EAstudies

It would be a lie if someone says 161 won't affect your admission prospect in any of the programs in the United States. For example, Columbia's English and Comparative Literature program makes it crystal clear that it is almost impossible to get into their program with any GRE verbal score lower than 95 percentile ("successful applicants trained in the U.S. will almost always have a GRE verbal score in the 95th percentile or better."), which means it's extremely hard to get an admission with a score lower than 166. But there aren't that many programs that have such a high GRE threshold, so that's a good news. I don't know what programs you're applying to, but maybe try to find if their websites mention anything...? Not that many schools do, but a few do. It doesn't hurt to check.

1. Getting into a renowned English Ph.D. (i.e., programs that are well-known have a good placement) is a lot harder than getting into MAT at Ivy. I went to a private boarding school and I have quite a few acquaintances who got MAT degrees at Ivy, including Columbia. They are all bright people, so I'm not talking less of people who go into that field, but the chance of getting into a MAT program and Ph.D. program (especially if it's a respectable one) is simply incomparable. Especially for the latter, you should have a research experience on top of a clearly outlined research interest--not just the passion for working in a certain field. 2. Even after getting into those well-respected programs, you really need to stand out in your cohort to remotely have a shot. And I'm saying "to have a shot," not "to get a job in academia" because even shining in your program won't guarantee a tenure track professorship. The market in academia, especially for humanities, is brutal. My brother is doing his Ph.D. at a highly-ranked Ivy institution for economics and the job market for economics in academia looks better than humanities because quite a few of the Ph.D. degree holders join a research lab or a private sector, which simply is not an option for humanities students (except for Alt-Ac like doing an admin job at universities, but this has a tiny market as well.) Even so, it doesn't mean it's looking good. These students are tons of best-achieving students from their undergraduate institutions with nearly perfect GPA and extensive research experience as an undergraduate student. Still, most of these "outstanding" students don't end up getting a tenure-track job unless they are willing to move to somewhere no one really wants to live. And becoming a professor in humanities is way harder. Even if you're willing to move to the middle of nowhere, that won't expand your options that much. Check out Chronicle of Higher Education to read more about it. 3. So let me revise your statement for you. Realistically, you shouldn't be torn "between pursuing a career in education (K-12) or in English academia" because "pursuing a career in English academia" is nothing like "pursuing a career in education (K-12)" when it comes to the job market. You should rather be torn between "pursuing a career in education or doing English Ph.D. for 6 to 8 years and still have no stable job in academia." But a nice thing is, as long as you are not hung up with being in academia, high schools (including private schools that pay you really well) are enthusiastically accepting Ph.D. holders. So if you are okay with teaching K-12, you won't end up doing adjuncts in different schools (i.e., doing a part-time job in many different places without any benefit or insurance). But you really want to stay in academia, the odds are against you (and me and anyone who wants to get a TT job). The reason why a lot of Ph.D. students start Ph.D. is that they love doing a research and they do have a specific research interest they want to contribute to. If you want to start Ph.D. *only* because you want to get a job in college and teach college students, that's not a good reason to start Ph.D. *all all.* I think you should learn more about the job market reality in humanities academia before you argue between those two options. Jobs in academia (especially full-time tenure track professorship) is really, really, REALLY rare. I can't emphasize this enough. 4. As Rising Star had pointed out, I'm having a hard time seeing why you'd want an English Ph.D. when you want to become "a professor of education [educational leadership and policy] at a top research university." In general, I seriously recommend you read more about job prospects on top of looking at the CVs of the professors in the education department at a top research university. 5. Echo449 already answered this, but MA.T. will *not* help you getting into an English Ph.D. although it won't hurt you either. What Ph.D. programs are looking for isn't a teaching experience. They're looking for someone who is capable of doing researches, and a teaching experience on top of that might be a plus. But without that, MA.T. won't help you, especially if you want to get into programs that are crammed with qualified applicants. And this is why people say writing samples and SOP are important. You should show your potential as a scholar first and a teaching experience in K-12 doesn't show that aspect. Anyway, good luck with MAT program and choosing your career path!

It's not impossible to discuss films without a "multimedia essay." Including films in written analysis without using a "multimedia" method, in fact, is nothing new. Use stills. Lots of critics and theorists incorporate films into their analysis these days, and that's how they do that. If they can do it (and if I can do it), then you can do it too.

I don't know how it would be common for schools to just offer one theory class. I've never been to other undergraduate schools, but I've always thought reading and discussing with a minimal attention to theories is a high school type of literature class. But I guess it is a lot more common than I thought. I don't want to sound conceited, but this is how my undergraduate experience has been as a comparative literature and philosophy double major: Even though I was not an English literature major, I took a lot of theory courses from the English department as a comparative literature student. My school doesn't necessarily focus on critical theory, but we do have famous theorists in their respective fields (e.g., queer theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, etc.) and I was especially interested in the theoretical part of literature. The English program here offers quite a few theory courses for undergraduate literature students every semester, and although English department doesn't have this requirement, my department requires students to take a theory survey course as 101. It's mostly going over the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism and some other texts picked by the professor, but I think it is a pretty solid overview for an undergrad student. Of course, higher level courses focus on a specific field in critical theories, and I've been mostly taking psychoanalysis and deconstructionism. I imagine these courses wouldn't go as deep and comprehensive as graduate level courses, but I'm still pretty satisfied with my coursework. Plus, my school is a research university with a small graduate population, so I could get ample attention from the professors who are active in research and are the leading figures in their fields. And for these classes, there weren't students who weren't particularly disinterested since it was not required for them to take these. And my school is very supportive of independent studies, so I'll be doing 2.5 years of independent work (honors thesis + 2 semesters of independent studies + 1 summer research scholarship) for one topic. So I do feel like I have some depth in this specific area, enough to start the graduate work. Okay, this now sounds like a real bragging. I might delete this later since it makes me feel silly. But my point is that it is possible that your school's program was particularly rigorous even though it may be a lot more common than I thought. It is possible for you to meet undergraduate students who have had a lot more exposure to theories when you go to grad school. At least, my friend who went to another undergraduate has a very similar experience with me. But I don't think there's any reason to be intimidated or worried. Over the summer, just go over the Norton Anthology. It's a fascinating theory book for beginners, and it's actually pretty hard to meet anyone who hasn't heard how good it is. The first two years of graduate study (at least in many comparative literature programs) start with coursework. You will have time to learn theories in depth. Also, even if a student is from the school that has a strong theoretical base for undergraduate students, that doesn't necessarily mean he or she is well-covered. For one, as I said earlier, my school offered a breadth of theory courses but they were not requirements. Also, my school regularly had theorists coming over and holding a lecture last year (like Alain Badiou and Judith Butler) and the vast majority of the audience was graduate students. I only saw very few undergraduates in any of the lectures. So undergraduate students from the schools that have lots of opportunities to study critical theories aren't necessarily better informed...unless they did take advantage of it. My friend who had a similar experience with me, too, actively took advantage of his school offered. (And now that I'm seeing other posts, he and I did go to rigorous public and private institutions in Cali and New England, so our situation might not be too common compared to the general population...)