wreckofthehope

Essex has one of the best, if not the best, Sociology departments in the U.K.... but the university as a whole has little name recognition outside the country. It may be worth looking into... I did my M.A. there (partly within the Soc department - in a research centre housed within it) - the campus and facilities are tired and depressing but the faculty are both brilliant and supportive and the research is top notch.

Huge congrats! Seems like really good funding also!

The Courtauld is tip top for Art History, but Goldsmiths and Birkbeck are probably both worth looking into - especially if you want to stay in London... otherwise, I've heard good things about Glasgow, Cambridge and Sussex, in particular. I imagine, they'll all ask for a 3.5 though since that is usually taken as a vague 2:1 analogue... (Goldsmiths and Birkbeck are less likely to want high grades and will probably be more flexible with their requirements).

Somewhere along the Northern line would be a good bet - Archway maybe. Finsbury Park would also be an easy commute and kind of affordable... the other option would be East London, near either the Northern line at Old Street, or the Hammersmith and City line at Whitechapel - that would give you an easy tube ride to SOAS - those are all at the (slightly!) more affordable end of London rents, but somewhat...gritty places to live (in particular the East London locations). If you can afford to live in Angel/ Islington then that would be ideal - supermarkets, shopping restaurants etc it's all there and all very pleasant... but it's generally very expensive. A good rental website is Nestoria it has a helpful and easy-to-search interface/ database.

I thought the Bartlett School at UCL in London allowed you onto an M.Arch without the BA in Architecture... but I may be mis-remembering. It's also an absolutely amazing school!

Wow! - that must have been expensive and insanely stressful!

Lacan and Kristeva (aesthetics) mostly, also Object Relations (esp' Winnicott). I did most of my M.A. work on Freud, Ferenczi, Otto Rank and Jung and wouldn't be averse to revisting them... but they're not so related to my current interests. You? I've also applied to : UChicago, Toronto, Stanford, Harvard, UBC, Simon Fraser and Boston College for English, and Rutgers for Comp Lit.

I doubt UCL will want your GRE scores - no universities do in the U.K., that I know of at least... so there's no need to worry in that respect - just write a good research statement (this is the bit that will matter most).

I am so, so excited about the ILA program!- it's one of my top choices too. I think we' may potentially be in direct competition with each other though ( !) - I'm doing psychoanalysis, ecocrit, critical theory and landscape representation... a somewhat similar constellation of interests.

Hi Daniel, I'm a U.K. student applying this year so hopefully can be of some help. I found the sheer number of American universities overwhelming at first, especially since I had almost no clue about their general characteristics or reputation etc... it took many, many hours of trawling through university websites, wikipedia - (search "list of colleges and universities in the United States by state"...very helpful!), multiple rankings and this forum before I felt that I had even the slightest grasp of the shape of higher education in the U.S. - this process is definitely worth it, though, there is so much on offer outside of the few big-name universities that dominate the public consciousness back in the U.K. I'm still discovering new colleges and programmes every day that interest me, even after I've turned in all my applications. I understand your desire to stick a little closer to home, but make sure that you're not excluding places that would be perfect for you just because of this... remember that being in a small college town on the east coast, you're probably a few hours away from an international airport - a large city further west could have just as short a total travel time to the U.K. Also, be sure to look outside of New England: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina etc are all East Coast and still within a reasonable flight time from the U.K. A word of warning about your projected timescale - You may have finished all your MA requirements by the time application deadlines arrive (early December 2011), but it's likely that you may not have your final marks back, nor your dissertation mark, so while the dissertation is obviously a huge part of your MA degree it's not necessarily going to factor in as heavily to any admissions decisions...it's a good idea to make sure your coursework is top notch because those are the marks they'll definitely see. It also may be worthwhile checking exactly when you'll receive your final marks - because you can plan your applications around that - I probably sent in a few applications a little earlier than I needed to which meant that they didn't get to see my final marks... I wish I'd planned that out a little better. About GPA and U.K. grades: I'm guessing you have a high 2:1 and are on track for a Distinction? - If so, your grades are fine, I haven't needed to convert mine for any of the applications I've done - most universities just told me to leave the GPA section of the application form blank, or to put a zero - they will probably do their own conversion from your transcripts. I would echo Medievalmaniac's advice about languages - quite a few schools I've come across specify that one of your languages be either French or German; so, it's probably worth investing the time in French, since you already have some experience in that area. A few schools that I can think of of the top of my head that possibly fit your (very broadly stated) interests: Brown , Boston University, maybe Temple, Virginia, perhaps Yale and Princeton? If you could be more specific about what you want to work on we could probably be a bit more helpful with suggestions? But there's no real substitute for the hard slog of reading through all the faculty bios and course listings on as many departmental websites as you cram into the next 7-8 months! Feel free to PM me if you want to ask anything.

My project is very interdisciplinary and theory-based, so Comp' Lit' programs often seemed to offer the best fit but, like you, I'm a bit iffy on the language preparation side of things...I wasn't sure I would measure up to the standards of the other applicants; so, I decided to apply to a mixture of English and Comp Lit' programs, cherry picking whichever department felt most comfortable for me at each school. As it turns out, English felt right at the majority... I had a tough time deciding for both Chicago and Toronto - but Toronto Comp Lit's very strict language requirements eventually made me plump for English (plus their whole 'we're being closed down' blip earlier in the year). At Rutgers the decision was easy, because the English department was not really a good fit for me at all, while the Comp' Lit' department is a great fit. I'm also applying to Emory's ILA program, which narrowly beat-out their Comp' Lit' program for my love.

I applied mostly to English programs, but have applied to Comp' Lit' at Rutgers - I weighed up the two departments at each school I applied to and eventually settled on mostly English...although Chicago broke my heart - I loved both departments so much. I'm in C20th and Contemporary/ Postmodern Lit', mainly English but also German and Scandinavian, and lots of French theory and psychoanalysis.

Thirded.

Stanford UChicago Toronto UCSB Harvard Boston College UBC Simon Fraser Rutgers (Comp' Lit') WUSTL Theory/ postmodern & contemporary lit'.

I listen mostly to electronic music: drone, noise, minimal techno, idm, ambient, illbient etc and also to some folk and other things. Some favourite artists: Tim Hecker - drone/electronic ambient/noise - love all his albums, but "Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do it Again" especially. Ben Frost - noise/drone - again all albums are amazing, but "Theory of Machines" particularly so. Swans - urm... noise/noise/madness, "The Great Annihilator" is my favourite probably. Oneohtrix Point Never - synth/idm, "Rifts" compilation is superb. Demdike Stare - dark ambient, apparently..."Symbiosis", and "Liberation THrough Hearing" are both superb. Keith Fullerton Whitman - ambient/ experimental drone..., all. Laurie Anderson - spoken word/pop, all... but "Big Science" most of all. The Knife - electropop/synth, all "Silent Shout" in particular. Sam Amidon - Folk, kind of twisted folk, but still...all. David Thomas Broughton - folk, as above - "The Complete Guide to Insufficiency"

Hey - thanks, yeah I decided to send them but I requested transcripts from both of my departments and they can't get them done at the moment - too busy. I emailed the registry also, but just got an automated message saying that they were super busy, so I don't hold out much hope there either (they're also not supposed to do transcripts for my departments), eugh. Don't know what to do now, maybe the departments I'm applying to will accept a scanned pdf of my personal copy if I email it?... I'll have to ask.

I completed my MA degree in September, and have just received my final grades - I got a distinction for both my thesis and my overall grade (I'm in the U.K. - and here Master's are graded Fail, Pass, Merit, Distinction). I requested my transcripts from this school a few months ago and this is what I used for the first 5 app's I have submitted - they don't contain these latest grades, obviously, but I did already have a distinction-level average after my coursework. If I request new transcripts they won't get there until a great deal after the deadlines - especially since they're coming from the U.K. - do you think it's worth getting an updated transcript to send to these applications I've already submitted? (I think I'll hold off for an extra week with the second half of my app's in the hope that my new transcripts arrive in time for me to use them).

St Cross seems nice. A friend of mine did evolutionary anthro there and enjoyed it. It is in a really great location and has very nice grounds. It's graduates only, which has its benefits- the more undergrad oriented colleges can be a little isolating for new postgrads, or so I've heard. The only potential draw back would be money- I don't know how wealthy it is or what kinds of funds it can offer, but probably not much in comparison to the big guns like St Johns, Christchurch etc.

Hi Peanut, I only have personal experience of undergrad education at Oxford, but my boyfriend did his MSc there in a social science subject (social policy) - if you have any specific questions in that area I can ask him for his input. As far as the DPhil experience goes - I know one of my best friends, who did his DPhil in History, regretted his hasty college application - it makes your DPhil experience easier if you're at the same college as your supervisor, and a college with lots of money is always a better bet for summer/research/travel grants etc. If your supervisor is in a different college then the only thing your own college will provide is accomodation/ library access/ and the (very) occasional meeting with a college academic advisor that checks in once a year or so to make sure you're on track. As for the rest of it - College facilities will depend on the wealth of your college, but faculty facilities are usually pretty good. The Social Science Library is particularly good for computers etc ( as oppposed to the EFL, where I was). But... I imagine that universities in the States will generally have more impressive technologies etc. As someone above said - college accomodation is best for the first year - and, since you usually get meals included, is often a very good deal, it also means you have a ready made community to get to know. For later years, most people rent shared houses in Jericho or Cowley or down Abingdon Road area. Private accomodation is expensive and self-contained flats are out of most people's price range.

Maybe I'm being incredibly naive (and I am theoretically focussed, so perhaps this makes it more of an issue), but I can't see how you can properly locate your planned project without reference to the discourse it will be a part of... I would be worried that not mentioning specific people would mean that you came across as being unaware of their voices, or worse - that you think the work that you hope to do is without precedent (perhaps some people do have projects like this, but they are still working from a place that builds on past scholarship). I have definitely talked about specific theoretical approaches, and mentioned names - they are central to my whole conception of my planned research.

I found that this method did not work for me - I tried it while preparing for the test, but I found it near impossible to not read questions. What seemed to work best for me was just to plough through, answering almost every question , in sequence, except those I really didn't have any clue about. In my first practice test, I answered every question, and in the real test I finished the test, but left about 6 blank. I came out with exactly the same score in both tests. I would be wary about trying out a new approach under test conditions - this is the only remaining chance to take the subject test this year, so you want to get it right...

My logic too - I'm doing something similar: Not listing all the schools, but mostly those in a similar rankings range, and those that have a similar approach - so, i.e. Chicago and Toronto are together in my mind for some reason for being very "intellectual". ...I've just realised how goofy my logic is on this topic, lol....

I just posted on another forum looking for a critique of my SOP - lets swap. (pm me)

Also offering congratulations Papillon - that's an amazing score! I've thought about this question too and, like outofredink, decided that if schools say "the gre subject is not required, but you may send scores if you wish" type thing, then I've sent them. For Chicago, I didn't - because they explicitly stated that the subject gre will not be included in the assessment of candidates - I got the impression they would prefer you not to send it. I have Canadian universities that I'm dithering over... it's definitely not a requirement, but not sure if it would help or not - if I don't send them, then they may think I'm only applying to Canadian universities, which could work in my favour, possibly...oh, I don't know.

UC Santa Barbara had a similar requirement - I did mine ages ago, and they got back to me within a few days just to say "you may proceed with an application" or something similar.