small public university: 1) the variety of classes that I could take; and 2) the library, which when the 5-college consortium has been added in, provides a library that comparable to Harvard's. I never had to wait more than a day for a book when I was doing research. I think that Amherst is a pricey little town, but Western MA is very beautiful and the people were welcoming. There is great public transportation and you can even catch a bus to either Boston or NYC or down to the train line near Springfield from campus. I brought my car, but used the system around campus. I believe it is also cheaper to fly in and out of Hartford, than Logan. I have read Jennifer Egan's Good Squad and found her form to be outstanding in that text, something she has in common with Zadie Smith (Brit writer). Haven't read DeLillo, but noticed he is near in age to McCarthy and they were both influenced by Faulkner, so I will read some of his. Peter Heller, who openly uses McCarthy stuff in an interesting way and wrote The Dog Stars, a post-apocalyptic dystopian text. Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Yan Martel Life of Pi. Like Modernism--taking a class on American Modernist Poets in the fall. Like the Beat writers, especially Kerouac and James Baldwin and poet, Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California." Like renaissance Southern lit the best, especially Eudora Welty and Tennessee Williams. Think Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (a loosely fictionalized version of the life of Huey Long) is probably the best book I have ever read (my own little opinion). I also have some British loves, Conrad, Lawrence, Foerster, Marsh and Rhys. Finally, my own research has led to my beginning the journey to becoming a McCarthy scholar. So I'm all over 20th/21st C American lit.

Hello all. Have been following your posts and would like to interject my own thoughts and experiences of the PhD application process. I went for the MA first because I didn't feel ready for PhD. Punctilious, I had GRE scores almost identical to your husband's, although I didn't have quite the background he does. I belong to several honor societies and graduated with GPAs of Undergrad-3.82, and MA 4.0. I was TA/RA all four semesters of MA to two Americanists and taught my own section of rhet/comp the final semester of MA. Presented at several national level conferences, as well as several regional conferences, but no publications yet. I had all three recommenders read my SOP & WS, making suggestions for edits. I did not apply to any Ivy universities as I attended a Southern Region Level 1 university that, although a good university, wouldn't have gotten me into an Ivy. I'm happy with where I have been accepted, as I get to continue my pursuit of Cormac McCarthy, contemporary American lit (modernism/post-modernism), along with some Southern lit. I did not choose programs to apply to based on who was there, but rather because of the diversity of research in American lit the faculty revealed in their bios. Because McCarthy and his works were the topic of my MA thesis, together with my theory regarding American ideologies, I have read all over the canon and into scholarship and criticism, with particularity given to early American texts. It is important to me, to see all sides, even though I have one area of focus. Finally, as to how many programs you all apply to -- more is definitely better. My thesis advisor applied to 20 programs and was admitted to two. I applied to 9, admitted to 2, waitlisted at 2, and rejected at 5. I was rejected at a university I thought I would be admitted to and accepted at a university, I never believed I would be, as one of my recommenders failed to submit the LOR. As far as I can tell, universities choose applicants based on everything, plus some undefinable thing that only each committee understands. The program I am attending accepted 5 PhD applicants in the current cycle, out of several hundred applicants.

Cotton Joe, stipends for English Departments seemed low all over the US, when I was applying last fall. The few that surpassed $20K were in areas that had very high costs of living, although things in the South aren't that much lower as I have learned during the rental process this summer.

For my MA, I went to the same university as my undergrad because I own a home in the area. Because of that, it was a simple matter to transfer to the Graduate School. However, I did have to prepare a SOP for my PhD applications. All of the responses offer great advice. You asked why you couldn't say "I want to be a professor. I need a PhD to be a professor. I want to research and write about American literature. I need an M.A. to be more competitive in the PhD applicant pool. Your program offers the highest GTA stipend and is in the cheapest city. Therefore, I am applying to your program. Let me into your program, goshdarnit." That is what your SOP really is -- a statement of purpose about why you want to be a professor and why you think that XYZ University is such a great fit. You also need to show XYZ why they should want you. It must be a fit both ways.

I'm doing that very thing now. I was contacted on the department list-serv by the tenant/grad student after I had made a "looking" post. After I said I was interested in the house, he gave my information to his landlord, a former English professor. We communicated via email and phone about various things. I was unable to travel to the city to look at the house in person, as it was graduation week. I received pictures from the student-tenant of the whole inside of the house. Finally, we agreed to be landlord/tenant and signed a lease. I gave him the deposit and when I move in will provide him with a rental check. This was a pretty safe bet, but there were a few things I did to make sure the house in the pictures was a real place. First, I went to the department website and looked at the grad students to make sure the student I was talking to was an actual grad student, although he had access to the list-serv and I was reasonably assured he was. Next, I searched the address on Google and Zillow which both have pictures of the outside of the property. Finally, I went to the real property records of the county, which were online, and did a search of the property to make sure it was owned by the person I had been talking to on the phone and via email. I ended up with a nice house in a historic area within blocks of campus.

You found French easier to read than Spanish? The verb conjugation in Spanish is much simpler than French, as well as pronoun placement. I was on my 5th semester of French when I began taking Spanish and was amazed at the difference. Ask my French professor about it and she agreed, saying French was like Spanish on steroids. I only took a few semesters of Spanish in order to complete my minor, so did not get to the same level of fluency, but found it much easier to learn after I had struggled with French for so long.

One of the younger professors at my MA school talked about how when he and his wife were applying to PhD programs, it became so much more complex because they had to attend schools near each other as they have young children. He said the stress was extreme trying to coordinate and get funding for both of them. As a result, he kept his job as a FT MA instructor at the university where he now is professor and attended a program with no funding he could drive to once a week. Not quite the same scenario as yours, but somewhat similar.

What level of proficiency do you need? Any background in either language? Which language has the most scholarship in history (for literature, it's French)? Spanish is a little easier than French. Those are questions you need to ask yourself. Have you looked at the programs and their foreign language requirements? That's important--what if you choose and get admitted to a program that requires two intermediate level foreign languages. Unless you have taken foreign languages in the past or are gifted towards languages naturally, that's a lot to add to your program.