Taco Superior

There'll be no more fun of any kind!

Ya, I was talking out of my ass. My bad.

"Glotfelty": the name alone is so handsome, so persuasive.

Uh-oh. Troll Wars... commence!!!!!!!!

What about Nebraska, South Carolina, Kansas?

Good times people, good times. But no one bothered to address my question about how long a streak of hotness lasts in the profession. I started this thread, I'm smart, I can handle things, not like everyone says, like dumb--I'm smart! And I want respect! I'm your older brother, ZincWillis, and I was passed over! Answer my questions!

please do: there's still some schools I'd like to see that arent' on there. On the history thread they were debating the correlation between ranking and funding: I dropped your spreadsheet on them, BOOM. They might do one of their own. So, once again bluecheese, great idea.

You may be cantankerous, but you're not without lols.

Have you seen these boards? We're rather vicious, I daft (as dogs are--see animality studies).

is it nevada or GS? I don't have kids or any such major responsibilities. If the only life you're gambling with is your own (and POSSIBLY even if that's not the case), f--k yeah! As Rick Roderick says, "Do you want the story of your life to be, 'He was the best tire salesman in Tacoma,' or do you want to make of your time something that might possibly be used in the same sentence with the word 'destiny'?" (Apologies to the posthumanists for this juvenile reversion to notions of self-creation etc; nauseating I know.)

ditto.

Man, we really take up this question in a... let's say LIVELIER tone than the history people do. Anyway, this question is directed mostly towards the "already attending" types because I assume you may have a better gauge: what seems to be the average duration of a period of "hotness" for a theoretical approach in English? Seems to me its about 12-15 years--seem right to you? (obviously it then gets digested and reincorporated into new "hot" approaches etc, but I mean its time of really hot hotness)

dammit--out of upvotes.

Indeed. I've been building kitchens and bathrooms for the last 10 years, so if I have to I'll just go back to it in 7 years as the most overeducated tile setter in CA and chalk the PhD up to a quaint 6 year vacation! FTW!

Hm, well I'll have to look most of that stuff up! Is there any one-stop-shopping type resource to get a brief overview of these?

Hey Datatape: how do you make those gifs?

Yup: if you like snowboarding and such (I do), it's a "top ten location." Also if you like the casino buffet scene.

Writ large I guess. I don't know what goes on in rhet/comp programs and I'm curious what's "hot" there as well.

I saw this thread over on the history board and thought it would be good to see what it evokes here: "Which topics, theories, and themes are "hot" in (English) today? What are the buzz words, and what is everyone reading about across various regional interests and fields?" On the history board there was a lot of consensus about DH (just like us I guess) and also some mention of things that are probably old hat in English (like "transnational" (read: postcolonial) and "interdisciplinary").

In terms of the "correlation between top twenty ranking and top twenty resources/funding," you might find it interesting to check out this funding spreadsheet that we've been putting together over at the English and Comp Lit thread: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Al9pLrYezRcSdGdUTk0zWk5QVUJFSGxVZ2FJQ1QwWFE#gid=0 It's not complete, but so far what it shows is that, to a large degree, the more glaring correlation is actually between private schools and top level resources/funding. Quite a few top 25 public universities (UT Austin, UIUC, Indiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, etc) have much smaller stipends and/or much greater teaching loads than comparable and even lower ranked private universities. Anyway, if you put together one of these for History it would no doubt be a boon to future applicants and would add data to the rankings debate! (not to be pushy)

Well, I'm definitely glad I did a third round. After the second round, though, there were still obvious things I could do to improve my app (new writing sample and dramatically improved GRE). The other thing is applying to plenty of places (at least 12, more if you can handle it). And fit: don't just seek less competitive programs, but places that have the best fit for you. what's your discipline? The thing I dreaded the most, btw, was asking my poor recommenders to do it all again. I rewarded them with nice bottles of booze when I got in though!

Girl Who Wears Glasses: you will decline the Buffalo MA no matter what?

Ya, cost of living is crucial (for me, 20k at USC would be nothing close to 20k at WUSTL). And if I had seen this before applying my program list would definitely have shifted (I applied to some big public schools thinking I'd have a better chance with them but ironically those programs in particular seemed to have no use for me--anyway I would have skipped some of them; speaking of which, where's Nebraska on the list, and South Carolina?).

It's 5 Year Engagement time!

Sarah Lawrence College doesn't require you to declare a specific major, just a general area of concentration (social sciences, humanities, sciences, or arts). So I just took lots of random humanities classes and creative writing. I didn't plan on grad school at the time (in the 90s!). So I had to do a lot of canon reading on my own to fill in the gaps (got a 650 on the subject test, not amazing but good enough to prove I knew the basics). I believe that probably my overall application had to be extra strong in order to earn me consideration against English majors (170 GRE verbal, 3.73 undergrad GPA but 3.9 in lit classes, 4.0 in the single semester of MA I did, and I spent over 6 months on the writing sample and SOP).