souslespaves

one of my professors submitted my letter of recommendation 2-3 days after most of my deadlines, and it didn't affect my results at all. (but yes, i totally lost my mind!) i think most committees wait for spring semester to start before they start looking at applications.

As clarification, I was requested to use Interfolio by a professor who has been both director of graduate studies as well as department chair for several nationally-recognized programs. Honestly, I had enough trouble/felt bad enough getting my profs to write and submit one letter on time, keeping track of individual ones for each school would have been a SNAFU. FWIW, I also got into all but one of the schools I applied to without any tailoring in my letters (and two of them had gone to schools I was applying to). While putting as much effort as possible into making sure your letters of recommendation help you stand out is obviously a plus, that component of my application was notably the only one that wasn't mentioned by the graduate heads that called me - they all only spoke to my SoP, writing sample, and GREs.

Another option for letters of recommendation is Interfolio. Your professors only have to submit one letter of recommendation (either by uploading it or mailing it in) and then you can have it sent to the graduate schools. It's more $$ on top of everything else, but I think it's worth it to ensure everything gets sent to the right place on time (and it makes it a lot easier on your professors).

i would get in touch with professors and confirm they'll write the LOR, and let them know when your deadlines are (and I definitely recommend giving them/yourself at least a week's buffer on the deadline...one of my professors submitted mine late which gave me a heart attack, although it ended up working out fine). Regarding the SOP, if you know what you want to write, then I don't think you need to do it right now. I didn't know anything about them so I spent time begging successful samples off of other students and reading them, as well as outlining mine (and I was tweaking mine right up to the deadlines). I left myself enough time to have several people read it and offer comments. One thing I did which was helpful was creating an Excel Spreadsheet of all my schools, with columns for Lit GRE Required/Not Required, Professors of Interest, Deadline, Username/ID for Application, URL for Application, Length for POS, Length for Writing Sample, Number of Writing Samples, Number of Recommendations, Funding, etc. It made it a lot easier to streamline everything when it came time for submitting.

this might seem obvious but in addition to the great resources already mentioned, don't forget to review your own notes from survey classes!

NYU might be a good fit for you - tons of great professors in both 18th century lit (clifford siskin especially w/r/t the novel) as well as modernism. for the writing sample, i agree with dimanche, it should just be your strongest piece. also, while there might not be an explicit temporal or genre-based link between two areas of interest, i think it's usually not a coincidence. Explaining why you have an interest in seemingly disparate areas, if done in a thoughtful way, could make for a really compelling personal statement.

This list is a little old but probably still helpful: http://wgi-lounge-2009.livejournal.com/10017.html From personal experience, I can confirm: Boston College - first year tuition waiver and half-tuition second year and around $8K stipend for TAing Penn State - full-tuition waiver and stipend (around $20K) for teaching, but this is really supposed to be a feeder program for the PhD program Also, if you just apply to PhD programs and decide it's not for you, you can leave with an MA after the first two years. As a sidebar, one of my undergrad advisors went to Princeton for her PhD and said that people who held external MAs had to "start over" -- that is, lost two years -- so you might want to check if that is still the case.

This is just a personal anecdote but I submitted all my letters of recommendation through Interfolio and didn't have my professors fill out the forms (I just had Interfolio send paper copies if the e-mail system required a form to be filled out), and this didn't seem to hurt me (I got into 8/9 schools I applied to).

aldallia - I'm an entering graduate student as well (with TWO cats!) and lion's gate and briarwood on waupelani both allow pets/cats (for a fee). if you google "the apartment store state college," they also allow only one cat in at least one of their buildings on waupelani (might've been nittany view?).

I didn't go to UVA, but I just wanted to confirm what byronlover said is true - I've met several UVA students who all have gotten multiple very good offers.

I turned down (these are all M.A. programs)- BC (with full tuition funding) Georgetown (with full tuition funding and work-stipend) UVA NYU Fordham BU Northwestern Hope this helps some waitlisters!

I got an actual call setting out the same stuff mentioned above. I was caught off-guard so I didn't think to ask any questions but she said to feel free to reach out to her or the program director with any.

Agree with intextrovert too. I do think you should wait to see what you get first -- maybe an informal call to School A to see when they think funding decisions will be made. For what it's worth, the grad director of a program I was accepted to brought up that I should feel free to reach out regarding other schools' offers, and that I shouldn't feel weird about doing it, they would try to be flexible and definitely receptive to listening. I think if you're honest and forthright, you can't go wrong -- everyone understands the position you're in! I think trying to be vague or leaving information out possibly leaves you open to not getting all your questions answered.

you can also PDF straight from word for mac - PDF is one of the "save as" options.

I was able to register for Saturday, November 13, 2010.