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Didn't hear from Chicago, so I'm marking that one off as an implicit rejection...

KingLear: Where did you hear that Yale English is doing interviews this year? I haven't heard that, and saw nothing on their website.

I think Ben Gibbard was brilliant, but then he completely changed his writing style and is often cringeworthy now. Some great current or recent songwriters that I like are Ryan Adams, Joanna Newsom, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes), John Vanderslice, Sam Quinn (Everybodyfields), the Mountain Goats guy, and Elliott Smith.

Pretty amazing - while the number of applicants to all grad programs combined has risen in the last 10 years from about 12,000 to about 15,000, a 25% increase, the number of English grad school applicants has gone from 141 to 289 - over 100% increase. And everyone says interest in the humanities is declining...

first draft due in 3 weeks...entering panic mode!

Jane Eyre

Nice... as I try to come up with a proposal (due tomorrow) for the Thomas Wolfe Society Conference

Surefire: you said the "incomplete" apps were tossed...what exactly constitutes an "incomplete"? I've had problems sending in my official GREs and am paranoid I'm going to get thrown out of the pile without being looked at.

On the online app it says 1000 words, I'm pretty sure

Finally finished 10th app - done! Now the waiting (torture) game.

So i've applied to 6 schools so far and did some checking, and not ONE of them has gotten my GREs which were sent weeks ago. Sweet. Does anyone know if the first name makes a difference? Like, on my GRE score reports, my first name is listed as Joe, whereas on my apps my name is listed as "Joseph." Could this explain it? And do yall recommend calling ETS or the schools first?

11 looked too small for me so I went with 11.5

This.

Most of my places were early, so I can't help you much. But have you considered British unviersities? Most of their deadlines are way later, like late January or February.

I mailed mine yesterday. If anyone knows or finds out whether the 15th is due date or postmark date, please let us know! I'm worried about this.

Bespeckled: Are you talking about Michigan's personal statment for English? It can be up to two pages, acc. to the site: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/howtoapply/lang.asp "Clearly labeled biographical Personal Statement: up to two pages, double spaced, statement about how your personal background and life experiences....." "...Disregard the 500 word limit as stated on the application."

Submitted mine earlier today. Hoping my last LOR submits by tomorrow!

yay overnight

Agree completely. It's multiculturalism taken to an absurd extreme.

So, my first couple of schools didn't have a word limit on the statement of purpose and mine was about 1380. In my next round of apps, however, there are places that have a 1000 word limit (and Michigan's limit is 2 pages double spaced...wha?). I'm definitely going to cut some, but I don't know if I'll be able to get below 1250 or 1200 words without really disrupting the flow or leaving something important out. I just hate cutting stuff. What I'm wondering is, will it be better to just go 200-300 words over the limit, if cutting will hurt my SOP? Or will the costs outweight the benefits? I am afraid some schools might get pissed at me going 300 words over and just throw the thing away, because they might think I'm being disrespectful to their guidelines or something. And with 11 billions applications, we know they're always looking for new ways to get rid of applicants without really looking at their app. Thoughts? At this point I'm leaning toward brazenly going over the 1000 limit.... Hope everyone is hanging in there. I really hate that a lot of this stuff is due right during exam time.

Thanks . We'll see how everything turns out. I seem to be in the opposite situation of a lot of ppl on this board...I have great GREs but my SOP is barely coherent and I'm not crazy about my writing sample.

I gave in to ETS.....780! Spending my weekends for the last two years reading endlessly has paid off in something haha.

anybody else gonna give $ to evil ETS and find out their subject scores monday?

Thanks guys, that helps some. But Johns Hopkins does indeed blatantly ask this: "How much financial support do you need? (Please type just a dollar value - ex. 45000)" Then there is a box for "Tuition Request" and then "Living Expenses Request." This is right after the app asks whether I want a fellowship, a teaching assistantship, or a research assistantship. And it's due at midnight...ahhhh!!!!!!

So, a little late in the game to be asking this, but...what are fellowships exactly, and how do they fit in to the application process? In doing these apps, there's usually a section about what kind of fellowship, teaching or research assistantship thing you want, and how much money you want/need, etc...I have no idea what to put for these things. I guess I was under the naive assumption that you just applied to places, and certain places gave you certain fellowships of varying quality and amount of funding, but almost always they covered the tuition. And of course it varies from school to school, I assume. But does anyone have any info on this, from an applicant prospective? Like, if I put that I am requesting X amount dollars, would a school be less likely to accept me because I would be "expensive"? And vice versa? Thanks very much for any info or personal experience.