stormydown

I almost had an alum write me a specific letter for that school, and he was happy to do it, but the consensus from my professors seemed to be that it probably wouldn't make much of a difference, especially since he's older and doesn't know as many people in the program anymore. So I just took a chance with the letters I had and was rejected anyway. I doubt his letter would have changed anything.

Not my tale of woe, but my friend is currently applying to German MA programs and accidentally said "University of Michigan" in an email to a professor at the University of Minnesota (or vice-versa; can't remember which). She immediately sent a correction email apologizing profusely, but she still felt mortified.

I simply couldn't wait last year for my score -- I had all kinds of heart attacks but called to get mine!

Don't do it! I had a 670V and 580Q and still got into all the English Masters programs I applied to; with your Verbal score you're even better off, despite your Quant. Obviously there are more important factors in the application, but if the rest of your app material is strong, don't worry about the GRE.

They must be bumping up the amount of Old English grammar stuff they're putting on these, then. I took the test last November and had quite a bit of Old English on it as well, and it seems like it wasn't the case a few years ago.

I actually don't really know how to answer your question, although I'm very interested -- hopefully someone with more knowledge will be a better help. My gut instinct is to say that you'd have a lot of legwork to do in your application to prove why you're a great candidate for X/Y/Z, especially because of your nontraditional Masters degree, but I think it's more likely that the current cutthroat grad school market is more likely to keep people out of programs rather than a nontraditional Masters degree. That is, I don't think adcoms will necessarily immediately reject you simply because of your Masters -- they'll be rejecting people because they'll have 2389043 applications for 2 spots. That's just my guess, though. If you can put together a strong application in which you demonstrate how your Masters degree somehow made you decide to take the English PhD path, I don't see why it couldn't work, especially if you have a strong undergraduate record (you mentioned that many of these programs don't require a Masters anyway). As I mentioned, you'd have to work to make sure you had a writing sample and strong letters of rec that flaunt your talents as they'd be demonstrated in the PhD programs. Again, that's just my gut instinct, and others can feel free to correct me! What I might suggest, though, is trying to figure out what exactly you would want to achieve in an English PhD program. Is there anything that really interests you? Lit programs and Rhet/Comp programs are quite different -- I considered Rhet/Comp programs before I switched and considered Lit programs, and my list of schools was different from one field to the next. Narrowing down your focus may help because you can begin to look at different programs and talk to people associated with those programs, which will help you figure out what they're looking for and how your Masters experience might fit into that. And if you're not sure about the library science PhD, though, don't do it! Only do it if you're 100% committed.

I actually don't really know how to answer your question, although I'm very interested -- hopefully someone with more knowledge will be a better help. My gut instinct is to say that you'd have a lot of legwork to do in your application to prove why you're a great candidate for X/Y/Z, especially because of your nontraditional Masters degree, but I think it's probably that the current cutthroat grad school market is more likely to keep people out of programs than a nontraditional Masters degree. That is, I don't think adcoms will reject you simply because of your Masters -- they'll be rejecting people because they'll have 2389043 applications for 2 spots. If you can put together a strong application in which you demonstrate how your Masters degree somehow made you decide to take the English PhD path, I don't see why it couldn't work, especially if you have a strong undergraduate record in English (you mentioned that many of these programs don't require a Masters anyway). As I mentioned, you'd have to work to make sure you had a writing sample and strong letters of rec that flaunt your talents as they'd be demonstrated in the English PhD programs. Again, that's just my gut instinct, and others can feel free to correct me! What I might suggest, though, is trying to figure out what exactly you would want to achieve in an English PhD program. Is there anything that really interests you? You'll have to present a strong case for your research interests in your SoP. Lit programs and Rhet/Comp programs are quite different -- I considered Rhet/Comp programs before I switched to considering Lit programs, and my list of schools was different from one field to the next. Narrowing down your focus at this stage may help because you can begin to look at different programs and talk to people associated with those programs, which will help you figure out what they're looking for and how your Masters experience might fit into that. And if you're not sure about the library science PhD, though, don't do it! Only do it if you're 100% committed.

Yes, this! I gave a packet like this to my 3 recommenders. I included my transcript (in which I pointed out which classes I took with them), a CV (so they were reminded about the internships/jobs I had), the schools I was applying to and their deadlines, a summary of my research interests (my SoP wasn't done at that point -- they saw that later), and my writing sample. It was a bit of a pain to compile everything, but it was very worth it. It was easier than trying to remember which professors I'd told what about my application process, and they were able to ask any additional questions they needed after looking that stuff over. In my case, they all knew me well enough that none of this was really new information, but it was helpful for them to have all the information in one place. And I totally agree that the sooner you get everything done, the better. Unfortunately for me, though, my profs all had everything they needed in plenty of time, but one professor consistently gave me heart attacks by waiting until the 11th hour to submit stuff to schools. I didn't want to be rude, but I had to call him a few times on his cell phone over Christmas break to ask where the hell my letter of rec for School X/Y/Z was. Gotta do what you gotta do.

This. I was maybe hasty in using the word "translation" when describing my test, but I definitely had an Old English section on mine.

Yup. I read Beowulf in 3 or 4 different courses and learned the ins and outs of the spread/development of the English language, so I figured that would be enough to make me prepared for any Old English questions I might run into. How wrong I was.

I took the exam in November and I think I had a more old-style test. It had the Milton passages and the lit theory guys and the passages and stuff, but I had a lot of random trivia questions -- here are a bunch of characters from an obscure play from 1713, who wrote it? Here's a passage in Old English, what's it about? I had a number of "translation" questions, actually, with Old and Middle English. Fuck that, who the hell can actually read Old English after being an undergrad? All I can recognize is the first couple lines of Beowulf. One of the sections had me read a Middle English passage and then figure out what Canterbury Tale it was most thematically like. Middle English is way more decipherable, but still. It's the principle of the thing. Luckily there was a bunch of poetry on the test, which is my thing, so I scraped a 640 and went on my way. Also, one of the last passages in the thing mentioned James Brown (yes, the singer) and there was actually a question: "Who is James Brown?" And the obvious answer was the correct one. I was practically banging my head against the desk at that point and it was unbelievably funny to me. All the professors I told about it later just rolled their eyes.

Just my own two cents -- as a student of Irish poetry, I was extremely interested in attending Notre Dame's English PhD program because of the school's Irish focus. I was applying as a BA, but I was a great fit for their school, as shown through my statement of purpose, writing sample, and transcript. Their website said that the "strongest applicants" would score at least a 650 on the Verbal. I used it as my "minimum goal score," since no other school websites I had looked at mentioned a score to shoot for. I stressed over the test and ended up getting a 670 and was thrilled with the score! Yay! Notre Dame! I had a great chance because I was a great fit AND I got the score they wanted! Nope, still didn't get in. So even if you perform above "requirements" or "suggested scores," it doesn't mean much in the end. And since I WAS such a great fit, if they rejected me because some dude or lady did 10 points better than me on the GRE -- well, maybe I didn't want to go there anyway (Of course, I'm just lying to myself with that one). Who knows what they were looking for, but it taught me not to stress so much over the test. Obviously you want to perform well, but other things are more important. (And now I can reapply when I'm done my MA and stand a better chance, perhaps?)

Just curious because I've seen you around the board -- have you looked at the University of Toronto as a potential grad school? I'm only asking because I considered medieval lit for a hot second (I was really into Malory) and my English department chair/medieval lit prof/Arthuriana expert (this dude here: http://www.amazon.co...arty&x=17&y=18) was like TORONTO TORONTO TORONTO. At one point he was an editor for Arthuriana. Anyway, I totally changed my mind about what I wanted to do, and I think he wanted to cry, poor man. I realized that I would puke if I read Beowulf one more time. This is my attempt to extend his legacy. He rules and my medieval lit classes with him were THE BOMB, to echo bigdgp. I don't know anything about Toronto either so I feel like this whole paragraph was very unhelpful, but I like talking about Kevin Harty because I love him so. And yeah, your professor sounds like an idiot. I'm really interested in New Historicism (my own research will connect Irish poetry to its historical/political influences), and my SoP noted this interest and pointed directly to my writing sample, in which I tied early American Gothic novels to their historical influences. I think my treatment of the subject was interesting, and the works I chose to discuss weren't overdone (I talked about Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly and Hawthorne's The Marble Faun), so my writing sample really gave me a leg up, especially since I drew a strong connection to my SoP. Obviously grad schools don't expect you to hand in The Next Big Thing In Literary Criticism, but they want you to show you can think for yourself and approach ideas in interesting ways.

After emailing the English grad school and receiving no answer, I called today and spoke to a very nice lady who said some dude had just signed my rejection letter. Got the same explanation as everyone else: 20 spots, 729 applicants. At least I held on this long! Good luck to all waiting for a response.

So it's kind of like Ohio State's thing? I really had no idea. I need to read more carefully or something. I don't really want to go to Penn State (mostly because it's general English and I'd like to go somewhere Irish-specific) but I'd like an answer, even if it's a rejection, which it sounds like it is. Oh well, at least it sounds like I made it pretty far in the app process.

Is this for the PhD or the MA program? I'm still waiting to hear back about the MA.

I'm currently in the running for funding at Queen's University in Belfast (still part of the UK), at the MA program in Irish Studies I was accepted to. There are up to 5 funded opportunities for international students. It'll be very tough to get one, but they're not unheard of!

Thanks so much! I got an unofficial email acceptance to NYU today, so it seems that Irish Studies programs are interested in my interests too.

For what it's worth, I applied to the MA program and I haven't had a status update or a letter yet. I'm thinking this week? A few MA and PhD people posted snail mail rejections from last week, so I guess letters are finally coming out (hopefully). This was posted March 31 by someone rejected from the PhD program: Upon emailing the program, they informed me that they had sent out some rejections, but were still reviewing applications. They said I should know by the end of next week.

I agree a lot with strokeofmidnight re: which programs to apply to. Don't apply to a program just because it's a big name -- make sure the program is a good fit. I saw a lot of really good programs that I passed over so I could apply to programs like BC and NYU that had specifically what I was looking for. I want to get my PhD in Irish Literature (probably poetry specifically), so I knew I wanted an Irish Studies program or nothing. It's good to have at least a somewhat-specific idea of what you want to do so you can write about it in your personal statement. It helps you to demonstrate how EXACTLY you're a good fit for the specific program you're applying for. So if you do decide to apply to a place like Columbia, you won't just say, "I want to go to Columbia because it's a top program," you can say, "I want to go to Columbia because the program offers X, Y, and Z, and that closely fits my experience and particularly my research goals."

I think my success with strong MA programs comes on a variety of fields -- nothing inherently special, but when combined, it was an approach that worked. I didn't apply to "top top" programs like Columbia, and I got the expected rejections from the PhD programs I went for, but my MA program acceptances satisfy my interests and have a really good name in the literature field. I'm an English major with an Economics minor at a small liberal arts Catholic school. When I decided in the fall where I wanted to apply, I didn't have a writing sample long enough to apply to most programs. My longest Lit paper was maybe 11 pages; I had History and Economics papers that satisfied the page limit but were totally useless in this regard. I was originally going to apply to Rhet/Comp programs, so I had a great Rhet paper that was going to be my writing sample that I ultimately trashed. I then re-discovered two papers I'd written sophomore year in my Gothic American Lit 400-level class that were, quite by accident, related to each other and approached similar themes. I decided to combine the two papers (yes, this sounds nuts) into one Epic Writing Sample. This took a while and made me return to the library to check out books I'd checked out in Spring 2008, as well as new books and articles I'd never looked at before. It killed my soul a little bit, but I really cherished the end result. After I sent in my applications, I considered throwing myself on my sword because I had terrible misgivings about my writing sample ("Oh shit, did it suck? What the hell did I just do?"), but it seems like it worked. I think the uniqueness of my subject, my treatment of it, and my strong writing was convincing enough that MA programs didn't want to kick me to the curb. My interests are in Irish history and politics as represented in Irish literature (particularly poetry), and my writing sample discusses several examples of American gothic lit in a historical context. I pointed out this connection between my writing sample and my research interests in my Statement of Purpose, and I think I sold it convincingly. The rest of my app seems to have backed up my writing sample. I had 3 great letters of rec: 2 from PhDs who are famous in their respective fields, and 1 from a PhD assistant professor who knows me the best out of all the professors I've had. He's also been my primary poetry professor and probably spoke well to my talents in the study of poetry. My GPA was a 3.87 (3.9 in English courses), and on the GRE, I scored in the high 600s on the Verbal, high 500s on the Math, and a 5.0 on the Writing. My Lit GRE was in the 82nd percentile, which wasn't fabulous, but it was good enough for me. In the end, your writing sample and statement of purpose seem to be the most important part of the app. Work on those and they'll make up for anything else.

Thanks -- I got an unofficial email today saying I was accepted. What a quick turnaround time! I wasn't expecting a decision so soon.

The deadline was only March 15, but I thought maybe someone had an idea about when we'd hear back.

The deadline was only 2 weeks ago (March 15), but I was wondering if anyone had any idea when we might hear back. I'm not expecting an acceptance, but I'd rather not twiddle my thumbs until the second week of April or something. (Not that I've heard back from Penn State's MA either.) I know this isn't "English"-specific, but I thought maybe some other people were a bit cross-disciplinary like I am. (I also posted to the Interdisciplinary board.) I applied to English and Irish Studies programs this year.

I know the PhD offers have happened, but has anyone heard anything about the status of the MA program? I saw on the results board that there were 700 applicants (eep), and I know that they might not make offers until late March or early April. Just thought I'd ask.