kfed2020

Hey all, I'm sure they will be notifying you officially by e-mail; I more think they're trying to avoid those 600+ people you mention calling/emailing them/etc. trying to figure out the status of the process. They're not exactly overstaffed, over there. They're not doing it ti be rude.

Sounds like NYU is more interested in grilling people for their interest in the city than they are in helping those people be able to afford to live there...

Can't hurt to have a wider appeal! I was the same way when I applied last year, and I think it worked to my advantage.

A friend in the program says the faculty called their admits last week. Good luck everyone!

These professors all know each other. Rank probably matters less than a recommendation written by a friend. Not something you can predict, and therefore, not something for you to worry about. Use the professors most capable of speaking to your abilities. Given that proving these abilities should be the aim of your application, I'd say you should focus on this. Of 3 recommendations, you can safely submit one from a junior faculty member who hasn't yet made a name for him/herself. After all, they're the ones that tend to know you best!

Don't forget Glenda Gilmore at Yale or Evelyn Higginbotham at Harvard. Both wonderful people to work with.

Is it useful to think about the department's overall ranking? Your interests are much more specific than the broad term "History," so it's probably best to think about this in terms of the school that'd best serve your work. If you do Af Am, for example, Rutgers is worth a close look. Legal historians like Princeton. Gender and sexuality, try WUSTL. Tailor your search to your own needs. Rather than looking at the placement of overall departments, try looking up the students who've worked with your potential advisors and see where they've taken jobs. Look up dissertations, see what impresses you. US News gives a general sense, maybe, but the harder task of finding a fit for yourself is, ultimately, up to you.

This is true. Also keep in mind, everyone, that Columbia's program is inclusive of both English and Comparative Literature, and so attracts students interested in both fields, accordingly. If Harvard's Comparative Literature and English pools were combined, I'm sure the number of applicants would be similar. (Probably a little less, because Cambridge/Boston is no New York.) Still, yes, it's scary to think you're all thrown in there together. Probably less than a third of the students applying to any of these programs will genuinely appeal to the admissions committee. If you're competitive, you're not competing with 700 people; you're competing with far, far less.

That wasn't my experience. I was very proactive about contacting professors last year because I genuinely had key questions about certain programs. Then a dialogue would get started and the professors became pretty familiar with me; the DGS at a top-15 program even offered to read my personal statement and give me advice on it. Very useful. As well -- and more importantly -- after getting into some programs, I was SPECIFICALLY told by the professors I'd contacted that they'd remembered our conversations when reading my application and had kept an eye out to make sure I would fare well in the admissions process. Granted, this all depends upon a few important things: 1) strategizing to come off as an attractive prospective applicant, 2) submitting an attractive application, 3) having genuine need to get in touch in the first place. The first two bullets are a separate conversation altogether, but if you genuinely have reason to be in touch (beyond, obviously, wanting to kiss ass), you absolutely should. Not to mention that, wherever you go, these people will become your colleagues. Having them become familiar with you sooner rather than later never hurts. And testing how well you're marketing yourself -- are you asking the right questions? stating your interests in an attractive way? -- is absolutely helpful to the application process. Good luck!

The Lit GRE is one of those exams from which few people escape unscathed -- even those who did well. Most people leave feeling dejected, so don't worry too, too much over post-exam distress. Feel free to re-take, of course, but know that there are much more important things (in life, but more specifically in the world of graduate school applications), and don't let preparation for this exam detract from time you could be using to edit those samples of writing -- because those are truly what make or break you in the end.

Your scores are fine; don't even worry about that. Focus on those writing samples!

Well, Minnesotan, I think you're addressing the big conflict going on in literary study right now. While cultural studies seems too often to be a substitute for rigorous literary study these days, it's also true -- given how instrumental artistic forms like literature have always been to the expression of identity, political purpose, imagination, etc. -- that it'd be hard to imagine a discussion of "culture" that were absent of literature. This must be what makes literature so attractive to cultural studies folks, and this societal relevance certainly seems to be why those of us studying lit find it capital-I-Important rather than merely pleasurable. I guess that's what makes the distinction between "formalism" and "cultural studies" seem to false to me. Formalist approaches aren't absent of historical and cultural context; in the first place, let's not forget that "Canon" is, itself, a context. The basic questions of when something was written, where and by whom remain important to all of us, I think, because these notions certainly inform our interpretations. I couldn't imagine a lesson on The Scarlet Letter, for example, that didn't elucidate the importance of Puritanism to the book's themes, characters, structure; rather, I wouldn't see the value in such a lesson if it existed, because the book's form is certainly not historically arbitrary. Similarly, worthwhile cultural critiques that use literature as a vehicle generally use formalist readings of a text to derive a sense of the culture from it, rather than the other way around. Cultural critiques that force context onto the text are not really of any use to anyone. Frankly, the most liberal thing about cultural studies might not be the method of interpretation but rather the object being interpreted. The field's definition of "Text" is, I admit, ever-expanding, encompassing books, yes, but also bodies, buildings, all forms of visual production... Maybe that's the conversation we're really having? But if the old liberal arts argument is that we should emphasize the "how" rather than simply the "what," and if a graduate education is at least partially about being trained in a particular strain of "how," then perhaps the true worth of literary training is that it is a "how" applicable to a broad range of "what." Either way, I still assert that it'd be in the OP's best interest -- anyone's best interest, actually -- to find professors whose objectives and methods match his/hers, to look at the departments housing these professors, to see if there are also graduate students of a like mind, and to apply accordingly. That seems far more important (and feasible) that aiming for a formalist majority. The most important thing is to be supported by your department, and you don't have to be the majority for this to be the case. Formalists haven't died out, and I think to ask for a *strong* program that only really pursues one methodology might be asking too much no matter what you study. Your graduate education should be individually driven, and as long as your work is being supported and you're comfortable, the stuff going on all around you may not be nearly as important.

I think many, if not most, schools have a policy on this, and it should be somewhere on that school's general graduate school website. I would double check for each school that interests you. As a general policy, though, unless you're aiming for a joint degree, you might be better off choosing one program over another -- perhaps the one that seems more open to your taking courses in other departments, so that you can take as many in the other attractive department as you like. Departments/programs each have different sorts of requirements for their students. See if one program's requirements don't suit your needs more. Good luck!

Yeah, agree ... Not least because, while you can choose between a full range of schools when applying for graduate study and can therefore avoid whomever you want, your options when you're on the job market are going to be considerably more limited and, well, it would be unfortunate for you if the "School of Resentment" is the only one hiring. Besides, as earlier stated in this thread, the chasm between formalism and theory/cultural studies/etc. is increasingly thin. Your energies may best be put to use trying to find schools that will support your project with many like-minded professors and graduate students and open-minded colleagues, rather than allowing you to segregate yourself from an entire body of thought (or bodies -- not sure I agree with Bloom on the singularity, here). You never know. Graduate school is the place where people who walk in as 20th-C New Historicists sometimes eventually walk out as queer theorist, feminist Victorianists, all because of new exposures. Is this what you're afraid of?

It's interesting to hear about this history between the two fields. I don't think I knew very much about RhetComp as a separate field of study until I read about here. Well, at least someone's getting jobs.

I said: "I think it's irresponsible, however, to say that it's okay that someone express an interest in these sorts of nonacademic professions while applying to graduate programs geared towards preparing students for academia." I hope that clears up what seems to be the crux of our disagreement, as I think we're both right, but my assertion was pretty specific. I can't really speak for or about disciplines where students regularly pursue other career options, but certainly for disciplines in which students are expected to filter into academia, I do believe that everything I said is true. I've seen the Duke listserv, am not sure what you're clarifying in your first point, and slightly disagree with your second; the listserv is obviously going to be of interest for prospective students, but it's bound to be of more direct use for current or graduated students who have to think in more concrete ways about these options. As for the third point: I'd be careful about mocking this... The life of an intellectual is a life of the mind, the desire of which is, indeed, precisely what many graduate programs are looking for. It's something many people take very seriously -- some of your colleagues among them, no doubt.

Of the many US colleges and universities, Minnesotan, I'm sure there are a great number of schools that emphasize research experience over teaching experience -- flagship state schools among them. The Ivies aren't the only schools at least partially driven by "big names," and anyway, to imply that these schools don't care about teaching is to promote exaggeration, even myth. Still, Minnesotan is right to say that the interview is really what makes or breaks you -- much more so than your pedigree. On the other hand, there is the grim subject of getting an interview, and it is there that pedigree and research may matter, to a degree that no one can really predict. People who teach less may run into some problems at liberal arts schools or schools that demand a lot of teaching of their junior faculty. But ultimately, it's your research that will really need to speak for itself, and if you're teaching so much that it comes at the expense of your having time to think, write, etc., you may be teaching too much. There's a point at which quantity no longer serves to imply a level of quality -- a point of diminishing returns, you could say. You don't need to teach a ton to prove that you're competent. Either way, everyone's going to ask about teaching, and everyone's going to ask about research, so it helps to kick ass at both.

Absolutely. Get them with you're still fresh in your professors' minds! Or at least make them aware that you'll be applying in the future and plan on asking them for recommendations at a later date. I imagine prof's are pretty used to this.

I stand by what I said, and wish sincerely that you would re-read it. Yes: I recognize what a doctoral program does and doesn't give / teach you, and recognize that learning research and writing skills can be beneficial to an extraordinary range of jobs. There's no disagreement here. I think it's irresponsible, however, to say that it's okay that someone express an interest in these sorts of nonacademic professions while applying to graduate programs geared towards preparing students for academia -- particularly if you're trying to help this person gain acceptance. No matter what you say re: the merits of graduate education "training," the fact is that these programs do believe they're training people to become scholars. This is more or less what they expect you to want to become, from the get-go. Changing your mind while enduring the process is absolutely understandable, but when you're applying? You need to give the impression that academia is your end-goal. The Duke example doesn't prove much. Hosting that listerv is, quite simply, morally responsible, given the realities of the academic job market. But you need to keep in mind that it's a resource for current students seeking these alternatives. It's one thing to be a CURRENT PhD student who says, "I'm trying to be realistic"; it is another thing entirely to be a PROSPECTIVE student who says, to the admissions committee no less, "I'm keeping my options open." What options? These people are not going to be inspired to give you a $20K stipend plus tuition if you don't seem sure that you want to pursue a life of the mind. While applying, you need to give the impression that your goals are in line with those of the program. Otherwise, why would they waste their resources? This is true for any field, any profession. Humanities fields in particular are already struggling to stay alive as it is. Students with iffy intentions to filter into these disciplines will not -- WILL NOT -- appeal to these dying fields. Of course you need to be realistic. No one would expect any less. But getting a PhD is not realistic. Graduate school is not realistic. The alternatives are really not things to be discussed in your application unless you do truly want to be insulting. Get in, first -- and then explore the alternatives. Fake the funk if you have to. Strategy, people. It's really that simple.

Yes. It will also give you clarity. How can you know what fields you want to research until you've truly undergone a longterm and very taxing research project? I applied to grad school while writing my senior thesis and found it absolutely helpful. I'll also admit that it was tough juggling them both at once.

Agreed. Especially at schools that offer any sort of funding, the admissions committee is simply not going to be convinced the ask their institution to invest thousands of dollars in you if you're not serious about using your education to do what the training prepares you for: a life of the mind, a life of teaching, a life of research. Even if your plan is to do something else with your degree, it's important to give the committee the impression that you have intentions to become a professor -- rather, they're going to assume this is your intention, and it'd be best not to let them think otherwise.

Looks like it's appropriate for English programs as well, from my understanding -- especially the emphasis on the qualitative and subjective factors that, ultimately, speak a lot more to your potential as a scholar than would GRE scores, etc.

Hm. Well, I guess it's sort of exciting because this might be the first time they've updated that website since the Pleistocene era, and change -- after this long -- is a good thing. Also good to see that they've finally updated some peoples' levels of tenure. And, it looks like they've got some great new creative writing faculty hires this year. But, the new site seems sort of barren, to me. Maybe they're still in the process of adding more information to it?

Haha. It's funny, because when I was an underage undergrad with a few grad student friends in the department, I'd often head to the department events for exactly that reason: free wine! Lots, and lots of free wine.

I think you've already got that covered... And, no -- no reasonable person ever said AA was a cure for racism, and in fact, AA is most often (and most effectively) used to establish social class diversity, nowadays, as financial status is a more tangible indication of social resources than is race. You're fighting a scarecrow.