ComeBackZinc

But the general point stands: there are universities, or schools within universities, where there are explicit cutoffs for GRE that are establish by policy, and this usually ties the hands of departments even if they would prefer to take someone on. I have no idea how common it is, but it's been reported several times around here. Far more common with GPA. Which doesn't change the basic point that the GRE is usually very low down on the list of important factors for admission.

You're overthinking it. In the vast majority of cases, the people who are reviewing you applications will have no idea when they were received.

I submitted a Works Cited with my SOP, but many, many people don't. I don't think you can really go wrong. Obviously, a WC with your writing sample is a must.

People in lit can give you more accurate information than I can, but I think they're pretty much always interchangeable.

I ceased to take him, and his grad student “career,” very seriously. Truly, a fate worse than death.

Exact same paper? I wouldn't, particularly given that you would ideally be matching your paper to the conference's theme. Same research? Happens all the time. Revise it enough that you can credibly say that you're making some new insights or claims. If you've got a good horse, you might as well ride.

As others said, I think the best thing to do is just to make the two best individual applications to various schools that you can, and then hope for the best. I actually am not sure if it's allowed for them to take partners into consideration when making admissions decisions. I know in some schools, it's against state policy or state law for schools to inquire about your marital status, whether you have children, etc., because of the wording of anti-discrimination statutes.

I think you're conflating a couple separate ideas, here. 1. The notion of a particular program's relative prestige, exclusivity, and quality 2. The ranking of those qualities into any ordinal list 3. The particular rankings of the US News and World Report list The first matters a great deal on the job market. It isn't the only thing that matters, and people can and do overcome a lower ranking to get hired, but it matters a lot for getting hired. However, the fact that number one matters does not mean that number 2 is necessarily possible, and certainly does not mean that number 3 is accurate. Many people who believe that prestige is important don't think that US News and World Report has anything more than a crude idea of the relative prestige of different programs. Some of the rankings on that list seem so out of date as to be farcical. In any event: hiring committees will be made up of tenured professors who have their own ideas about which programs are the most prestigious (or highest quality or whatever.)

So: Purdue rhet/comp funds its MA students, which is a very good thing. Technically, it's not a BA-to-PhD program. However, if you complete the MA in good standing and develop academic relationships with faculty, you're essentially guaranteed to be admitted into the PhD program, which quite a few of our MAs do.

Is Florida on your radar at all? How about UIC?

Not increasing my loan debt by a penny is a big one.

No such thing.

One problem with the fit thing is that it's just so hard to know the criteria for what fit means from the outside. By that I mean that I agree with the consensus that how you fit into a particular department is very important, and that this is shaped by your declared research interests and the profs who work and publish in the department. But the needs of those departments and profs are often idiosyncratic and change from semester to semester, depending on who has been admitted in recent years, who has what advisees, etc. So it's almost like, "Fit is super important, but not something you can understand from the outside." Which is very frustrating of course. That's an argument for the "apply to a lot of schools" camp, I think. Just so much chance.

As in all things in this process, different people will have to apply different thinking and figure out their own strategy. There are plenty of people who apply to a single school, get in, and go on to long careers; there are plenty of people who apply to dozens of schools and do the same. It's not a one-size-fits-all process, and thank goodness for that. Incidentally, the argument for fit is not that you become bffs with your professors. It's that a) fit is important to adcomms, which makes it more likely that you'll get in and that an effective working relationship and overlapping interests are more likely to result in the kind of CV that does matter for professionalization. And, you know, the American university is built on patronage. Film at 11.

I've met Ralph Cintron a few times and he was very thoughtful, charming, and friendly. His book Angels' Town is really great, even if you're not at all into rhetoric. If you're interested in Latino and Latin American Studies, urbanism, or ethnography, he's one to check out.

I applied to I think 4 schools. I knew where I wanted to go, and I took the idea of program fit seriously. I knew already about a lot of different programs, knew who some of the prominent profs were at each place, and got some of the gossip and inside info from profs and former students. There were a couple more places I could have applied, but I knew I had a very strong application and I knew that there was no point or purpose to applying to programs that weren't actually conducive to my future career and my quality of life for 4-6 years. But that's just me.

All I can say is this: essentially every indicator of your future practical good says not to get your PhD in the humanities, in English specifically, and in lit specifically. The practical case against applying to these PhD programs is enormous, even without knowing the specifics of your situation. I know you've heard that before, and I know it's tiring to hear it over and over again. But it's true. And the reality is, as much as this message board is for those who believe themselves to be the exception to the rule, we can't all possibly be the exception to the rule. I made the choice that I made, of course, so you can feel free to read hypocrisy or whatever into this message. But if you are having doubts now, don't go. Because the real problem wouldn't be getting rejected from grad programs. The real problem comes if you graduate from a PhD program and don't get the kind of job you want. Which, we should be clear, is by far the most likely outcome.

I guess I just think it depends on what you mean by the journey. "My experience near a borderland led me to explore theories of these spaces, through which I discovered Gloria Anzaldua. While researching her work at my BA institution, I was first exposed to the work of Aime Cesair..." That I think can be helpful, as long as you end up moving in a forward-moving direction, as Jazzy suggests. What I would avoid is biographical information that isn't specifically tied to particular research interests, that can't be carefully connected to the arc of an academic career.

Remember the fundamental exercise here: I want to study X. Department Y is the best place for me to study X because of reasons one, two, three.... Part one is not so much about you already knowing what you'll end up studying (or writing your dissertation on) and more about you demonstrating that you know what an academic project in your field is-- that you know the kinds of things that people study, that you can demonstrate some content knowledge about your named area of expertise, and that you will have some grasp on what kind of projects get papers published and what kinds make good dissertation topics. Part two shows that you have done your basic research on the department, know the faculty, know the work of select members of the faculty, and will have people who can work with you even if your research focus evolves, as it surely will over the course of your graduate career.

Cute and catchy make sense for undergraduate admissions because you're trying to stand out among literally thousands of other candidates. Even the most popular English PhD programs don't hit four figures. The SOP is a signalling mechanism. It says, "I know what an academic career is, I know enough about the structures and culture of the university system to function in that system and build a career within it." You're not trying to prove your desire or love for the subject matter. If you're getting a PhD, you're dedicating your life to the subject matter, so love and commitment are assumed. What professional and academic reasons inspire you to get a PhD? And why is department/school X a great fit for those reasons?

I've heard much the same.

When it's time to try New Haven pizza, I think you'll find that Sally's is superior to Pepe's, despite the latter having a bigger reputation. Call ahead and make a reservation, as the wait can be quite long. And as someone who's eaten a great deal of pizza in New Haven, New York, Providence, and Chicago, I will join with those who proclaim New Haven pizza the best in the country.

Now that's an interesting position. Edit: this made sense before a bizarre spam post got deleted.

I did, and I got into my top program. She had only retired the year before, but I can't see how that would make a difference, provided the prof in question genuinely knows you and can speak to the quality of your work.

I think it's about as likely that I'll end up working with Zizek on my dissertation about computational linguistics as you'll end up working with him on philosophical aesthetics at NYU. It's not exactly a position with a lot of opportunity for mentorship. Otherwise, people really love NYU's program.