Queequeg

Way to go! Congrats!

Thanks for the congrats! Keep your fingers crossed. And congrats to you as well mostlytoasty!

It's not fake. I posted the result. There was no indication about whether they had contacted anyone else or how many people they were inviting for interviews. I'm surprised I'm the only one who posted an interview up there. So it may well be they haven't contacted everyone yet. Good luck to anyone who applied. To Inafuturelife...I look at the livejournal english 2011 site sometimes. Just checked it, but didn't see anything posted about Emory at all. Was I looking on the wrong community?

My list (all English Lit): Brandeis BU Emory Rochester Penn State UCI UCSB UVA WUSTL Good luck all!

I think you're right that the majority of students will be in their 20s, but there are typically more than a few students in their 30s and older. This, at any rate, was true of the students where I got my MA. I can also report, though my experience may not be representative, that the older and younger students mixed well and there was very little age-related awkwardness that I could tell. By the way, hope Arlington is treating you well. I'm a native (grew up not too far from the intersection of Lee and Glebe and worked at Cherrydale Hardware all through high school). Good times.

I can hardly claim to speak with any authority, but from what information you've given us here, there's no reason you should resign yourself to the snowball's fate. Your numbers are good, pushing the interdisciplinary angle is a wise strategy. And coming to rhetoric from math and philosophy is not like coming to rhetoric from modern dance and business management. Your burden will be answering the questions "Why English?" and "Why now?" (I'm in a somewhat similar spot and this is what I've been told by professors I've emailed with). Make sure in your statement of purpose explains clearly why you want to pursue a Ph.D in English, given your non-English background. It's likely you won't be tossed out, as long as your writing sample is of good quality. If your pool of samples is small, that may not matter. You (usually) only need one very good sample. And don't worry if it's not closely related to what you plan to study. The sample is still important as evidence of your type of approach, style, argumentative and analytical skills, and all sorts of things that give the committee a general idea of how you think about rhetoric. Good Luck!

By phone for $12.

I'm sure ETS has it all figured out. I don't want to call to get my scores for $12, but one of the schools I'm applying to (UCSB) requires your subject test scores, even if unofficial, by the 15th if you want to be considered for "top fellowships". And or course it's worth $12 to be considered, even if I'm a long shot. But that's what sucks. Why doesn't ets just send the scores if they have them and save us the trouble and expense of calling? Because that would be convenient for its customers and kill a whole line of easy revenue. If you can't tell, I have no warm feelings for the ets...though they'll get my $12 nonetheless.