harpyemma

No, it was at the uni where i did my BA. By the time applications started coming due i'd only been at Manchester for 10 weeks and had had no assessments back; that's no time to expect glowing (or even vaguely personalised) LORs. When i reapply next year, though (as seems likely), i'll be going for two if not all three from Manchester. Not Bibler. though.

I should add, i'm in the UK and my reasons for asking to see the letters lie in the very different cultures between the US and UK: namely one's fondness for understatement. From what i've heard, it's pretty standard for a LOR to say "X was the absolute best student i've ever taught even in my life" and go on like that for pages. In the UK, things tend not be over-egged like that. Only one of my LORs knew anything about the US system (he was himself American), so it seemed sensible to ask--it didn't hurt--on the offchance that they might say yes. I know friends who have had some really bad experiences with LORs,

I asked, fully knowing it was gauche in the extreme, and was refused. They did all assure me, however, that the letters would be glowing, stellar, etc.. It can't hurt to ask, really. You'll look a little awkward, maybe, but you can always put it down to anxiety and obsessiveness.

Last night was the only night since late Jan that i didn't spend all evening checking my emails. And it was only because (cue pretention) i was at a *cough* Judith Butler lecture *cough*. Although, that didn't stop me obsessing--i saw that David Eng was also in attendance, who's one of my POIs (and we have corresponded a bunch) (although !":@"!@:##!'&'/#/'/'#/' my UPenn application remains incomplete on account of one LOR and my backup fourth LOR both going on sick leave and being incommunicado) and i was reeeeally tempted to be like "hey Dave, nice sweater; you have no idea who i am right now butcanyoutellmewhengraduateadmissionswillsendmyrejectionthrough?". Luckily, my roommate stopped me. I'm making myself ill.

Fingers crossed here, too. Where it's also Wednesday (UK represent!...?). And i'm still sitting here refreshing my goddamn emails even though i knoooooooooow nothing will come in the middle of the night (save the nightmares...).

Except today is Tuesday.

Congrats from me to the first Chicago admit. My heart jumped into my mouth when i saw it. Will now be even more obsessively refreshing my emails.

Not even McGill...?

Oh, i'm currently at Manchester doing an MA myself. I have, for various reasons, decided against applying for the PhD programme here. Or anywhere in the UK. It just doesn't match with my career goals (i.e. getting a decent teaching job in the States).

Hey all, I may be jumping the gun, but nonetheless i am being realistic, particularly given one of my LORs has been incommunicado since October and has been on sick leave since late Nov, hence has not submitted, and my replacement LOR only submitted for three schools, even two of my applications incomplete. So, i'm assuming i'm looking at five rejections... and i know i need to work on how to improve my chances for next year. Here's me: I did my BA (English) in the UK at one of the best places for English in the country, but it's not really known worldwide. I also did a year abroad at a very well-known and highly-regarded liberal arts college in the US. I graduated with First Class Honours. I'm currently doing my MA (English and American Studies) at the second most highly-ranked postgrad English programme in the UK (different institution). However, it's not Oxbridge, and to be honest i don't think it's too well-known outside of the UK. It looks like i'll graduate with a Distinction (the system, for those not familiar, works on a Fail, Pass, Merit, Distinction basis). I scored highly on my BA dissertation (looking at sadomasochism and feminist psychoanalysis) and will be doing an MA thesis, though the topic is as yet undecided... My GRE scores are 720V 670Q 5.0AW. My subject test is... abysmal: 36%ile. I don't especially want to take it again, because i'm still clingy to the vain hope that adcomms will recognise that the focus of my degree(s) has not been on the canon, and the test is pretty crap anyway. I know i probably ought to take it again, though. I don't have any journal publications, but i've had a few articles published in my UG uni paper, and i'm in the process of submitting a couple of papers to vaguely "scholarly" magazines. I'm tempted to try for journals... but wary. I have reading knowledge of French and Spanish, but nothing to prove this fact--only my testimony. Is it worth getting formal qualifications? Are there any internationally-recognised qualifications that would work? My writing is abysmal, but my comprehension is good. My teaching finishes in May/June but i don't submit my thesis till the beginning of Sept.. What i'm trying to figure out is what to do between June (or Sept) and beyond, at least until apps are due in Dec/Jan. I want to improve my profile--temping as a bank clerk is unlikely to cut it. Any ideas (in a recession!)? Oh, i should add, my research interests are fairly directed, but scattered--gender, sexuality, identity, disability studies, critical theory (esp. psychoanalysis), C20/21 poetry and the novel as regards all of the former interests. Oh, and i'm looking at: UC Berkeley (Rhetoric); Stanford (MTL); UPenn, Chicago, Duke, Vanderbilt, maybe Toronto; Manchester, Cambridge, maybe York Any advice would be gratefully received!

Add to that, excessive levels of "masochism" coupled with "imperfect" grades doesn't look good. So unless you've achieved a perfect 4.0/equivalent, it's not going to, probably, make you look like a more promising candidate: If you're THAT committed and THAT hardworking (and you're emphasising it), it's going to stand out that you still haven't managed "perfection". I certainly would rather accept someone (to the grad school in my imagination, obviously) who didn't emphasise the SOOOOO MUCH WORK THEY DID and ALLLLLLLL THE NIGHTS THEY SLEPT IN THE LAB but who got the same (or even slightly lower grades). If someone's going flat-out all the time and getting a 98% performance, bully for them. But if someone's going at 75% of their maximum in terms of effort and they're getting 98%, they're the stronger candidate. Or even if they're getting 97, 96, 95%. I dunno if this is getting my point across...

Right, but it looks damn unprofessional coming from the Graduate School of one of the US's best-ranked universities. There's also a little thing called "spellcheck" and another little thing called proof-reading. It's also spelled fine in the body of the message. It's just sloppy. On the other hand, presumably typos aren't really a big deal at Princeton, so don't worry.

Who else found that misspelling really, really irritating? I bet someone's head's going to roll for it, too.

Have you tried the OU? Also, from what you've written, it seems like you're planning on doing the MA whilst you do your UG degree. If so, i don't think that's very wise.

Chicago UPenn Princeton Harvard Brown Cambridge McGill WashU Exeter York Manchester UCL maybe Warwick maybe Vanderbilt Focus: gender, sexuality & queer studies; disability studies; psychoanalysis/critical theory; 20-21C

I huge number of us have done it. I had 'postmoden' in one of the SOPs i submitted yesterday. Caught it about 30s after i submitted the app. Oy.

One of my recommenders, MP, has gone on sick leave. She was out of touch with me over the last couple of weeks, but, not wanting to nag her, i assumed that she just isn't the type to keep people constantly updated. She's always been very happy to write my letters, so i thought it was all good. I emailed her last week just to remind her and to let her know that she should have received requests for letters from XYZ institutions, and i got an auto-reply saying she's on sick leave! (NB: i'm currently doing my MA a few hundred miles away from where i did my BA, and where MP is based). I redirected my email to the dept. secretary immediately, but she only got back to me today--saying that she forwarded my message and perhaps MP will pick up the message at home. I've got three other referees for Chicago, so that's not too much of a problem (although MP supervised my undergraduate dissertation and i'd really like to have her letter in there, for obvious reasons), but for UPenn i've only got the other two. The other places i'm applying all have deadlines two weeks from now, so that's not as much of a worry. What i'm really worried about it UPenn. I've emailed the graduate coordinator as ask whether i can use somebody else, but as yet no word. I'm not sure what to do! ARGHHHH!

It was. Getting it there on time wasn't the issue--a friend in the US offered to overnight it and did so today. The trouble is that i had banked on having 3 extra days to edit it, and being so up against it, time-wise, has led to an extremely unpolished document being sent Chicago way. I'm feeling do disheartened now i might just drink a bottle of Ouzo and forget everything.

I could cry. It's just one fucking thing after another, it seems. I know, it's my fault for not checking between August and now... (Other things that have happened in the past few days/weeks include one recommender going AWOL; another going on sick leave and being uncontactable for that reason (neither of them having submitted my LORs; discovering the wackness of Chicago's online application and how they wanted a hard copy of my WS by Weds--yesterday! (living in the UK really made that one a challenge!); getting my Subject scores today (much better than i'd expected, considering i've a UK education and i'm a Gender/Queer/Critical Theory/C20 specialist and have taken a sum total of two classes outside of those fields in both my BA and my MA education) and realising that i'm probably frozen out of Harvard and Princeton and now this. I wouldn't be as upset if it weren't for the government cuts here in the UK. Even if i really, really wanted to do a PhD over here, there are ten--just ten--funded English places between the top three research unis. I'm literally on the verge of tears. And i know it's all my fault. Ugh.

So, i've had December 15 written down on my desktop, in a spreadsheet, on various bits of paper, in my filofax as Columbia's deadline for Eng/Comp Lit Ph.D.. I just logged onto ApplyYourself tonight to check by exactly what time on Weds i need to submit it, and i couldn't find a deadline written anywhere, so i checked on the Dept website and to my horror saw the following "December 1". Am i a total scatterbrain? Did i write it down wrong *everywhere*? Or did it change? Uggghhhh.

I actually did do a first sweep (Nov test). Though a lot of the questions were related to the passages, plenty of them had line references and buzzwords so that i could tell whether or not it was worth attempting first time around. I didn't pause for too long on anything, and if i found myself getting too embedded into a question i'd move on. I ended up doing three sweeps through. Of course, only time will tell whether the strategy worked. I'm not placing too much emphasis on the test--rightly or wrongly--because i think it's flawed. Moreover, i'm a critical theory/C20 specialist... i would hope addcoms will recognise that the test is not geared towards people like me! We will see.

I took the GRE last Monday, so 11 days ago. I checked online yesterday to see if my scores were up and they weren't, but below that bit it did say that my scores were sent on Nov 17 to the 4 institutions i picked post-test. I then added the other three institutions i wanted scores sent to, paid, bla bla bla... checked back this morning, scores have been sent to them. However, it still says "absent or not available" underneath where my scores would appear. Is this normal? I guess i don't get why, if my scores are done and ready to send/have been sent wherever they need to go, i can't view them online. Is this usual? Cheers.

I'm surprised your quantitative score isn't lower if you can't work out that (480+580) > 1000.

Right, point taken. But it seems really inordinate the amount of time and worry that so many people, judging from the contents of this subforum, set aside just for the GRE. I was lurking around here on occasion in the weeks coming up to my test and it made me anxious just reading all this fretting! Having taken it now, i just feel like saying "sit down, have a cup of tea, have a slice of toast, you'll do fine". I think the "it's not a big deal, don't worry" message needs reinforcing. Admissions teams aren't composed of monsters--they are real people who recognise that some people don't test well or get (as it seems here) really anxious about exams. GRE scores, which reflect your performance in one three-hour period on one day of an average of four years of university education, aren't upheld as genuinely indicative of graduate potential. 3hrs/4yrs--that's a teeny tiny fraction. So... chill out? I get that, to some extent, one needs to play the system--it doesn't seem like the GRE, fairly impotent though it may be, will be dropped as a general requirement for grad school applications any time soon--but it's such a small, small thing! Retaking the test over and over seems like an awful waste of time and money. And heartache, to be honest. Why put yourself through that for a test with marginal influence?

The GRE. Seriously. For one thing, it's not exactly a brilliant tool to use to assess someone's potential and admissions teams know this. It's nothing like the be-all and end-all of your applications that so many believe it to be; i'd personally be more concerned with getting my writing sample, recommendations and SOP perfect before i gave even one second's thought to the GRE. For a second thing, it's not even that difficult. I'm coming from the UK educational system and i've never taken a standardised test in my life. I've never done an analogies or antonyms test, for example (whereas i believe they're common practice in the US from about middle school, no?) Moreover, the UK system forces students to begin specialising their education from the age of 15/16 and, to that end, i haven't had a maths lesson or taken an exam in maths (or physics, or anything involving maths) since i was 15. I didn't do any revision for the test and showed up yesterday to take it not even having used the PowerPrep CD that ETS sent me (it cracked in half in the post). I don't think i did too badly: 670 verbal (95%ile), 720 quantitative (75%ile). The Q score, especially, is not too shabby for someone who hasn't seen an exponent or a root sign or, indeed, anything remotely mathsy, since their early teens. This surely goes to show that it's not difficult... no? Truly, it's really *not* a taxing test. Granted, i would have liked a better verbal score, and had i put a bit of effort into brushing up on my obscure vocab then i'm sure i could have... but it's so, so not something to sweat over. It's not a massive ordeal and it simply doesn't take months of swotting to get a decent score. Living proof, right here. Chill, breathe, it's not that bad!