alexisqaz

@jmc117 Wow! Thank you! 

What I was trying to get at, and perhaps wasn't clear enough, is that you should  identify for yourself what areas of lit. your'e interested in, beyond the specific essay you are currently writing. Such areas could be a mix of theory/genre/geography/time-period. My research interests are also theory based (queer/feminism/disability) but I can also say that I want to focus on 20th/21st century women's writing, both American and British. This is obviously still very broad, but much more refined than if I just said that queer theory interests me, and more informative than saying that I'm interested in a specific text or a specific theorist.
I *think* this would be pertinent in two ways: 1) it'll help you situate your interests in current discussions and help you consider what the context of potential research could be. That is, if you had to write an M.A. thesis or other substantial research project right now, what would it be (other than what you're currently working on)? What types of texts, time-periods, or theories would you find interesting? And how would you tie them together? 2) You're going to want to find programs that suit your broad interests, I assume, and such categorizations will help you do so.
More generally, I think that without coming to a fuller and clearer understanding of what it is that interests you in literature, it'll be much harder to "sell" yourself to programs. The hard part is that a lot of the times we don't even know what the potential categories that interest us are. It was only very late in my B.A., for instance, that I discovered queer theory, which is now one of my main interests. This is why it would probably be helpful to talk with professors who could point you in appropriate directions and suggest reading materials for you to peruse.
But I really should mention that I have zero experience in applying to M.A. programs in the States, and have no idea what they expect from their applicants. I am currently completing an M.A. in my home country and applying to PhD programs in the U.S. I believe that my advice to you here would be applicable in any case, but people with more experience with the process will probably be able to give you better ideas/suggestions.

I can personally tell you that SUNY Buffalo is extremely flexible. We just had our PhD orientation last week, and met with the DGS. Basically, you can take anything you want. There have been graduates of the English PhD program who have taken Comp Lit classes almost exclusively. Also, there doesn't seem to be any pressure to concentrate on a particular time period. You can do self-directed reading, get credit for student-run study groups, and can take lit classes extensively rather than intensively (you do the reading but don't write a final paper). If you want to have a minor field, just take two related classes and you've got one. The only thing the program seems to ask for is that you justify (in writing) the choices you make in terms of classes, and have the self-control/capacity to create a cohesive focus for orals/dissertations.

I know I didn't provide you with any new options, but if you ever have questions about UB, I'll help you out.

Ok, so I wrote something similar to this in the "What makes research compelling?" thread, and this may be coming at it from a different angle than what you were asking about, but I think there are a few questions it might be useful to ask yourself when deciding between an English program and an interdisciplinary humanities program:
What's driving your inquiry? What kinds of questions do you find yourself interested in? If you find yourself drawn to questions about a particular literary form (the problem of character in the 19th-century novel, to take @Mise's fascinating example from another thread), period/region/culture (folklore and in/nonhumanism in Caribbean lit), or author/loosely associated group of authors (Henry James's engagement with discourses of tourism), an English program is probably the best place to shoot for. On the other hand, if you find yourself interested more in a concept or cluster of concepts and how they play across contexts and archives (waste and notions of wasting across literature, philosophy, and pop culture), or how different schools of thought influenced one another (the hidden Frankfurt School roots of object-oriented ontology), or, probably most clearly, intersections between literary study and other fields (a genealogy of the figure of the witness in modern thought, both legal and literary/philosophical), then an explicitly interdisciplinary program like Stanford MTL/Berkeley Rhetoric/Duke Literature/UMN CSDS/UCSC Hiscon might be for you. As @CulturalCriminal asked, what is your interest in (or tolerance of) 'theory'? Interdisciplinary programs tend to be much more theory-heavy--Stanford MTL, for example, has 3 core courses, all of which are basically theory courses. In these programs, as far as I can tell, your grounding in theory is supposed to enable you to formulate questions that stretch across media and historical/cultural contexts but still have clear unifying conceptual threads running through them. I do think your professor's point that not many English programs are "traditional" anymore should be taken seriously, though. My interests are definitely more theoretical/interdisciplinary, but I ended up applying to some English programs that seemed to welcome this kind of work.
As far as placements go, the top interdisciplinary programs are up there with the top English programs. Check out Stanford MTL's and especially Berkeley Rhetoric's placements and you'll see many grads landing tenure-track jobs at Ivy League/other highly ranked schools.

Like @Warelin said, I'm afraid not. You'll find some of the best programs at the same university (Berkeley, Harvard, your usual suspects) but past that it can vary widely, not only based on faculty interests but also the areas or media you might be working in. NRC rankings are a good place to start though.
I can't speak for English departments, but if you're interested in interdisciplinary, transmedial, cross-cultural, or otherwise heavily theoretical approaches, the ACLA State of the Discipline Report (conveniently published just last year) will give you a taste of the questions comp lit is trying to address right now and what problems it's had in the past. Introducing Comparative Literature (2014) is another resource good for this purpose.
Someone might have already said this, but mission statements, graduate handbooks, and FAQ pages were surprisingly helpful for me. I was able to cross out programs with a heavy emphasis on reading in the original, for example, since advanced knowledge of 3-4 foreign languages doesn't suit my research, or programs requiring that you declare a home department, as I don't intend to teach my primary foreign language.