NowMoreSerious

I've never been able to figure them out, and I've tried. But I do know that some of NRC's rankings just seem intuitively off. USNews seem intuitively more correct. But I'm only judging from talking to people about their experiences and perceptions with those schools. The longer i'm in graduate school the more correct USNews seems to become. Of course rankings all have their arbitrariness to them, though. There aren't any WTF rankings in USNews, but there are some WTF in NRC.

Go to as many visits as you can afford. Last year I visited 6 schools all across the country, and even though it was exhausting, I am glad I did it. Not only did it clarify my decision, but it allowed me to network and meet professors and fellow graduate students from all over the country. Actually that might have been the most valuable aspect.

I see your point, but not everyone's endgoal is tenure track, and the overall rankings often don't take into account specialities that may be a benefit on the job market.

Might want to check the Duke Lit thread, but my understanding was that they pull most of the waitlisted from those that were interviewed, and maybe a few other slots. So for example they might interview 10-12, accept 6 outright, and waitlist the other 4-6. I believe last year somebody got in who didn't interview, but it was only one person. If Bennett sees this he can clarify.

Are you assistant director, or assistant TO the director?

In what sense are you suggesting that Composition is the "cash cow" that keeps Lit/CW afloat?

I slightly edited this for you (I hope you don't mind)

Lets be honest, this may be a necessary option for many of us even AFTER we finish our Ph.D's.

I'd like to echo this, and add that if not for GradCafe and implieds, I might have wasted a lot of time holding out hope for some schools instead of analyzing and weighing the ones I had in the bag already. In a very material way this board made a difference for me in my decision making.

This is a very complicated question that very few people will want to touch, but I think the diversification of English graduate programs is a point of interest for many many programs, for good reason. But it's only one factor, and ethnic diversity is only one type of diversity. I asked myself the same questions last year when I was in your position, btw.

I'll pm you.

Congrats on Berkeley!

I'd be out robbing you folks.

My apologies if anything I said came off as me trying to affect anybody's self-confidence. And I understand that maybe this was not a great time to start a thread with this topic considering that it's probably the most stressful time for applicants. Good luck to everyone and as I said in another thread I'm always available to anybody if they have any questions about this process. I've also visited the following schools if anybody has questions: Tufts, University of Minnesota, University of Virginia, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara. Obviously, I know UCLA quite intimately, as well.

I think the impetus for my thread was more a caution against a certain type of thinking about graduate school admissions. Sure, literally, as a fact there could be such thing as a safety school in certain situations--though even then I am sure the school you described above rejects people as well. But I didn't make this thread because people were naming Middle Tennessee State as their safety school. They aren't. They are naming schools in the top 50 at worst. I was also bringing to light the general irrationality and seeming randomness of admissions. So people should not panic if they don't get into their 'safety' school or think they are getting in everywhere if they get into one of their top choices.

I've been around the Ph.D. application process for 3 years now *I heard myself saying this in a cowboy accent, for some reason*. (My significant other applied 2 years ago, I applied last year, and several friends of mine applied this year). For the past three seasons, I've been on Gradcafe and one of the things (I think) that we've learned is that there's no such thing as a "safety" school anymore. It isn't that some schools aren't more difficult to get into than others, but that all schools are difficult to get into, and the process seems to be pretty random and full of inconsistency and chaos. And it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Which is why it's perplexing to me that this term "safety" seems to have made a comeback this year. I might be overstating, but both in this Literature board, and in the results page, I see it more times than I ever have in the past two years. I don't know what to make of it, but I just wanted to point it out to see if anybody had any opinions on the matter.

Here's my take, having gone through the "phone conversation/interview/talk with professor" many times last year. Don't think about it so much as what questions to ask, but think about it in terms of you having a professor as a captive audience for anywhere from 5-45 minutes. This is not a small thing, especially if it's a big name professor. Making my decision, I had very little reserve. Essentially I struck up a conversation with them about the state of the field, graduate school, the job market. Oh yeah, I went there. But I've found that one of the most useful questions I would ask is simply: "What criteria would you use if you were making a decision about graduate school right now in 2014?" This provoked some amazing answers which truly helped me see not only where I should attend, but how many professors saw the state of their field/profession. Disclaimer: This strategy may not work if you are on a waitlist. I'm not sure.

Last year I received a phone call on a Saturday night as an acceptance. It can happen at any time.

Rejected from: Princeton, Upenn, Brown, Duke, Maryland, NYU, Berkeley Did not hear back from: Rutgers Accepted: UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Purdue, University of Virginia, Tufts, UCLA, University of Minnesota (CSDS, not English). My fields were late 19th Century American Literature, Utopian Theory, and Digital Humanities/Rhetoric. If you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask. I'm very transparent about these things and I'm always willing to share info about my entire application experience.

Applied last year to 16 schools with an MA from an unranked state school. I got into 8 great places but I did get shut out of top 5 ivy type schools. Not sure if my MA was a factor, but I doubt it. My friend the year previous, from the same MA program, made it into an Ivy and is there now.

Personal statement: I wrote about the convergence between an internship I did, some work experience I had, and my teaching experience. I also wrote about how my approaches to these things were in fact informed by my upbringing. Statement of Purpose: how the things above inform my current research interests, theoretical leanings, and literary interests. Then how all of these things are leading me to graduate work at that institution.

Having applied to 16 schools last season, I had to come up with a variety of approaches to fit the different requirements. In cases where I was asked to do both a "Personal Statement" and "Statement of Purpose" (They are worded differently by school, of course), I included things in my personal statement that connected to or in some way inspired my research interests. Or to put it another way, there was nothing in my personal statement that didn't in some way connect to my pedagogical, scholarly or research interests. I'm of the opinion that one's writing sample, statement of purpose, CV, and personal/diversity statement should all connect and should be driving home a singular underlying narrative. That singular underlying narrative should end with them coming to the conclusion that you are primed to be in their program and do graduate level literary studies. Just my two cents.

Riverside is fine. I've never considered it an unsafe area at all, for what it's worth. I would highly caution against counting UC Riverside out. They are a great program with interdisciplinary leanings and I consider them a program on the rise. They recently hired Fred Moten who is a huge scholar from Duke. Remember you are also about an hour from Los Angeles, which isn't bad. Lets say a great conference is occurring at USC, or UCLA, or Irvine? It isn't that far a distance to drive, and the networking opportunities will be rich.

I don't believe it will. I got accepted to several places as a 34 year old. I tried to use the time I spent working and doing other things as a positive (On my SOP) rather than negative.

I'd give you the same advice I'd give anybody applying to those schools, which is to make that SOP and Writing Sample cutting edge and flawless. Good luck!