dowjonesindustrial

The answer here probably comes down to the schools that you applied to, rather than your particular financial situation. I would advise you to look through the "Financial Aid" section on each school's website for info. I think most of us abide by the tenet "Do Not Pay for Your English Degree." With any luck, you'll be accepted into a program that is more interested in your academic credentials than in saving a buck by charging you for tuition rather than doling it out to someone else free of charge.

I haven't seen an app that actually requires the test to be completed beforehand. But if that's what you saying, then I would go for the "blatantly a placeholder" approach. 999 or 000 or 123. But I would ONLY do that if there is a "date of test" box Immediately Beside the score. You want whoever it is to be able to figure out the issue in less than two seconds.

Well struck. In truth, my SOP has come a long way since then, and I gave up (cf. the post date) trying to impress the members of this board with my snazzy description just about the same time. I agree with your advice, and my statement is altogether clear of nickels. Hopefully the adcom room can remain dead-bunny free while reading a much more straightforward description of trying to work with both postmodernism and cultural studies. But thanks for the belated post. The OP came at a crisis point, a night of cultural otherness, Gadamer and tears

You know I've been wondering the same thing. When a school says "NO MORE than 20 pages," what do you cut? If I have to cut pages to make it under a strict limit, I think the bibliography is going; even the footnotes are out if they say "no more than 20." Your extra 5 pages are tricky though... you might send the whole thing, knowing that no one reads a complete sample anyway...

Two points, which I'm sure most everyone will start from. 1st: The subject test is not nearly as important as your SOP or your writing sample. Don't have a breakdown worrying about whether the test will get you in or keep you out of that dream school. Chances are it will do neither, but will only be one of many general variables in your app. 2nd: That said, when preparing for the test, the choice metaphor is usually that of learning "cocktail party information." You've got to know the superficial basics to tons and tons of material, some of which is virtually guaranteed to be on your test. Unless you have pristine retention of names and dates and periods, as well as the lines of a new poem, and given that you don't have months to study at this point, you're going to want to make a concerted effort to spend the most time with the most "important" material. While you may already have these sites, they're bound to be posted anyway. Nearly everyone on here has probably seen at least one of them. http://www.duke.edu/~tmw15/ http://lasr.cs.ucla.edu/alison/hapaxleg ... eList.html http://academic.reed.edu/english/gre/Wo ... ature.html http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/ (an oddball link of my own, but can be useful for when your 75 vol masterplots edition isn't handy) Take the practice tests (look around for the Princeton review test, the new ETS sample test and the old one; if you really want, you can scare yourself with REAs but you don't really have the time for that) to get a feel for what 240 questions straight is like. Realize that it's a situation where you just have to do your best, and try and squeeze the most return out of your time from now until test day as you can. Hope that helps. Good luck.

As it turns out, another adviser told me rather pointedly to ignore the previous professor's advice (I'll leave out her personal criticisms). She, much much more recently matriculated than the pessimist, assured me that honesty to your interests is the best course. In the first, it is the only approach in which your genuine enthusiasm can come through; secondly, the AdCom will pick up on any falsity or pandering in your SOP; ultimately, the SOP is a chance to evoke your passion and commitment to research in the field (with some specificity), not your be-all-end-all declaration of one warring faction over another. And, for the few who might care... Just to attempt a more focused iteration of the above plan of study: I want to try and read the 'indeterminacy' of PoMo texts not as an interpretive miasma, or simply as a reflection of the disorder of modern society, or any basically pejorative readings of a subjective narrative aesthetic, but instead to see in these texts a severing from ritualized readings of symbol, a constructive (if necessarily anxiety-causing) opportunity for encountering cultural otherness through placing the burden of emplotment on the reader. Emplotment here used in Ricoeur's universe - when the rhyme and reason of time-as-being break down in a novel, we are left to assemble an incomplete story, and maybe we have to reconsider our own values to do so. A vulgar and reductive example: An anti-Semite reading Jewish non-fiction sees nothing that doesn't fall into his customary patterns of interpretation; but when culture comes through a story drenched in magic realism, or a narrator who is totally unreliable, or even through a uniform comedic absurdity, its not so easy to stay lodged in the self-same hermeneutic circle. Blech. That's a crude little paragraph, but I hope you get the idea. It's still a project and not a thesis, obviously. No authors picked out, not even a particular cultural 'other' in mind (although Judaism, because of its unbelievably rich history of interpretive self-questioning, would be a suggestive case study. Plus who would mind writing on Phillip Roth?) Since I've sorted the SOP (out more or less), I guess this thread can go to rest peacefully, unless anyone would like to discuss/violently attack my interests or the body of theory I've laid out here.

I very recently received some harsh feedback from a former professor/adviser of mine about my statement of purpose. This draft is built around my interest in joining the subjective literary mechanisms of postmodernism with the hermeneutic and phenomenological tradition (just getting it out there). The argument, put plainly, goes something like: by embracing subjective narration, these texts are built for an ambiguity of address appropriate for issues like race, religion, sexuality. So here's the trouble: while I believe that my line of research could be constructive for the literature of race/gender/etc, my SOP doesn't foreground these issues themselves. What it foregrounds are thinkers like Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur, and the aesthetic of postmodernism. Or, "in the parlance of our time," dead (and yet often immensely unpopular) white guys and a played-out branch of study. Do you think that one ought to stick to their guns, no matter how unfavored? Or that a little foregrounding of how my interests can be beneficial to "hot topics" can't hurt? Or give up entirely and declare myself a student of Comparative Cambodian Crossdressing Literature? (no offense to those interested in any subset of that joke, but three rights can make a wrong; respect) There must be a few of you out there with similar worries...

I agree with the above. As to the 'fit' with schools, it would be easier to judge knowing your field/area of interest. If you are, just as an example, going to study computer science and want to focus on a programming language that only 1 school has faculty working with, that might be a serious problem. If you are an applicant in the humanities, however, you are much more likely to find groups of people doing interesting things in your time period/methodology than someone doing your exact line of research. A singularly perfect match may be great, but you definitely want to be looking for the programs with the "vibe" of your research. Both Harvard and Western Nowhere will reject you if you don't connect to the program at large, and both will excuse sub 700 GREs if you are a perfect fit (and the rest of your application shines to blind).

roflcopter. But seriously, I think that articulating your interests effectively and sincerely is the very thing that gives your application individuality. In some cases (Law and Medical school mentioned by someone above), the anecdote is an useful way to convey your personality. But in many fields, your strength of character is demonstrated by a vibrant interest and professional commitment to your subject matter, not by a story, or a gimmick, or "being insane" in any way.

I appreciate that the process will take some serious work. But I graduated in May, so I have plenty of time to devote to making sure that my full attention goes into each application. Nonetheless, a genuine thanks for the feedback. It's always challenging to go through the "can I see myself in Iowa/LA/Buffalo" routine, and it's exactly what I'm allowing to be the last obvious culling variable for my pool of programs. I'd expect that when all is said and done the list is 13-15 and not 17.

Well, my replies to the last couple posts all weave together. After much consideration, I decided to forgo the M.A. track right now. The number of schools that offer funding is very small, and -assuming that it is in fact possible for me to get into a PhD program as I stand right now- I don't see the reason to apply to UVA for an M.A. instead of UVA for a PhD. You professors will tell you that there are many paths to a doctorate, and I appreciate that I'm taking the most difficult by trying to do it head on, but I believe that I can. As to the 17 schools, well, that's the other side of my internal debate. I'm not a sure-shot Cornell/Brown PhD candidate (if there is such a thing). But after talking with my professors, I think I'm right on the cusp of getting into a strong program. I'm going to try a wide middle ground of PhDs, believing that I can get into to at least one of these schools. Rising_star, I understand completely your reservations about quality control on this many applications, but given that my background is limited to undergraduate studies, I have elected a more conservative tone for my statement of purpose. In other words, while I address the characteristics of the department, I don't pretend to know my dissertation topic, and therefore laud the work of one particular professor for having done work in just what interests me. I point out the couple of faculty members who cover topics of interest to me, and, say, the tendency of the Americanists to incorporate popular culture into their research. I don't want to seem like my way is the right way; I'm definitely still in the process of figuring this out. I have, however, had one unpleasant go-around, and am trying to learn from my mistakes.

While I'm not a senior poster here, I have done my fair share of research on admissions chances, with professors and fellow applicants. I think that you have every right to apply to Harvard with the background you've amassed. You've got a chance, and you should take it. To be honest, I would say the same even to an applicant with a slightly less impressive resume than yours. It's not wise, however, after determining that you have a chance at a top 5 school to think of yourself as Deserving It. That's important to keep in mind, I think. There's a degree of fit (as well as some would say luck) that you won't have control over. You've done steps A-Y. You can be proud of that. But Z is out of your hands. Z is why we apply to more than 1 school. Which prompts my question to you: are you applying to enough schools? schools that aren't Harvard, but that you would be happy to attend?

I can't help but notice that so far the number schools applied to is running on the short side (<10). I got burned applying to only 9 schools last year (including too many Ivies), and my mood has swung all the way back to "apply to as many schools as you find that are good fits". Which... at present... is 17. Excessive? Maybe. But I have no intention of another "off year" at this point. To those applying to so few schools, and often very good ones, I would ask: Is this not your first time applying? Or is it pure confidence?

Actually, I feel as though many apply to too few schools. Why do you believe that this list is too long?