lyonessrampant

That's a tough call, but I think you should tell them. If I were you, I'd reply to the email saying that you now know you will be starting a Ph.D. program so that your end date would be mid-August, while also saying you're still very much interested in the position. If they really like you, maybe they'll hire you through mid-August and someone else starting then or bring in two interns and split the hours between the two of you until you leave. Realistically, they'll probably go with another candidate, but I think being honest up front here is probably the best policy, especially if this internship is related to your field and a negative response from your potential boss might come back to haunt you.

Notre Dame does have a great Medieval program, but it is a bit traditional. I was accepted there and turned it down because of that reason. It seemed psychoanalysis wasn't well liked there (I do work in that area as well), but that may have just been my impression. UChicago may be a reach, but Mark Miller's work is something you should totally check out based on your stated research interests. Edited to add: Fradenburg is at UCSB. Is that why you're looking at that program? I've heard it's great for Medieval/psychoanalysis. You might look at CUNY too, though funding is really questionable there. ..

Do you mean UPenn or Penn State? Penn State is moving to accepting MA/PhD folks only exclusively, so if you get in for MA, you almost definitely get accepted for the Ph.D.

Pretty sure if you're applying to Islamic studies programs you don't need to take the English subject test. Even if you're applying to English MA programs, most don't require the English subject test. Good luck!

For a Master's I'd go with the free option and then apply to funded Ph.D. programs abroad (if that's what you want to do). If the MS is your terminal goal, then it would depend on whether the UCLA degree would do more to get you hired. If you're looking at returning to your home country to work, I would think that the school there would have networks that would do more to get you a job than UCLA.

I just wanted to note (though you probably already know this!) that you should try to match your writing sample to your stated research interests in your SOP, so one of your early modern papers with an SOP saying you want to focus on American lit, especially Southern lit, wouldn't jive as well as, say, a Faulkner paper. To make your papers longer, I'd focus on one or two (depending on how close you are to narrowing your interests down) and then doing some additional secondary research, focusing on articles/books written by people at the schools you are applying to. Try to incorporate their work to show you are aware of conversations in your field and trying to contribute to them. Good luck!

I don't know if this is true in your field, but a lot of the applications I filled out asked for the cumulative GPA, major GPA, and GPA for the last two years. Maybe check the app for the programs you're interested in and see if that is true for you. As for addressing it in your SOP, I didn't talk about grades at all, though I've heard that if you feel like you need to you should, though briefly. Maybe when talking about your interests you can just add a sentence saying something like "my academic performance improved substantially once I found my interests in X, Y, Z. While I regret my lack of discipline (or something. . .maybe wrong word) the first two years of college, I don't think the resulting grades at that time accurately reflect my abilities or work ethic, as do the much higher performances later once taking courses relevant to my work such as microbio, cell bio (or whatever)." Good luck!

I'd contact the person you interviewed with as that person may be able to expedite the process or direct you regarding who to contact next.

Hi! I'm not in your field, but the soft sciences (from what I've heard) do put a little bit more emphasis on GRE scores than the humanities. I think that your quant score is pretty low for a top 20 school. I'm in English and got a 650, so I think that taking the test again and focusing on that section would be a good idea. From my experience, you're right that a high GRE score won't get you in anywhere, but a low one can keep you out if you don't meet a school's minimum (if they have one). You should contact the schools you want to apply to and find out if they have published minimums. If they do and you don't meet them, you really should take the test again. As for how schools look at multiple scores, I don't think it really matters that much. They will usually only take a set of scores, so if you take it again and do better on your verbal and quant but worse on your AW, they'll take the lower AW since you got that score at the same time as the higher verbal/quant. Basically, you can't pick and choose scores from multiple tests. I think that if you've got a month to really focus and study for the GRE, it won't hurt you to take it again and try for a higher score. It isn't a huge part of your application, BUT it can be important for making it past the first cut (meeting minimums) and for qualifying for university-wide fellowships that are often based on scores. Good luck!

Well, I'm not a seasoned medievalist, rather an early modernist with a secondary interest in the late medieval period, BUT I have taken Old English and think that you could work on three languages at once IF you already have a pretty good background in Latin (so that class would just be review) and Old French. As a medievalist, you really need strong Latin (even I do so I think you definitely want that to be as good as possible before you start, and it makes your application a lot stronger. However, getting your foot in the door at the grad school is also a good idea. If you're concerned, perhaps you could just audit the Old English class at the grad school and take the Latin class for realsies? I'm sure you'll do great, but that way you don't have to worry if a B+ or A- at the grad school potentially may affect your application. Just a thought. Anyway, congrats on working on your languages aggressively. I wish I weren't spending my summer doing an intensive study of Latin and had taken care of it already Good luck!

I've been out of school for a few years and feel like I've forgotten a lot of what I once knew. I'm also working on filling in a language deficit, so I know how you feel! I think if you're that unfamiliar with some of the more common vocabulary, I'd spend the summer reading. . .a lot. That's my plan anyway to make sure I'm up to par once school starts. Best of luck!

Yeah, it sounds like, as you say, you're looking for your home departmentally, so I'd definitely echo truckbasket's advice that it would be best to start by finding work of professors you find inspiring and then seeing where they teach and what department they are in. It seems that you're more interested in working with visual media than, say, literature but approaching your study of that media through a philosophical lens. I think some variation of art history might let you do that more. The comp lit people I know may reference and use some visual media (especially graphic media like comic books or graphic novels), but their work still seems very grounded in some analysis of literature. There are programs that are a lot more interdisciplinary (I understand that Oregon's is pretty progressive), and while some programs like U of Chicago support interdisciplinarity, it seems that they still require you cover the more traditional bases in terms of languages and lit study. Your speaking ability in the languages you listed seems quite strong, so undoubtedly, your written and reading abilities would quickly become strong as well, but if you're wanting to focus more on the visual media associated with the cultures who speak those languages, perhaps writing and reading the languages isn't as important? I don't think I'm really providing any helpful advice here, other than to just second truckbasket's suggestion that you start with people whose work you find stimulating and then apply to places where those people are. If you don't know a lot of people whose work you like, MLA searches will help you find them. Also, if you do know of just a couple people you admire, start with them and then see who they frequently cite and research those people. You could also email those professors and say you have interest in their work and ask for recommendations of others to research. This might also let you start figuring out what their recommendations for where to apply and what departments to apply to.

Well, I'm not your field, so I don't have a lot to tell you. I can tell you that I was accepted to Oregon. If you have background teaching at college, you'll TA. I was offered RA and some other stuff with guaranteed funding of about $10,500 for the first year and then more later. This was a lot less than three of my other offers, so I didn't pursue it a lot further. However, if you're looking for schools strong in theory, in addition to the list you have, check out U of Chicago, U of Minnesota, and Berkeley. Other comp lit people would be a lot more helpful, but that's not me. . . On cursory response, your languages could be stronger. By saying you have some French and German, do you mean you're fluent enough to read say Goethe in German or Rousseau in French? I would think you'd need strong competence in these areas for comp lit. I'm early modern, so Latin is important for me, but my understanding is that you don't have to have an ancient language if it isn't applicable for your research and instead have two or more (for comp lit people) modern languages. Sorry I can't tell you more, but I'd recommend checking throughout the summer. You'll get a lot more responses starting in August/September/October when the number of people on these boards increases a lot.

Yes, definitely reference your SOP, but rather than detailing your methodology, foreground the questions you asked in the paper and your argument aka thesis. Then that lets you set the stage for what questions you want to expolore in your graduate work. Before you speak specifically about your paper, you should introduce your research interests, ie., subfield and specific areas in your subfield, theory (if it's relevant), and then you use your paper to show your awareness of the conversation in your field and how you are contributing to it and hope to continue to contribute to it. Writing specifically about your paper, in my opinion, shouldn't take more than a paragraph or so. After your paper bit, I would recommend you write your fit paragraphs addressing things like why this school? why its resources? why its faculty? etc. Basically, I'd recommend an intro, research interests identification, sample link, fit, conclusion as an overall structure for your SOP. Good luck!

You're quant score isn't bad at all! I thought it said 610 when I was responding before! My bad! Anyway, yeah, if you can boost your verbal a bit, it would make you more competitive for fellowships and stuff, but your quant is great. Sorry for misreading I think you'll be pretty competitive! Good luck!!!

Are you applying to Master's or Ph.D. programs or both? Most all Ph.D. offers will come with funding support, but a Master's is another story. Can you retake the GRE? Those scores are pretty low. . .I wouldn't think you need to worry too much about the verbal, though maybe trying to get to 500 isn't a bad idea, but the quantitative might be important. The place where GRE scores often matter is in competition for fellowships and university-wide scholarships, so having a little higher score would help you in that regard.

If it were just you, I think my advice would be to stick with the offer you've accepted, but once you factor your wife into the equation, it becomes an entirely different situation. What does she want? How hard would it be to sell/rent your home? Is your wife in a field where there are job offers for the city School B is in? Obviously, if you're going to back out of School B's offer, you should do it sooner rather than later, so I wouldn't start a long job search and wait to see what comes of that. However, if the prospects for your wife finding a new job and selling your house are low and she really wants you to stay where you are, I think I'd tell School B that for personal reasons you can't relocate. Your wife probably won't mind being cited as the reason for you backing out As for your concerns about School B not being able to fill its cohort, I wouldn't worry about that. If they don't have people on the waitlist to fill it for this year, they will just accept an extra person next year. You've listed some of the reasons why you like each school. I think that's good, and I would make more of those lists. Fellowships are pretty nice. Does the advantage of a fellowship over RA/TA swing things in School B's favor? Does the security of funding at a private school outweigh the volatile situation in California, though the flagship school with all the prestige and especially the sciences (both of which sound like they describe you) won't feel cuts basically until something very drastic happens? It sounds like you've already decided about those types of questions, and it sounds like your decision is to stay in California. If that's the case, email School B and tell them things have come up and you can't make it. Cite personal reasons and perhaps your wife's situation. That will ease future awkwardness. Things come up and schools know that. Best of luck to you and congratualations on being in a position where you have to make this difficult decision!

What's your field? That changes any recommendations/suggestions that we can make.

Definitely check with your current employer about whether you can go on educational leave to go to the top-10 school. If you're not doing summer research at that school, you might be able to go back and work for your same employer in the summer and make extra money to supplement your stipend that way. If the funding at the top-10 school for summer or just the school year? Ask the program if there is a way for you to do supplemental work to increase your stipend (I can do that at my program). Compare the cost of living between where you are now and where you would move. If it is less at the far-away school, your stipend may actually go a lot further than you think. Look at schools and community as well; maybe that far-away place would offer your family some opportunities that they don't have where you live now. Also, since you'd be paying for your Ph.D. at your home university, subtract that out of your salary and compare that amoun of useable income to your stipend at the top-10 school. You may actually have more money to use at the far-away school. Also, ask your employer if they would help pay for the Ph.D. if you did it at the home university. Ask the far-away school if it covers any moving costs (some schools do and if you're into a school ranked so highly, it probably has more money floating around). Of course, like the previous poster, think about what you want to do after the Ph.D. Factoring in those long-term goals is important too. This is a tough decision! Good luck!

I don't know what state you're in, but where I'm from, it would be hard to find that level of classes at a community college, and if they were at a CC, they're substantially less difficult than at the 4-year institutions. That said, I know that CC systems in California, for example, are a lot better than where I live, so I think do your homework, maybe sit in on a couple of those classes at a CC and at your 4-year college, and contact programs you're interested in to see what they say. My inclination is that with a lower GPA, you might want to take those classes at your college to potentially boost your GPA and show more academic rigor on your transcript. That's just my opinion though! Good luck!

No, an MFA is not the same as a Ph.D., but depending on what you do, you may not need a Ph.D. If you do writing, there are Ph.D. in creative writing programs. If you do stuff with visual media, I'm not really sure if there are Ph.D. programs specific to that. Maybe post this in the visual arts forum and see what kind of feedback you get. Good luck!

Thanks Good luck to you on your fall apps! It's a lot of work, but I'm sure it will pay off!

There are always things like Gates scholarships, Marshall scholarships, Ford scholarships, etc., but it would be helpful for you to share more info. Are you applying to MA or Ph.D. programs (or in the sciences)? Do the schools you are interested in usually fund their accepted applicants? Where are you applying? I think that MSW programs do often have some funding, but I think that they are generally not fully funded (could be wrong here!), but I've heard of people looking to the above-listed programs (all of which have minority or need-based scholarships) or to state or federal government programs. I'd recommend contacting the schools you are interested in. They'll have a list of external funding resources that students often or sometimes use, and they can tell you how to go about getting those external funding sources.

A 173 LSAT (is that what you really got on the actual test?!) is GREAT, and I would think that you could take the GRE and get a similarly awesome score after that, especially the new one (since the vocab prompting would more closely match the LSAT. . .though the quant bit might be offputting). However, it depends on your field, but almost everyone I know who did law school and then went to academia (or at least started) still had to take the GRE. I'd say a 173 LSAT score means you're good at prepping for standardized tests, which measure a lot more how good you are at taking a test than true knowledge of a subject. That said, those GRE scores do often mean higher fellowships, so I'd say prep for the GRE quant section and take the GRE. I really don't think most programs will take the LSAT in place (unless you're doing some kind of law-related program. . .totally different), and you've demonstrated ability with standardized testing formats. It depends on the field, but a high GRE score (like your super high LSAT) can get you more funding, though it will probably be your SOP and/or your writing sample that will get you in (if you're in the humanities). Good luck!

I think it has a lot to do with the type of program. My programs' deadlines were all Dec 1-Jan 2. The earliest I heard back was about a month and a half after a school's deadline and that was an acceptance. My program I decided to attend had a Dec 1 deadline, and I heard from them Feb 14 (I remember because it was an excellent Valentine's Day present ). The latest program I heard from was a Jan 1 deadline and I heard mid-March. However, all my programs required I give them an answer by April 15 (which is really standard for my field), so I'm not sure my experience is helpful for you. No matter what, best of luck!