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Perhaps you can look into this. I used the WES yearsssss ago because my secondary school did not use GPAs and I was applying to do University in the US. My high school grades were like 60s, which is a fail in the US, but equivalent to a B in my country. When WES converted all my grades, I only had As and Bs. They do take into consideration the quality and difficulty of the education, I believe. My undergrad school suggested and accepted WES' evaluation. I'm not sure if every school will accept it, especially at graduate level. They may just want your undergrad GPA as is.

I'd personally ask #1 for a few reasons: 1) They know you better and can speak to both your academic skill and your work ethic (in other words, they know you in two different roles). 2) Taking a current class with someone who's writing you a letter seems tricky to me-- I would add unnecessary pressure on myself trying to make sure I impress them, or I would think they are critiquing me at all times. 3) It's better to have a great letter than a big name. If you are pretty sure #1 will write you an amazing letter, then that is worth so much more than an average, generic letter from a big name.

I rewrote my thesis like twice before it was due. Back then, I at least had my advisor to review it. The thought of doing this again, but on my own, terrifies me. I have imposter syndrome, and I doubt everything I do, writing-wise. I am a big rewriting advocate though, since it usually just gives you even better drafts and clearly see what is not necessary to make your point. Thank you for outlining how you shortened yours AND how you did your explanation of what was missing. This is useful!

No, she has not finalized her list yet. Like you, she's still looking into programs and shopping around to fully gauge schools that offer Educational Leadership. She wants to include HGSE, but she doesn't plan to apply to that many programs, so I'm not sure what will stay on the list or not. I think she's aiming to apply to 3 or 4, so she will be choosing the ones that really interest her. I'm sure there are quite a few East Coast programs you can apply to and stick with without having to move across the country. You should be comfortable with your location!

I'm not in Education, but I am helping my best friend look up programs like you mentioned, since she's into Educational Leadership too. UNC chapel hill has one- https://ed.unc.edu/academics/programs/educational-leadership And Vanderbilt- https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/programs/doctor-of-education-edd/ These are 2 I know from minimum research (outside of the ones you mentioned). But if I were you, I'd start here just as a jump off point to check out Education programs and then go to the schools' websites to see which ones specifically offer Educational Leadership EdDs. I believe Purdue offers Educational Leadership, but in the form of a PhD, not an EdD (https://www.education.purdue.edu/academics/graduate-students/degrees-and-programs/graduate-programs/educational-leadership/) I'm not in the field of Education so I can't speak to the reputation of the schools, which is why I suggested US News, which seems to be an up-to-date list of good Education programs. Of course, take the list with a grain of salt in terms of measuring prestige. Hope this helps!

I'm having a WS problem too. Except my problem is that while most of my programs ask for up to 25 pages, a few ask for no more than 20, and I'm actually struggling to cut mine down by 6 pages in a way that still retains the spirit and strength of my paper (I'm at 26 pages currently. Down from the original 35-- I just omitted a section and that worked). For the WS that are supposed to be 20-30 pages, can't you just use 2 chapters from your thesis instead of one? I haven't seen your thesis, but I suppose it would be considered a sustained piece of work if it's under one large argument, even if it has subheadings. If your chapters are 12-15 pages, then maybe use your intro, 2 chaps of your thesis and a conclusion. I've read somewhere that you should or can indicate at the top of your writing sample that this is an excerpt from your larger work.

I agree that it's a minimum. But the fact that they had faculty meetings, a meeting with the students and offered up (admittedly weak) suggestions in a short time after the letter was submitted, I feel, is more than many programs would have done. I recently read an article about ongoing grad student problems at UPenn and how the administration and President ignore the student groups and their demands completely. It is from that comparison that I commended Columbia for their willingness to listen. I must also agree with your point concerning this quote. I do think he is trying to be "realistic." Oftentimes social, institutional, socioeconomic factors do favor a certain type of student to whom programs would be more attracted. I think he means that higher class students, often white, are able to afford a more affluent undergrad education, better SATs and GRE tutors etc, etc. And if programs are taking in less people, chances are they will end up choosing many of these homogeneous students. However, this is just a generic problem in higher education whether a cohort is 5 or 15, so it's still not a very good excuse. I see the issue with his statement because it indicates to me that he believes that the first students to be cut would be the "racially, socioeconomically and intellectually diverse" students, which assumes that they are the weakest students, as you mentioned; the academic Other. This ideology is very problematic. I'm not sure if I buy limiting enrollment as a solution to the problem either.

This works. Your first link had the paywall. I can only speak from the perspective of a prospective student. Even knowing the issues with the job market (barely because I just believe that you won't truly know until you're in it), I would still be willing to pursue the PhD because I am interested in continuing my research, a sentiment that I think is shared by many prospective students. I agree with Wimsey that we don't get a lot of student perspectives in this article, which I would have liked to see. Based on the article, I think the action taken by Columbia so far is commendable, but is it enough? So many professors offer their sympathy, but not all are willing to offer action and solidarity, and that's a big difference. Theory is fine for literature, but for real life students who are being affected, we need more than your theorizing and your "we seriously need to think about these things" spiels. What steps are you taking and what actionable ideas, if any, are you coming up with to mitigate this problem? Most importantly, are you transparent about the issue from the get-go? I feel like a lot of schools manipulate their data to be favorable in terms of outlining career outcomes. This just glazes over the problem and does not accurately depict the issue to prospective students.

I did see that! Brown dropped it sometime last week, and I just noticed a few days ago that Chicago dropped theirs. The list is healthy and growing, and might just continue in the upcoming weeks as September approaches and the applications for 2020 will be opening. At least I'm hoping.

*Another one.* I love hearing about people who share my interests. I feel like it's so niche that I don't usually meet many others in the programs I've been in. Nice to meet you! ? ? Good luck on your thesis and your last year in MA! I'm sure you'll be great and that we'll be talking more in the upcoming months and early next year as we apply and wait to hear back with bated breath.

Can't speak to how competitive other programs are, but some schools do either explicitly state or add in their statistics how many applicants they usually have vs how many they enroll. Columbia's PhD in English Literature website, for example, states that they receive 700 applications approximately, and they enroll 16 students, so just over 2%. Other school sites will state they receive around 200 or 400, and enroll 8 or 6. It's hard for 1 person to offer advice on how competitive all of the programs you listed are, but check out the grad statistics for a few schools (maybe the ones you are interested in); they are usually hidden somewhere on the website, and, if the statistics are very advanced, you can move from Department to department, subject to subject, and check out how many applicants, how many accepted or enrolled, and how many graduated. Other measurements are usually available too (what percentage is international, what minorities they have at what percentages). Perhaps with this information, you can compare for yourself how competitive one field is over another in terms of sheer numbers. In terms of perception, I would think each program is difficult to get into in its own way. For English/Literature, you would need to have had some classes that are relevant to the degree you are applying for, besides the basic gen ed classes. Some programs even ask for an MA. You would need to have a great writing sample that shows the scope of your research in the subfield in English you are interested in (which is why many people use either a thesis or a class paper as a starting point--they have already put months of research into the topic and know the academic discussion happening). I would think STEM may not need a 15-25 page writing sample like English, but probably has other program specific things they ask for with your application. Furthermore, the job market determines the demand for certain jobs, which also trickles back to cohort sizes. Therefore, you might have more STEM applicants and larger cohort sizes because of the market demand. Or you may have less applicants, but still large cohort sizes, which would mean a higher acceptance possibility. For Literature, the job market in academia is tough and a bit saturated, so, all this indirectly affects how many people schools will accept or how much money will be allocated to the English department etc, which could make it more competitive. Your question is very complex. Hope some of this helps, at least!

I am surprised the international student office staff at your school did not heavily advise you against leaving the country between the end of your F1 and your OPT approval. Even if your F1 has expired, once you have applied for OPT, and are awaiting a decision, your status in the US is fine. Leaving is the problem. It's a bit more difficult to enter the US on an OPT in general, but especially when you haven't even started a job yet. How come you need a visa appointment? As far as I know, OPT does not allow you to have a special visa sticker in your passport, and doesn't really have anything to do with the embassy. Are you making a visa appointment to change your status from OPT to something else? I agree with the above post: contact your school's international office to ask for advice, although they might tell you that you should have sought their advice earlier. Also, check to see if the embassy in your country has a contact email, and try asking them about the whole situation and maybe they can suggest something. Perhaps you can start looking into Postdocs, or if your job offer is some sort of student job, internship, or exchange program, check out the J1 visa and find out if your job will be willing to help you get that.

100% Agree. I have been super careful about finding at least 2-3 people I can work with at the schools that are my front-runners (and professors whose work I am interested in reading!), even if they don't share my exact interests. Going to a school for 1 "superstar" is definitely a horrible idea. Instead I actually have been putting a lot of emphasis on what I think my quality of life and happiness would be in the geographical area and the school's department. Whether I would be a fit. What type of environment they foster, etc. I will be coming with my husband, and we don't want the next possibly 6 years to be a nightmare for the sake of some arbitrary prestige. At the end of the day, I feel like if you're happy somewhere and the fit is right, you can succeed there, moreso than just choosing the highest ranked school/most famous person. Ok, so I thought it was just me, haha. I l actually look at the CVs of the professors I'm interested in if they're on the website, and I scroll down to the section of their CV where they mention serving as PhD advisors and chairs. Then, I look at the topics of the dissertations, and the dates, especially. It's a bit stalker-ish now that I think about it.

Sure, that sounds great! I haven't completely narrowed down my list yet, but Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, UPenn, U of Michigan were the schools in the top 10 that I've checked out. Then Vanderbilt, Rice, U of Pittsburgh, Emory, WashU, Northwestern are some other strong ones I've looked into that I like. I'm gonna apply to 5 total though, so I will be choosing from those (my list has been changing constantly also! It's so hard to pinpoint and stick with something). Some of the schools I listed seem to have a really good postcolonial concentration and faculty. Some have maybe 1 person specializing in Caribbean or African lit (Carole Boyce Davies at Cornell, Shalini Puri at U of Pittsburgh, Gikandi at Princeton). Jamaica Kincaid is at Harvard if you're interested, but I'm not sure if she teaches or advises. I'm sure there are other really good ones out there. What schools are you considering?

In my MA program, my thesis was moving dangerously close to linguistics and one of my professors made sure I knew that I needed to rein it back into Literature with a literary analysis, not a cultural linguistic one. Linguistics is more science-y, but sociolinguistics might get you as close to literature as possible. I think you're better off with Literature than Linguistics (take this with a grain of salt, considering I don't exactly know your interests). A few programs, I believe, do have a linguistics cluster/minor at the PhD level. You might wanna look into that so you can have the best of both worlds. From my understanding, rhet/comp is very much about writing, teaching writing, making meaning and writing across disciplines (and other things too--sometimes technology). But if you're talking about your period of literature, and using linguistics in there, it would appear that you fit into that periodic subfield, and not rhet/comp, maybe?

That's so cool! I am interested in Caribbean lit and African literature too. Additionally, south east Asian for me. My interests just run the gamut of transnational postcolonial 20th/21st century lit. So happy to see someone with similar interests!

I agree. I definitely compared funding years and time to degree because those two details are very important in relation to one another. On another note, I understand that some students for many different, valid reasons take a bit more time to finish their PhD, but if most students in a particular program are taking 8-10 years, or an average of 9 years, when funding packages end around year 5 or 6, that tells me a lot more about the program itself than it does about the students. That's just for me personally. The program may be amazing, but I can't help to think about whether there are underlying communicative issues. I'd like to be proven wrong though. As I said before, maybe I'm just missing something. "How you hating from outside the club?" and all.

Is anyone else looking at the median time to degree in their research of schools? I feel like it is important. One top school I looked up yesterday had a median time to an English PhD completion as close to 9 years. Am I missing something here? Perhaps they are including postdoc work? Can anyone speak to the reality of the time it takes to complete the PhD vs what is suggested on program websites (which is usually a 5 year outline/plan)?

Yes. I had no idea, but this was such sound advice. I'm still in the process of choosing which schools to apply to, but I might take you up on your offer! Thanks again!

Update: You were right! I only emailed 1 school, but it actually worked and they were very kind to my plight. Now I'm eager to apply there.

Thank you for this advice. I will try doing this with 1 or 2 schools and gauge their reactions. I do not want them to feel as though I am looking for special treatment at all, but the GRE requirement for me is a barrier. It sucks because I am really very excited about continuing my research in a doctoral program.

Hello! You might consider a career in education using your degree in psycholinguistics. If you do decide to go into education, especially in an area with low income, high need, high risk or a high turnover, you might find that education districts might be willing to apply for an H1B for you. This H1B is special and is usually not a part of the general H1B lottery, meaning it's much more likely that you get it. For your second question, I've learned from being an international student in the US that different international student offices and officers know different things. They certainly have individual ways of handling requests and questions that sometimes differ. You can work outside of school on an F1 visa, however to do so, the international student office would need to put you on CPT-- this is how international students also take summer internships etc. If you use less than 12 months of CPT, this won't affect your ability to get an EAD/OPT card at the end of your schooling. If you use more than 12 months of CPT, you will not be able to apply for OPT at the end of your education. But to say "you can never work off campus on an F1," I believe is a false statement.

Hi everyone! I just stumbled upon this website at precisely the right time. I am planning to apply for a PhD English program for Fall 2020. I am a postcolonialist with a specific interest in Caribbean literature and attitudes to language. Some other interests of mine include south east Asian literature, African literature, black diaspora writings and early modern drama. I have been researching programs I want to apply to non-stop and every time I feel as if I have my list confirmed, I find something that deters me from at least one program. Currently I am constructing my SoP, and for my writing sample, I will pare down my masters thesis, which thankfully aligns with my sub-field interest perfectly. I am super nervous about the entire process, and since I would be an international student planning on studying in the US, it adds another layer of complexity and anxiety. I decided to ditch the GRE altogether since I can't do it in the country I live in, and to do it would not only mean paying the GRE fee, but also traveling to another country, buying test prep materials etc.; it would be a mounting cost. Instead, I chose programs from the growing list of those not requiring GRE, which is currently a small pool (although more have dropped their requirements within the past month or two). I hope more schools revise their requirements by the time applications open for Fall 2020 in September, but I'm not holding my breath. Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself. It's exciting, but kinda tragic seeing people as freaked out as I am (group hug?). I decided to take a break from the increasingly desperate research process and read The Witcher book series. Thus far, it has been successful in distracting me. Good to meet everyone!