marlowe

I think we are all generally in agreement. I was positing a more anti-ETS bent than making any real comment on any of our scores.

I just signed up for the "Friend Account" at Michigan. It says that they received my undergrad transcript yesterday and there is no mention of my MA transcript. I mailed that forever ago, so they must just now be updating the system. That is my guess, at least.

I mean, I doubt it is going to have any weight whatsoever in an application for a PhD in English literature. But for students of English Literature and Composition - presumably with 4-6 years of advanced training in the discipline - to consistently fall between the 70th-87th percentiles of a test that EVERYBODY has to take (including non-native speakers, mathematics applicants, and those in the hard sciences) is, frankly, a bit silly in my opinion. Especially when those in other disciplines are scoring much higher.

The Analytical writing most definitely encourages a certain type of writing. The only person I know personally that got a 6.0 on the writing is my sister, a philosophy major - she admittedly pandered to the tests idiosyncratic requirements and produced trite and formulaic sentence structure and diction. On the other hand, I submitted what I thought was a masterwork of nuanced thought and poetic flourish, only to be rewarded with a 5.0. Lame.

Since finishing the MA, I have been trying to read all of the Classics that I have missed through school and a rather focused BA. Just finished "Woman in White", all three Hunger Games (my gf and sisters made me), "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Thirteenth Tale", and about to finish "Turn of the Screw". Pleasure reading is awesome.

I have done far worse. Never fear, your OCD is tame.

Man, if I knew how I would feel during this process back then, I would have tried a hell of a lot harder in undergrad.

Ugh, I am finally done. The waiting is far worse than the preparation, in my opinion. And this time 'round, I have three times as many schools to worry about.

I love reading books and talking about them; I anticipate that doing that for a living will be a blast.

I, too, am a medievalist, and I would like to think that I am not much of a traditionalist either; however, we are only applying to a single corresponding program (Indiana). Strange.

I can't listen to absolutely anything. I get distracted both by music that I know, and music that is new to me. I can't work terribly well in the library because I get distracted by books. I guess a lot of things tend to distract me. Also, happy birthday bdon - i hope you get the day off, or something equally pleasant.

I have been there nearly twenty-two years (with a couple of years elsewhere, in between). Wherever I end up, it will be something new.

North Carolina: Great State or Greatest State?

Eh, I appreciate the empathy. I am good at justifying things though; if all of my apps had cost as much as CUNY's, I would be down a lot more than twenty bucks.

Thought I would re-post this here, just in case the school has some cronies paid to troll the message boards for information on how to improve the graduate application experience (like Amherst, for instance).

I mailed my CUNY-Graduate Center documents - writing sample, CV, transcripts - certified US Mail in plenty of time to reach NY by the deadline. I submitted the application three days before the deadline, only to find out that they require you to print out and mail the Signature page, as well. Yet another frustrating aspect of the CUNY experience to go along with the whole 'we don't send reference requests until you submit' thing. $20 later, next day delivery with signature required. CUNY lost a check that my sister sent last year; though I highly doubt that they are super strict on deadlines, I'm not taking any chances.

Texas's Statement of Purpose limit is "120 lines of text" - I fit 1,333 words into the box.

I submitted mine at the end of November like a noob.

Just submitted Michigan's application. Now on to Virginia's app.

Ugh, that reminds me; I have ten more essays to grade before class tomorrow.

I've been working on this all night. It is terrible.