merry night wanderer

Reiterating here that JHU no longer requires either GRE.

The Comp Lit department here is extremely philosophy focused, specifically in Continental. I suspect (though a phil graduate student might know better) that English and Comp Lit departments are where Continentals hide out in America these days! I don't know about "primarily" (since you will still have to take literature coursework and be familiar with literature texts), but I plan on incorporating plenty of philosophy into my work and numerous people here are of a similar bent. It seems to be quite possible.

With so many schools ditching the GRE, I would have rediverted 100% of that energy to getting even more abreast of the field and refining my writing sample. To the first point, SEL provides overviews of trends based on era that I found incredibly valuable, though I'd imagine you will already have a leg up as a Master's student, and teachers in your area can help as well. To the second, I'd work on writing sample extensively (of course) and give it not only to your mentors, but to people in the dept outside your area, if possible. I only gave mine to a newly-retired prof in my field and I regret it because (while I value his opinion tremendously) I think I pigeonholed myself a bit. Your readers are going to be all over the place in terms of specialty, theory, etc, so you want to be able to make yourself understandable and ideally appealing to as many as you can. Not hedging your bets on a job seems wise, of course. Not specifically to you, but to anyone here: please don't go into academia because you can't think of anything else to do with your degree. Data shows we humanities folks do just fine on the job market after an adjustment period (and if you ever want to talk about the vagaries of getting a job in corporate America, let me know). But I'm also deciding to do this with plenty of middle-class job prospects elsewhere (I'm an older student) because frankly, it's way more meaningful. So I'm not personally going to discourage you. If the school you get into is a good one, they'll also provide resources for alt-ac trajectories.

Just dropping in to mention Johns Hopkins waived the GRE general and subject test requirement.

You found certification programs? Wow. A google search didn't pop up any for me, and I'm not aware of any jobs that require them (maybe K-12?). That's bizarre! You can definitely find funded MAs - there is a spreadsheet floating around here with many of them: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XZ7ejtJETaRH7ufh2O1S21HOeTTy9EYgi7Z5vUHCRLI/edit#gid=0

It may feel like overkill, but I don't think it actually is. You've discovered what part of the humanities you want to pursue, and that's all the reason in the world to go for another master's. On top of that, there's no such thing (that I'm aware of) as a "certificate" in English Literature. You may feel behind in English, but in my opinion a broader knowledge base to draw from can make you a more interesting scholar. There are plenty of hyperspecialists in English. Maybe think of ways to do scholarship in English that pulls on your more general Humanities background and sets you apart.

If you are applying to MFAs, I would also look at the MFA Draft group on Facebook. The subforum here seems just fine but the Draft is extremely active and has plenty of good information (just beware getting sucked into the whirlpool of anxious applicants posting too much, as with anywhere!). Just search for "MFA Draft '21."

I'm also happy to send my SoP to anyone who thinks they'd find it useful.

This is great advice, and actually, almost every school that accepted me mentioned it as something interesting; the people I talked to sometimes asked further questions about how my creative/critical work were intersecting. One prof even said he particularly liked MFA students. I suppose the only thing to mention is that I did feel like I could have benefited from the deep dive of a master's thesis, and for me I had to do my writing sample from scratch. It wasn't quite a seminar paper and it wasn't quite a thesis. But hopefully your lit mentors can help you out here.

There's a genuine possibility it won't happen, so you're not catastrophizing! We need to get used to it, but it would be heartbreaking for all the reasons you mentioned. If they're still open by the time I get to sign up, I'm going going to be taking a fascinating-looking course on Kafka, theory, and philosophy (by a prof who holds joint appointments in the German and philosophy depts, whose general approach to literature seems incredibly exciting to me), German Idealism (pretty much have to understand this as a Romanticist, and looking forward to flexing my philosophy muscles again!), and Jane Austen and the Novel. The last one almost makes me laugh - Jane Austen is undeniably good, but she was really shoved down my throat as a homeschooler, and I'm not naturally that drawn to realism, so she's just not my cup of tea and I never thought I'd take a course on her. But a POI is teaching it and I have never studied her or novel theory before, so it seemed like a solid choice. Tbh I always end up loving literature class if the teacher's a good one so I'm looking forward to reading her in depth and developing a better appreciation for what she has to offer. It's so hard to choose just three. What are other people taking??

I feel you. I just picked out the courses I want to take (which is one of my favorite things in the world to do) and I'm so excited about the idea of being in a classroom with these people and it's just- lord. The letdown will be unimaginable. I think I will be okay with it if there are waves of quarantining/social distancing, as some people are proposing, but the whole semester? I don't know that I'd defer because, being older, I want to get a move on in my program. But under other circumstances I might do it.

ugGHHGHGggggggggggghhhhhh DO NOT WANT. I'm trying not to think about not getting a live literature seminar in the fall and just taking this one day at a time.

^ Maybe just apply to more places next time. It's not like the admissions process is completely subjective, but it sounds like you did absolutely everything you could, and speculating past doing more than everything you could will just make you crazy when a lot of these decisions might be somewhat random anyway. I'm very, very glad I applied to a lot of places - and while I can't help but wish things went better for me, and wonder how I could have improved, there is also no way I could have known, from the schools' perspective, whether I was a good fit or not for the more subjective/circumstantial aspects of the app. At this point, as much as I can be before actually attending the school, I'm quite satisfied with where I ended up. A lot of candidates get placed excellently after the MA. I suspect you'll be fine - it sounds like admissions will get even more competitive, but it also sounds like, having done this a couple of times and benefited from even more time to work on your materials, you'll have a leg up.

Well, that was a hell of a read. If he's right, I feel absolutely sick for the 2021 applicants, on top of lots of general dread about the incoming recession/depression, given that 2008 was what really screwed the humanities up in a lot of ways...

I would chose the better location - no question - especially if it meant my partner was happier. No question whatsoever. Money is important, of course, and if it's critical for your mental health, that's worth thinking about, but particularly adding the program vibe on top of that? That's what I would choose. Tbh I would pick the program I liked better, in the location I liked better, with the time constraints of a side hustle, than go to a place with more money.