bfat

I took a practice test the day before and scored in the 65%, but that was answering ALL the questions. I think I left about 40 blank on the real exam... I just hope my score doesn't get my app tossed into the trash without a closer look. At least only 3 of the schools I'm applying to require it, and I know for a fact (I asked) that Cornell reads the SoP and writing sample before they look at scores, so that's something of a relief...

The real problem wasn't being able to eliminate and guess, it was getting to all 230 questions in 170 minutes. Considering they ALL refer to passages that you usually need to reread or refer back to in order to answer (and some of them are long and/or in Middle English), I just didn't have enough time to even dedicate a good 10 seconds for guessing. In retrospect, I would have tried to work quicker at the beginning, instead of fretting over each time I had to guess. I hate not knowing the answer, so it's a mini internal struggle each time, especially when I can eliminate down to 50/50. My advice is just guess and move on quickly, because it's best to at least be able to reach the end and then come back and confront those tough ones if you can.

Yes. It was pretty brutal. All that studying and the test was FULL of stuff that wasn't in any study materials... Or in any of my English classes. I think I left about 45 blank. Ouch. But yes, now onto more important things.

So. Who else feels like they were just punched in the face? Ah well. At least now I can focus on the rest of the application.

Can I just complain about the fact that the test tomorrow will literally be the first 3 hours I have had to myself in 2 months? (I have an 8 week old baby, so needless to say, I have done just about zero studying for this). Whimper.

lol, I totally have canon holes. (See what studying for this damned test has done to my brain?) I fully expect to score below the 40th percentile. So long, Cornell...

Where is that being held this year? I'm co-hosting a panel at NeMLA in the spring, but I've never attended a conference before (eek!), so I want to see a few panels in action before I make an idiot of myself in March. If it's within easy driving range of Maryland, I might attend.

Some of the more ridiculous ivies (Yale and Harvard I think?) will post average quant scores even for English programs... and of course they're stupidly high percentiles. Totally unrealistic. I thought I had done decently on the math, or at least that I didn't give a crap, but then I got my score report and saw that the % was in the 70s... I was thiiiiiiis close to getting upset... But then I was all, "Whatevs." I am not taking that damned test again. Math scores can suck it.

Thanks! But don't be in too much awe yet... I might just utterly fail at the whole thing. Congrats to you getting married! I'm still not convinced that I'm not completely insane for wanting kids in the middle of this whole process, but I didn't want to put off important life events for too much longer (that big 3-0 is approaching more rapidly than I'd like). I figured the kid will be about a year old when I actually head off to a PhD program (hopefully), so at that point, we'll have our shit together, right? ... Right?

I used the ones that came with their online course content, which were much better than the ones in any book (they looked just like the actual test, and were in the same format as far as number, etc.). Of course, I had to take one of their courses in order to get these--I took the course last fall, but after I tanked my first exam (due to low blood sugar--long story, but got approval for snacks the second time), I paid a bit more to re-access all the course materials. I found the online course stuff waaaay better than trying to study from books, since the actual exam is all computer.

Ha! That is priceless! But at my university they all wear messy ponytails. Other than that, it's spot on.

Tip: Don't forget pants. Seriously, though, as long as you're not dressed like a streetwalker or literally in your pajamas, I think you'll be fine. I'd avoid the "undergraduate uniform" though, which seems common to all universities: black leggings (those are not pants!), Ugg boots, and a Northface jacket. This outfit drives me bonkers for some reason.

I hear ya. I'm too many years out of undergrad, and I've only really gotten close with 2 professors in my MA--fortunately they are the chair and assistant chair of the English dept., but my third recommender will have to be someone with whom I've had 1 class... or half a class, since I think I'll ask the prof from my upcoming fall course. Luckyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... I'm about to pop a kid out in, like, the next 2 weeks, so I'll be "off" but something tells me that caring for an infant is going to sit slightly higher on my priority list than tracking down LOR writers and revising my writing sample. And I thought I was being all clever about my timing, planning baby for the summer. Ah well, I suppose it'll be worth it.

So. Short writing samples. I've noticed that a few of the schools I'm applying to have requirements for writing samples under 10 pages (Carnegie Mellon) or two samples combined for fewer than 25 pages (UVA). In my MA program, all papers are required to be at least 20-30 pages. Is it better to try to "trim down" these long papers, or to just write totally new samples? Ugh. I have a few papers that are around 10 pages, but they aren't necessarily in the sub-field to which I'm applying, which I'd think would look worse than trimmed down or excerpted pieces. Any thoughts?

Thanks, everyone, this is really helpful. This will be my first real journal submission, so I wasn't sure what the protocol was. I was pretty sure there was no requirement for there to be no citations from the same journal, I just didn't know if it was considered tacky in some way. Glad to know it's not! Thanks again!

Hi sfh09, Are you applying for English or Comp Lit? While Comp Lit programs expect you to have high foreign language competency upon admission, most English programs that I have researched just expect (decent) competency within the first year or two--meaning you could supplement or take courses after you are admitted. It's true that C grades don't look awesome on a transcript, but your overall GPA and your English grades will be far more important, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. You may want to mention in a sentence or two (no more than two) in your SoP (or maybe in your CV?) that you are actually quite good at Italian, but that your transcript doesn't reflect that. Good luck!

Is this a faux pas? I wrote a kind of interesting historiography/film studies/genre paper on historical films about baseball, and I was thinking about submitting it to the journal NINE. But because this is such a specialized journal (baseball and American culture), a few of the sources I cited in my paper were actually from that journal. Will this be looked at strangely, or is it acceptable to reference articles that have been posted in the same journal? I can't remember ever having seen it before... Thanks!

I don't think that adcoms care much about the AW score at all--I've never heard of anyone not getting funding or not getting in because of that score. That's what the writing sample is for. What Stately Plump said--yes. My first (practice) scored writing section that I submitted, I got a 3, and I was like, WTF? But this is one area where the review books were incredibly helpful in reminding me how to write a totally formulaic (but long) essay in 30 minutes. I ended up with a 5.5 on the actual test, and hopefully that didn't go down in the one I took this week...

Yes--this is really important. Are these schools on your list because they are "the best" or because they have professors you want to work with and promote work in fields that you share an interest in? It's best to have a range of 8-12 schools in various ranking "tiers" (i.e. 2-3 ivies, 3-4 top 30, 3-4 top 50, and maybe 1-2 top 100). Really research the programs and professors and the climates of the departments. Once you've narrowed your list, see if you can talk to some current students. The more you know about the school, and the department specifically, the better your application can be to that department (and the better your chances). Good luck!

It may also be important to think about the distinction between "humor" and "levity." Trying to be funny is one thing (which, as many have pointed out, can be very difficult and may end up doing more harm than good), but I think that allowing a little lightness into the SOP here and there might make it more memorable or "less boring" if you are worried about an overly serious tone. Not that the whole statement should be light-hearted or whimsical, which would be contrary to the academic nature of the thing, but lightening the tone in a few places might give it a sense of complexity and make it more interesting to read. Then again, I'm still working on my first draft and so can claim no success with this technique... so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I think as long as you focus on the event as one that was ultimately positive for you--avoiding language that is overly negative and (perhaps too personal) descriptions of the illness itself--and focus on how it affected you academically and intellectually, rather than just personally, this could be a great experience to write about. As long as the rhetorical perspective doesn't beg for sympathy, it won't come off as a sob story, and it does sound like a unique experience, especially combined with time in the military. As the previous poster mentioned, though, I'd be careful to avoid the "kiss of death" of TMI/personal boundaries mentioned in that article. Good luck!

From everything that I've read, including info on admissions sites, the AW section is a total joke--no one cares about it at all, especially if you're submitting a writing sample too. 4.5 is totally fine, and the rest of your score is awesome. Don't give ETS any more money!

I just took the GRE on Monday, and I used primarily Princeton Review practice tests, with supplemental drills from Kaplan and McGraw Hill (the "official" guide). I actually did a wee bit better on the actual verbal than on my practice test the week before, but worse on the math--I felt like there were things on the actual GRE math that weren't covered at all by PR (graphing quadratics? WTF?), while PR focused on things like probability and combinations/sequences that I was really good at... but that didn't show up at all on my test. I could have just gotten a weird test though... or maybe they're changing some of the material that's covered?

The Kaplan book was good as far as exercises and drills, but I also had the Barrons 800 GRE words book--but that took a loooong time to go through and the exercises weren't GRE-based, just general vocab exercises. Most of the really important, frequently appearing words (in Barrons) were also covered by PR or Kaplan. I had registered for a Princeton Review course, and just payed a little extra to maintain my access to the online content (all the drills and supplemental materials), so I got to it through my student site--not sure how you'd access it otherwise. Good luck!