Phil Sparrow

_Philadelphia_ might be a useful film.

This is another reason that we shouldn't assume that Harvard and Yale are the "top" programs anymore just because they used to be. Going to a very, very well regarded program is extremely important; otherwise your chances of getting a not-totally-exploitative academic job after graduation are basically nonexistent. But the field of "elite" programs (in English, anyway) is changing and has changed dramatically in the last 15 years or so. The old big dogs are not so big anymore, whatever the obsession with "Ivies" here on Gradcafe might lead you to believe.

Food for thought: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/12/05/study-questions-whether-departments-are-too-focused-hiring-graduates-elite

If you are happy and fulfilled doing anything else, don't go into academia. It's like trying to be an artist. Unless you really have to do it, and would be making your art no matter what else is happening in your life, it is a bad life decision to attempt to do it professionally.

Yes, of course, this! Proflorax is right on.

I know that this response will probably win me very few friends here, but if you feel like you can't (or can barely) cope with the anxiety of applying to doctoral programs, you should rethink whether or not academia is for you. Because the anxiety will only get worse, and the stakes will only get higher. I'm not just talking in the first year, or in your 5-10 years in grad school, but imagine this: the anxiety that you are feeling now, multiplied by 100 and with your actual livelihood hanging in the balance, from now until you---maybe, if you're very lucky and are much more productive than 95% of your peers---get tenure. Which means 5-10 years of school, maybe 2-5 years on the job market, 6-7 years on the tenure track. Envision it as twenty more years of what you're feeling now, only with five writing samples and ten SOPs to prepare at any given time (plus grading, advising, committee memberships, peer reviewing, and so on). This is not to say that the OP can't cope with the situation, but IF that's the case, take a break, don't apply this year, and give yourself another twelve months to prepare and/or rethink whether you want to actually do this. If you feel this anxiety but can cope with it in a healthy and productive way, then congrats! You may be well on your way to becoming another neurotic but satisfied academic! Which is absolutely fabulous.

That is far too long. Naming professors can be beneficial if you do it well and don't just namedrop for for namedropping's sake.

Do you want to be defined by your significant other in your application?

It does depend on the program; some will be much more welcoming to this manner of inquiry than others, but that is true of any given area of focus or methodology. You should be cautious of the way you phrase your interests, however, because saying "I want to study Theory!" can be as much of a red flag as saying "I love literature!" In fact, it can be more dangerous, because currently, there really is no job market for general theory experts, and programs won't want to admit students who have no chance of getting a job. This is not to say, however, that the approach you're taking is necessarily inappropriate. You may have a well-defined set of research questions that will distinguish you from the run-of-the-mill "I want to study Theory!" folks. (From your brief description, actually, it sounds like you're well on your way to distinguishing yourself---and it also sounds as if your period is fairly squarely 20th century, so you do have a more specific focus than Theory-with-a-capital-T or whatever.) Just make sure you define a broad but coherent set of research questions (as it has been said on these boards before, you do not need to propose a specific dissertation topic, nor should you) that show you understand how to enter the discipline's current scholarly conversation, and that you deserve a place in it. Those who suggest "I just want to study Theory!" make it clear that they do not know what that conversation looks like.

Always paperclip. Much easier on the receiving end.

Yes, but as I recall they only take a couple every year, so it is much more competitive than applying without one (and it's a pretty shockingly competitive program to begin with; their numbers are crazy). It may behoove you to check with the DGS or their grad admin on their approach to evaluating applications and to double check that what I am reporting remains a current policy, because these things can change from year to year. Though their website is confusing, their faculty and staff are legendarily helpful.

A friendly reminder, because I know their website is unclear. Penn State does not have a terminal MA program. Some people leave after the MA to go elsewhere, but that is true of any PhD program that grants an MA along the way to the PhD. Penn State makes you apply to the MA if you do not already have one, but you 1) are competing for the PhD program along with everyone else; 2) will be granted funding for the duration of the PhD (5-6 years) if you are accepted to the MA (which, again, is really the PhD). Though Rachael2687 may know precisely what she is applying to, I just want to reiterate this because I feel like people often don't understand how the process at Penn State works since it's not the easiest website to navigate. Additionally, many folks apply to terminal MA programs in the hopes that they are easier to gain entry to and that they will be a good stepping stone on the way to the PhD. But Penn State's MA-to-PhD program is intensely competitive, just like any PhD program, and while no one will have their foot on any student's neck, most people are expected to stay for the length of their funding---that is, until they receive a doctorate.

Most people I know at Northwestern live in Chicago; many people I know at Rutgers live NYC. Providence, especially around Brown, is very urban. And Charlottesville, home to UVA, may be a small city, but it is charming as all get out (plus, there really couldn't be a more perfect program for waparays' interests). So there you go! To continue to add to Stately Plump's complications.

I'd mention it if you are an aspiring medievalist or early modernist (especially Latin for those two fields), or intend to study anything else that would be heavy on languages (e.g., Caribbean lit). It's not a small part of the application for certain specialties, and in fact is very important for many of them. I mentioned my languages, and ongoing study of them, in my SOP as well as on my C.V., and everywhere I was accepted mentioned my language study as a big plus. You can be brief about it, though.

I totally agree! I would absolutely encourage applicants to go for big names if they fit. Most definitely. Again, sorry to have taken your brief comment out of context!

Oops, double post.

Regarding Yale---I know this isn't your whole reason for being interested in applying, but I'll just offer this as a public service announcement to you and all the other applicants on this site. Don't apply anywhere just "because, you know, it's Yale" (or because it's any particular place). First of all, applicants who apply to places simply because they have fancy names and reputations are almost certainly not going to get in, because wanting to apply somewhere just for its (often outdated) reputation neglects one crucial part of any application review: fit. If you don't fit, you will not be accepted. It is a waste of money to apply somewhere "because, you know, it's X" rather than because it is a good fit for you. Second, as the poster above noted, beware of assuming certain programs are (still) on top just because of a general, old-fashioned reputation or storied ivy-covered walls. Those are often out-of-date assumptions. This is not to disparage Yale in particular at all, but I see over and over on these boards applicants assuming that places that have historically big names are the best and most prestigious programs today. Things have changed a LOT in academia over the last 15 or so years. Research schools like crazy to check where they stand in terms of placement, philosophy, et cetera today before you decide to spend your money on an application. I hope I don't sound mean or rude, because I am not trying to be. I realize that I've quoted you above twice rather out of context, and I don't intend to mock you or be snide. I'm more just taking this opportunity to make a general statement to all applicants about this kind of thing, and I really do apologize if it is hurtful at all.

Where do you want to work after you complete the PhD? If you want to work in the US, you may be better served getting an American doctorate.

I don't know much about Rhetoric, but Northwestern is also fantastically strong in medieval, and their interdisciplinary group or "cluster" is made of students from all departments, so they all get the same strong training. So, you could apply to the Rhet department there and work with medieval group/cluster/what have you.

A lack of formal training in GS is unlikely to hurt you. However, I'd be wary of making it sound in your SOP like you've stumbled across some great innovation by thinking to put RN studies and GS together. Renaissance scholars have been at the forefront of queer/feminist studies (and all the sex/gender-inflected permutations between and around those two) for decades. There is a LOT of work out there on Renaissance lit and gender-whatever approaches. If you try to make it sound like a super original idea to do these two together--without being very specific about what in particular your original idea is--you will sound naive and uninformed. That said, your SOP doesn't have to pitch a brilliant and totally original new idea. It should demonstrate that 1) you know how to develop a compelling set of research questions, and 2) you have a good understanding of the field and where you might potentially enter the critical conversation. (Those are of course only two among many other functions that the SOP should accomplish, though they are especially important.) I'll also note that just because doing gender work in RN lit has been done, and a lot, does NOT mean that it is over done, passé, or not a compelling avenue of inquiry. It's a very, very rich area of focus. Just make sure you do plenty of legwork on the field to inform your application.

As far as the necessity of language prep prior to admission goes, it depends on the program and it depends on your proposed area of study. Stanford, if I recall correctly, uses a lack of language skill to weed applicants out. Carolina has in the past indicated that they like to see a good faith effort to acquire languages prior to admission, but don't expect an applicant to be ready to pass an exam right away. At other programs, prior language acquisition is a plus, but not expected at the time of admission. Some areas of focus will necessarily demand that you show language skill for admission, regardless of the general standards of the department for incoming grad students. If you are applying as a medievalist, for example, solid language preparation (especially in Latin) is more or less a prerequisite for admission to most programs. That's somewhat true of Renaissance folks, as well, though they tend not to be quite as intense about languages as the medievalists. N.B. The above is drawn from my general experience with and understanding of English PhD programs, not MA programs or other kinds of departments.

This is a common complaint among applicants every year. It's not productive to get all worked up about it, however. Just try to call or email the graduate coordinator to get the information you (think you) need. In mild defense of departments who don't make "minimum scores" clear: as a previous poster suggested, most programs do not have minimums. They'll have a ballpark, but if your other application materials--especially the writing sample--are very strong, the ballpark won't even matter. Or in other cases, the graduate school might have a minimum score requirement, but the department won't, meaning that the department has to be willing and able to get the graduate school to make an exception if an applicant's scores fall below the minimum (this is why sometimes you'll see information on the graduate school website but not the department website). Sometimes the department can prevail, and sometimes not. But the department won't want to foreclose on the possibility of considering and recruiting great candidates who aren't great test takers. Finally, most English departments in the US are in total and complete financial and existential crisis. Even the ones that are well off (like mine) have NO extra money lying around to do things like majorly overhaul the website to appease a few applicants who may or may not ever get in, let alone attend, the program. Our department administrators are shockingly overworked, and they, again, have better support, financial and otherwise, than many or most other programs out there. Not having you think they are "jerky" because a single piece of information is less than fully clear on the website is very, very low on the list of priorities. I'm not trying to be jerky myself, though undoubtedly this next bit will sound that way: applying to grad school is terrible. Being in grad school is often terrible. You either suck it up because you love it despite the stupid shit you have to put up with, or you find another career. There is a lot of idiotic, opaque, bureaucratic crap you have to put up with in academia, and questions about GRE scores are the smallest, most insignificant of them all, so if this makes you completely freak out, you may want to rethink spending all that money on applications.

Excellent! Honestly, PhD comics is a pretty good representation of grad school! You can learn a lot about life on the inside from it. Keep on truckin'.

First, getting a job will depend on your research (topic as well as execution, and politics and luck, etc.). Second, if, as you say, you don't know how these things work, I recommend you learn a lot more about academia before you decide to apply. Read up on the _Chronicle_, poke around its fora; become a regular reader of _Inside Higher Ed_. Talk to every prof and humanitiies PhD student you can not just about admissions, but life and work in the academy generally. Applying to grad school is expensive and horrible. Afterwards, there is a lot of burnout in grad school itself because students who applied without having a full idea of what they were getting themselves into. Do your homework now so you can make a strong decision later.

Yes, as margarethale noted, this is no longer UVa's practice. I understand that they stopped doing it maybe 15+ years ago, after the Terror that reigned over humanities grad programs generally in the late '80s and early '90s. Their funding is nothing to sneeze at. One can live pretty well on $20,000 in Charlottesville. Watch out instead to see how this insane coup by the business school over the President works out. If the Rector and her cronies come out on top, there may be a large exodus of faculty.