WhereWoolf

Just my two cents worth: I am finishing up my "consolation" MA and going into my third application season to Ph.D. programs. I scored in the 99% on the old verbal (790) and 98% on the subject test, and I really don't think these figured much in any of my acceptances or rejections. I know my scores are much higher than many students accepted into the Ph.D. program at my current school, so clearly they are not a primary factor in admission. (I also got a low [4] score on the writing, I think because I just couldn't bring myself to write a formulaic, five-paragraph essay. Silly me!). I think schools want to see solid, but not necessarily astronomical, scores as confirmation that you didn't have your brother write your recommendations, but I think the importance of the GRE tends to be distorted by us nervous applicants wanting something tangible to cling to in the application process. Programs want flawless and compelling writing samples and SoPs, as well as excellent LoRs, so they can be confident that their chosen few will flourish in their program. Concentrate on your SoPs and your writing samples, they really are much more important. I think that programs are reluctant to publish minimum scores simply because they do not base their decisions to any great degree on these scores. The scores serve as supplemental information used to round out the picture of the applicant. Otherwise, admissions would be very easy since schools would simply accept those with the highest scores, and no one with scores under, say, the 97th %ile would ever get in anywhere, which we know isn't the case.

Rejected too...a sigh of relief. I can get on with my life now!

I mean to say Jbarks has some admissions to some vibrant, exciting programs. The program at Rochester held some surprises for me, to be sure, but education is a process of disillusionment...

Still nothing here...

Email from graduate secretary today: "The first round of letters has gone out. I expect to have the rest of the final decisions soon, and hopefully, will be sending letters out by the end of next week." So don't lose hope just yet.

I wish I could tell you more, but I have no real insight into the process, nor do I know if the acceptance was internal. I heard anecdotally that they would be late this year because there were a lot of applications. Looking back at past years, it is still a little early for them to be notifying. I didn't hear last year till March 10. Other thoughts: the party line at Rochester is that internal applicants have no advantages over externals. The professors I have talked with do stress, however, that applicants with MAs (or in an MA program) are held to a higher standard than BA applicants. Also, from talking with students who successfully moved from the MA program into the PhD, I gather a big factor is the fit between student and faculty interests, which I assume is also a factor with external applicants. Bravo to you for calling the department. Guess we just gotta keep waiting...

If it is any consolation, I am in the MA program at Rochester and also have not heard yet about my PhD application. However, a fellow MA student received a "wait list" last Friday in the mail (not the one posted here).

Hi Tybalt, I have lived in the Maplewood neighborhood for four years now, since moving here from Maine. I do think you are right that buying would be better than renting--real estate is so cheap in Rochester. On the other hand, in comparison with other areas of the country, there is little or no upside potential to your real estate investment. You have to hope to get back what you pay when and if it is time to sell. I live not so far from La Grange. As far as safety goes, here's my two cents worth. In terms of living in a city neighborhood, then the Maplewood nighborhood should seem par for the course. It is not the best neighborhood but it certainly isn't the worst. Maplewood has a neighborhood association with members who genuinely care about where they live. Like Rochester as a whole (and so much of America), it is an area that has seen better days and is in a process of urban decay. In terms of crime, I have had things stolen from my garage and there have been break-ins on my street. I'd think twice about wandering around alone at night. I do think about personal safety in a way I didn't feel I had to in Maine. My house is always locked and my alarm system is always on. So essentially it is life in a city. I grew up in Boston and lived in and had friends who lived in some "bad" neighborhoods there, so maybe my perspective is skewed. Let me emphasize that I like where I live, and certainly do not long to move to one of the suburbs. So that's my two cents worth. I guess I'll see you at U of R. Joe

Thanks, Tybalt, for the kind wishes, and congratulationss on the wait-list...who knows, maybe we'll see one another at Rush Rhees in the Fall...

I haven't heard anything yet...emailed the grad secretary hoping she'd let me know my status and she just said the letters will go out late this week or early next week. If I haven't heard by now, do you think I'm out of the running?

Congratulations! How were you notified?

Congratulations to all accepted. When did the emails arrive? I'm waiting to hear and am soo nervous...

Unless there's a rejection letter waiting at home for me, I'm still in play. Weird how the rejections are trickling in...

I agree about the stress. I check email all the time, spend way too much time on here, and rush home to open the mail. I'm kind of an unconventional applicant...I'm 44 years old, went to Cornell right out of high school, dropped out but continued to read avidly.Various circumstanced conspired to make me decide to give academia another chance last year, andI enrolled in SUNY Empire State College to finish up the B.A. I like school so much I just can't stop lol. I also have two transcripts, one of which (Cornell's) is mixed...but I hope I have good LoRs( all from people I've worked with over the past year), did well on the GREs (790V, 740 subject), and a I hope a decent enough writing sample. I think I'd like to work on 20th Century British and American lit. So we'll see what U of R makes of all this. Good luck to all of us.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the U of Rochester posted...I live in Rochester and after getting rejected by Buffalo and (unofficially) by Yale, they're my top choice.

I second the congrats...I applied there too, so now I'll really be addicted to this forum....

I too am making an eleventh-hour application to Binghamton. Although I had considered them earlier, mostly I am applying because I am feeling the panic. I found their website so confusing and full of contradictory information, theirs was the most complicated application I have encountered. Several times I called the graduate office during the past few days for clarification, but I always got a woman whose heavy Indian accent made it difficult for me to understand (I have a hearing deficit) and who kept telling me "to follow the instructions on the website." Well, somehow I missed all the instructions for the Interfolio procedure (!), and followed a application checklist I found on their website which made it clear that all compnents of the application (recommendations, resume, SoP, etc.), were to be mailed in ONE PACKAGE to the graduate school. I have mailed off my packet with all my required credentials, only to discover the Interfolio requirement today. Oh well. Que sera, sera. If they don't accept the application as is I will point out their website's problems.

I'm applying to English programs at U of Rochester, SUNY Buffalo, and Yale (that's a stretch) for Fall 2011. I just got my GRE scores back, and I too got an unexpectledy low AWA score: 790 Verbal 670 Quantitative 4 (!) AWA My GRE in Literature score is 740. Is this disastrous or just a bump in the road? I know the GRE isn't the only or even primary credential, but I'm a little shaken... Any insight would be much appreciated. Joe