hazelbite

Yes! Listen to this guy, 2013ers.

Oh, and as for the how many question, I would say mention as many as you are genuinely interested in or have closely read or think you'll have the opportunity to work closely with. In undergrad, I would say I worked closely with 5 professors, and became very close friends and felt like a colleague with 3. My SOPs were distributed about the same way. I sort of disagree with most of this, mainly because I think that little defines a department more clearly than who they choose to hire. Resources, yes, are obvious-- like if they have archives you want to use or whatever, mention it-- but I think one of the stumbling blocks and timesucks of the application process is (or at least was for me) trying to figure out a specific department's philosophy or vibe, etc., as those are really hard to understand from the outside. Those might be a waste of wordcount.

I don't think it matters where they are on the department's ladder if you have a strong resonance with their work. 1) There are many ways to work with or benefit from a faculty member or other graduate students. You may want to take a class from them or TA for them or be advised by them or have them on a committee or join their colloquium. Maybe it would be helpful to "know what you want" from those relationships, but it's almost sure to change at some point (people leave, your own interests change, their interests change, etc.) 2) You never know who's going to be on the adcomm. I had a creative writing prof call me to tell me he loved my materials and fought for my app; I've never ever studied poetry or creative writing in my life. Point being, the match-ups of who you want to work with and who wants to work with you aren't always mutual, and a lecturer or whatever might be the one fighting for you on the adcomm. 3) That said, I think my answer to the argument of whether or not to mention faculty is yes, absolutely mention faculty. It seems impossible to figure out what a given department is all about without breaking it down into its individuals.

Y'all are crazy with all this theory-for-pleasure stuff! It makes me realize how traditional my program is (/I am)... My generals list has a good amount of epics/thick novels on it that I think I'll be rushed to work through during the year, so I'm going to do Paradise Lost, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, Portrait of a Lady, Ulysses. For fun I did Infinite Jest and Ada, or Ardor in May and June. And then there's mountains of foreign language study but thankfully and finally no 9-5...

Just got back from my last 9-6 super office-y office day. Possibly the last ever! Now I am treating myself to funemployment and "summer break" to re-learn to read and write. This. Feels. So. Epic.

And then there's trying to move a S/O Lamenttttt Lamenttttt!

Great scott!!!!!!!!!

What's your field? I sent in my "no" for Modernism a few minutes after you posted, so that could be good for you! It was an amazing visit and I wish I could go to ALL THE SCHOOLS at once.

Maybe "Hegel, F.U." ?

TIL it's hard to sign your (user)name mirror image!

Harvard! Just sent in my decision. Woooo!

I'm getting a bit impatient waiting for this rejection. Almost 2 mos since the first acceptances!

Re: Harvard-- I honestly have no idea. I have pretty average numbers, but won some good fellowships/awards in undergrad, have some unique interests, and submitted a theory-free bordering-on-creative-writing paper on Woolf that they liked a lot (though not many others did!). I'M interested in arrivant's profile-- the 1 for 12 Columbia acceptance? Super interesting... The typo was Howard Send instead of Howards End! I feel like I owe it to myself to write a short story called "Howard Send" now. Any ideas for plot?

I started looking up classes on my phone on the treadmill at the gym yesterday and almost started crying I was so excited. Needless to say I had to put the phone away after that.

Yeah remember that time we waited an ENTIRE MONTH for our rejections? (That said, I did have a hilarious, egregious typo in my NYU SOP and wouldn't have accepted me either)