Bennet

I received an assistantship from my #1 school, which I'm very excited about, except that now I've discovered that their tuition waiver does not cover the out-of-state fee of $755 per credit hour. This is a huge obstacle because I have another in-state school that has a tuition waiver that would cover everything, so I wouldn't be thousands of dollars in debt if I chose to attend that school. However, the in-state school is my last choice, and the out-of-state is my first. I know that if you get a better offer from one school over another, you can try to negotiate, but is it possible to negotiate out-of-state fees? I don't want to reply to my assistantship offer with humble thanks and then throw in there a request to waive or diminish the out-of-state cost when there's nothing they can do, and therefore seem ungrateful for my assistantship offer. Advice/suggestions?

I've applied to several graduate schools with varying deadline dates from January to March, and I didn't expect to hear back from any until April at least. However, University of Central Florida (deadline was January 15) has already informed me of my acceptance, and sent a letter explaining that I should contact them to set up an interview for an assistantship as soon as possible. This letter also ended by saying: "Finally, in accordance with national guidelines, we are asking for your acceptance or rejection of this admission offer within fourteen days of receipt of this letter." I only have fourteen days to let them know whether or not I'm going there? How can they expect that of me? I haven't even heard back from any other schools yet and I have no idea if I'm going to get an assistantship from them, which will be the biggest factor in making my decision where to go. How exactly do I handle this? I don't want to reject the offer because I might want to go there, but I can't accept it without knowing all my options either. Help!

One of the schools I am applying to has a January 1st deadline, so I'm running out of time to get my application materials together. However, I don't want to rush myself because I have been continually revising my SOP and writing sample, and I don't want to apply before I am (mostly) satisfied with my revisions. So I haven't applied to any of my schools yet, and I haven't asked for any letters of recommendation yet. I recognize this a huge problem because I am close to giving my professors only a month's notice, and I know that's unacceptable. So my question is can I ask them to write letters of recommendation for me now even though I'm not actually ready to apply yet? I'm doing all of my applications online so while I'm not ready to submit my materials, I don't want to be last minute with my LOR requests.

I'm applying to graduate programs for Composition and Rhetoric because I want to become a writing professor at the college level. However, while some of the classes of Comp/Rhet courses are specifically geared towards teaching writing, that's not the entire point of the degree, so I'm unsure of how I should approach my statement of purpose. I want to mention that my desire to become a writing professor as a result of the work I did as a writing classroom assistant and a tutor in the Writing Center, but at the same time I don't want that to sound like I'm narrow-minded in my goals, looking into graduate school for the wrong reasons, or unaware of the whole point of the Comp/Rhet program. Should I not mention my future goals at all, or how should I go about handling this aspect of my SOP?

Thank you everyone! The school I've been in contact with is Salisbury University. It's located in Maryland.

I made a bulleted list of everything I knew I needed to include so I wouldn't forget anything, then tried to figure out a logical outline from there. However, I received advice from my advisor to sell your strongest point first, so my first sentence was not a general answer to why I'm interested in the field - it jumped right into how I decided to apply to graduate school so I could continue the research I'd started, followed by a discussion of what I've done so far and then why I'm interested in studying issues in that field. That way I stand out, unlike every other SOP that starts out "I have always been interested in this field since I was a tiny baby child in the womb...." and I grab their attention by immediately giving them what they want to know: I can handle the graduate level research they expect from their students. So you might want to organize your list of points to include by putting the most important first and working backwards.

I just graduated college this past May and am starting my applications for entrance to graduate school in Fall 2012. The professors I talked to for my letters of recommendation want to get them done before the school year starts up again and things get busy, which is understandable. But my earliest deadline is January 1st, and my advisor told me I should take my time revising my statement of purpose and my writing sample, so while I shouldn't be last minute with it, I shouldn't send them in this early. I want to take this advice, but it seems bizarre to me. Is it normal for admissions offices to receive applications in pieces? What will they do when they receive LORs for a person who hasn't even applied yet? I'm taking the GRE August 10th, too, so my scores will probably get to the admissions department before my actual application does. Is that an issue?

Those scores are great, and by the time you retake the test, it will be the revised version, so you'll lose the advantage of knowing what to expect from taking the test before. I wouldn't waste the time and money to retake when it's not even the most important aspect of your application. Be satisfied with your scores and shift your focus and efforts to your other application materials!

I wanted to get a general idea of people's opinions on this. I'm in the process of applying to graduate schools with a MA program in Rhetoric and Composition, and I have a broad range from my reach schools that are well known in this field (Purdue, Miami University, Penn State, etc.) and safety schools that are local for me but name-dropping the universities would hardly be impressive. One of my safety schools has been in contact with me (the result of one of my professors talking to her colleague who is head of the department) and we have "unofficially" been discussing the assistantship I would receive. It would pay for my tuition and includes a nice stipend. This has made me feel better about my application process (although I'm not delusional, I know that email correspondence does not equal official acceptance into the program), but it also makes me wonder. Obviously I'm far off from receiving acceptance/rejection letters in the spring so I don't know what's going to happen, but if I were offered admission to a big name school without funding, yet my safety school offered full funding, which would be better to take? I would go into serious debt to afford graduate school without funding, and I plan on going all the way to my PhD, so the more I think about it, the more sense it would make for me to go wherever gives me the most money. But at the same time, I can't underestimate the importance of an acclaimed university that is prominent in the Rhet/Comp field. So long story short, I'm not getting ahead of myself, I'm just curious of others' opinions who are familiar with the Rhet/Comp field on the importance of a university's name vs. free higher education.

Sorry about the vagueness! I got 540 and 520 Verbal, which are abysmal to me. And natsteel, I didn't say I was applying to a very well known college, I said my GPA was from a college that is not very well known. Sorry for the confusion. I'm applying to a variety of grad schools, some well known and some not.

I am so frustrated. I took the GRE for a second time and my results were still abysmal, despite studying. I don't care about my quantitative score because I'm applying for MA programs in English that all say they don't look at the quantitative score, but they certainly look at the Verbal and Analytical Writing, and I haven't improved. The thing is, I honestly don't think it matters how much I study, I have just always been a terrible test taker, period. I freeze up and panic and second guess myself, and always run out of time. I don't have the money to retake the GRE for a third time, but I'm scared of my scores ruining my application. I just graduated from college with a 3.75 GPA so I hope they would look at that and know I'm not stupid, but I'm worried that won't matter much because it's not a very well known college. Do you think that my GRE scores are really going to ruin my chances? I have to go to graduate school to get the job I want, and I don't want to be held back from my future just because I'm not a good standardized test taker.

Penn State is definitely at the top of my list, thanks for your feedback!

Thank you everyone, I had no idea they didn't look at applications until after the deadline because my undergrad schools all had rolling admissions. That makes me feel much better, and much less rushed so I can take my time to make my writing sample as well written as possible.

Okay thanks everyone. I think I'm going to go with four because I have four strong options that I don't want to choose between, but I'll check with each department first to make sure their rules aren't explicit about a maximum. Thanks again!

Thanks so much everyone, this was all really helpful. I've already started making flashcards so hopefully they will help, and I definitely did overthink everything during the actual test the way I hadn't during practice tests, so I'll try to avoid doing that next time. I really appreciate all of your input, I need all the help I can get before I take the test again.

I took the GRE for the first time today, and I did absolutely terrible, which I did not expect at all because I've been studying all summer and my practice test scores have been much better. I wasn't surprised by my quantitative score because I'm not a math person and I don't care what I get on that, but my verbal was only a 540...and I'm looking to go into graduate school for a Masters in English! I knew the GRE would be more difficult than the SAT, but I got a 700 on the verbal section when I took that four years ago, so I certainly didn't expect to score this low when that's always been my strong point. I couldn't believe how hard the antonyms and analogies were for me, because I did pretty well with them on all my practice tests and I've been studying from GRE Powerprep and the Kaplan book I bought...but I recognized literally only three words from the whole verbal section that I'd learned while studying this summer. The rest were completely foreign to me, and even though sometimes I had a good idea of what they probably meant, the antonym and analogies questions require precise interpretation so my educated guessing clearly didn't work out for me. I wanted to take the GRE this summer because I had time to study. Now I'm going back to school and I have a full course load along with work and an independent study project so time to study could not be more limited. Plus I feel like I don't even know how to study now because the words I was tested on weren't present in my study materials. So my question is this: how did you all improve your vocab word knowledge? What did it take for you to improve your verbal section score if it wasn't what you wanted the first time? I need to get at least a 650-700 to even have at chance at being a contender for the better schools I'm looking at, but I don't have time to sit down and read the entire dictionary. What worked for you, and what do you suggest for me? Thanks everyone.

I'm applying to Rhetoric and Composition programs, so originally I was going to send the paper I wrote my sophomore year for my Rhetorical Theory class about Hitler's rhetoric as my writing sample. However, that paper was only ten pages, and some of my schools require a writing sample of 15-20 pages...and let's be honest, my writing certainly was not as good two years ago as it is now. So I was going to revise it, but I just recently got an independent research proposal accepted for this semester (which has to do with teaching college-level composition, so it's definitely relevant), which I will be working on with the former Writing Program Administrator who has just been promoted to Dean of Academic Affairs. This is really exciting for me, and he even said himself that it will look great on grad school applications, and that if I can put all my findings into a well-developed research paper before application deadlines, it would make a far better writing sample because it will show my "potential to research," which is what all my schools are looking for the most. The problem is, I'll be spending this whole semester working on this project, and the earliest application deadline is January 1st. I've heard before that you should never send your application in close to the deadline because by then, admissions for the department/program are either sold on other applications or just tired of reading them altogether and I won't have as good a shot. Is this true? If so, can I send my application in before with everything but the writing sample, and then my writing sample later when I finish it? Or does it have to be all at once? Or should I just revise my rhetorical theory paper? (I really, really don't want to do this because it would be time-consuming when I'd rather focus on my ind. study research and all the other work I have this semester...plus it just isn't as good a writing sample.) Please vote on the poll as well as provide any advice in reply.

Thanks, this all helped, but I've seen a lot of those colleges before and they're already on my list. I was interested in more of which of these schools have the best name for Rhetoric and Composition, but the more research I do, it seems that everyone says "it's difficult to judge" which is frustrating. If anyone finds anything else that indicates a sort of ranking of best rhetcomp schools please let me know, but otherwise thanks for the help so far.

I have the opposite problem of most people with LORs because I go to a very small college where I'm basically friends with my professors and I've had them all for multiple classes. So instead of not knowing who to ask, I have too many to ask, and all have told me that they want to write an LOR for me. I know I want the professor I've worked with on my independent study to write me one because he was just promoted to Dean of Academic Affairs so that will look great, but I have three other professors who all have their PhDs in the field I'm going into (one of which was also the faculty advisor for the school newspaper, where I was features editor for two years), as well as my supervisor for my internship last fall, and the professor I studied abroad with this summer who absolutely loved me and I know will have a lot of great things to say, but she's a literature professor whereas I'm going into Rhetoric and Composition. So what should I do? Most schools require three, but some of mine only require two letters of recommendation...would it work against me to send them more letters than they asked for? I had one professor say "send as many as possible to show them how many professors have enjoyed working with you and believe in your academic abilities" but at the same time, I feel like it's possibly that schools would get annoyed with receiving more letters than they asked for because they have so many applications to go through. So which is it? Send the limit so as not to overwhelm them, or send 4-5 to impress them?

Thank you so much, this helps a lot!

Schools receive every score you've gotten for the past five years. I'd assume they understand that students take it until they're happy with their score, so I'd hope they'd consider your best score, but they do see any others you have.

I was having an issue with this myself, hearing suggestions that ranged from "apply to as many as have your program" to "be selective." What I found works best is doing a lot of research and finding what you're most comfortable with, then applying to as many as you can afford. For example, I made a list of all the schools who had Rhetoric and Composition as an English concentration, then looked at the required courses for each school. Because I'm more interested in writing pedagogy, I eliminated schools that were more heavily invested in literature and rhetoric, and put programs that had courses specific to composition and writing pedagogy at the top of my list. I also eliminated schools that were great for my program, but were more than 10 hours away from home, because that matters to me. I didn't want to go anywhere that I wouldn't be able to drive home in case of emergency with my family. Once I had narrowed my list according to these criteria, I looked at each application fee, and considered how much it would cost to send my GRE scores to all of them because you only get four scores free. Once I determined the total cost, I decided whether I could afford every single school on my list, and I could. I found that this method helped me find a happy medium between "casting a wide net" and being too selective, and it also helped me realize what schools I'd really be happy going to with programs and professors I'd enjoy learning from. Hope I helped!

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I haven't taken a standardized test in quite some time so I don't know what's true for the GRE. Is it better to randomly guess the answers to remaining questions if you find you have two minutes left for the section, or is it better to keep working the way you have and leave whatever you don't get to blank? Which negatively affects your score worse: wrong answers or blank answers? Thanks for your time.

I'm taking the GRE for the first time this Tuesday, and I've only just learned that you're asked for four schools to send your score to that day and to send them later, you have to pay almost $30 per school. I'm applying to at least ten schools, so that would be a lot for me to pay, but what would be the point of sending my scores to four of them now if I haven't sent in any other materials for my application yet? Also, I plan on taking the GRE twice because I'm sure my scores this first time won't be as good as I hope, so I don't know if I want to send these scores now if the second time I take them, I get better scores. Basically, I'm unsure of what to do the day of the test. I can't afford to wait and send my scores to 10 schools when I'm finally ready, but how do I decide which schools to send the scores to now? Should I send them to my fallback schools, or the ones I really want to go to? Also, has anyone else sent their scores to schools before they've actually applied to them? I can't help thinking that it would be weird for schools to get my GRE scores when I haven't indicated to them in any other way that I'm applying there...and the GRE is certainly not going to be my strong point in my application so it's not the first impression I want my schools to have of me. So advice and past experience on sending scores, please?

I have a long list of schools that I'm looking at to get my MA in Rhetoric and Composition, and I want to narrow it down now that I'm going to start the application process. What are the most prestigious universities that are well known for their Rhetoric and Composition programs? I'm particularly interested in schools on the East Coast, and programs that gear their courses toward writing pedagogy. For instance, several schools have required courses such as "Issues in Composition Pedagogy" and "Teaching College Composition," which I want to be part of my curriculum, whereas others focus more on theory and literature and lack specific pedagogy courses. Also, the opportunity of getting a Teaching Assistantship is a must. Thank you for your advice and suggestions!