harpyemma

No hope

In the brief moments i haven't been hitting f5 (and even, gah, reloading the slow-ass browser on my kindle in class), i did learn something today: those who reserve a special kind of love for gingers like to call themselves... redophiles.

I'm also starting to sweat, particularly about Chicago... i really hope they send out the rejections via email and not just snail mail (as it seems was the case last yr); seeing rejections pop upon the results board and then having to wait an extra week for international mail would suck more than a simple email rejection.

Sod's law

Prestige. This reminds me of, i don't remember, some test where they asked kids if they wanted one piece of chocolate now or the whole bar in 20 minutes.

electric blue

Right, but you seem to be missing the point: literature research has not, to my knowledge, been used to kill anybody. Scientific research, of course, has. Literature may be--indeed is--a dangerous weapon. That's why experts are needed: we're the literary bomb squad.

ergonomic chair

jet lag

eye brow

high definition

match stick

grizzly death

sweet potato

mean girls

Well, i don't finish my MA till Sept 3 (or, at least, that's when my thesis is due, but classes finish in June), so that takes care of my summer. I'm planning on using the next 6-8 months to get a publication or two under my belt (either way--though i think i'll be more motivated to do so with a pile of rejections) and work on my language skills. After September, i'm not sure. It's not as though it's easy to find jobs these days. I'm moving back in with my parents' in June, but i don't think they'll start charging me rent till my thesis is in, which helps with the finances--but i'll need a job to raise the spare $1000-odd for next yr's applications! I was considering doing TEFL, but it'd take me too long to make back the outlay for CELTA, especially if i were working abroad. Ideally i'd like to get a job teaching at a private school. Chances aren't good, though. In essence: i don't know.

I think you're probably in the wrong subforum to be expecting news--this seems like it would fit better in the general humanities forum or the languages forum, not literature/rhetoric/composition.

This is very helpful to know, thank you. It's not so much the actual work at grad level that i'm concerned about--i feel like once i get in, you know, everything will fall into place and it will be quite manageable to complete the language requirement even if i'm a little rusty: after investing so much in students (tuition, stipends, etc.), what grad school isn't going to give candidates the best opportunity--summer classes, for example--to pass their language requirements and continue on to be testaments to the school and programme? It doesn't make financial sense, right? What i'm more worried about, though, is how it appears from an admissions perspective: i could be perfectly good at reading in French and Spanish, but without any qualifications (or college-level classes, even) to attest to the fact, surely my application wouldn't be as competitive, everything else being equal, as someone who does have something to show for it? Who would an adcomm pick, Joe Shmoe who has completed 200-level French classes with straight As and says they have a good reading knowledge of the language, or me, self-taught and "just" reporting a good reading knowledge?

Thanks for the replies; i definitely will check out books for children and parallel texts etc.. I was also thinking of watching films in English but with foreign subtitles, so that i can associate what's going on with the text below--which i think will be particularly helpful with films i know very well. I'm really annoyed by my typo in the topic title. That's supposed to be reading knowledge, of course. Argh! The thing i'm most worried about is that even if i do all of this and get my reading ability up to scratch, i'll have no way to prove it--it would literally just be my word.

This is reassuring.

So, i'm already thinking about next year's round of applications to help soften the blow of my eventual rejections. One aspect i know was lacking in my application was foreign languages. Whilst i have studied both French and Spanish, i don't have any formal qualifications in either, besides GCSEs (which, if you don't know, are qualifications you earn in the UK at the age of 16). Even so, these qualifications don't accurately reflect my ability in the languages (at least not my reading ability, which is much stronger than my speaking, listening and writing). And, even if they did, my skills aren't where they should be--i can read news articles but i can't really read fiction and i certainly can't read critical theory. (This is why i lament parts of the UK education system... languages really ought to be a degree requirement for the humanities.) Do you know of any qualifications that would be recognised in the US but available internationally (or at least in the UK) and that aren't ridiculously expensive? Or, failing that, any other ways i can improve my language (reading) abilities? Obviously it would be nice to improve every aspect of my foreign language capabilities, but my primary concern is getting my reading up to where it needs to be. Formal qualifications would help (i remember the horror i felt at not having anything to put on my parts of the applications that addressed language qualifications!), but i really have no money left after the $1000-some i blew on apps this year... What are the things you found most helpful at improving your language-reading abilities?

fewbiofugvlebadfinogheriobvfuoe;bs8uoAOBFUGIR;BGIETOHETO;BETIOBHBHGEITPOHBTIOEBHIOETBHETIOBHETIOHPBETIPOBNEIOGTFBNDOIHGFBHEGIOBE right now i'm less frustrated that i've heard nothing so far than i am by my absolute asshole of a housemate who just went and stuck his pizza in the oven that i'd be preheating to put my casserole in. YES, ASSHOLE, I TURNED THE OVEN ON ESPECIALLY FOR YOU. but the cooking was to distract me from my emails... which is all related. ARGH! shared living SUCKS.

I'd wait at least another week. I bet they're getting hundreds of calls. There's no harm in waiting.

To be honest, it's fairly easy to get into British MA programmes (and when you compare it to US odds, PhD programmes too). Especially as an international student, because the universities can (and do, quite considerably) charge you much higher tuition fees. They won't want your GRE scores, for sure. Forget them. Your SOP will need to be well-written, obviously. Your CV shouldn't be too big issue an unless you've either never, ever had paid employment or done volunteer/charity work. And even then,,, i mean, the bar really isn't set that high. Provided you're not stupid, your LORs are strong, your transcript is consistent and shows high marks and you'll graduate with a good degree (definitely >3.0 GPA), you should be fine.

Your two cents is extremely US-centric.