Grunty DaGnome

Dang Silentskye, we have 6 programs in common! Good luck to us indeed! Are you in a M.A. now in Boston? Can I ask which one? [Private message me if you don't want to announce it].

I agree, this is the minimum we should get for our money. NYU and CUNY do the same.

I've always heard, in general, that committes first evaluate your personal statement, then writing sample, then letters of recommendation, then grades and finally test scores. I've also heard that sometimes GRE general scores [not the subject] are used to make an initial cut. My sense is that schools that use scores as an absolute cut and require very high scores are STATE schools, dependent on scores for funding. Private institutions are typically more flexible and can afford to evaluate a candidate "wholistically." These schools would likely be more flexible about scores, particularly when evaluating a non-native speaker, who might be a very interesting candidate in other ways, but didn't test well. If I were you, I would try and find programs that don't require the GRE subject at all. There are many. Columbia. Duke, I think, and every school in Lolopixie's footer

Yes, after she's a showgirl for a while.

Another fun hobby is collecting classics based only loosely on the novel. Demi Moore's Scarlet Letter is a great one.

Yup. No matter how old you get, they seem to stay dumb.

Patlynn, I've been a professional for 10 years myself and I definitely noticed the transition back to graduate school, specifically where teamwork and interdependency are concerned. These things are normal in the work setting but often awkward in academia. Not impossible, mind you, but I found I felt like a fish out of water for the first year or so, because of how often stating things with certainty seemed rude,, whereas when your working, it's normal to just state things matter of factly, then get corrected, or correct someone, as if you are on the same team. This does happen in grad school, but only once in a while. My best advice is, start slow. Take as few courses as you can get away with in the first semester, not because it's so much work, but because it will take time to adjust to the way people, including your professors, relate to one another.

Can anyone direct me to the web page that states how long BU's writing sample needs to be? I wrote down 12-15 pages, but I'm not sure where I got this information or if it has changed.

sequin?

Ok, I just got what your name means.

I keep thinking about how happy I would be to get in any of my choices, and then I think about how hard I've worked, just on my applications, and think about how hard I'll have to work for the next 6 years if I DO get in. I have a pretty good job now, that I wouldn't be able to get again, but honestly, it is time for me to move on from this place. I start googling how much a public school teacher earns in different states. Would it be so bad if I wound up a German teacher for Jr. High kids? Starting salary is over twice as much as a grad school stipend Ok, well this is the last weekend I'm going to retool these samples and SOPs, so I'm off to it. But really, whichever way things work out, I think it will be fine.

Thanks for the tip! I'm definitely going to take advantage of that extension!

At that length, may as well just send a head-shot...or half a one, since they're worth 1,000 words.

Rather than obsess about how small the admit percentages are for my top choices, I thought I'd start a thread that might promote more productive reasons for obsessive googling. There's a great Law and Lit conference at CUNY in March. Amaryta Sen is the key note speaker. The deadline for submitting papers is sadly passed, but it looks interesting: http://www.jjay.cuny...al_CFP_2012.pdf

The process is unfortunately inherently absurd. How can you explain a discipline that is arranged increasingly around the premise that language is referential and inherently meaningless, yet each year, university faculty awards 10-20 prized positions to people they've never met based on 10-20 pages of your writing, your test scores and your transcripts, which are pulled out of a pile of other applications, which only seems to grow larger each year?

Don't worry, Mistral, no one's December writing samples were polished, no matter how much we polished them. No one's SOPs were focused enough, even though I re-wrote mine 8 times. Don't forget that you have lingered over every single word, and ad comms are blowing through hundreds of samples and reading them with that level of attention. In the end, some of us will get in and some of us won't, but NONE of us will know why things worked out the way they did.

That sux. But I'm sure US universities are very tolerant of delays when the University is abroad and in a language that needs to be translated.

Oh, that's nice, because I specifically wrote to Amherst to ask what they wanted on the coverpage as identifying info, and I got no reply. And while we're on the topic of kvetching about Amherst, what the heck is up with their extra January second application for the teaching program?

Boston College has a Jan 1st deadline. They also have a large MA program [one of the few that might offers funding for a terminal MA]. Their PhD program is much smaller, so probably harder to get in, but if your professors feel your application is not competative, it might be a good option. Professor Stanton is an all around great guy and he is the main Medievalist there. You probably won't find anyone too much into psychoanalsys, because they are into cognitive theory. Look at Mary Crane and Robert Stanton's bio page and see if their interests sound interesting to you.

I just freaked out, because I never considered any of this, then I realized all my programs asked me to submit this part on-line. If you want to add a title without changing the length of your SOP, try using a "header" which reprints your name on every page in slightly fainter type within the margin.

Signature page? "Andrea" from the grad. department contacted me nearly 2 weeks ago to let me know my application was complete, yet I sent no signature page. Is it possible that the electronic signature page is sufficient when submitting on line?

Fed Ex charges 29 dollars for next day delivery

Well, let's hope that "due December 15th" really means -- "writing sample postmarked December 15th." I just hope my statement of purpose wasn't so awesome, that they are tearing through the mail over in Charlottesville, wondering when my writing sample will arive?

At least you're in London, Orange Man. Could be worse.

I noticed that CUNY's grant and funding page had links to several organizations that offered smaller grants that could probably be applied to papers and traveling. Some had Jan. 1st deadlines, so check it out soon.