Gingermick

Congrats, ElectedSilence! I applied to Northwestern too, but I have received neither an accepting phone call nor a rejection email. I'm not sure what that means! Was your online application status updated to reflect your acceptance (or to those of you who received the rejection email - does your online status show that you were rejected)? My online application says nothing. Now i'm dying to know, either way.

UCLA extension has some online writing courses in their catalogue. I haven't taken them, but you can look there. UMass online also has tons of online courses.

Apocalypse Now

Look to your local community colleges, extension or distance learning, or even online courses like Massachusetts Online to learn Russian. I think it is pretty essential that you have language experience for comp lit programs (I'm not in comp lit, but this is what I understand from my friend who were). It is not essential that those classes come from your undergrad. Your courses may not count toward your undergraduate degree, but you can send those transcripts along with your undergrad transcripts when you apply to prove your language abilities.

Yay more Renaissance people! I love Lynn Enterline's work. She also does some stuff with gender so she's one of the professors I'd like to work with at Vanderbilt. I seriously considered applying to UCLA, WashU, and Rutgers as well as the ridiculously long list I have going, so I'm surprised we don't have more overlapping schools!

Columbia Stanford Toronto Northwestern UPenn UCSB UCDavis Michigan Penn State Vanderbilt Indiana Bloomington Brown WUSTL Renaissance Lit/Shakespeare/Women and Gender Good luck everyone!

So, one of my schools asked for an SOP and a personal statement. Most of the schools like this ask for 500 word limit on both statements, so I I just cut my 1000 word SOP and used relevant pieces in the personal statement (including one whole paragraph directly lifted from my long SOP). But this school didn't have a word limit on the SOP, so I sent the long version, and it was only after I turned everything in that I realized my SOP and my personal statement included the exact same concluding paragraph. I feel stupid. Should I try to fix it? I already emailed the DGS about a previous issue (this school requires all supplemental materials to be delivered by post, and international post was delayed due to terroism [seriously] so she allowed me to send her a zip file of all the supporting documents), so I don't want to be repeatedly contacting them and bothering them. Recommendations? (edit: I realized that I fixed this issue before I emailed it to her. Guess I was worrying for nothing!)

I live in Japan, and I have to say, it's been a real pain to try and do everything from overseas. That said, it isn't impossible, and if you plan ahead, you can certainly make it easier for yourself. Request your school transcripts in advance, as far in advance as you can, even if they are incomplete (if you get accepted, you can send the complete transcripts later). If you don't know what schools you will be applying to, just order a bunch for yourself and don't open their official envelopes, then mail them out yourself. Some schools ask for 2 copies of your official transcripts, so order more than you'll think you need. Ask your LOR writers in person, before you leave. Keep in touch with them by email. Find out which schools want things to be sent by snail mail - most require you to directly upload things like your SOP and writing sample onto the online application, but there are some schools who are a behind the times. Send the snail mail things REALLY early - I waited until 10 days before they were due, and the post office had issued a new policy of extra security for any mail going to America, and told me my stuff would be delayed. Take the GRE now, it's much cheaper in America and you won't be worried about the scores arriving late. The only other problem I might warn you about is the time difference - I like to procrastinate and turn everything in at the last second, and I am constantly converting time to different regions to see if I will make the deadline. The other thing is, you can't call and ask when you have a question - it's likely that their office will be closed - but I have found most schools to be very good about answering email inquiries. Good luck and have fun studying abroad!

Last year's deadline was Dec 15, and Columbia updated its website in September to reflect the new date.

For Shakespeare, I still use the full citation (2.3.23-24) because readers can easily loose track of which act or scene you are talking about, and I try not to say sings like, "In Act 2, Scene 1, blah blah..." so that I don't repeat information that will be included in the citation. Also, if I'm citing from several plays, I always put an abbreviation of the play's title in the citation: (JC 2.3.23-24) or (Ham 5.5.1-10). The abbreviations need to be mention only the first time you quote, unless you are switching back and forth between plays or using plays with very similar titles, like Henry VI, Part 1 (1H6 2.3.23-24) and Henry VI, Part 2 (2H6 3.2.45-46) in which case I always use the abbreviation for clarity. There is a list of all the abbreviations floating around on the internet somewhere. Some scholars still use Roman numerals as well (V.v.1-2).

Be sure to check both the English department's website and the application, because Michigan's English website specifically says to ignore the 500 word limit and write as much as you want. It could the the grad school's requirement, not the English department's.

I wrote about how teaching inspired me to want to get a PhD in my first draft and my advisor told me that adcoms don't want to hear warm fuzzy stories of inspiration. I'll second what strokeof midnight said, that you don't need to say "I want to teach and research" because in our field that is expected. Rather, in describing your research interests, it should be evident that you want to continue teaching and that you want to research. I would definitely mention your teaching experience in your SOP, but I would use it as a springboard for other ideas, like "Teaching freshman comp ignited my desire to use multi media in the classroom (or pop lit because it's more relevant to students, or whatever)" instead.

There is an ETS book you can buy with 3 prior actual tests, but I found that all the tests, including princeton's, the online test, and the prior tests to be nothing compared to the real thing. I received much higher scores on the practice tests than I did on the real test, and there were way more classical mythology questions on the practice tests and almost no theory questions. Because of the sparsity of practice tests available I would recommend buying the ETS book (it's not too expensive) but bewarned that it will not be like the real test.

I have scoured the internet for how to guides and examples, and it seems there is no one way to make a CV. Even if there were, I feel my CV is deficient because I am lacking publications and conferences and I have few honors. I don't want to pad it, but I'm not sure what exactly is relevent and what I should excise from my current draft. Please give me your advice: Curriculum Vitae Gingermick gingermick @ gingermick.com 1111Street City, State Phone: 888-888-8888 Education College of the Canyons, A.A., 2005, with honors University of California, Los Angeles, B.A, 2007 Research Interests English Renaissance/Early Modern Period Shakespeare Gender and Women Early Modern Women Writers Honors HITE (High Intensity Transfer Enrichment) Program, 2003-2005 Honors Program, College of the Canyons, 2003-2005 Teaching Experience Tutoring English in Japan, 2008 - current Substitute teacher at Windows English Conversation School, 2009 - current Foreign languages Spanish – proficient Latin – intermediate Japanese –intermediate Italian - intermediate Memberships Modern Language Association, 2010 –current Shakespeare Association of America, 2010- current Travel and Study Abroad Study Abroad in Spain – Spring 2005 Living in Japan - 2008 - current

I too am still debating whether they are worth the cost. I recently made a big amazon purchase, about 20 scholarly books, and only about half of them were available to download to the kindle. Buying the books used was cheaper than the reduced price of buying them on the kindle as well. My family members who have a kindle say it's wonderful to use and easy to read, but I think that you would still have to buy or borrow many of the books necessary for graduate school, like textbooks, criticism etc. I hope santa will bring me one for Christmas so I don't have to cough up the $400 to buy one.