The Wordsworthian

I switched from 19th C to Early Modern for my applications and got in at one of my top choices still! Totally feasible as long as your research objectives are clear in your WS/SoP.

Congratulations, so happy for you!

I did! Turned down a school that was offering me $4,000 more that ended up offering me an additional $8,000 in fellowships for my first year. Fit was way more important to me—remember, you’ll be at your program for the next 5+ yrs. Good luck

Congrats! It looks like a few people have declined Michigan so fingers crossed for you!

@amphilanthus I'm currently in the same boat, ugh! Which school did you end up narrowing down to?

Gonna pop in here and add that I had atrocious GRE schools and got into two great programs with full funding. Focus on WS and SoP and use the money to apply to more schools rather than a retake. Edit to clarify also that my scores were lower than yours (with exception of Verbal, I scored 158V, but I was lower in Q and Writing).

Super happy for you. You've been such a beacon of light on this forum

Not a book, but a fantastic poem recommendation: just recently reread Spenser's Daphnaida and wow, I forgot how harrowing that poem is. Highly recommend.

I also did that... sigh.

Wrote the wrong GPA by accident on half of my applications and realized as I was reviewing the application proofs AFTER submitting them. Then proceeded to send 5 frantic e-mails to the respective departments in hopes of rectifying the stupid blunder. Still got into two of those programs, so I guess the mistake wasn't as tragic as my anxiety drove me to believe!

I FIRMLY second this. I retook the GRE to score only two points higher on my Verbal section. I am still reeling from that.

When I applied, I was working 30-40 hours a week while balancing a full-time course load. I won't sugarcoat this experience at all--it was extremely overwhelming and stressful, and I had to make a lot of sacrifices for it. I did not get much sleep, which definitely wore me out by the time I finally submitted my applications, and my social life was nonexistent. My advice to you would be to take advantage of weekends, as Friday/Saturday/Sunday were the days where I got the most work done. Not sure what your summer is like, but I was lucky to be only taking classes part-time and I worked about 35 hours a week so I had a bit more "wiggle room" to get ahead on my apps. I also made a schedule for myself with deadlines based on where I wanted to be with my WS and SoP, and started opening my actual applications about 3-4 weeks before they were due, and tried to have them submitted a 1-2 weeks before deadlines in case something went wrong. It's not easy but you will get through it if you want it bad enough. Best of luck to you!

@MetaphysicalDrama Congratulations! So happy this came through for you.

@Amelia75 That's awesome. I unfortunately won't be able to make it in April so I'll be visiting in mid March.

@Amelia75 Awesome, thank you so much! Congratulations to you as well. Which program did you get accepted to? Maybe we will connect sometime if we both end up in the area.