yank in the M20

I asked for feedback last year right when I found out I was rejected. Two schools said they didn't provide any while the third gave me feedback that was simple for them to write up, but very useful to me: that the time period in my writing sample was different from the time period in my SOP so it was hard to access my abilities in my chosen field. I don't think these people are going to remember you if you apply next year and you might end up deciding to apply elsewhere so I really don't think all that strategy as to when to ask is necessary--my caveat being that I'm talking about straight-up rejections, not waitlist then reject.

Last year I had the added humiliation that all of my professors, being from England, which admits most applicants (I would guess 90%) and then just gives funding to a limited number, just assumed I would get in everywhere I applied, as did my family/friends, which means so did I--I didn't find this site until a few months after my rejections or I would have known what to expect. Imagine what it was like telling my professors I'd gotten in nowhere and trying to hint at the low odds of getting in (to my all top-tier schools) without looking as though I was justifying. And my friends from the UK all started their PhDs this year--and here I am going through it all again while they're learning how to research at a higher level, really getting stuck into their topics (because here in the UK you start your dissertation immediately--it's a three-year research PhD. At least this time I applied to a range of schools. If I still don't get in anywhere, then I've decided it's not meant to be. I'm moving on. But I want to get in, obviously, though it's hard to admit that one of the reasons is so that all the people I know at the Uni here don't feel sorry for me. I don't want to be that poor girl that tried her hardest but just didn't cut it. I know that's unreasonable and they won't see me that way, but doesn't mean I don't worry.

I did just that--did a one-year Master's in the UK and am planning to go back to the US for a PhD. You cannot get full funding as an international student except in Scotland and there you are competing for that limited funding with all of the disciplines--my thought is an English PhD next to one in the sciences has little chance, but maybe that's pessimistic. They also let pretty much anyone in (I'm speaking outside of Cambridge and Oxford--I don't know the situation there)--good if you didn't do as well as you wanted in your undergrad or have had a lot of time out, but means that the prestige the school's name offers is offset by the fact that it is so easy to get in that it doesn't say much for your potential that you did. I had ten years out between my BA and my MA, audited a few English classes in Germany and used those teachers as my recommenders, wrote a pretty middling, though well-written writing sample (actually better use of language than I use now--something about free play of words when you have less research? I don't know) and a frankly awful SOP and I got into Manchester, which is in the Russell Group and very strong theoretically, and Edinburgh. But, as long as you're aware of this downside, I think it's an amazing experience. Your interaction with your lecturers is very much what you put into it. There are weekly papers given by faculty within and outside the university and big name guest speakers and conferences and going along to them is a great way of both meeting people and showing your interest. The British universities, from what I've heard since it's been so long since I've been in an American, are much less hierarchical. The lecturers are also on the whole younger--good and bad because you are less likely to be working with an academic rock star, but more likely to be working with people that know how much work is needed to get where they want to be and can share that information with you. I had only positive experiences with visiting in office hours, etc. And I still go to university events now even though I finished my MA in 2010, something that's been encouraged. I've found all of the lecturers to be warm and welcoming, their research is theoretical (I chose Manchester and, as I said, it's known over here for being quite theoretical) yet tied to historical and materialist links more than I see with a lot of US scholarship. As for the PhD, teaching is involved, but there is no opportunity to create your own course or anything like that that you sometimes see in the US and you teach much less, maybe one or two discussion sections a semester after your first year. I also think the PhD might be less valued in the States again because of the fact that anyone can get in--the good (or lucky, depending on who you talk to) students are the ones getting full or partial funding. And there is just more of a glut of students with PhDs when you finish, making it harder to get a job because you have even more competition. I mean, some of these kids finish with their PhDs at 25! I'm rambling a bit now...if you have any more specific questions, let me know.

And I love how they switched their deadline from 1 January to 15 December suddenly a few months ago--I'd already planned out when I needed that writing sample in--more difficult because there are two required but with a max page count of 25. So frustrating, but mine's in the mail. Yay! I am less happy about the GRE note--I don't come anywhere close with my subject test score and I thought that mattered very little. Oh, well--nothing to be done now.

Are you guys filling out FAFSAs? Or is that something you do if you're enrolled and don't get enough funding from other formats and if you need some loans? Shows my ignorance, but it's been some time since my BA and I did my MA abroad. Thanks!

It seems that she probably just felt that she'd done her duty in submitting LORs last year and didn't want to do it again. I worried about that with my letter writers but they're clearly much nicer/more professional than she is because they've done them again, no groaning. I mean, it's not like you want to have to do your PhD apps again, either--she could be more understanding of the application process. She was there herself at one time, after all.

I read her first book of short stories. Also really good. All the books I'm reading lately are coming from thrift stores so someone really needs to donate Swamplandia!

I've chosen to list schools that are of a similar or maybe a bit higher ranking so they don't think they're either my reach school or my last choice. I'm not going to list Virginia as one of my schools on the application for an unranked university, for instance, and vice-versa.

My first deadline is the 9th but none of my LORs had sent their letters in yet and, as I used all three last year and they submitted them well in advance of any deadlines, I was beginning to get nervous. When completing one of my application forms I noticed that you can send your referees a reminder from the university so you don't have to chase them yourself. It worked like a charm--I sent it Sat night and by Sun afternoon I had an email from one of my professors asking for a reminder of upcoming deadlines and saying he was doing my letters this week and emails from universities saying another letter writer submitted--just waiting on the third and it's only Monday morning. It's a great way to remind the letter writers without having to email them yourself and appearing pushy.

I think the language requirement is mostly just a box-ticker. Choose a core language unless you have a research reason to choose something more obscure. I'd say ideally French or German as so much theory and philosophy is in one or the other.

I'm reading A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book. I've been reading it for weeks, both because I'm busy with apps and work and also because it's one of those books that are just really nice to dip into from time to time--really lush and evocative. And on the fantasy sort of note, have any of you read any Kevin Brockmeier? His stories in The View from the Seventh Layer are magic realist fables. Absolutely beautiful. And Kelly Link. Any Buffy fans out there have to read her!

I feel for you guys. I was lucky in that five of my schools had a pretty standard length of either 15-20 or 20-25 so I did a full 20. Then one asked for 5000 words so I had to lose about two pages which I could do by getting rid of some of the quotes from the text, little bits of close reading that were good but not essential because I had others similar enough, etc. The last asked for two pieces so I shaved my 20 to 19 there--easy in comparison. Keep on it, though! We're nearly there now.

Could you perhaps take a strand out of your argument and thereby condense the 20 page paper to 12? It'll be painful, but might be the better piece. Depends on how integrated the various strands are, I guess.

I have to send two to Virginia with a max page limit of 25. I trimmed my 20 page paper that I'm submitting to other universities to 19 pages and condensed a 12 page conference paper into 6. I thought about excerpting the longer piece, but it was really strong and I was advised against that.

Unfortunately my recommenders were sure I'd get in to my schools last year and I didn't. I know my application is much better this year and that I've gone for a range of schools instead of only top 10ish, but I still wonder what I'll do when, rather than if, I get rejected from them all again. I only applied to three last year and was traumatized--i can really feel for you guys that had the ten or so rejections. Ugh! I also have those wild imaginings of getting into my top school and then getting into the hard to get into college that is for grad students and postdocs and lecturers and imagining having intellectual interdisciplinary conversations during the shared meals in the college by the sea. Then I realize my chances of getting into the university and then the college are slim to none.

Ahhh, I use Firefox as well! I'll do the same. Thanks Bespeckled!

I've also assumed that the Works Cited does not count. And for the one Uni that requires two samples, I'm putting both Works Cited pages at the end in case they stop reading beyond the 25.

I emailed the grad secretary and my email has been shunted along to two other people since and I've still heard nothing! We'll get there in the end, though, right?

I would really make sure I hit page requirements square on the head. Even for my SOP when they asked for no more than 500 words, I trimmed my 506 words down to 500. You don't want to give the committees any excuse to discard your application if they are struggling to narrow their candidate pool down. Plus, just like I would never turn in an essay over the maximum word count, this is the same: I am showing them that I can follow directions, as juvenile as that sounds...

That's how it was for this guy! Everyone in the work space was stressed out for him and he was really calm. He only finally went to get it bound when one of the PhD students offered to stand in line for him--I think that's when he really realized it might be a problem.

If the papers are close in quality, I'd chose the one that is closest to the time period in which you want to work. You've got Shakespeare and Joyce, very disparate. We've had this discussion on other threads, but I applied to a few schools last year and didn't get in and the only one of the three to provide feedback, Duke, said that my writing sample (a chapter of my dissertation on Romantic lit) didn't match my prospective time period (Modernism), arguing that how would Modernist scholars be able to judge if I'm doing original scholarship in Romanticism and vice-versa. Just my two cents. As for sources, for my 20-page paper I have about 30. Of course several are intertexts by contemporaries or by the author I'm writing on and I am looking at Freud's theories on traumatic neuroses and shell shock so at least five are just because bits of his writing were published in different places, though I'm dealing with the same argument. And a number are historical, which would be less of an issue for any contemporary scholars out there or anyone working more abstractly with theory and not really working to situate their texts in a particular time period. To me the number of sources to match the number of pages that user_name mentions sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb, though I'm guessing less sources will be expected of people coming from undergrad? They might want to see you engage with some theory and criticism, but mostly just to show that you can, and really wow them with your close reading of the text(s). Wildly inaccurate surmise of mine? Perhaps.

I had that same problem with one of my applications today! I shut down all my browsers--to no avail. Very frustrating! I'm glad I wasn't trying to get back into that application on deadline day. Any tips on how to circumvent?

I'm officially done looking at my writing sample and SOPs. Will have a glance over Virginia's since I had to do two, which meant converting a 12 page conference paper into a six page something or other so that I could keep my stronger sample nearly intact, though not sure that the six page piece even makes sense now. And I'm mailing off most of my writing samples tomorrow and splitting my actual online submissions between the next three weekends. Like many people here, my LORs are going to be the last in. I'm going to wait until the Monday before my first deadline, a Friday, to email them with a polite reminder. This is my second round and they were much quicker about it last year--I think they're sick of having to do these letters for me and I don't blame them, but I just want to say 'get on with it!' so I don't have to worry. I definitely identify with the poster saying s/he can't get motivated when the deadline is so near. I think I've just been tinkering the last two weeks or so anyway, the apps are the best they're going to get given my limited time left and so I just need to let them go. I don't think turning things in early or last minute says anything about your ability as a scholar. I know both great and awful students that have done both--it's more of a personality thing, I think. You only have to worry if you're like this guy I did my MA with who waited until a few hours before submission to get his MA dissertation bound, something they recommend giving a few days for. He finally got in line and realized he'd never get it done by deadline so he was calling me asking me to check online into other places he might do so and was thinking about driving into a town a few hours away to get it done. He's a lucky bastard, always, and ended up having someone near the front of the line approach him and offer to take his stuff to be bound for him, not telling anyone else in line that it wasn't his own. Only problem--his last name was misspelled on the binding. Oops!

One of my old flatmates got into Princeton with her subject test in the 10th percentile! She said the test scores are just box ticking and that her writing sample got her in. That fed into what I heard from my dissertation supervisor (who went to University of Chicago and graduated only a few years ago) about the unimportance of test scores in the application process,

He said she was great--no more details, sorry. He mentioned the law work as a serious interest, but very tied up with the war lit/Modernism stuff, if I remember correctly.