Cato's Daughter

You're not the first. I was on here two years ago (Titus Andronicus), but I couldn't remember my password. Hence, I changed characters (I figure with Shakespeare's character catalogue, I can forget my password a few more times before I need to worry!)

Sarandipity, I dinged you. I was concerned that some posters might feel hurt by the tone of your query. Now that I have read your second response, I think I simply misunderstood the spirit in which you were asking the question.   As I am not the OP, I can't say why in the world someone would do that.  I sincerely apologize for jumping to conclusions and dinging you. I hope you'll forgive me. I'll un-ding you if I can. 




   

Sarandipity, I dinged you. I was concerned that some posters might feel hurt by the tone of your query. Now that I have read your second response, I think I simply misunderstood the spirit in which you were asking the question.   As I am not the OP, I can't say why in the world someone would do that.  I sincerely apologize for jumping to conclusions and dinging you. I hope you'll forgive me. I'll un-ding you if I can. 




   

I'm not trying to be judgy. I don't care what personal decisions people make because it's not really my business. I just can't imagine paying 100K for a Columbia MA in English (or MFA, for that matter), and when I try to put myself in those shoes, I do literally feel a little queasy. Debt is terrifying, and I am legitimately curious what situations would make that amount of debt worth it. I think it's interesting that someone dinged me a red mark just for asking the question--why? Why do people feel this is the best decision for them? I'm not trying to be a jerk, really.

I have no stake in this debate, but those statistics prove absolutely nothing about the quality of the literary scholarship being produced by students and alums. Many mathematicians received verbal scores above 695 and received As in both science and humanities courses, too. Instead, you might want to direct people to, say, published papers by Columbia MA students and grads.



This left me dumbstruck. I simply do not understand why you made the decision you did. The thought of it kind of makes me nauseous, actually. Why in the world?

I'm currently an undergraduate sophomore studying English. I'm definitely interested in pursuing a PhD in English—my interests right now are the realist novel and American lit 1918-1939.

Although I've read a decent amount of theory, I'm looking for lit crit/theory texts that are must reads if I'm preparing for an advanced degree in English.

Also, any suggestions as to productive summer activities? I'll be doing an internship around 15 hours a week, so I'll have time to spare.

Thanks for the help.

I got in with funding...If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Implicit rejections everywhere else I've applied except Columbia, where I haven't heard. I'm in total shock.   

Haha, well, this is pretty bad. But I had fun messing with it.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many an email server that I had just checked before.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some interviewer,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Oh but I am such a bore!

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of worry - worry that had filled my core-
For the many horror stories that make up the adcom yore -
To whom my heart and soul I swore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Not an interviewer entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
A letter there, and nothing more.

Now onto that paper peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the thickness gave no token,
And the only word there written was the number on my door.
“Shit!” I whispered, closed my eyes and slammed the door.
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
The letter called me so much louder than it had before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is good news within that packet;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis good news and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the letter, and, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a kindly reject, condescending to the core.
Not the least allowance made it; for the hours spent in torture;
But, in fifteen fucking seconds, to the ground my dreams it tore -
“With great regret,” and “we are sorry,” brought my future to the floor.
“With great regret” and nothing more.

These are awesome! What a fun idea. I have adapted some lines from Shakespeare's Cassius, the true master of the self-pitying diatribe. Unfortunately, my lines don't quite scan

 

Come, Chicago, and cold Wisconsin, come,

Revenge yourselves alone on this poor applicant,

For she is aweary of the world;

Hated by one she loves; braved by her top choice; 

Check'd like an adjunct; all her faults observed, 

Set in a rejection letter, learn'd, and conn'd by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep


My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,

And here my naked breast; within, a heart

Dearer than the sum of all of your collected app fees, richer than gold.

I that denied thee an adequate writing sample will give my heart
Strike, as thou didst at my friend Jane, 


Whom thou didst waitlist last year, for I know, 

When thou didst hate Jane worst, thou lovest her better
Than ever thou lovest me! 

These are awesome! What a fun idea. I have adapted some lines from Shakespeare's Cassius, the true master of the self-pitying diatribe. Unfortunately, my lines don't quite scan

 

Come, Chicago, and cold Wisconsin, come,

Revenge yourselves alone on this poor applicant,

For she is aweary of the world;

Hated by one she loves; braved by her top choice; 

Check'd like an adjunct; all her faults observed, 

Set in a rejection letter, learn'd, and conn'd by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep


My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,

And here my naked breast; within, a heart

Dearer than the sum of all of your collected app fees, richer than gold.

I that denied thee an adequate writing sample will give my heart
Strike, as thou didst at my friend Jane, 


Whom thou didst waitlist last year, for I know, 

When thou didst hate Jane worst, thou lovest her better
Than ever thou lovest me! 

Shouldn't that be: I fall at the feet of adcoms! I plead!

I am 200...maybe even 300 percent sure that those of you who did not receive the email have nothing to worry about. I would bet anything that it's just a random error. I received TWO of these emails simultaneously, so clearly their system is not perfect. I can't bear to hear you guys worrying about this when I'm sure it's ok.  Meanwhile, I'm slowly going insane because I'm convinced I've been implicitly rejected from one of my top choices. I should take the advice of the fair Ophelia: "Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,And recks not his own rede." XD 

I am 200...maybe even 300 percent sure that those of you who did not receive the email have nothing to worry about. I would bet anything that it's just a random error. I received TWO of these emails simultaneously, so clearly their system is not perfect. I can't bear to hear you guys worrying about this when I'm sure it's ok.  Meanwhile, I'm slowly going insane because I'm convinced I've been implicitly rejected from one of my top choices. I should take the advice of the fair Ophelia: "Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,And recks not his own rede." XD 

Well, I've already posted this somewhere, but I'll repeat it, because I know everyone is looking for everyone else's take on this All Consuming Topic.

I'm honestly not sure how much better my application can get. My undergraduate grades, which are now almost 16 years old, were not great (2.77, although that's only for the last six semesters, following a transfer from another school where I was a Dean's List student with a 3.5 - they would not combine the GPAs, which would have put the cumulative at a 3.1), but I have an MA with a 4.0 GPA from 2009. My GRE scores were OK - abysmal Math, but verbal in the 89th percentile, and a 6 on the writing section. I do, however, have twelve years of teaching experience at the middle school through college levels, in English/Writing, Art History, and French; for the past eight years I have designed and written my classes from scratch and been able to focus on the subject matter I love best, medieval literature and medievalism. I have seven languages with an intermediate to fluent proficiency including Latin, French (Old, Anglo-Norman, and Modern), Spanish, German, Italian, Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, and I have multiple publications already out (Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, Encyclopedia of Medieval Chronicle, Student Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry, a reference book on Literary Romanticism, and an article in the Virginia English Bulletin, among others). My chapter on teaching Tolkien in an Epic Lit class is currently being edited for the MLA Approaches to Teaching Tolkien Volume. I have also presented at multiple conferences, and been a session organizer; next year I will be presiding over a session at my third appearance at Kalamazoo, and I am an active member of multiple organizations in medieval studies. I have also served as a reader and editor for Hortulus, the online medieval graduate studies journal, for the past three years.

In other words, I am a serious, committed and dedicated scholar, and I have clearly demonstrated not only that I have an aptitude for this work, but also that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life; but that seems not to have been enough for admissions officers in the last go-round. I know it was a tough year, and I also know that my undergraduate GPA isn't up to snuff - but there isn't anything I can do about that nearly twenty years after the fact. Since the undergraduate GPA was the deciding factor in my rejections, despite its having been so old and my having the 4.0 at the Master's level, the only way I can apparently redeem the application is to do better on the GRE.

I have therefore spent the summer studying Math with a tutor, and will begin in on reviewing for the English section next week, with an eye to registering for and taking the GRE general examination at the end of September. I am also taking the subject test in October, and have begun reviewing for that. My entire focus at this point is to push those scores up, because everything else in my application, undergraduate GPA excluded, is honestly as good as it can be. My writing samples are from my published and under revision for publication work, and my statement of purpose says exactly what I want to research, why I want to research it, and how I am going to research it.

i have also contacted a different third recommendation, in order to freshen up that aspect of my application.

If I don't get in this year, it will not be for lack of preparation, desire, and working my ass off to that end. But, if I don't get in this year, there's always next year...and the year after that...and the year after that...

And meanwhile, I am still teaching, researching, writing, and publishing, as well as conferencing...so not getting a PhD will be depressing and heartache-making, but it is not going to stop me from being a medievalist.