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Gingermick

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Everything posted by Gingermick

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!
  5. Columbia Stanford Toronto Northwestern UPenn UCSB UCDavis Michigan Penn State Vanderbilt Indiana Bloomington Brown WUSTL Renaissance Lit/Shakespeare/Women and Gender Good luck everyone!
  6. 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!)
  7. 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!
  8. Last year's deadline was Dec 15, and Columbia updated its website in September to reflect the new date.
  9. 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).
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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
  14. 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.
  15. Some people may have better language departments in their brain, but I tried to take Italian and Spanish in the same year during my undergrad, and it was really confusing. I was fairly proficient at Spanish and only taking beginning Italian but I ended up dropping Spanish because they were congealing together in my head. Even now, I live in Japan and Spanish words pop out now and then. I think my brain divides languages into "English" and "other" and it's a pain trying to separate them. However, my Italian and Spanish background have been really helpful for Latin, as I imagine your French will be. As it is, I am fairly sure that after just one year of Latin I could pass one of those translation tests with a dictionary. It seems like you want to go much further with your Latin though, so I don't know if it would be better for you to study both or concentrate on one.
  16. Booktobook- Harvard has a number of online courses that you can choose to take for undergrad or graduate credit (I believe more work is involved if you choose graduate). UMass sometimes has grad seminars, but so far I've only seen the medieval lit seminar that Branwen is taking, no other periods or genres. But UMass has many many other online offerings, more than most other schools I've looked at. Yale and Oxford have some really interesting courses that were video taped and then put online, so you can't take them for credit but you can learn a lot. Also, many of the UC Extension programs, like UC Berkeley Extension and UCLA Extension, offer for credit online courses. I like the Berkeley ones because they are mostly open structured - you start whenever you want, and you have 6 months to complete the course. I haven't seen a grad seminar from Berkeley though. For languages, I'm currently taking Latin through UMass. So far it's a breeze. I wouldn't recommend taking an online course if your goal is actually to learn to speak the language, but with Latin and any languages you are learning just to pass the language requirement for grad school, I think online is the perfect medium. Rosetta will be more helpful if, for example, you want to travel to Germany and ask how to use the bathroom. And I'm not hating on language tapes, I love my Pimsleur and it really helped me when I was traveling, but it never taught me to read or translate. Like Stroke said above, online courses are just as expensive as regular courses. So far, the courses I took have run about $1000 a course. Hope this helps.
  17. What did you guys put on your CV if you had no publications and awards? Most schools still ask for one, but should you pad it with relevant courses taken and work experience (even if it's unrelated)? I feel like mine will be very short.
  18. I am not sure I qualify to answer your question, as I have not yet applied to graduate school, but I also got my scores back last week and I received a 640, 82 percentile. I will not be retaking. I also am several years out of undergrad, and studying for that test took a huge amount of time, time that I feel will be better spent writing and perfecting my SOP and writing sample and preparing 10 or so applications. I too lacked theory knowledge and American lit, and almost all the questions I left blank were those easy match the theorist to their book questions, but I don't think it's worth it to put in another 3 months of studying to raise my score 10 or 20 points. I am also looking at UCLA and Harvard, and while I know that a sub 650 score won't help us, I don't think it will hurt us either. I think that, like you said, the writing sample and SOP will be the determining factor for most schools, even Harvard and UCLA. If you can put the next three months towards a better writing sample I think it would serve your application better.
  19. Branwen, are you taking Latin with UMass Online? If you are, I might join you in the upcoming class. To the OP, I worked at a law office for a year, and now I live in Japan tutoring English. I'm also taking online classes, because I graduated a few years ago and I want my application to reflect my recent work.
  20. Thank you again for the advice! They all have PhDs, and Professor B is a Senior Continuing Lecturer who has been at my undergrad for a long time. The Lecturer from my online class got a PhD from my current #1 choice of graduate school, and currently lectures there. I believe she is also a continuing lecturer, as she has been there a while. I think I will take your advice and contact all of them in advance, and perhaps have 4 recommenders if they all agree.
  21. Thanks for the sound advice, Fuzzy, especially about bringing work samples and CVs. Even if Professor A doesn't remember me, perhaps he will be sufficiently impressed by a writing sample to write me a letter.
  22. I have been out of undergrad for about 4 years, and have decided to apply for a PhD in literature. I am having trouble trying to decide who to ask for my letters of recommendation. I took an online class that I got an A in, so I will definitely use that professor (actually lecturer). While the difference between lecturer and professor means very little to me (some of my best undergrad teachers were lecturers), I have heard it's best to at least have one full professor write you an LOR. I've also heard for literature that letter from employers are useless. So possible candidates from my undergrad: Professor A: Big name in my field, fancy schmancy super distinguished professor status, but I took a huge lecture style class with him and he probably will not remember me. Got an A- in his class, but I can't remember the T.A. so I'm not sure if a lukewarm letter from a big name would help me at all. Professor B: Actually not a professor, just a continuing lecturer, but I took 3 classes with her and I expect of all my undergrad professors she will remember me the best. The only problem is I received A-'s in all her classes, so clearly I am not "the best student in the past 10 years" according to some of those rec forms. Professor C: When I took her class, she was just a lecturer, but now she is a TT Assistant Professor at a different, big name school (my undergrad was a good school, but this school is slightly higher on the hierarchy). Only took one class with her, but I got an A Employer Reference: would write a good letter, but not relevant to my field, as the boss is a lawyer. Since my LOR from the online class if from a lecturer, I am wondering if my letters will not be considered as strong if they are all from lecturers. Who would you choose? The big name, the lecturer who knows you, the rising professor, or the employer? Who's your second choice?
  23. Thanks for all the replies everyone! I really like the looks of UCLA's Renaissance program but I went there for undergrad (some years ago), and I've heard that many schools will not consider you for graduate school if that is the case. I don't want to waste my money applying if they are just going to chuck my application in the trash as soon as they see their name on my transcripts, but I don't want to pass up an opportunity apply to a great program where I think I would fit well. Does anyone have advice regarding applying to your undergraduate institution for graduate school?
  24. Thanks for the replies so far! To clarify, I would like to pursue an English PhD with a specialization in Renaissance Studies. I have a really long and rather random list of schools to apply to next fall, so I'm just trying to find out other people's opinions on the best schools so I can narrow down the number of applications.
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