asleepawake

It's interesting to see that others have been told the complete opposite of what I have heard, though I guess it makes sense, since different adcoms are looking for different things and have their own logic. I guess it really depends on how you feel about the program, its commitment to students, and whether or not you will be funded.

I'm sorry you had such an unsuccessful go at all, but at least you got some practice with the real testing situation. Good luck with your next tests and your rock your Fulbright!

Absolutely. I'll be wasting $12 as well. Too bad they can't just convert the subject tests to the computer. There would be instant results and more availability of testing dates, I'd imagine. I feel like I guessed a lot too, but I didn't guess blindly at all (only if I could eliminate at least one answer), which means I ended up leaving a good 50 to 60 questions completely blank.

I hope the test went well for you! I also took it this morning. I didn't feel helped by studying very much. I now feel completely in the dark about what kind of score I got (hint: it's either abysmal, very bad, pretty bad, or, if I'm lucky, simply not that great). I am trying to reassure myself by remembering that a lot of programs don't require it, and that the works I have most closely studied simply aren't tested by it. Here's to waiting for scores!

I can't believe nobody has said it yet, but as a general rule, do not get an MA from a university that offers a PhD unless you are planning to also get your PhD there.An MA from one of these schools is like writing "Do Not Have What it Takes to Complete PHD" on your CV. Many of them hand MAs to the students in their PhD programs who are unable to complete their exams and/or workload as a sort of consolation prize. Also, at a research I or top 50 school, you may not receive the attention and feedback from professors that you need to grow as a scholar, especially if there are PhD students there as well.

Well, I don't think you should abandon academia entirely! I just think you need to REALLY think it through. If you're absolutely certain that you have been accepted to a school that you want to attend, you need to consider the loans, but you don't need to automatically turn it down just because I say so. I know we tend to suck at math in the humanities, but if you can find and hold a decent job while attending your program, you might actually be okay. If you are thinking about a public school that costs 12k/year, you'd only need about $25k/year to pay the tuition and make the same amount most funded programs give as a stipend. However, you're going to be working a lot more. It's possible.

Don't do it unless you are a ) independently wealthy or b ) there is no B. Absolutely not. It is not worth your money. This may mean going to a smaller or less prestigious school. Schools that have PhDs tend not to fund their terminal MAs, so you may need to consider schools that don't offer PhDs. Of course, you can ignore my advice... It works out for a few people, who end up with great jobs and who do not struggle to pay back their loans, but that is not the case for most of us. Even WITH my funding I will be at least 20k in debt when I graduate.

Hi, I know that Cornell has a joint MFA & Literature PhD. Does anyone know of others, or of schools that would allow this? I'm not looking for creative writing PhDs. Thank you!

Really? Care to share your reasons? I think it's pretty fantastic! Anyway, my answer is To Have and Have Not. Just. Awful. I'm not a huge fan of Hemingway as it is, but that one is just the worst.

I'm not in your field, but I also didn't major in what I am now studying. The best advice I can give is that you should absolutely get an MA (assuming it is considered moderately normal in your field to do so). Even if you feel like you know what you want to study, the experience of doing grad work in your field before the PhD is beneficial in all kinds of ways. Your application will be much better after the fact, and you'll get a chance to figure out what you really want to work on though experience, not through what you imagine grad school to be like. You'll also find out if grad school is right for you in a better timeframe. Your reasoning for not majoring in history is sound - if your program is Western-centric, and that isn't what you want to study, I don't see why you would get a degree in that program. Can you get a minor in history at least, though?

You and your crazy logic. I did check out the OP's others posts but all that answers for me is that the OP might be willing to relocate.

Well, I think it may be delusional, as others suggested, if you're doing the same thing when you apply that you have been doing. You need to restructure your materials and adjust your list of schools. Everybody always says there is no such thing as a safety school in grad school, but this simply means that there is no way to guarantee admittance, even for very strong applications. It does not mean that some schools aren't easier to get into than others. Let's not pretend that a school that takes 1% of applicants is at all similar to a school that takes half. Are you willing to go anywhere? Have you tried even these schools and not gotten in? Do you think GPA, test scores, or other numbers are keeping you entirely out of the running? Have you had honest and helpful peers/mentors look over your writing sample and statement of purpose?

If they're asking for 10-12 pages though, other students are going to be submitting either conference papers or significantly cut down articles as well. I guess I mean you're in the same boat as everyone else, except for the few jerks who completely disregard the limit and send in 29 pages. They probably SHOULD be looking at longer papers, but it won't hurt you that yours is short if the rest are, too. But yes, a standard would make me VERY happy.

Everybody else is submitting 10-12 pages, too. If you can say something substantive in a conference paper, you can do this just fine.

Hi, I'm wondering what you would all consider an average and a good GPA for a terminal MA applicant to a PhD application. I've been told not worry about my GPA at the grad level, and I know other things are obviously more important. However, as an MA student I have intentionally taken courses with very difficult professors. If you've ever use myedu (warning: there's no unseeing), you know that you can look up grade distribution by course. I've taken most of my classes with professors who give out only a handful of As, while I know that other professors give out almost all As and require far less work. I imagine this is the same elsewhere. I think my GPA looks pretty good right now, but this semester I am taking all difficult classes, and I'm pretty sure that it will drop at least a bit. I understand that different professors grade differently, and that this is a part of the process, and I'm not trying to complain or suggest it is unfair. I will continue to choose professors who challenge me. I don't want a gold star for showing up! I just realize how inaccurate a GPA is for measuring how much I've learned and I guess I want assurance that adcoms know this too. I'm not expecting to have a terrible GPA or anything, but I hate having to worry about it. Thoughts?

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I'm currently in an MA program and in the process of applying to PhD programs. My undergraduate GPA is not very good. It is about 3.15 and slightly lower in my majors and minor. I am doing much better in my MA program. During my time in undergrad, I struggled with health problems which caused my attendance to suffer. Some grades suffered a lot from this while others did not (it depended mostly on how seriously the instructor took this issue). I did not tell professors of my illness. However, there is no clear-cut break on my transcript. It isn't like I had one bad semester during which I was in treatment. Rather, I had chronic problems that made regular attendance difficult, and I felt okay at the time with my mediocre grades because I hadn't yet figured out what I wanted to do. The low grades are sporadic. I'd really rather not mention this to adcoms, as I don't really think it is their business and I'd prefer not to be pigeonholed as sick or unstable, but I do believe that my GPA would be very different if I had never had the disorder. As much as I don't want to explain this, I also don't want anyone looking at my undergraduate transcript and thinking that it is a reflection of my drive, intelligence, or capabilities. Should I mention these struggles briefly somewhere, or should I simply avoid the topic? I choose to avoid the topic when I applied to master's programs, but I still do not really know how my GPA may have hurt my applications.

If it makes you feel better, my undergrad stats are significantly worse that yours, Ivyhopeful! At this point, we can't change what we did in undergrad. I try not to think too much about mine because it just drives me crazy. However, I don't want to be applying to schools that will just throw my application in the trash. I check individual program websites for GPA cut-offs, though perhaps I should be e-mailing them if nothing is listed. I believe that a good writing sample, SOP, LORs, and MA GPA should trump BA pretty quickly, but maybe I'm being hopefully naive.

Yeah, but then I'm not sure how they are surviving in an MA program, either. Some of them are struggling, but others are highly skilled in the art of BS and are actually managing decent GPAs. I try to only worry about my own work, but it is a bit irksome to hear the bragging. Some of them, though, are MFA students fulfilling their lit requirements, so their experience with a thesis will be very different. Well, it sounds like you are significantly ahead of the others in your class. With people who are new to the study of literature, discussing "favorite characters" can be turned into a discussion of what is appealing about those characters and then eventually into something productive... but these students might not have words for things like Marxist theory yet. They might know Marx in passing or perhaps not at all. As an undergraduate, I minored in English, and so in class I was mostly unfamiliar with critical theory. I was probably one of these students you bemoan. Their ignorance doesn't necessarily mean they aren't capable, and it might be the professor's fault for not trying to lead discussion in a critical direction. It sounds to me like you ought to be in graduate seminars instead of these courses, anyway.

I am in a terminal MA program and I am funded, and so are a large number of my peers. You want to find a terminal program at a school that does NOT also offer a PhD (or those students will eat up all funding) and also in which grad students are used to teach freshman composition. These schools have lots and lots of good funding for MA students.

I absolutely have to force myself to speak up in seminars. I have to have an idea that I can easily defend and have fully thought out before I share it, even though I realize that the point of discussion is to aid in this development in the first place. I have a pretty bad case of impostor syndrome (or am I actually an impostor? How can I know?) and I always worry about appearing stupid (even around those I silently deem myself smarter than). I am getting better at speaking candidly, but I still follow conversation more than I dominate it. What I enjoy about writing is the process of developing my ideas and finding the right words - something I am obviously unable to do when put on the spot. As an instructor, I appreciate the quiet students as much as the talkative ones, maybe because I can relate to their silence. It doesn't mean they aren't thinking important things (though it certainly doesn't mean that they are). In response to a few earlier posts - I am absolutely in shock about how many of my peer who are in a master's program for literature brag about not having read (including a few very proud "I haven't done a single reading all semester" folks). Absolutely shocking and kinda sad. I want to shake them and say "why are you here?" I mean, do these types eventually either catch on or give up? Two Expressos - If the people in your class aren't having a good discussion and you're silently suffering through it, it might be a good idea to speak up and lead them in a more complicated direction. Your professors would probably be thrilled to hear from you.

I wouldn't think so at all, but it might depend on the areas you're interested in. I regularly write about literature from the 1990s. I cannot see a reason why Sometimes a Great Nation would not be appropriate, especially if you are interested in Marxist criticism or ecocriticism. The only concern you might have is that if there is little to no critical response to the work already published (and I'm not sure in this case), you won't be able to display your ability to enter an established discussion on that particular text. As long as you prove yourself familiar with your area/perspective in your usage of theory or close reading, however, I think you'll be okay.

I'm not sure why you're considering not applying. If you're not sure this is what you want to do, that's a good reason to not apply. But thinking your background isn't quite right? Not a good reason. Apply! I have a rough undergraduate record. I'm over it. I'm a huge supporter of the MA for anybody who isn't 100% sure exactly what subsubsubsubsubfield they're most interested in. However, the MA is certainly not going to get you into a top tier program. It might improve your chances of getting into one, but your application will be judged pretty much the same way: Writing sample! Statement of purpose! LORs! ...other stuff. Your background sounds plenty sufficient if you can find the right fit. If you want both a PhD and an MFA, you should figure out which one you want the most. I'm officially enrolled in an MFA program right now, but I discovered pretty quickly that I actually wanted a lit MA -> PhD, so I'm now completing the MA instead. My life might have been considerably easier if I had figured this out beforehand, but luckily, this is what the master's degree is for. People are moving around and trying different things. You do not NEED both an MFA and a PhD (as both are still considered terminal degrees), and if you know where you want to focus your research/creative work, you should be able to figure out which you want more (or first). Don't get a PhD just because you have great connections with lit faculty. You might consider a PhD in creative writing, in which you can do both creative and academic work.

I often read about and see firsthand the benefits of being an extravert in academia (and especially in the humanities), but these things don't come particularly naturally to me. I'm relatively quiet in seminars and have to force myself each time that I engage in discussion (and feel that I must be 100% sure of everything that I do say, for fear of saying something I haven't yet completely thought through). I get nervous speaking to faculty (despite having no comprehension of how my students could possibly be uncomfortable talking to me) and I'd rather be able to avoid anything that could be described as "networking." Of course, I know others have this worse than I do. How do you deal with these sorts of issues? I think that extraverts are often perceived as having more insight and drive, even when it isn't always true. How to you effectively community with faculty and peers, make yourself known, and successfully share ideas that are not fully developed? Do you worry about the effects of your social skills on your ability to get a job? Edit: I noticed immediately following posting that this is not the best spot for this post. Is it possible to delete or move my post? newb.