glasses
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Posts posted by glasses
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Why not just use the gender-neutral "his"?
Because "his" is not gender neutral?
- red_crayons, johndiligent, Jae B. and 3 others
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My friend reminded me that at this time last year he was sitting on a mound of implicit rejections and a few official ones. One of those implicits turned out to be an acceptance. Right now he's at his top choice school. I don't mean to give anyone false hopes, maybe just to avoid false despair.
Thank you. This is exactly what I needed to hear right now -- an anecdote that supports what I'm being told by all of my advisers and friends, which is that it ain't over till it's over. It's not that I don't respect the opinion of my advisers: I really do, and I trust them a whole lot. I know that they know what they're talking about. But it's hard . . . some people have gotten acceptances and rejections alike from places that I applied to, and I haven't heard a thing either way from anyone, so an anecdote like this really helps me out. (I'm a big believer in not counting my blessings before they've hatched, but I'm afraid I have quite the opposite perspective when it comes to negative things -- I count them before I even know they exist!) So again, thank you.
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@Branwen, intextrovert, and Medieval: y'all are much more patient than I am. I have to say that I've just started answering those kinds of questions with "Yes," regardless of whether or not the question can even be answered with "Yes." ("Do you have specific research objectives?" "Yes." "What research do English major PhD candidates do?" "Yes.")
- intextrovert and justagrrrl
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Thanks! I found it here: http://community.livejournal.com/iconomicon/
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My advisor wants me to bring him a list of schools that I want apply to broken down into groups of reaches, targets, and somewhat safeties. How did you comprise a list of schools you applied to and how should I start researching schools that might be good fits without a gre score?
Any advice for the noob is appreciated.
-Scalia
I started with a list of authors of books and articles that I admired and then I found out where they worked. Thus began the list. Good luck!
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omg
I'm sorry "glasses," but you are apply to English PhD programs. Now I'm not sure about "English Lit" v. "English," but every top English PhD program I have researched requires not ONE but TWO GRE scores - the general and the English Subject Test. Now are you really going to sit at your computer and tell me that Berkeley, Princeton, or Harvard English Depts, etc., do not perceive any real value out of requiring two standardized exams out of every applicant? Really?
Berkeley English Dept says that "those admitted score, on average, in the 700s (97%) in the Verbal test and 650 (88%) or higher in the Subject test."
Princeton English Dept says that they look for "high GRE scores, especially in the Verbal and Subject tests."
I would actually argue that English programs care WAY more about the GRE relative to many other programs. If you get <700 V on the general test, you are putting yourself at an incredible disadvantage.
Unless "English Lit" programs have much lower standards of admission that English PhD programs, I honestly don't understand how you can trivialize what appears to be a very important part of your application.
I'd be worried about the future of English Literature if English Lit applicants were unable to memorize vocabulary words and excel in reading comprehension on a standardized test that a middle school student has all the knowledge to take. My God, I've heard of many Chinese and Indian students who score well above the 90th percentile and probably have a much more limited understanding of English than any domestic student taking the exam.
Yes, "I am apply" to English PhD programs, and "English lit." only means "English literature," a.k.a. the name of the discipline ("omg"!). For the record, although it's hardly relevant, I am not writing out of sour grapes as you appear to quasi-imply about myself and several others; I did well on both my general and subject tests, and I haven't trivialized a thing during the application process. I've said before that I'm a suck-it-up kind of person; I'm also a no-stones-unturned kind of person. I'm quite sure that many others on this forum are the same way, given that it does take a certain "mindset" to apply to graduate school; hard, thorough work falls squarely into that mindset. Believe me: I kind of wish the GRE(s) counted for more: I worked my tail off. But then again, I worked my tail off on the whole thing and for many years beforehand, as -- again -- I'm sure many, many others did.
Sure, test scores matter: that's why they're required. I did not say that these tests don't have "any real value" -- I said they "don't add much value to the application." They are not UNimportant; they are simply not the MOST important. They don't say NOTHING; they simply don't say much. They have precisely as much value as they appear to: they tell admissions committees how well the applicant performed on a standardized test. If I get in, it will have nothing to do with my test scores. It'll have everything to do with my current and proposed future scholarship, as well as my past academic record. In saying this, I am relating precisely what I have been told by several highly qualified, dazzlingly successful professors. Regarding my own scores, the professors I spoke to from my own alma mater as well as the schools I applied to said something along the lines of, "That's awesome! But, it's up to the rest of your application to say convey your potential to admissions committees -- these tests don't do that." Straight from the horse's mouth. And yes, some of those professors do work at or have gotten their degrees from some of the schools you have explicitly mentioned. Yes, these schools look for good scores -- that's a given. The question is, how good are good scores? And the answer, as I have been told, is simply that good scores are good to get in the "read me" pile: not good enough for an offer of admission. Thus, "not much value," in the scheme of things.
Regardless, none of this is relevant to the discussion of money, which people have likely griped about since the first coin was made. Why on earth do you see the need to argue when people are simply upset that it will cost them more to apply in the first place? In fact, a rather prominent literature professor who I'd love to work with himself said to me, entirely unprompted, that it's a crying shame how expensive this process is.
And oh, god, stop throwing nationalities around. You have no idea where I'm from or what my background is, nationally, ethnically, socioeconomically, or in any other way. You're putting your foot so far into your mouth that I am surprised you have yet to taste it.
And that's enough of that noise.
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Oh boy.
Now you are simply deluding yourself with made-up numbers that you are pulling out of thin air. First of all, you assume that everyone pays the $20 score report fee instead of taking advantage of the three included score reports. Most people are smart enough to take advantage of those reports before paying any additional costs. You have no idea how many people pay for the $20 score reports or how much income the ETS receives from additional score reports. The $208.000 number you made up is useless.
You foolishly believe that the $20 fee only factors in the cost of the ETS sending the score to a particular school. Do you really believe that the only cost to the ETS is the price of the disk? If you even have an elementary concept of how to run a business, you would realize that the $20 pays goes largely to administration costs, salary, database and computer maintenance, etc. Do I pretend to know exactly where every penny of that $20 goes? No. But I am intelligent enough to realize that the ETS does not receive $19.40 in pure profit for each score report sent. There are many costs to running any business that you seem to be totally, utterly ignorant of. This is just like every other business out there.
I have already stated previously in other posts that I agree with the notion that the ETS is essentially a monopoly. Of course there are pros and cons to a monopoly test organization, but the greatest "pro" is that it standardizes graduate testing for everyone and levels the playing field, so to speak. Also, considering that the ETS is classified as a non-profit organization, it would be very dangerous for the organization to price services so outrageously that the government steps in to reassess non-profit status.
The Better Business Bureau maintains an A rating for the ETS. Most complaints seem to be resolved. I suggest you stop overly concerning yourself with the ETS and go on with your life before you get a heart attack. The deed is done. You've paid up. Move on.
Are you some kind of undercover ETS henchman?
I personally and perennially subscribe to the "suck it up" philosophy; I do what's required and respect that while I won't always get why something is required, it's required nonetheless. That being said, I don't think JerryLandis is "deluding" himself/herself about anything -- he/she is simply stating that there are some seriously steep costs here that put very real limits on what an applicant can and cannot do; when those steep costs pertain to an aspect of the application that many (including professors at these programs we're applying to, by the way) do not think adds much value to the application, the one paying up (as you put it) has every right to his/her concerns.
And seriously, the Better Business Bureau? Really? Oi to the vey.
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Did anyone else notice this post?
University Of Faggotry Race Relations, PhD (F10) Rejected via Postal Service on 15 Feb 2010 A 15 Feb 2010 Told in an email that I was "accepted not for my scholastic achievement, research or other valid qualifications, but because we desperately need a hermaphrodite eskimo in the department to satiate the gods of diversity." It feels good to know others think I'm not smart enough to get through things without help from affirmative action.
Yikes!!
Ew.
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I wasn't going to respond to this thread with anything more than a sigh - I'm so tired of academic grudge matches. We have more in common than this question recognizes (and man, I resent that tagline!). But I was preparing for my 12th grade class tomorrow, and found a perfect quotation that reminded me of this thread. So I refer you to Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, and its interdisciplinary, academic cast of characters:
Hannah: It's all trivial - your grouse (science), my hermit (history), Bernard's Byron (literature). Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's the wanting to know that makes us matter.
Can't we all just get along?
Fabulous. No better response exists.
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As someone with a small stomach but nimble fingers, I like this idea much more than the food competition.
Word. I'm in.
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I'm thinking something like either "Man v. Food" or "The Alaska Experiment": fully-funded admissions are awarded to either the X number of people who eat the most of a giant pizza/hamburger/sundae/etc. or the X number of people who make it the longest in some desolate wilderness.
(Typical: I've gone and proposed the two alternative courses of action that, if possible, give me even LESS of a chance of admission than I have in the present system. I have the stomach capacity of a sparrow and the outdoorsmanship of . . . well, of someone who hates to be outdoors.)
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Imagine what a great GRE question this would be...
They'd have to make it "chance of eating a really amazing and rare apple," though. At the first sign of the phrase "chance of admission" I'd start whimpering, and I feel like I wouldn't be the only one.
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Either way, the system needs some tweaking.
This I do entirely, wholeheartedly agree with. I think it was rising_star who said that affirmative action could use a strong push in the direction of examining socioeconomic status; someone else mentioned (sorry for the lack of attribution on this paraphrase -- I can't find the post at this time!) that little checkboxes on a form is hardly an adequate examination of race. On personal and non-personal levels, I agree with both statements.
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So if they are individuals and should not be assumed to share everything with their given demographic, why is that demographic a potentially decisive part of their application processes?
I see what you're going for here, but I don't think there IS a conflict between individuality/individual merit and the goals of affirmative action, because . . . well, because of everything Pamphilia already said! Emphasis mine below:
Affirmative action is not in place only to afford underprivileged individuals a leg up. It is so important to have people with whom a student can identify, to have people who represent the populace, in positions of power and authority. When students of a certain background see professors and grad students with whom they can identify, they will be more motivated to succeed. It's about finding mentors and role models. I know that I am not articulating this very well, but people always seem to think that affirmative action is designed to reward individuals for suffering. That is NOT the point.
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I know they haven't suffered substantially from it because they are my friends and we've talked about it.
I promised myself I wouldn't get involved with this, but I did want to respond to this small part of your last post --
(1) People lie -- to others and themselves. I have been asked such questions by friends (even some very close ones), and I have lied in my responses; similarly, especially as a child, I lied to myself about these very things. And, a corollary: even when people are not lying, they are not always willing to be entirely "self-excavating" in a conversation. (A simple example: if someone asks, "How are you?" and I'm having a spectacularly terrible day, I tend not to say, "Really quite awful" -- I, like most, answer, "I'm fine, thanks.")
I don't mean to imply anything about your friends here (that they're lying or hiding something or whatever; for all I know, you may have gauged their experiences accurately and they may have portrayed them accurately). I only want to point out that one person can never entirely know what another person has gone through, which accounts for an inherent flaw in any statement like the above. The reasons why I cannot say that I know what your friends mean (which would be glaringly false) are the same reasons why you cannot say that you know what your friends mean.
(2) That being said, assume that we do know certain people in our lives entirely and completely. Under those conditions, the logic of the quoted sentence would still be a little iffy because those people whom we know couldn't possibly be representative of an entire demographic -- or even of a small slice of a demographic. They're representative of themselves. Above, I made the point that I'd lied when faced with such questions, but I had to allow that some may not have done the same thing; similarly, while some may not have been affected by race-based disadvantages ("privileged" or otherwise), others may have been.
In my experience, it is impossible to know how any given -ism is affecting any given person at any given time -- personal lives are personal. (I've been trying to write a paragraph here about how my own personal experiences enter into my points above, but I keep deleting it -- those experiences are personal, after all!)
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Thanks a lot for all answers. I have written to graduate admissions and the answer is "Since you can only submit one research proposal with your application, you should ensure that any supervisors you suggest would be relevant to work with you on the area you have applied to research. " I think it is means that I can only apply for one supervisor. so sad.
This means one research proposal, not one supervisor. In fact, they write "supervisors" -- plural.
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Stuff Non-White (aka Asian and other international) People Like? Masters and PhDs in Engineering, Math, Science, Technology, etc. Now why is that?!
. . .
Signed, sealed, delivered,
A non-white hopeful PhD in English lit. who is capable of distinguishing between satire and fact and productive versus unproductive discourse
ETModify: removed a line that could be considered "a personal attack" to avoid foisting more work on the mods. Replaced with ellipsis, which probably makes the point more effectively than what I initially had did anyway.
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I am not convinced non-science, math, or engineering graduate degrees are actually a good investment in the 21st century.
Oh, for the love of God.
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I think this is a terrible idea. In fact, I think it's a little insulting to ask your department, which has no knowledge of her academic suitability, to comment on her application in any capacity at all. I know the waiting sucks, but just because you're going to get married doesn't mean admissions committees should meet any earlier just to accommodate you, nor does it mean you should try to use your department to bully another department into making decisions earlier. I think this would reflect poorly on both of you, though moreso you than her for asking your department to overstep their boundaries like that.
Sorry if that sounds a little harsh...I mean well
. Best of luck to you and your fiance.Hmm . . . I actually agree with TerriM here, even though I see that several people have commented providing evidence that lobbying for a spouse/to-be spouse is O.K. It just doesn't sound appropriate to me.
That being said, maybe you should ask this on the Chronicle forums? There you'll have the advantage of asking professors, many of whom are on admissions committees, while remaining utterly anonymous.
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BUT I have been encouraged to apply ASAP
To me, this all depends on who has been encouraging you. Your recommenders/former professors/mentors? Professors at the school you're considering? If the folks encouraging you to apply are in either or both of those two categories, I'd say go for it if you can afford the application.
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Is there anyone out there that can coach me on what to write in my personal statement? I have a good undergrad GPA, great work experience, exciting job, and logical career interests. I need help putting together a "story" that will make me jump out and seem unique and interesting. A lot of people write their sob stories, or about goals for saving the world. I do not have a sob story or a master plan to end world hunger. I am a successful person who needs help STANDING OUT. Is there anyone out there you can recommend or any company that can help me?
I already know about Kaplan, etc...I need someone less expensive but totally top notch and cut throat. I will pay you well if I trust you to help me.
As others have said, I recommend starting early, writing a gazillion drafts, reading example documents, and asking professors, friends, and successful applicants for advice along the way.
These suggestions are nowhere near as fancy as a "consultant" (here I join others in cringing). But hey, they're all free, and more genuine, and less likely to sound like prefab essays or Mad Libs. And for what it's worth, writing the statement is bizarrely self-educational: I can honestly say that I became a better itty-bitty wannabe scholar during the process of going from draft one to draft thirty-two.
(By the way, I do understand why you might want to pull out all the stops -- it's a sort of terrifying process -- but I don't think a consultant is one of those stops that will serve you well. I think that for all the temporary comfort it might bring you to have your document in the hands of a "professional," the overall effect will suffer -- or, at the very least, you simply won't get as much mileage out of it as you would if you slogged through it start to finish.)
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I highly doubt that a slandering letter from a non-faculty-member would be taken seriously by an adcom. It likely wouldn't make it past the mail desk, or the chair's secretary. It might go to the grad chair for an opinion about what to do, I guess, but it wouldn't go to the full committee. What could he possibly say? You have a whole file full of corroborated proof of how capable and accomplished you are. Someone appearing out of the blue to say differently would be the one coming across as crazy, not you.
Yup, this. A random guy you went to high school with who carries a vendetta? I'm having trouble taking that piece of work seriously (to be clear: I'm not having trouble taking your concerns seriously -- I'm having trouble taking the guy seriously as any kind of credible source): I'm sure the people at the schools you've applied to, who are all indubitably smarter than I am, will be even less likely to give merit to his potential rants than I am.
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Yeah, it's not a good start. You really don't want to be telling your potential professors what their field is all about. It doesn't say anything about you as an applicant either. There are two common ways to start an SOP: Some, more I think in the humanities than the sciences, start with a "hook" - a story, usually about how you first got interested in your field. The other way is to start with your current interests - a research question you're interested in, or maybe just the subfield, and an explanation of why. Personally I subscribe to the no fluff approach - get right to the point. If you want to do something different, you could start with the fit paragraph -- that's what adcomms are most interested in.
Since you say you just started writing -- don't work on the intro yet. That's one of the last things you should write, after the rest of the essay is done. Try working on the body of the essay first - your preparation for grad school, your current/future interests, fit. Then you can start thinking about an intro and a finish.
This. All of it.
I always write my introductions last, even for academic papers. The way I see it, you can't quite introduce something if you don't know exactly what it is that you're introducing.
I used to give this advice to tutees and students while I was a tutor and TA -- worked like a charm.
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For me, it's a combination of the fact that I'm generally a private person and the fact that I'm superstitious and fear the bad juju of saying things that I want out loud; not many people know my full list of schools, and fewer people than that know what my first choice is. Other concerns include things that others have already said, such as wanting to stay anonymous.
"Critic as Artist"?
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
Win.