Tybalt

If the better ranked school is Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Etc? Then the better ranked school will lead to more job opportunities. If it's a choice between schools with comparable reputations overall, then the one with the specialty reputation will generally be better. Ultimately, the best way to figure it out is to talk to the grad secretaries at the schools you are considering. Get detailed stats (ie: don't settle for "x% of graduates get jobs at blah blah blah." Ask specific questions. Where have graduates landed tenure track positions over the last 5 years? Who were the last few students to complete their degrees with my proposed advisor? How did they do on the job market? How long did it take them to finish? Etc etc etc). The more specific the info, the better you can get a sense for how that program places people. That info will be FAR more useful than anything speculative that I could write.

The poster who mentioned the HYP hype is spot on. I think all of the programs you mentioned are "top tier" All I'm saying is that the perceived top of that top tier, based on hiring trends, seems to open the most doors on the job market. Particularly with Harvard and Yale, the sense is more "when they get a job" instead of "WILL they get a job." I think all of the schools you mentioned have the cache to open doors for R1 jobs, but with lesser odds than Harvard and Yale. Letterhead from a program like mine (and to be clear, I've had an amazing experience and don't particularly want to land at an R1 job) won't really cut it for R1 job postings. BUT, the experiences I've been able to have at my program could actually make me more competitive for certain teaching centered positions. It's not really a science and there are no clear, concrete markers. The loosely defined reality is this: If you want a shot at a R1 TT position, you should really angle to get yourself placed as close to the top as possible in terms of name cache. If that is less of a concern (ie: if you would be just as happy, or in my case happier, at a teaching centered school), then you can expand your search a bit more within reason. And even that statement has caveats and exceptions (you could, for example, do your PhD at a highly regarded 2nd tier school and then do a post doc at an elite. The post doc letterhead would then open doors that your PhD institution wouldn't. A friend of mine went that route and landed a job at an R1 last year).

Yes and no. There are tiers of programs with no clearly defined borders. You mention Penn, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, you know you are talking about tier 1 schools. Where tier one ends and tier two begins is a different story, however. Pick a school that is very highly regarded (say a UVA or a CUNY), and ask a dozen people which tier it's in, you'll likely get a slew of different answers. At that point, sub-field comes into play, too. Some schools are known for a particular field (like Notre Dame, Fordham, or Rochester for Medieval for example). So a school that might be viewed as tier 2 or 3 for one sub-field might be seen as a tier higher for another. Some schools are more highly ranked in a particular geographic region as well. There's nothing concrete about it. Top ivies open doors with their letterhead. Beyond that, it all comes down to context.

It ultimately comes down to the kinds of jobs you want and the number of opportunities you will have. If you in any way want to land a job at a research oriented school, you need to be in a top 10 to 15 program. And even then, if you are closer to 10 than you are to 1 your odds are going to get exponentially more difficult. If you want to land a job at a teaching oriented school, top 40-50 programs can still get you there. It will be more about what kind of package you can present (CV, professional activity, demonstration of service, ability to wear multiple hats, a variety of teaching experiences etc). The top research institutions are looking for potential for prestige. The teaching centered schools are looking for someone they think will stay there for 30 years, so they tend to be more focused on fit and culture than the research schools. The reality is that jobs come down to two things--letterhead and accomplishments. Letterhead opens a lot of doors. Your accomplishments will land you the jobs.

This. When it's as close a call as it is for you, you pick the school 40 rank higher. If school A was a lousy fit and an unhealthy atmosphere, that would be one thing (because toxic leads to added stress, added stress leads to not finishing, and if you don't finish then placement history means nothing). But from the sounds of it, you just seem to have a bit of a wistful urge to go to the second school. If it really is as close as you say, go with the first, higher ranked school. You'll thank yourself five years from now. And @lyonessrampant, how crazy is it that we are job marketing this year? Wasn't our app season just a few weeks ago?!

I worked with a semi-recent UPenn grad (medievalist) here at Rochester (she got a job here as the Robbins Library Director, but just had to leave because her partner got an amazing job in England). From my conversations with her, I'm not surprised at all that Penn's placement rate is so high. To hear her talk, Penn puts a HUGE emphasis on professionalization. That, plus Penn letterhead will lead to job offers. It's second-hand info, but I figured I'd toss it out there.

I started my program at 31, so there's always hope! A good friend was in his 40s when he was accepted to Indiana, too, so while it really is different program to program, age IS just a number! Out of curiosity--when I saw your sig line (the bit about Shakespeare and education, which are also interests of mine), I scrolled back to see how you defined your research interests. Have you thought of looking at PhD programs in education? Your proposed project in previous posts seemed to be more on the education side of things.

Hi folks, Bumping this old post of mine, as the abstract deadline for NYCEA 2016 is coming up soon (though it might be extended). This year's conference theme is "The Value of the Humanities and Writing in the 21st Century," and the conference will be held at Suffolk County CC-Ammerman in Selden, NY (Long Island). The brief version--great small conference. Particularly useful for grad students (grad professionalization panel, good odds of winning the grad paper prize/cv line, great networking opportunities, etc). All the stuff from the original post still applies, so I won't repeat it in this follow up, haha. You should totally submit something! If you are new to conferencing and wary of submitting something, we have a new grad student attendee rate where you can do all the conference-y things to get your feet wet in a low stakes (and low cost) environment. Hope to see you there! Scott http://www.nycea.org/fall-2016-conference.html

My suggestion would be to just divide the publications by type. Add a sub-heading to your publications section for "Literary publications" and list them there. Programs that don't care will likely skip right over it, but some programs (and by programs, I mean "random professor on the search committee") could view that favorably. In other words, I can't see many situations where it would hurt you, and there might be a case or three where it will help you stand out.

I don't know all of the funded MA programs, but I do know that U of Delaware has been pretty well-funded. Beyond that, based on your interest in theory, it might be a good idea to look at UBuffalo's PhD program. Theory is pretty much their calling card. Alternatively, you could look at Cornell (they host a very well-regarded summer theory program every year).

And no one does. That was precisely my point. With all of one year of MA work under my belt, I had no idea what I was doing at my first conference. Conference drafts tend to be around 8 or 9 pages and are re-written to be more discursive (ie- points for a stop and expound moment, signposting language, removal of lengthy quotations, etc). That said, the majority of the presentations at most conferences in our field do involve people reading from a prepared draft. There are exceptions (I quite liked the SAA's seminar approach, for example), but at this point in my graduate career (ABD, presentations at over a dozen regional, national and international conferences) I feel comfortable in stating that reading papers is still a pretty common standard for conferences in this field. In fact, the handful of presentations I've seen where the scholar spoke without prepared material drew negative reactions--those presentations came across as lazy and unprepared, and the scholars who gave those talks floundered during the Q and A, as it was clear that they hadn't thought out their project as thoroughly as they should have done. The point, however, is that there are things worth seeing for yourself in a low-stakes environment, because there are always questions you might not know to ask.

It's not a bad idea, but I wouldn't spend too much money on it. My first conference, I thought I was so ready. I asked all the questions (or so I thought). Made sure to know how long my paper should be (20 minutes). Ready to roll. Until I got to the conference. I thought all of the presenters had had recent strokes or something. I was amazed that everyone was speaking SO SLOWLY! It had never occurred to me that one must read a paper in such a way to make it easy to follow by ear (I know I know, common sense, but everyone has one of those common sense lapses, haha). My paper was 21 pages long. I could read that sucker in 20 minutes flat (I even timed it, haha. Bit of a fast talker over here), but it was more than double the length of the average conference paper. I was lucky in that my panel was on the second day of the conference. Still, I had to cut my paper by 60% that night. Moral of the story, there are all sorts of things that you won't know about conferences without seeing them in person. Find a local conference that doesn't cost much, and give it a go. It'll never end up on the CV, but you can still network and get your feet wet in a low-stakes environment.

My undergrad was an English/Secondary Ed BS. I then taught high school for four years and left on a long-term leave to do a 2-year MA in English lit. I resigned my HS teaching position at that point to pursue the PhD in English lit. My advice would be to do your MA in secondary ed (that's the one you are starting in the fall, yes?)--if possible, do a track that gives you an administration credential. At the end of that MA, do an MA in English lit. You can either go right through, or try to teach secondary for a few years (in some areas, school districts will reimburse you for MA work). Trying to tailor an education MA into one that will do some of what a literature MA is supposed to do will leave you with an experience that is neither secondary nor lit. So if you feel conflicted, do both. Not only will this give you a better idea of which field you really want to be in, but if you DO decide to go for secondary, you will already have your PhD equivalency (because of the two MAs) and won't need to do any more graduate work during your career.

In my undergrad nerd-herd, I was the Chaucerian. That was my thing. I was the one our friends went to for questions on the Tales. Then I graduated and taught high school for a few years, and I realized something. While I still loved Chaucer, I wasn't particularly driven by it. But I lived for the Shakespeare unit. I couldn't get enough of it--teaching it, talking about it, thinking about it, etc. So when I eventually went to grad school, I specialized in Renaissance drama. So as far as advice, I would suggest you think about what you might be interested in for a span of 30+ years. What area/field could you NEVER fully explore in one professional life time, and yet still want to try? Which batch of literature would you be REALLY bummed to never really get to teach? The answers to those questions should really filter out the areas that seem interesting because you wrote a really good seminar paper on something (which is great) from the ones where you might be able to write several books.

My cousin is finishing up her first year in the program there (Anglo-Saxonist), and she has had a wonderful experience thus far! Congrats!

Yup. This. You aren't there to impress them. You've already done that. When you meet with the professors, chat about your interests and see how they react to those interests. I had a meeting with a prof once who heard about my interest in stage fools and immediately connected it to something in his field in an excited way. It was a great conversation. I had a meeting with a different prof at a different school, and he couldn't have been less interested in my areas of research (even though we were in the same historical period). The key to a visit (hell, part of the key to graduate school) is starting to think of yourself not as a student who needs the approval of the instructor, but as a junior colleague who wants to learn under a more established mentor.

While February IS a bit too early to give up hope entirely, the key to approaching this is perspective. Your programs did not reject you, your personality, your intellect, or your potential. They rejected your application. As such, the key is to take a bit of time away from it (a couple of months) and then go back to the application. Find people to send it out to for feedback. Figure out what the problematic part of it was. Maybe you'll discover that you were looking at programs that weren't a great fit? Maybe you approached the SoP in a way that didn't fit? Maybe your writing sample was too vague? All of these things happen. In the last five years on here, I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone get rejected everywhere one year and, by doing the above, end up with multiple acceptances to top programs a year or two later. I also second the advice of looking at a funded MA if you do not already have one. Those app deadlines tend to be later and you could possibly still get in under the wire there. My old MA program has a very strong track record of placing its graduates into good PhD programs. It's small, but you get a lot of personalized attention. I've copied the link to their website below. Feel free to ask me any questions about it as well. Regardless though--never forget that it wasn't YOU that was rejected. Just your application. And that can be fixed. http://www.sbu.edu/academics/schools/arts-and-sciences/graduate-degrees/master-of-arts-in-english

No K'Zoo for me this year (I went last year, though). I'm headed to New Orleans next month for the Shakespeare Association of America meeting, though!

This reaction from your prof is completely normal. The process of preparing for and taking exams will (and should) impact any potential dissertation project. You have 6+ months of academic reading left to do. What sounds like a great project now might look completely different on the other side of those exams. I know in my case, taking the exams REALLY focused my project idea. Now really isn't the time to be thinking about your Diss. In six months time, you might have a new project (or your current project idea might have developed in a different direction) and he might NOT be the best person for the committee. That's all he was trying to say. Don't worry about the next step until the current one is finished. They really do build from each other.

So just to turn the question around on its head a bit, what do people WANT out of a visit weekend? Another student and I are in charge of organizing our program's visit weekend. A lot of stuff is built-in (ie--stuff we just have to schedule/arrange, like the wine/cheese thing, the grad hangout night, the dinner, the visits with profs, sitting in on classes, etc). So I guess most of what we will DO is already decided, but what kinds of things would be useful? Just looking for ideas--my own app season, I only did one formal visit weekend, and I sort of did it informally (I was wait-listed, and stayed with a local relative). Also--My program has prospectives stay with current grad students--not for lack of money, but to create opportunity for informal stress free discourse. I've been doing my best to wrangle volunteers with guest rooms (so prospectives will have a bed and a private space rather than a couch, haha).

This, times a million. I went to a visit weekend as a wait-lister a few years ago. It was INCREDIBLY awkward, as we weren't wearing badges that identified our status (so lovely awkward moments where profs were pitching the program turned into even MORE awkward comments about how I wasn't admitted yet). On top of that, people tend to group/cluster by subfield, so I was literally hanging out with the three people who would have to decline for me to get an offer. That said, all the awkwardness was totally worth it. The department was wonderful, and I can't say enough good things about them, their program, or the grad community there, but the prof I wanted to work with turned out to be a grade-A jerk. There were other profs there I could have worked with had an offer come along, but that prof was THE reason I applied to that school, and meeting him actually made it much easier when the offer DIDN'T come along. My current program ended up being the perfect fit for me. If I hadn't gone to the visit weekend and HAD received an offer, I would have learned about JerkProf after it was already too late. TL/DR version: Sometimes, a little bit of valuable information is worth the busload of awkward you need to travel in to get it.

Wyatt, Not to get your hopes up too high, but I wanted to relay two bits of info-- 1- During my application season (2011), I know that there was at least one person who was initially offered the MA at UMD and had that offer upgraded to PhD late in the season. He didn't accept (he had already accepted another offer), but I know that it happened at least once. 2- A friend of mine did a MLS at UMD a few years ago, and she said that there were SO many university-based assistantships available. She worked in the technology department part time, and it paid her tuition along with a small wage. From what she said, those kinds of opportunities are plentiful at Maryland. On an unrelated side note--I saw that the U of Rochester acceptances have gone out. If anyone has any questions, let me know!

Hi Slawson! I'm not a medievalist (Renaissance guy here), but I work/hang out with that crowd at Rochester a LOT (I'm on staff at Robbins). From the sounds of things, you should have a GREAT experience at U of R (Alan Lupack does all things Arthur, and Russell Peck is always talking about fairy tales). Please let me know if you have any questions!

Hi folks, I just wanted to pass along some info about a great conference in the NY state area for anyone who might be interested. I've been going to the NYCEA (New York College English Association) conference for going on five years now, and it has been a great experience every year (the national CEA conference is a blast as well). Here is the CfP for this year's conference: http://nycea.org/New_York_College_English_Association/Upcoming_Conference.html NYCEA is a one day, regional conference which is usually held in central or Western NY (every now and again they hit the eastern part of the state). It tends to be on the smaller side, which allows for some great conversations across the panels. Part of the reason NYCEA is a great conference is that they have always had an interest in helping out graduate students, and they have recently sought to expand that emphasis. Starting with the upcoming conference, they are adding regular panels on grad student professionalization (the job market, publishing, etc). And they even added a graduate student to their board of directors (ie- me, hence the posting and gushing and such, haha). There are a lot of practical benefits to NYCEA, particularly for folks who have never presented at a conference before and for those approaching application season. Because it is a smaller conference, the odds of winning the grad student paper prize (a great CV line and 200 bones) are higher than they would be at larger conferences. Plus, since the conference is in the Fall, the presentation itself, and any accolades earned there would be able to go on the application CV. For folks already attending a PhD program, the big draw of NYCEA is the fact that it is composed almost entirely of scholars from state schools, community colleges, smaller liberal arts schools and "teaching" centered schools. As such, these folks have a wealth of information about what those kinds of schools (ie- the ones the vast majority of us will be applying to when we earn our degrees) look for in a candidate. In the last few years, I have learned a LOT from these folks, as their job market is quite a bit different from the R1 job market that most of our programs are preparing us for. I've probably already exceeded the TLDR threshold, so I'll stop there, haha. Please message me or ask here if you have any questions, and I hope to see some Grad Cafe-ers at the next NYCEA!

It's become a sad refrain for just about every question that gets posted here, but the reality is that it likely depends on each individual program. Your adviser isn't wrong. There are some schools that will definitely take that view when they see your date of birth. There are also other schools, as several others in this conversation have suggested, where a little bit of chronological seasoning will be highly valued. The tricky part, is figuring out which schools fall into each category. They really CAN'T answer that kind of question directly, as it opens them up to potential litigation. If it were me, I would contact the DGS at a few schools that interest you. Be up front. Mention your adviser's comment, and ask how that school tends to look on older applicants. As I said, I doubt they will answer directly, but there's a big difference between a response of "We evaluate applications based on criteria X, Y, and Z," and a response of "We've found that a few older students enhances the scholarly conversation, and have made a concerted effort to include them in recent cohorts." Best of luck, from another "old" PhD applicant.