andsoitgoes161

I will definitely take that advice into account. I'm already freaked out over the KU rejections, though I didn't apply there (I am very sorry to everyone who had to hear back so early, and with not-so-great news), and so I can't even imagine what my life will be like over the next month and a half. I guess I should be thankful that an odd, unprecedented force of motivation has entered my body over the past four weeks, enabling me to bang out more than 50 pages of my thesis. At this rate, hopefully I can be revising the project rather than writing it as rejections (acceptances??) begin to roll in. EEK!!!

Also--today is one of my "I will not get in anywhere and I am doomed to failure" days, and I've been chewing over my choice in writing sample as the reason I will be rejected from the programs I applied. When I was applying to programs I hadn't started my Master's thesis yet, but I had written a paper in one of my classes that acted as the impetus for a more in-depth study. Now that I have 50 pages of my thesis written, I realize how bird's eye a view the paper I submitted as a writing sample was, and also how it was in ways a little reductive. I know that AdComms aren't reading our papers to learn anything, and they're simply looking to them for scholastic aptitude/writing style, BUT: one of my letter writers is my thesis director, who was also the professor of the class in which this paper that provoked my thesis was written, and I know for a fact that he talks about the "ingenuity" (his words, not mine) of the central idea of my thesis. Given that the writing sample I submitted speaks to the topic of my thesis, and my letter writer names the topic of my thesis, I am totally pissed off that I used that particular paper in a writing sample because I don't want AdComms to think THAT is actually a part of my thesis--I fear that if they think it's a part of the final product, they will see my thought process as too reductive. Sigh. Why do I obsess about things over which I really have no control?

Well, I've only applied to comp/rhet programs, and the field (this is a broad generalization, mind you) examines the ways we write and learn how to write, how we connect with an audience through/effects of rhetorical choices, and theory of writing instruction. Many people are concerned with the pedagogical aspects of the interrelation between these three things, while others are focused solely on theoretical implications of writing (i.e. constitutive rhetorical theory, Aristotelian discourse theory, etc). Literature seems somewhat more obvious to me, so my definition is informed merely by taking it a face value and my experience in an English Lit MA program, but I'd define it as the study of literature overall, determined more narrowly by rigorous scholarship in your own milieus/niches of interest (i.e. American 20th Century, postcolonial, Victorian lit, etc). I imagine many people are similarly interested in critical theory to supplement as an exegetic instrument, but I also realize that I am a huge theory buff and oftentimes alone in that predilection. English--I think it's just the general categorization of the field of interest under which concentrations like Literature and Comp/Rhet further taper an area of study. I don't think there is necessarily a PhD in "English" since we are all native speakers, but I wonder if in other countries there are PhD programs for English & American studies, akin to PhD programs in the states in things like French & Francophone studies?

So on top of riding the waves of anxieties engendered by a perpetual assessment of whether or not our scholastic aptitude will be seen as promising by our most favored AdComm boards, I'm sure many of us are similarly pulling out hair and gnashing teeth over composing Master's or undergraduate theses. At least I know I am. Although I'm applying to Composition & Rhetoric PhD programs my thesis is somewhat literature-based, and since I think most in this forum are applying to literature programs I thought it could be cool to hear what you're all on working on/what your main research interests are if you've already completed a thesis. I'm interested to see if my thesis falls within similar milieus of your own literary interests, and maybe we can try to channel some of our anxieties over acceptances with what we know best--academic discussion! Given the extensive conversation about alcoholic beverages of choice in another thread, if we merge the two this could potentially be like our own virtual book club, haha. Anyhow, my thesis compares Walter Pater's solipsistic subject attempting to transgress the bounds of its confinement through art with the avenues in which George Eliot's Dorothea Brooke similarly attempts to escape the literal and figurative edifices created by the Victorian female's domestic identity. Anyone else into Victorian lit/aesthetic theory/George Eliot/etc? Anyone else even interested in the any of the topics proposed by this thread? The boozy book club at least has to be some sort of selling point...

Terry Eagleton's, Literary Theory: an Introduction,is always a good place to start--in gives a comprehensive overview of the history of critical theory in brief discussions of the biggest contributors to literary schools of thought. As far as feminist theory, I'm really not big into feminism, but I just read Gilbert & Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic, and it was an interesting to consider some of the 19th century roots from which feminist approaches have unfolded. I must say, the Victorians were also not as "Victorian" as we often think, and G&G do a fine job of subtly hinting that women were actually at times trying to subvert their patriarchal confines in literary attempts rather than bend to them. I am hugely into aestheticism right now, and Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde propose mindboggling ways to interact with art that also bring up a strongly anti-feminist polemic (which is why I read Madwoman, to see the other side of the argument). I read a really cool article on linguistic theory that attempts to show how the American english dialogue is largely imbued with markers of time and money to express ourselves, though I can't remember what it was called...so I'm sure that isn't very helpful. Maybe a Google search could point you in the right direction? Deborah Tannen is also someone to look at who considers the linguistic differences in communication between men and women (now that I am writing all this out, I realize I actually have had a lot of experience with feminist perspectives despite my distaste of them haha). Hegel and Derrida (Of Grammatology) are also favorites of mine, and everyone should probably become familiar with the main tenets of Freud and Lacan as applied to literary theory at some point--I had one class where we deconstructed (Derrida) Poe's The Purloined Letter through the power/agency/position (Lacan) of the different hands that the letter fell into given their gender (Freud), and that was perplexing to say the least. T.S. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent and The Perfect Critic outline his take on a New Critical approach, and his Ulysses, Order, and Myth is an example of its application to a text. ....those are just some of the works that have left lasting impressions on me in the past year or so.

I actually realized that right after I put up the post . Whoops!

Just a question: I was under the impression that several of the schools you have listed for application have deadlines that have already passed? Or did you just turn in the Graduate School application and are now working on supplementary stuff like SoP/writing sample?

Like.

Thanks so much for the advice--it really calmed my nerves. I actually just heard back from the graduate adviser for the English department, and he let me know they would place the correct SoP i e-mailed him into my file. I'm sure my sigh of relief is just as big as yours was when you were able to replace your SoP. Phew..

Good heavens am I am frantic. I sent e-mails and also called both the graduate advisers. Ughhhhh, I am bad at exercising patience over these sorts of things. Om mani padme hummmmm pleaseeeee!!

I went into the document upload site just to look at things because I am obsessed with reviewing the app for UT, and I saw the document file list for my 2012 app and the SoP says : received December 6, 2008.......that was an SoP I had submitted when I applied to a program there three years ago.

OH MY GOD!!!!!! I AM FREAKING OUT!!!!!!!!!!! So I applied to UT a few years ago (2008), and because they keep a comprehensive file of documents received from students in their Graduate Upload system, for some reason my SoP from 2008 GOT USED IN MY APPLICATION INSTEAD OF THE MY 2012 SOP!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM BESIDE MYSELF RIGHT NOW!!!!! Why, oh why did this happen?!??! I e-mailed the graduate adviser, Dr. Lesser, with what had happened and the correct SoP, but I have a feeling I am too late. Ughhhhhhh....UT was my top choice.

If you are using the term "consistently" in reference to both my scores having been within this range--I'll be honest in saying that I prepared absolutely 0% when I took both tests, and just sort of hoped to fly by on the seat of my pants. That being said: yes, I should have been able to gain a much higher writing score given my past 6 years of experience in English/composition concentration, and I was, of course, aware there were certain techniques you could study to score higher on the exam. I guess I just didn't take the GRE part of things seriously enough to coach myself in those strategies? Now I'm embroiled in reprimanding myself for how stupid and negligent that was. Oh well--like someone said, a 5.0 is good, and I have a 5.0 on record; I can't concentrate on what I can't change at this point and can only hope for the best

I did seriously contemplate writing within the formulaic essay structures GRE practice books school test-takers to develop (because, as an educated writer, I recognize the nuances of such strategic design and could no doubt implement them), but then I figured--who cares? I don't, by any stretch of the imagination, write in that manner, and for good reason. As someone previously mentioned, I'm sure that adcomm boards also know the extents of the style which GRE graders base AWA scores in. When I got the 4.5 this time around, I admit I was disheartened, but I have to remind myself I know that I didn't "pander" to their "idiosyncratic requirements"--I just worry that adcomm boards would expect applicants to actually do so, since, arguably, if we are intelligent enough writers we should be able to just accept the expectations of the GRE scoring system and dumb down our writing to the standard "five paragraph" level. Either way, the admissions committee will have my writing sample in front of them, and that should be what they (hopefully) take into consideration, not the AWA score.

If it makes you feel any better, I did a "select and replace all" little jig in Word to revise "PhD" to "Ph.D." in my app, missed a typo while doing it, replaced them all with "PhD.", and didn't notice until after every single one of my apps was already submitted. I have a feeling my seeming unfamiliarity with how to abbreviate the program to which I'm applying will raise some adcomm eyebrows. I also made several poor vocabulary choices in an SoP whose entire premise is based in my desire to be a rhetorician and to refine a pedagogy on how to best connect with an intended audience--I'm pretty sure the erudite audience to which I was writing is going to severely analyze the mistakes in a paper whose inherent structure both forms and is formed by those ends.

I just reread my SoP for my top choice school.... "Stupid, stupid, stupid" pretty much just sums up the whole thing. I think it's time we all start getting positive, though. I know i have been much too indulgent in my cynicism, and it's starting to drive me a bit insane. An inherent implication of us completing this process (a feat in itself) is an elevated faculty for potential that is not common in many, and I think we kind of rock. Perhaps a repossession of our remarkableness, and a collective promulgation of positive thought might generate some uncanny mass movement of acceptance in 2012? Maybe?

ecritdansleau (a wonderful screen name, by the way)--I completely agree with the appraisal of SoP's being extremely similar, but subjectively more awful when the weight of their recipient is considered. Given that UT (a top choice for me) required a universal application with SoP attached to be submitted before the link to the actual English department app came through, I've been kicking myself since the end of November when my neuroses about a lag in receiving the link for the subsequent part had me submit a rough SoP literally hours before they announced the due date was being pushed back two weeks. Needless to say, I have very dire hopes about getting in anywhere at all since I've relegated myself to the belief I won't be getting into the one school I actually want. I'm currently working on my Master's thesis and also intermittently reading The Marriage Plot, both of which are fueling a sickeningly hopeful and recklessly covetous desire to get a PhD and steep myself in the undulations of erudition and academia my mind so myopically hankers after. And just to kick myself while I'm down, this post is the residual effect of rereading the admissions requirements website for UT five minutes ago, and a desperate need to voice my self-incurred invitation for definite failure as if it might somehow soothe this 0% Confidence of Acceptance mindset that will most likely remain in place until March when I experience a 100% Denial of Acceptance everywhere I applied. But then! I slap myself on the wrist and I remember that The Secret was a huge success, which has to speak for something, and lambent threads of hope start emerging in the beneficence of vision boards. Bellowing out good energy into the cauldron of the world necessitates that it will have to reverberate with an equally as benevolent response...right? Do I dare invest in even some tiny sense of blind optimism? My conscious solicitation of a three month period plagued by vacillation is exacerbating my already extraordinary neurosis.

One of my LOR writers is actually a renowned scholar and someone who sits on the Stanford adcomm board, and he told me that applicants who name specific professors they would "like to study under" usually detracts from their apps. "Naming faculty members makes an applicant seem too egocentric in an area of specified study, and usually contradicts said member's actual interests, or else makes them quick to judge supposed fit"--direct quote from him, no joke. I also agree with sigaba's analysis that "If, for example, a department emphasizes its collegiality but one or two prominent faculty members deviate from that concept, the debate could spill over into the admissions process." Sorry to be a dick.

It Chooses You by Miranda July. It's a quick read, but I love her uncommon insight into life's banalities and allowed myself a couple hours worth of leisure between finishing my apps and beginning the period of several months I'll be spending with George Eliot (read: my master's thesis. Ick).

Embarrassingly enough, I kind of bombed on the analytical writing section of my most current GRE. Two years ago, while still in undergrad, I took the test and received a decent AW score--5.0--and now two years later and with a master's degree under my belt, I somehow managed to drop in score by half a point. I'd like to think the drop is due in large part to my not actually finishing either of the essays as I'm pretty confident in the content of the writing I had submitted...but, who knows. Sigh. Anyhow, I know that score reports sent to schools are cumulative, and that institutions will see my old scores as well as my new, but I'm not sure if they will even look at the full list. I'm wondering if anyone would like to chime in with thoughts or opinions about what effects a drop in analytical writing might have on an admissions review board's perspective of an applicant? I'll include a comprehensive list of my scores (though I'm not sure if they're all needed to make a judgment on what I'm asking--but regardless, judge away). Also--how important do we all suspect the AW writing score actually is in the overall review of an application? I know many schools simply use the Verbal section as a cut off of sorts to keep certain applicants out, but even that use of GRE scores is only at certain schools. Everything is so mutable and uncertain in this whole process and I just want it to be the end of February already so I can stop driving myself insane wondering about the significance of these anyway irreversible inanities. Old scores (2008) V: 540 Q: 580 AW: 5.0 New scores (2011) V: 163 Q: 143 (impressive, I know haha) AW: 4.5