mphutton

[And..for those of you who are "more experienced in life" I personally would love to be in class with you guys, learning from you and working with you on projects. I prefer diversity and the experience you bring to the classroom makes me feel like I'm learning more. And what an absurd thing to say...that you should give the younger applicants your chance at an advanced degree...first, if you're more qualified than me, then you've earned the spot. Second, yeah, that's ageism, no one agrees with that.

I'm 39, have a Phi Beta Kappa undergrad degree, a Harvard Master's, a former music career, have been teaching high school English for seven years, got 98th percentile on the GRE Verbal. I only applied to three top English PhD programs, but I was rejected to all three, and I do believe it had something to do with being out of the game for so long.