Emily Eyefinger

Dear awesome people, It's all my fault--failing to turn in a final assignment and ending up getting F in one of my courses. Other than that one course my GPA is pretty sound, and I have a pretty solid background in the area of research interest. Do you think I still have a chance at further pursuing PhD if I invest more time and energy to attending conferences and publishing papers, given that I give out an impression that I am not a lazy butt who just can't manage time? Or is F in the transcript pretty much a death sentence for me as an academic? I'm trying to recover from the devastation and realistically plan for my future. I'm doing my MA in English in Canada.

Dear gradcafers, Though I still have three places left to hear back from(pretty sure they are rejection notices), I have finally made up my mind. Just so incredibly thankful that I have a place to go this year! The school wants me to let them know my decision by next week. They've been so super friendly to me sending me kind personalized emails and all that. I want to return the favor and set a friendly tone in my email response... but don't want to go overboard. Could anyone give me a piece of advice on how to go about this? Is there an expected decorum of sort that I should follow? How did you do it? Thanks. Congrats to all who are in and "will" be in shortly.

Chicago results are up on the result search board. Congrats to those who made it! My assumed rejection from Chicago is now almost official... sigh. Can anyone who are in at Chicago share with me research interests and POIs?

Haha, I totally agree with you. Thanks everyone for such kind advice and helpful insight! On a tangential note, is anyone concerned about doing an MA adding extra two years to your study? I'm already in the second half of my 20s. But oh well, lewisthlewisamteenth is right. The longer you stay as a student the more colorful your life will be!

Hello people, I'm a long time lurker. So far I have heard from two out of six schools to which I've applied--one PhD rejection and one funded MA acceptance. Though I have to wait for the rest of the results to make a final decision, it's mostly likely that I will end up going to the MA school for it is close to my family. I don't feel as competent as to jump right into a competitive PhD program(if by any luck that ever happens this admission season) and carry out a quality research, especially since I've been out of my undergrad for two years. I need some catch up! So the question is this. How much does your intellectual caliber grow through the MA experience? Honestly, six courses and a final thesis don't seem like a lot of work and I'm worried if I will be in the same shape scholarly after the one year. Dear comrades, I want to hear about your MA experiences before committing to my MA program. Any advice?

Ahhhh, I assume that Chicago and NYU for English PhD results are all out. What about their CompLit? Has anyone heard anything from those two schools?

My programs' websites don't have information for GRE code for the department. Nor do I want to bother the admissions committee with such a simple question. My intended major, Comparative Literature, is not in the list of departments when I search for it on ETS website. What should I do? Anyone had a similar experience? Is specifying only the institution's GRE code suffient? Thanks : ) and Good luck to you all.

I am considering applying to UCI Comp Lit. Any update information on the current funding in the department?

Thanks for your input. Unlike English dept, though, Comp. Lit dept offers a partial funding for MA students as well. The idea of studying at a department that Northrop Frye himself initiated thrills me a great deal... ah, but right now it's a school that's a far reach for me. Good luck on your study!

News about the university trying to dissolve the center to consolidated several Humanities departments in 2010 worry me as I am planning to apply there. Anyone has any info about how the program is funded and managed nowadays? http://theacademicblogspot.blogspot.ca/2010/07/university-of-toronto-dissolves.html Also, I'm an international student. All schools I am applying to say they fund international and demestic students alike... But I heard in order to issue I-20 for student visa, I need to prove that I have the sufficient amount of money to cover full tuition. Is it true? Thanks!

Hi, could any of you help me out please? I'm in another country right now and can't personally come into the professors' office to have a chat with about the schools and letters. So what I will probably have to do is just send them an email saying, "Hi, do you remember me? I'm planning to apply for this and that school and want to ask you to be my LOR person...yay." Has anyone here done their LOR this way(only via email respondences)? How should I make the most out of the medium I have as to be as polite as possible? I'm also confused about the address the letters would have to be sent to. A guy I asked about this said his professors handed him the sealed letters so that he could send them with the application to each school himself. Is this the way things are usually done? Shouldn't the professors send the letter to the institutions directly? If the professors are to send the letters to me by a snailmail, they would have to pay for the international shipping fee and I would certainly not want that as it would make me feel even worse about not being able to ask them for the LOR in person. And when is the approprate time to ask for the letter? Should I contact them after I have clearly come up with a list of schools that I will be applying to? Is asking after the summer vacation too late? Thank you so much for your help. I've been away from school for some time and am so out of touch with the whole process, the gradcafe is the only place I can get much needed help on my preparation for apps.

Thanks a lot! I'll definitely have to research more. Just starting the whole application process for the very first time and it's been a couple of years after graduation... the Gradcafe forum is the only thing that keeps me in touch with the atmosphere in academia.

Hi all, I'm going to apply for Comparative Literature Fall 2013. Now that I've been looking more into each program for the first time, I'm worried about their language requirement. How is having no languages ready when you apply taken by the adcomm? Is it a critical factor? I have English, my native language, and two years of ancient Greek from undergrad which I barely remember. German French Spanish... Let's just say I just know how to say hello. My research interest area is mostly theoretical than transnational. One more question, do they even look at my GRE quant score? Thanks for your help.