Grunbein

As has been posted a number of times already, an applicant's writing sample and SOP are weighed most heavily by committees. Grades, institutions attended, GRE scores, etc. are of secondary importance but not negligible. This is because Universities want to know that the applicants they accept (and fund) are those most appropriate and apt to succeed. So yes, there are success stories (that I know of) in which an applicant has been accepted into a higher tier university despite the odds--we should say competition, these are people after all--because they were able to show convincingly that they were a good choice. To be more specific, I know of a student in similar circumstances, that is, one who attended a good but not great university for their BA, had good but not great grades, acceptable GRE scores, and went to a good but not great university to pursue an MA. This person excelled in their MA program, however, and was fortunate enough to publish a paper in a highly competitive peer-reviewed journal. This proved enough to win them entrance into all the Ivy-League schools they applied to, which they turned down to go to a school that seemed a better personal fit--UT Austin, a great school nonetheless. This might seem insane but only in a world in which the pedigree of a school is more important than its ability, if it has one, to foster creativity and personal success as these are the things that matter in life, professional and beyond. Beating the odds seems more to me like achieving the goal of recognition, which is a fair personal goal, but not--in my mind--of the highest priority. What matters more I would argue is finding a school that will allow you (and me) to develop professionally: learn how to teach students and contribute to academic discourse. And fortunately for all of us there are many, many schools like this in the US.

Look, any graduate program in Comp Lit is going to include a lot of theory, regardless of your focus. I don't know where you read it, but you don't have to know an "ancient language" to do Comp Lit at Washington University in St. Louis - or any university. You generally have to pass a foreign language exam in two languages other than English, sometimes three. Those should be chosen based on your field of interest. If you are interested in critical theory and contemporary philosophy (as you seem to be) your best choices would probably (not definitely) be German, French, English, and Russian. Also, you don't need to do Comp Lit to study theory. Any English department at a university worth its salt will offer lots of theory. Same can be said for Slavic and Germanic Language departments. When looking to apply for schools you should be primarily concerned with faculty. Harvard might be a better school than Minnesota, but Minnesota might offer a faculty more aligned with your interests. There are many good schools out there, but you can't just go into a grad program unless you have a very, very specific focus in mind. Regardless, here are a few schools that have very good reputations: U Penn Duke NYU Berkeley Johns Hopkins Minnesota Michigan WUSTL SUNY Buffalo UC Irvine CUNY Stanford Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown ...the list seriously goes on...