osodulce

I'm going to be visiting Penn State next weekend. I almost certainly will accept their offer, but I'm worried about State College feeling very isolating and culturally bland. Does anybody have advice what my partner and I should visit or do to convince ourselves of the opposite? I grew up in Madison, WI, and my partner grew up in rural town so small that there's only one paved road. There are some things that we're looking forward to--like mountains, outdoor space, quiet--and some things that we're really not looking forward to--like being surrounded by a sea of (mostly) white conservatives and drunken undergrads. What advice would you give about setting up a life in/around State College?

Mine talked a lot about Cormac McCarthy--and women!--but a lot about Cormac McCarthy.

Congratulations! Also, thanks for the link to the blog--a nice insight into their attitude about their process. Also, now I can say with relative confidence that I am not getting in.

Congratulations! I hope everything works out for you.

Mary Udal, the person I talked to, was very nice. I really think that you could call her.

I broke down and called today. The grad secretary told me that my file was still under review, no decision had been made, and decisions are being made daily. That department sounds very...creatively organized.

It sounded like she was still sending out letters but that all of the decisions had been made. My letter was waiting for me when I got home from work today.

I just called and spoke to the grad secretary--got my hopes way up because she recognized my name. She looked at the acceptance and wait lists and told me (very kindly) that I wasn't on either of them. She also said that she's sorry it's taking so long to send out all the (rejection?) letters.

Pamphilla is pretty much correct. Although admitted MA candidates have to apply to the PhD program, the expectation is that MA candidates will continue on to the PhD--unless the candidate also has a BA from Penn State, in which case they prefer that the student apply elsewhere for their PhD. They will admit a few PhD candidates to fill the spots of people leaving with an MA. Each year they admit approximately 1-3 PhD candidates who have MAs from elsewhere. I don't know how many people with MAs from outside they are admitting this year. I want to say one, but I am not sure that that is correct. I know that they got 780 applications for both the MA and PhD programs and had 16 spots. Their visiting weekend is the 18th to the 20th of March, so I imagine that most of their offers have been made. I hope that helps.

I would avoid Allston if I were you. It is full of a mixture of bro culture and annoying hipster culture (not necessarily smart hipster). Also, there have been some pretty severe bed bug infestations there in the past five years. One of the reasons that it is cheap is because the public transportation in and out are some of the worst in Boston. You have the Green B Line to get into downtown (the oldest, slowest, most over crowded train line in the city) or the notoriously unreliable 66 Bus to get into Cambridge. If you do want to live there, stay far away from Harvard Ave and Comm Ave, where most of the loudest clubs are located.

I agree, and I hope this is true. When I was applying, I made a long list of schools which don't require the subject test because I didn't want to have to take it. Unfortunately, many of these schools which don't require the subject test do accept scores from it and use these scores to make funding if not admission decisions--which is why I ended up taking it. Other schools which don't require the test include: Penn, Penn State, UMass (American Studies Concentration), Washington, Florida, SUNY Buffalo, Brown, Kansas, Oregon, Minnesota, UNC, UC Santa Cruz, Ohio State, and Duke

I wanted to weigh in on the GRE discussion. I agree with what most people have said that while GRE scores aren’t a great tool, grad schools and departments do use them in conjunction with GPA to both eliminate candidates with very low scores who they won’t look at any closer and to decide who to offer fellowships to. That said, the GRE—both the subject and general tests—is teachable. I used to be a general GRE instructor for avery large test prep company—one of the two who’ve heard of if you’ve heard of any. Their courses are pricey, but if you don’t do better on your final test than you did on your first choice, you get your money back. If you’re struggling with the test, I strongly recommend taking a course—not only for the instruction but also for the 8 computer adaptive tests that you have access to. About the changes to the test, both sections of the test are changing. I would strongly recommend taking the test before the changes because there in a lot of knowledge out there about how to beat the existing test. On the current verbal section, if you learn the 200 to 1,000 vocabularywords which the GRE uses heavily, which if you’re planning on getting a degree in English you probably already know, and if you have the opportunity to practice how they’re used on the test, you can get a very good score. One of the changes which is coming to the test is that they are getting rid of analogies. This is not good news for people who study for the test because the analogies are the most teachable part of the verbal section. Don’t worry too much about the quantitative section. As long as you do above average, you’re doing great. No matter what, make sure that you finish every question in each section. You get at least 100 points just for finishing each section. Practice your pacing. Be systematic about how you study. There’s a lot of information out there about how to study for the general test, so I won’t say any more. About the subject test: I didn’t realize that it’s something you can study for, but it really is. My undergraduate program had essentially no breadth requirements within the English major, and in my last year I realized that I had studied just American and Irish writers after 1850--which is my area of interest, but not great for distribution. I quickly took a Shakespeare course and a course on the metaphysical poets, and studied my ass off. It took me six months of serious study, but I moved from a score in the 20th percentile (ouch, that was demoralizing) to a score in the 85th percentile. Here’s my advice: Read/skim the Norton Anthology (I just used the Major Authors edition which is only one volume, but I probably would have done a little better if I had used the complete 2 volume edition). Identity your weaker areas (periods, genres, literary terms,etc), and read widely but not deeply on them. Get the Princeton Review prep book. Their advice is very good. Particularly, their study strategies and target score formula are good. For example, I found that after studying, when I was reasonably confident in the answer of a question, I had—averaged across the whole test—about an 80% chance of gettingthe answer correct. Therefore, in order to get the score I wanted, I needed to answer about 90% of the questions on the test. Get all the practice tests. As far as I know, there are 7 practice tests in existence: 1 which ETSwill send you when you register, 1 in the Princeton Review book (it’s the sametest in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Editions), 3 in the other practice book in existence (black and yellow cover, I can’t rememberthe name), and 2 in an out of print book published by ETS which I was able to find on eBay (these two tests were the most similar tests to the actual test). Practice your pacing. There are 230 questions in 170 minutes. Also, know that the proctors in the actual exam are not allowed to give any indication about time except for a 20 minute warning. Keeping track of your own time is essential,and nobody tells you this. It took me a good four to five practice tests to get my pacing down. Every Saturday morning for two months before the test, at 8 am, I sat down and took a test. I wrote out the quarter, half, and three-quarters time marks as well as my target question number for each time period. If that hadn’t been automatic by test day, I would have been sunk. Lastly, make allowances for yourself and the way you take tests. For me, this meant admitting that I would get a better score if I allowed myself a 5 minute break three quarters of the way through the exam. I hope this helps. Rightly or wrongly, test scores do get used by departments when evaluating students, but the good news is that the tests are teachable. Best of luck UST. (edited for a sticky space bar)

Thanks! No word yet probably means you're on a lot of waitlists. (By the way QuentinComp, do you know where on the Charles is the plaque marking Quentin committed suicide? I've heard one exists but is somewhat overgrown now.)

I'm still waiting on my rejection, too.