glasses

Use it in Cambridge, MA. It is exactly what it looks like--convenient, relatively inexpensive, etc. And, at the end of the day, you don't have to worry about your car getting towed from wherever for whatever inane reason. Look into student discounts. I got my account when I was an undergraduate, even though I had a car of my own at the time, and my college had a program with Zipcar that sliced the annual membership fee. A lot. (It was a just-in-case move that ended up completely paying off; even though I loved it, my car was altogether unreliable, and occasionally did not go for no apparent reason--since I did not live in college housing, I really needed the thing to get to class, work, etc.) Anyway, even though I've since graduated for some time, they don't seem to care--my annual fee is still at the same low happy place.

Well, honestly, I don't know what the consequences would be. No clue. But, I personally would not be comfortable of running the risk of being in a better position to answer that question. If I were in your position, I would be concerned about bad press, and possibly damaging future job opportunities, but I don't know if these are realistic concerns: I may be completely out in left field, but I do know that academia is a surprisingly small world of its own. Think about it this way: even if there are no consequences at all (which is rare, for just about anything), several people here have had a strong moral reaction to your proposal--would you want to wonder if your potential adviser at your second-choice school had a similar reaction? The fewer seeds sewn for uncomfortable (and possibly damaging) situations in the future the better. Regarding the extension, if it were me, I'd outline the precise situation I was in, including the length of an extension required to be of use. It would be an awkward e-mail to write, but we're all in for long careers of awkward e-mails anyway.

Right. This, too.

Weighing in squarely on the side of "definitely do not do this." You're in a difficult position that, to be honest, was highly likely to happen, considering the difference in deadlines and timetables for US programs and UK programs. Jortylander is right to say that unforeseeable circumstances happen, and in those cases, rescinding is understandable--but this isn't an unforeseeable circumstance. I'm not going to argue morality. It's a question of practicalities. Do you want to anger a department that put a fair bit of faith into you? Do you know for sure that you'll never have to count on those people again? (And, for the record, I'm not saying that not going to a school means "angering a department." I'm saying that accepting an offer and then declining that offer for another school might anger the department, and I personally would not be comfortable running that risk.) On the other hand, I would not want to spend 5+ years at a program I wouldn't be entirely jazzed about, particularly if I got into one I liked better--but being "forced to make a decision by April 15" is the contract you signed onto when you applied. Are you in a difficult position? Yes. Is it anything you couldn't have known about? No. With that in mind: could you speak to your contact people at the department about an extended deadline? It's not unheard of to receive one.

Yes. Definitely.

This--what your professor said--is true, as is this from teaganc: I mean, it's not to say that undergrads who major in something different can't get into PhD programs in English or Comp Lit--a friend of mine was a biology undergrad and is finishing up a PhD in English at Harvard. But he certainly had experience in literature despite his major, and his major provided him with a variety of other unique skills. There's a certain knowledge base you're going to need, and you're going to need solid grades--as well as a stellar writing sample and statement of purpose--to show that you have it. Figure out a sub-specialty, and then figure out what your "something special" is. Figure out how your totally unrelated (in your words) undergrad major can work to your advantage. I'm not going to weigh in about any debates about your written English, so on, so forth, etc., but here's what I think: it's fiercely hard for a US applicant to get into US PhD programs. It's even harder for an international applicant to pull it off. And I can't say definitively whether or not an MA will help: some programs don't even take applicants for a PhD if they already have an MA, where other programs will value it highly. Then again, I have no idea if these same restrictions stand for international MAs . . . I'd suggest checking with departments. And, again, in the spirit of being completely honest, the helpfulness of your MA will depend entirely on the quality of work you do for it. Your professor may have misunderstood that you intended to do an MA first in Turkey, but the things he or she said were entirely true, and hardly pessimistic, just realistic. I know that professor bugged you with his/her e-mail, but I thoroughly recommend talking to him/her more in detail. It's infinitely important to have someone who can assess you honestly and forthrightly. It's the best way for you to know what to do.

It's not a question of passion; presumably, everyone who contemplates spending 5+ years studying for an advanced degree has a high degree of passion for their subject. So, it comes down to determining competency, particularly in relation to a student's ability to perform competitively in a graduate program. This isn't at all to say that a low undergraduate GPA means a lack of competency: rather, I mean to say that in order to show that you can perform, particularly because of the difficulties associated with being an international applicant, you might want to spend some time taking graduate classes, researching, etc. It may also help to talk to your undergrad professors--people who know you, your struggles, your strengths, and your ambitions--and see if they have any specific suggestions.

Not gonna lie, I have a Mac, and I'm in love with it. I'm not in love with the company or anything since I could barely care less, and I'm not an Apple snob since I don't know enough about computers to even be capable of snobbery about them . . . that being said: 1) Unlike my old Dell, my Mac has never spontaneously died on me (knock wood), 2) The process for getting help with it is relatively easy, compared to being on hold with tech support for HOURS, 3) It's pretty. Since I don't know anything about "insert technobabble here," prettiness definitely ranks high on my criterion for gadgetry. But, here's the down side: I have a MacBook Pro, and it was beastly expensive, especially compared to the going rate for PCs. Even the substantial student discount I got at the time did not make the purchase remotely bearable: it took months of saving, which essentially meant months of eating string cheese for each meal of the day. At the same time, I've got to say that my old Dell ended up costing me much, much more over time in money and sanity, what with the four (count 'em: FOUR) times it died for complicated internal reasons that I still don't understand. Despite the giant initial investment, the fact that my obscenely expensive laptop is still running well (knock wood again) is worth it for me. I guess this is why I'll probably be forever grateful to Apple: turning my computer on in the morning is no longer an anxiety-filled event.

Teaganc, this is fair. From younglion's initial statement, I hadn't gotten the sense that he or she had actually considered the differences between mistakes associated between ESL speakers and native speakers. On the contrary, to me it read as a kind of gut this-guy-can't-speak-English-he-must-not-be-"from here" reaction: in that context I thought that A) he was using the word "international" as a pejorative, and that it was strangely tied to race--which also bothered me, since "native English speaker" is hardly a race, either--or at the very least nationality-based "otherness." Not to mention, since the OP's place of residence or origin weren't remotely relevant to the actual conversation (from which I've meandered significantly, too, I admit), I found vannik's willingness to "go there" distasteful and hasty. When it comes to matters of race, I do have a tendency to be a bit more Zizekian than I would be in any other universe, and I do apologize for that; but, I think that the phrasing and the irrelevance of younglion's post opened itself to the sort of reaction that I had. It didn't quite reek of thoughtfulness, or even thoughtoutness. Evidently, younglions put more thought into it than I perceived, and I appreciate that. To your question: yes, I have.

Well, no arguments about the drugs. But don't deprive yourself of Derrida or Barthes!

Borderline racist, yes. Reading someone's faulty English and assuming that person is an international student is, at the very least, "culturally insensitive"--particularly since plenty of non-international students think that numbers can legitimately stand in for words, which is hardly an example of "good English." I've seen native English speakers who can barely string a sentence together. On the flip side, plenty of "non-natives" are perhaps less "easy to recognize"--the assumption that "poor English" means "not a native speaker" is infuriating and belittling. There are legitimate points to be made about the difficulty of learning to speak English as a second language--but people may want to be wary about drawing so-called "obvious" connections. Many, many people are ESL, and I would bet money--maybe even 130 K, which I distinctly do not have!--that you can't pick all of them out of a crowd of text. So, yes, it is borderline racist that younglions found it "quite easy to recognize vannik's english as being non-native." I'm not arguing that vannik had excellent English, or that it's racist to criticize anyone's language proficiency (snotty, maybe, but not racist): the other assumptions that sunk the ship. And for the love of god, math123, please stop acting like you can fix, are fixing, or even know how to fix the state of the economy single-handedly.

Vecrhite371 and loft629, you just absolutely made my morning!

I seriously think the classes are a waste of money. Three books (ETS, Kaplan, Princeton Review), the Barron's word list (which you can find for free online, which is where I got it), ridiculously long night-time studying schedules, and tons of practice tests landed me a 1450, and I'm a horrible standardized-test taker (seriously, I'm abysmal--it doesn't come naturally to me at all). As for the essay, just write the most formulaic thing possible: that landed me a 6.0. Those practice tests are crucial, and just keep taking them no matter how well or horribly you do--my scores kept going up and down during the practice tests. I scored everything from a 1000 to a 1600. It's like learning how to play a game--after a certain point, all you can do is play it over and over again until the rhythms become natural. Oh, and try to take the test in a sort of "realistic" way--nothing around you, nothing to fidget with, none of your vices or comforts around. I think I could have scored higher if I'd done this--I don't have a PC, so I wasn't able to take it in a controlled environment of my own; not to mention, I'm a smoker and took my practice tests with an ample supply of cigarettes by my side. Through the last half of the test, I began to find the testing center creepily quiet (unlike the friend's house where I took my practice tests), and I almost went mad reaching for cigarettes that of course were not and could not be there.

For sure. But, seriously, this is not for everyone--I love TAing/teaching college, but god, those kids, those parents, those SATs and SSATS . . . that job just slew me. The whole point of working to make money to support the things I actually wanted to do with myself was entirely defeated because that job turned my brain into Jell-O--I've had retail jobs that sucked my soul less (far, far less) than tutoring kids did. Did anyone else find working with kids absolutely impossible? I mean, I've had horrible, horrible jobs--night shifts at sketchy 24-hour donut shops in sketchy towns, grungy bars, so on--but tutoring kids, that was the worst in my book.

No! No! No! They're money-drains. The good old bunch-a-books approach is better.

The short answer: you can do more or less anything. I'm working as an editor for a literary magazine where I interned while I was an undergrad; it's a great place. I also do freelance design work (flyers, etc) because I realized I had a weird knack for it and it makes good money. I tried tutoring 8 - 12 grade kids for a while, but it didn't suit me in the least, and it was fun for no one involved. The thing about my current gigs is that I not only love them to bits, but they also leave me time to take graduate classes, to write and publish poems and papers, to loaf a bit and read a lot. On the flip side, a friend of mine is working in a think tank at a local university--she graduated with an English BA, too. I don't really know what exactly she does there, but it's a legal-medical-political-psychological kind of think tank, and it's the complete opposite of any kind of work environment I've ever been in, and she's working on applications now, too, just like I am. Moral of the story seems to be: English majors are ridiculously versatile.

This sounds right. Of course, I know even less about applying for a professional degree than I know about applying for an academic degree--which is saying something, since I'm currently embarking on my first time applying for an academic degree. But I have solid, well-versed, and intimidatingly successful advisers, and I can practically hear them saying what djrg said above . . . but then again, they'd be advising me specifically for an academic degree . . . Round and round in circles we go. Gwydion's suggestion about asking is a good one. It's the only way you'll get an actual answer, not a cross-your-heart-hope-not-to-die answer.

Well, as I've said before, this whole process doesn't come down to the stats, from what I've come to understand about it. You say you applied to 8 top programs in your field--did they all have people who you were interested in working with? Do your research interests fit with theirs? In reference to the stats, though: it's not remotely unrealistic to think that you could be admitted to any graduate programs, but for "top" programs--and I'm not sure what those are for philosophy, although I do know that philosophy grad programs are notoriously difficult to get into--you might come up a bit short. For example, I know that for top English programs, 700 is the recommended score for the verbal section of the GREs. Also, these same programs write that "no less than an A- major GPA" is advisable--yours is exactly an A-. But, again, this is far from the most important part of the whole shindig. I'd wager that this was more of a fit issue, and that other, more important factors (do you have publications? Conference presentations? How were your writing sample and SOP?) came into play far more than your stats.

This is a rare position for me, but (here goes): look on the bright side! There are so many more reasons to be rejected--if I'm reading that correctly, your "deny reason," if that's what it ends up being, is the school's bad, not yours. Keep us posted, yeah? I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you that it doesn't mean what you think it does, particularly since that is the Worst Way Ever to find out.

Ain't that the glorious, glorious truth.

Ha. Isn't it true.

Seconded. All of it. With the caveat that, as I'm sure of course you know, "top programs" is a highly subjective term.

This--what curious zygote said--is so true. Your prof was right--you may never come back. But if you end up not wanting to come back, then it's not exactly walking out of heaven, yeah? I never had doubts, but I took time away from being in school, too--mostly for financial reasons. (I couldn't remotely afford applications when I had just graduated.) Turns out that all I did during that time--all I've been doing--is researching. I can't wait to go back.

I would second the suggestion that your research interests are perhaps too "specialized"; also, since you say there is "at least one faculty member that is a defining figure in those sub-disciplines," then I think it may be the case that that one faculty member at each school possibly was not taking any new advisees, or perhaps found other applicants that better suited their limited spots for advisees. I hope I don't sound gnarly (and forgive the double-negative that's upcoming), but to be honest, you really can't not (there it is) imagine any other applicant with a greater research fit. You never know. Also, there are a few things missing, I think, from what you mentioned about your application--what about publications or conference presentations? It's true that not all applicants have these, but several do. Finally--and this is a small point, not a major one or even, perhaps, one at all, but since you want no stones left unturned--you say your grades are "close to 90%." Could you take a couple more graduate classes before the next application cycle and break into those As?

Well, Wittgenstein's got me beat (for pretty much everything, actually, but that's no surprise): I've never walked into a professor's place unannounced in the middle of the night. But, I'm lucky to be able to count my former professors among my closest of friends--we definitely know a lot about each others' personal lives, and I've gotten used to it. Being as I never initiated any awkward personal talk, and they contact me about their "life stuff" about as often--maybe even more often--than I contact them about mine, it feels natural, and not, for lack of a better word, creepy. We've been out drinking together, yes, and I've been over to a handful of their houses, met their families, etc. Maybe it's a Cambridge thing--and it's one of the things I love about the area!