obrera

I would like to know more about Wayne State as well. Their website has very little to offer.

I was a direct applicant for the MA SSHRC. I did not hear anything until May except for an acknowledgment of the receipt of my application around mid-February. From what I gather around the forums here, though, is that if you haven't heard anything, that's a good thing.

Hey guys, and fellow Kingstonian. Just a quick question: what is the timeline on Fulbright? When should we expect to hear back about cut-offs and the final decision?

I have a feeling they will start using this as a tool to admit some people over others.

Welcome to app season.

Don't feel alone. I'm three week in to my MA program, and it's pretty daunting. We're starting grant applications and such, and I'm feeling like I should hang up the towel. But so is everyone else, so keep your head up. Everyone is in the same boat, and you will get your MA.

I've listed those sorts of things under "Positions," which I placed right under education, near the top.

In my experience, it usually takes a month to several months after the deadlines for them to make decisions, unless they REALLY want you/don't want you. For Fall apps, you should be hearing within two months, but I'm not sure for Spring.

I'm heading into an MA at 23. I am actually quite envious of older students. I feel wholly unprepared for graduate school. I don't have as much applicable life experience, and I probably do not have as much experience handling deadlines and stress. I find that older students have clear goals, which younger students often lack. It's more of a sacrifice for older students to go back to graduate school, so they often really want to be there. I could go on, but the list would be long.

That might be biased by the fact that a lot of these programs didn't exist when these profs were going through school. I will keep looking into it, though.

Maybe send them an email and ask. They seem to be okay at responding to emails in a timely manner. I don't see anything on the website.

Hello! I am considering applying to Purdue for the PhD in either English or American Studies. My POI works in both, and he has said that either department would work for what I want to study. I am wondering if anyone can give me some insight as to how competitive each program is so that I can compare them. I'm a Canadian, and I haven't written a standardized test in... 6 years, and I am definitely not very good at them. I'm doing my MA currently at a top Canadian school, and I will have a couple publications, a bunch of conferences, and a large scholarship under my belt. I've also had a very positive response from my POI. Will either of these programs look past a very mediocre GRE score and take a look at the rest of my app? Will the rest pof my app even make up for my apparent lack of vocab? Or should I just not bother? Additionally, I'm wondering if the job prospects change for the worse (if they could possibly get any worse) if I go the American Studies route? Does anyone has experience with this type of program? Is it as credible as the PhD in English Lit? It is more inter-disciplinary, but I'm not sure if that is good or bad. (As a point of reference, I want to work with work literature from WWI and the depression, specifically from the Industrial Workers of the World. Purdue is an excellent fit for this, surprisingly.) So many questions. Applying to school in America is a whole new kind of anxiety. Any insight on anything else re: these programs would be super helpful.

I think you're probably okay for now. I would check back with them in about a week or so. Or give it a couple weeks, even. Prepare your applications anyway, and then see how it goes.

I am feeling pretty okay so far, but I am waiting for the insecurity to set in. On a different note, my meet and greet is tomorrow, and I can't decide what to wear. I don't want to look homeless like I normally do, but I also don't want to over-dress. It's also fairly warm out, and the jean shorts won't cut it. /pre-term anxiety

Well, I'm officially joining this thread. After much internal debate, I am going to try for a PhD admission. To the posters above re: GRE: I can't get the hang of the verbal section. The program that I really like admits GRE scores 90% or higher, and mine is... average, at best. I have other things going for me, though. I will hope for the best.

1. Where are you definitely applying? Definitely applying to UToronto, McGill, Queen's, Purdue. 2. Where else are you considering applying? Chicago, Brown. 3. What are your research interests? Working-class lit and the IWW (I'm so fucked)

USask has an excellent English programme. I've heard nothing but good things, the course offerings this year were AMAZING, and the faculty I've met have been doing really interesting research.

Did you contact the faculty members ahead of time to toss project ideas around? Being specific, in my experience, is a good thing. It demonstrates that you can pick a research topic and form a proposal that makes sense and can be completed. Grad schools don't want someone super indecisive taking 10 years to figure out a dissertation topic. My only advice is to contact faculty members beforehand and ask them what they think about it and how it would fit with their research. It it works for them, great. If not, how can you alter it for the one SOP to make the school a better fit?

I assume that this would come out in the wash, i.e. you claim to have taken this course but you know nothing about the subject. If you claim to have taken an extensive summer workshop on teaching and then you get to your program and then they find out that you are lying and actually have no experience, they could potentially revoke their admission decision. The adcomms can always look up conference programmes and that sort of thing, so no lying about that.

I think it depends when you sent the original emails. If you sent them recently, or over July/August, I would give them another week or so, and then send a follow-up email. It's a pretty busy time right now for profs who could just be returning from vacation or time off and then get bombarded with emails from the summer. When did you originally send the emails?

Generally, I think comes out in 3 payments, one per semester. However, as mudlark stated, it depends on your school. At my university 1/3 of it is released on September 6th, as per university policy with funding and scholarships.

There is a subject test, but the programs to which I am applying do not want me to take it. It's not required.

I've never been very good at standardized tests, which is fine since we don't have many in Canada. That being said, I haven't had a lot of practice with them either. I'm doing poorly on the verbal practice exams, which is the one that matters. Multiple choice was never my thing, and it shows.

Hi everyone. I come from a very non-academic background and completed my undergraduate degree at a school that does not talk about graduate studies very frequently, so I know very little about academia. I am enrolled in a Master's in English Literature this Fall, and when I was applying, I decided to wait until Fall 2014 to pursue a PhD. I made this decision based mostly on the fact that I do not have many things going for me, only a few conferences and one minor publication. In addition, my undergraduate grades were not stellar. However, between then and now I have been accepted into a top Canadian university for an MA, commissioned to write a textbook chapter in my field, and I have won a major scholarship (SSHRC). I figured that these two things along with good grades in my MA would qualify me to pursue a PhD (along with excellent letters, of course). Because I have decided this so late, I am just now figuring out which schools I am interested in. I am interested in a programme at an American university (I am Canadian), but it requires me to take the GRE (but not the subject test). I only have a limited time to study for it (one month, tops, while balancing new graduate life and coursework). This school is a highly ranked school, and I am wondering if I should take the GREs and hope that I do well and apply anyway, or if I should take a year off to study, write them, and improve my CV. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of being out of school for another year. I would be perfectly happy at a Canadian institution, but this US school has someone with whom I have a lot in common in terms of research interests, which is rare. Also, I figure I probably have a better chance at a career with a degree from an American school, unfortunately. TL;DR: would good grades in a MA, a major scholarship, and an interesting publication offset crappy GRE scores from a Canadian PhD applicant?

When people start hearing about the waitlist, POST POST POST!