Hello,
I find myself in a precarious position. I'm engaged, and my finance and I will be married this fall. I've told her about by academic aspirations, and she's offered some limited degree of support. By this, I mean that she's willing to move, but only to "big cities" that can support her line of work in environmental graphic design. So far, we've been able to agree on Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, and the NY/NJ area. I plan on filing applications to the following schools:
Rice University, University of Houston, Southern Methodist University, Penn State University, Temple University, NYU and Rutgers.
I've also thought about University of North Texas (the Dallas-Denton commute doesn't excite me), CUNY Graduate Center, and University of Washington. Faculty at Indiana would be great, but I can't sell that location.
My main research interest that I've composed a substantial master's thesis on addresses Spenser's treatment of medieval sources. I have had some limited contact with faculty at Rice and Rutgers, (Rice's faculty member was happy to engage in a rather detailed correspondence), and I plan to send out a few more inquiries to the schools I've listed. What I would really like to know is if there are some lower-tier schools to which I should apply. I figure Penn State, NYU, and Rutgers are my long shots while Rice and SMU are slightly more forgiving but still incredibly selective.