Phil Sparrow

Double post, sorry.

Michigan, Northwestern, Princeton, to start.

I would avoid getting two MAs. I've heard faculty at more than one institution...look down, I'll say, on applicants with two MAs. It is often basically seen as, "two MAs must mean this applicant tried for PhDs twice and didn't get in. Why should we take the chance on this one?" Not necessarily fair, I know, but a common enough attitude. Honestly, why not go for the PhD now? Or, more sensibly, next year, since it's awfully late to be starting the application process now. Your related-but-alternative background may really help, especially if you spin it right (like, if you say you're interested in the performative aspects of non-dramatic texts, for example). It's a cousin of English as a discipline, and will provide a more diverse base of knowledge for you. How are your languages?

I'm definitely not trying to defend ETS or this absurd exam, but...it's not an aptitude test. They are supposed to be testing you on prior knowledge. *ducks to avoid Hulk-like rage over the utter crapitude of the exam* Finally, do not despair over having studied Chaucer and C17 poetry! Even if it didn't show up on the exam, it's good to know. "Cocktail party" knowledge of this stuff can be very useful when you're actually studying and doing research on later works, because you'll be able to identify allusions to those major canonical texts. Sometimes I get sad because I'll be in class with, say, a bunch of utterly brilliant nineteenth-centuryists and, despite their huge breadth of specialized knowledge and kickass reading ability, they will completely miss allusions to older works which, when acknowledged, totally change the meaning of the text we're working on. It's always good to be able to pick that stuff out, which is one of the benefits of having to study for an otherwise stupid exam. Rest easy, good people! You've slain the beast! Congratulations on getting through it.

Or they might think you're good enough to apply to a great journal! (Ack! Edited for typos)

If we're talking about English, and top-20ish programs,* Well Spring is spot on. Spot on. When I mentioned the more rigorous standards before for MA students, I meant in terms of writing sample and SOP. CV is a whole different story, and it's quite debatable. Not to mention that there is some credence to the idea that some PhD programs want to "grow their own," though they are less likely to admit that. After two-ish years of grad school, many scholars are pretty well set in their ways and methodologies, and that can piss off some faculty in PhD programs (a reaction that is in some cases very justified, and in some cases completely unfair). It's not true for everywhere, but some really prefer to mold fresher minds. Or they simply prefer someone more open, which they may think (wrongly, sometimes) corresponds to having done less graduate work so far. Rhet/Comp and/or adjacent disciplines might be different. So might programs that are not as well established.** * Yes, I know rankings are suspect. But you all pretty much know what someone means when they say "top-20ish," even if you agree, as I do, that USNWR is BS. ** Also yes, I recognize that "well-established" doesn't necessarily correspond to program quality and it superficially discounts up-and-coming-ness.

"Independent Study in Contemporary Critical Theory" would work just fine. Shows that it's based on the normal course but is an independent study, which is different. For all those on this thread nitpicking about what "looks good on a transcript"--and to those who have been freaking out about all the details of your CVs and whatever else is on your application--allow me to provide a gem of insight from a successful applicant who shares a good rapport with current and former adcom faculty: writingsamplewritingsamplewritingsample, fitfitfit. Seriously.

Especially if you're on the quarter system, with so few meetings each term, it's very likely that you'll be assigned reading in advance of the first seminar. Do it--if it is assigned, you'll probably be delving in for the full length of the class; this model is near-ubiquitous in my program, anyway. Well-prepared professors will give you plenty of advance notice for first-day reading, though there's always a chance that you'll get the type who will assign you 200 pages of Kant 36 hours before class (grumble, grumble).

If this helps, indalomena: The MAs that are at a "disadvantage"* in American PhD applications tend to be American masters degrees in English or some adjacent field (i.e., comp lit, American studies--fields in which you'd take a lot of English coursework). Masters degrees in fields that are farther from English as a discipline, as well as foreign degrees (like a British MA), are usually exempted from the quotas or what have you that make it more difficult for MA-holders to gain acceptance to PhD programs. Also, some bad news: even for programs that accept lots of MA-holders, it's uncommon to be able to transfer many credits to your new program. With some rare exceptions, most PhD programs require you to start over (or almost start over) again in coursework, no matter what. * Some might disagree that there is any disadvantage at all (this is not my personal opinion, just what I understand from talking with faculty). The logic for programs that accept few MA-holders, as it has been explained to me, often boils down to this: if you have two years (give or take) of graduate work under your belt, you are expected to be a really, really good applicant. The standards are a lot higher, because--heck--you've almost already done the amount of work that will take most PhD students to candidacy. Therefore, your application needs to reflect that. BAs are screened for potential, but MAs have already had the chance to prove their potential, and the proof should already be in the application-pudding. Programs that take few MA-holders often don't think of the more rigorous application process as a "disadvantage" for MAs; it's more for them like calculating a handicap in golf.

In my program, it's quite common for professors to note, in their class evaluations, that quiet students did not (and should) speak up more in class. You are supposed to participate in graduate seminars. Think about it as a workshop or discussion at a conference; why are you there if you don't participate? Still more, grad seminars are often really small. A three-hour-long class of four or five people? It will be really obvious if one person consistently clams up. And when almost the entire grade is based on a single big research paper, you don't get to make up any participation points with small homework assignments. That's what seminar is for. However, this is not to say that students will necessarily be penalized if they are extra judicious with their comments, so long as they still actively participate each week.

Also, this. Cognitive psych + literary studies is HOT.

You don't usually see English departments offering grad courses in non-English literatures because graduate-level work is (or should be) professional or near-professional level. In other words, you rarely do work in translation, with particular exceptions for critical theory (and then if it's a major focus for your own research, it should probably be read in the original). You can certainly study works in translation, but probably only if your focus has something to do with the act of translation itself, in which case you would have to be able to work with the original text as well as the translated one in order to compare the differences. If you want to study 20C Central European lit, why not look into a PhD in German? A PhD in English is not shorthand for "literature, generally." It's a degree in [the language and literature of] English. That's not to say that work in English can't have a comparative bent; my own work, which I consider fairly staunchly "English" in its focus, has me working in 3-5 other languages/literatures as well. But if you don't want your main focus to be in English literature, think about why you want a PhD in English. If you want your focus to be in English and ________ literatures, avail yourself of courses and faculty in other national departments. Most friendly and collegial programs are very happy to have you take classes and find committee members outside of your home department.

Or maybe you get bad service because you don't tip.

Nobody will care if you make sure not to act all judgey or superior about it. So long as you don't alienate your colleagues with moralizing judgments (and this can mean verbal judgments as well as eyerolls or heavy sighs or other nonverbal cues that smack of moral judgment) most people will be cool with whatever you choose to do or not do. Just do your own thing! The coolest kids do whatever works for them. Though, I'd warn you that, in the humanities at least, grad students (and academics more generally) are notorious boozers. Doesn't mean you have to join them, however!

It really depends on the program. Some programs prefer (and their acceptance numbers confirm that) candidates with MAs in hand already. Some programs have, to a greater or lesser extent, some bias against MA-holders. Penn State, for example, has historically accepted only 1-3 MA-holders each year (out of...I don't know, you all, at least 30 acceptances, right?). Other programs only rarely accept those without MAs. I don't know much about the programs you mention, but I think OSU prefers MA-holders. (But my knowledge of OSU is based on what I remember from anecdotal evidence on this forum, not any personal experience. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) If you don't have to take the extra time (not to say money!) to do a terminal MA, don't do one. If your application is strong enough already that you can be accepted to the PhD program(s) you want without an MA, there's not much point to doing it in my opinion. P.S. I'm sure you are aware that just because some PhD programs don't require you to apply specifically MA --> PhD (as Penn State, and I think OSU, UNC, etc., do) it doesn't mean they won't award an MA along the way. At my current program, I applied directly to the PhD (they have no MA --> PhD option) and was awarded a masters after completing X satisfactory progress. Several other programs I considered would have done the same thing. In fact, I believe most do.

First, I think not deciding to do an honors thesis your sophomore year was probably smart. It would be an incredibly special student who would have the proper skills to pull off such a big project at that stage in her education. Now, for my second question/comment, I'm not trying to sound mean or belittling, just honest. If you don't really want to do an honors thesis, why do you want to go to grad school? If spending a significant chunk of time researching, thinking about, writing a thesis--that is, eating, sleeping, and drinking a project--doesn't appeal to you, then grad school might not be for you. I often think that doing a thesis is a good thing because it gives an undergrad a little taste of what grad school is like. While an undergraduate honors thesis is in almost all cases nothing the same as a graduate project, it can give you the clearest idea of the kind of...let's say, elbow grease that will go into your graduate level work. If you really, really hate working on an undergrad thesis, then graduate work will probably destroy you. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that going into grad school (and academe generally) is like being a career artist or musician: if it's not something you desire completely, if it's not something you'd be working on in your spare time without any other reason than you loooooove it, you probably shouldn't do it. And that doesn't mean reading, it means researching and writing at a very deep (or high, or whatever) level. Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk. You do sound like you're a very together applicant, and I'm sure you've thought about all of this ad nauseum. Your responses and comments are always thoughtful, smart, and reasonable. But if you still don't really want to do an honors thesis except for a prestige factor, rethink what grad school means to you. If this is an issue of you still really wanting to do the thesis for the thesis' sake now, your senior year, but worrying you don't have enough time with applications and everything else... Well, there's no shame in putting off the applications a year and finishing your senior year sane and with a great piece of research under your belt. In fact, I'd counsel everyone on these boards who is trying to apply straight out of undergrad to consider the same. It will make for a better application and graduate experience in about 96% of cases. Phew. Tough love over. Sorry, bdon, and everyone else I may have freaked out or offended.

In all honesty, you probably won't get very frank answers to questions like these until you've already been admitted. Grad students (myself included) often shout from the rooftops about professors we love, but are unwilling to give the real nitty-gritty until more of a connection is made (either personally, if we meet you and like you, or professionally, like when you've been admitted to the program and we want to give you honest counsel about accepting the offer or not).

Also, this.

The OP is right--prestige and reputation do matter. And I agree that it's unfortunate, because it can shut even some superstar scholars out of parts of the job market. In the last few years, I've learned more about what the TT job search looks like from the hiring institution's end, and it's true that R1 schools (and, I would assume, "top" SLACs, as well) have particular...cutoffs for job candidates. As in, one's PhD must come from a program that is prestigious to the X degree (what degree varies, depending on the program doing the hiring), and candidates whose degree-granting institution doesn't meet that benchmark will be held at a real disadvantage, or in some cases will not be considered at all for the position. (Exceptions are often made, however, in the case of well-established scholars, later-in-career with some seniority in the field.) Sad but true. Edited to note: reputation isn't everything, though. A prestigious degree doesn't count for much if you haven't distinguished yourself as a scholar and teacher. However, I will echo the poster who noted that your program's reputation in your subfield matters more than the overall prestige of the program, and certainly than the overall reputation of the institution. I should also note that ranking does not always correspond well to a program's reputation/prestige at any given moment in time. A quick glance at placement records can confirm this. If we base this mysterious "reputation" on where and how often PhDs from a given program get TT jobs, it seems apparent that there is a new crop of "top" programs joining (and in several cases, supplanting) those traditionally ranked at the top. The point: prestige surely matters, but don't count on the "rankings" to reflect the reality of any program's current reputation.

Well, I know admissions are different for applicants who already hold an MA, but since I don't have any experience applying with an MA, I cannot give advice for all you Masters; this is for the BAs. I'd go with something more like option #2 (or rather, I did go with that, and was rather successful). First of all (and this is not intended to sound mean or snobby), you are, as a pre-grad school student, an immature scholar. You will grow and change SO much in your scholarship in just the first year. And so I'd avoid getting really specific, because even if it sounds sophisticated and nuanced to you now, it won't in a year. More importantly, there's a good chance it will come off as immature and facile to an admissions committee. I think it's wiser to paint with somewhat broader strokes, while also making sure you sound focused and well-prepared, and will be coming with a good idea of what graduate study entails (as opposed to the, "Gosh, I just love reading so much, and I love reading EVERYTHING!" SOPs). Just saying, "I want to study the Renaissance!" isn't quite focused enough, but saying that you want to prove, using Derrida and Butler and Greenblatt, that representations of knee pain in the drama of 1610s Northern England reveal an acute anxiety about the rise of the mercantile class and the displacement of an agrarian economy in upper Yorkshire (or what have you) is probably too specific. Most programs want to mold you into a scholar, not just collect another fully-formed scholar for their grad student collection. I also know that there is some debate about this notion, but I fall on the side of recommending you name-drop, elegantly and mindfully, professors at the program who will be assets for you. I'd caution against having a paragraph that reads like a laundry-list of profs, or mentioning professors without doing serious research (you'll probably pull a big black X against your app if you say you want to work with a prof who will be retiring in a year, for example, or if you say that you love deconstruction and then namedrop someone who hates Derrida). If you're not fully confident in your dropping of names, don't do it! But, this is one area where I believe getting very specific can be helpful. If any of you disagree, please feel free to contradict me. I know others had very different experiences applying and may have very different advice.

Man, if you can take a free Spanish class where you work, DO IT. The dedication and forward-thinking will look good on your application, and it's always better to get a head start on language wor, astrying to fit a new language in while you're in the midst of PhD coursework is very difficult.

Especially if you are applying without an MA in hand, most adcomms really won't care much if you have or do not have conference presentations on your CV. Besides the fact the it will behoove you to put off conference presentations until you are actually ready, academically and professionally,* to put your work before the public, you'd be better off application-wise polishing and re-polishing your writing sample and SOP, as well as researching and proving fit with the schools to which you're applying. Your CV is one of the least important parts of your application (at least if you apply BA-only; I don't know enough about applying with an MA to speak to that). * Ask your mentors if they think you're ready to put your work out there at conferences. And by the way, starting with small, student-level conferences is a good thing.

I am so sick of all of these doomsday articles that suggest that there is no intrinsic value to a humanities education, or that there is no value to education generally unless it helps one nab a cushy corporate job. I've had a cushy corporate job, and it drove me to grad school-- in the humanities no less! I know exactly what I'm missing out on now, and good riddance. I'd prefer to spend my life earning a pittance for doing something I love than pull a high salary and hate myself and my life every day. Grad school, in many ways, sucks. It's hard, it's often demoralizing, you don't get much respect from the average non-academic (indeed you don't get much respect from the average academic), and--yes--I'll be lucky to get any academic job at all, let alone tenure-track, after I'm finished. But it's the best job I've ever had. My worst days in grad school are better than my best days in the cubicle. I love what I do, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I'm here. I know exactly what I'm getting into, job-wise, and I'm okay with that. And P.S. I got my sweet, soul-crushing corporate gig with an undergraduate English major. If you know how to market yourself, a undergraduate humanities major is INCREDIBLY useful for business-related jobs and job-searches. Most humanities undergrads, however, hear so often that their majors are useless that they don't even bother to learn how to market their valuable skills. This is something we should put serious effort into rectifying. If we collectively learned how to market ourselves better, we might not have to endure so many lectures on our so-called "useless" educations from boneheads who can't compose an email to save their lives.

What era do you want to focus on? That will determine the answers to a lot of these questions. Also, what kind of critical theory and/or in what capacity? Do you want to study theory qua theory or just be a critical theory-heavy scholar? For questions of early modern authorship, as well as film, Northwestern would be a great fit for you. They have a well-known film department as well as great early modernists who specialize in authorial collaboration, etc. Also great for early modern drama. How committed are you to working on Joyce, though? Because there's no stand-out Joyce scholar there that I can tell. Like Northwestern, WUSTL is generally strong in early modern, and they also have a top-notch Joyce scholar as well as other great Irish lit people. Not sure about film there, but it's a great lit program. Duke is great in early modern as well as theory. There's a lot of overlap between their English and Literature programs, so you could apply to either one and enjoy the resources of both. Furthermore, a benefit to going either to UNC or Duke is that you basically get two schools for the price of one. There is a great deal of collaboration and back-and-forth, and they're very open about cross-enrollment in courses, cross-institutional diss committees, etc. I don't know about UNC for your particular interests, but it's also a generally strong program, especially in early modern lit.

I'm not sure if you're talking about "straight PhD" programs generally, or just Rice. I know nothing about Rice and can't speak for it in any way whatsoever. But at most programs I researched when applying (including my current institution), you'll be awarded an MA after 1-3 years (it depends on how your program is set up). So, if something bad happens and you have to drop out, or--heaven forfend--the faculty does not want you to continue, you'll generally be rewarded an MA for your efforts even at straight-to-PhD programs (when I say this, I mean programs where you don't apply first to the MA, then later to the PhD, but rather apply straight to the PhD). Even if these "straight PhD" programs have terminal MAs along side, you often won't have to complete the full MA requirements to receive an MA if you've done X years on the PhD track (that is, you don't have to write a these and/or pass exams). I'm also not really sure what the problem is here...the risks associated with dropping out are the same everywhere; that is, you won't complete your degree. If you don't finish an MA program, you won't get the MA. If you don't finish your BA, you won't get your BA. If you walk away ABD or earlier from your doctoral program...you have not completed your PhD. And yet even straight-to-PhD programs which generally don't award MAs along the way often will award them to students who don't finish the PhD as a sign that they made at least some progress. Surely not all of them do this, but many do. Anyway, sorry to derail the thread a bit. I was rather confused by this comment. And I may have confused myself even more with my own answer...