1Q84

Dress your age too. I look really young and I really don't want to so I'm not gonna be wearing stuff that'll make me look like I might be waiting for my parents to pick me up after class.

I tried reading through most of these but couldn't get through them all. Are the majority of you applying for Ph.D's then? My heart pretty much sank as I scrolled through seeing how much work (conferences, papers, etc.) you all have done. I'm applying for an MA and I don't have a fraction of these works to my name...

When I got the page entitled "Strategies for Women", my jaw literally dropped. I had to check the cover to make sure this was actually a book from 2012 and not some cross-promotional Don Draper/Gruber satire guidebook. Does anyone else find this as incredibly offensive as me? And he even had the nerve to say "these are questions women found significantly more difficult than men, but after learning these (patented Gruber!) strategies, they scored the same." WHAT?! Who is this guy and what the hell is he going on about?!

The impression I'm getting from other threads and from some guide books is that the graders really don't care a jot for style, which is why often ESL students who understand the mechanics of writing better than a native speaker (who might try to add more flair) sometimes do better. The Princeton guide suggests putting in a rhetorical question to introduce a topic and their graders didn't take off any points when I put one in my practice test, so I'm not really sure if Kaplan or Princeton are right here but I can't imagine an ETS grader caring enough to take off points for a rhetorical question. They skim through each essay in 2 minutes seeing if it has clear ideas, is a good length and flows well. That's about it, apparently.

Amazing! This made me feel a lot better about life for some reason. It's nice to hear from an actual prof at points during the application process, I guess. Thank you!

Holy ______! That's a lot of topics Thanks for compiling! But where did you get them all? On the ETS site?

This might sound a little nutty, but try studying some Latin. As a Latin major, I would say I knew 3/4 of the words in those study lists already. The task of learning that last 1/4 plus making sure to jot down any words I didn't know from all the practice tests I did is a relatively simple one. Of course, I don't mean go become proficient in Latin. If you're really serious about improving your verbal score, however, learning Latin will most assuredly do the trick. Go pick up a copy of Cambridge Latin (they're elementary school Latin textbooks) if you can find it and delve right in. It's super simple. If you end up even learning just very common Latin prefixes like ob+ (against) and con/com+ (together) and ab+ (away) etc. you can literally increase your vocab by leaps and bounds since English creates hundreds (if not thousands) of different words simply by adding prefixes. I found when I was somewhat stumped on a piece of vocab in the practice tests, even if I knew the prefix I could suss out the meaning and make a good educated guess. As someone who just went through a B.Ed, I know that learning stuff by pattern is a million times more effective than by rote.

As is usually the case, asking the grad secretary is usually your best option. I asked a couple schools and they said sure. Either submitting an attachment with a list of the courses in question and an official course description from the school calendar will do. Some apps have a field for that and some ask for a separate sheet. I also talked to my undergrad school's transcript centre and they have a service where they cross reference courses and photocopy a course description from the school calendar of that year for free and send it along with the transcript. See if you can do that.

Thanks for the straight up answer! I guess I should just suck it up. Really good advice! Never thought of it that way. Focus on your strengths... <--- sunglasses to hide these eyes. They're English eyes. They ain't science eyes.

Thank you! You're amazing! PM'd

So when a school only states the necessary/minimum verbal scores for entrance into the program (I'm talking English Lit programs), it is the unspoken agreement that we can all throw up our hands and not even do the quantitative section? Because I would love that. <-- sunglasses to hide the fact that I haven't done math since grade 12, and not well since.... who knows when.

Chip meet shoulder. SAME. I cannot stand these reading comprehension questions! I love the fill in blanks and equivalence questions, though that may be a result of me being a vocabulary enthusiast. That's pretty nice to hear! What schools did you get full funding for your MA for? 98% on the subject test? Wow. I would probably grovelling in your presence. And you got rejected three times?! I guess GREs really don't count for much at all. Do you mind if I ask what it was that held you back so many times in the eyes of the adcomm?

You have lots of support here! No worries Some of my closest friends have anxiety disorders and have, with some struggle, done very well in grad school and beyond! You'll be fine. I think one point to really take home, though, is that you should never, EVER hesitate to contact the school's student services centre with issues such as yours when you get in (see when, not if!). Most, if not all, schools are pretty good and have established staff and policies for counselling or accommodations. It's unfortunate that your undergrad school had such a poor system of accommodation... In any case, something as easy as even speaking to your prof at the time, perhaps explaining your situation and proposing to orally present something during office hours instead of in front of the class could help. Good luck!

There go my reading comprehension skills... whoops This makes sense. Well I sure hope the stuff on the Princeton Review is a lot harder because some of them are pretty intense.

I don't think it's too soon, no. Better earlier than later, right? If I were you I would've just skipped over the schmooze part and gotten down to brass tacks. I mean as has been said countless times, it's a professional courtesy and somewhat part of their job description to do this for former students. I have a feeling most profs could do without the dance around the maypole before you come out with your request.

So it seems safe to say that aiming for a much higher score on the practice tests than you need would be a good idea, as there will be a drop when you take the actual test?

I've done a couple GRE practice tests so far and the ones from Princeton Review always happen to have these really intense and inscrutable scientific passages (origins of the universe with tons of specific astrophysics concepts/terms or physiological processes of the brain with tons of specific biology concepts/terms, etc.) What's up with this? I understand that technically we're supposed to be able to parse these few paragraphs regardless of any background knowledge on the subject and that the questions should be baesd on pulling information from the information that's given but it seems to me like putting overly scientific stuff is a little lousy. I mean the sections based on Shakespeare don't include heavy literature terminology... not really fair. I'm applying for English Lit, so of course I'd say that, but I guess they have to test science applicants too... ugh. Is this just the Princeton practice tests or will the real GRE include intense paragraphs like that?

This made me giggle. This. I'm kind of paranoid because I'm only applying to about 5-6 but if at least two of the schools have told me I'm a shoe-in, then that shouldn't be so bad? Right? Definitely sucks being poor. And I'm an international student so I can't even qualify for the fee waiver. Sigh.

Sorry I don't have much advice to offer as I'm sort of in the same boat (but have even less than you!). I graduate in 2007 and am trying to get back into post-grad work. From what I know about how profs value teaching experience, etc. I definitely think your experience will at least help you flesh out your background experience and knowledge in your SOPs. At least you weren't just loafing around and waitressing or something. Good luck!

Okay this was what I was hoping to hear! Phew! I'm a he by the way but she is fine too haha Really? Less prestige than University of Toronto? I mean it's oft cited as the best university in Canada (even then Queens and McGill sometimes take the cake) but I have a feeling outside of Canada there's a lot of head-scratching. Oh. This is really good information... again I plead ignorance. Thank you so much for pointing that out to me! Is this contingent on attaining the PhD in the calstate system, though? ETA: Oh boo it's for US residents only I think it's pretty out of the question. My best writing samples are two 7 page critical papers I wrote on Faerie Queene. I think those two schools require 10-15 page samples from what I recall. I have been told by some professors to edit, correct and expand them, however, so I guess that's fixable. Yes, my converted GPA (although not much to convert, UT is also on the 4.0 GPA scale) is about 3.3 in my English major. It's a bit higher in my Latin major. I believe the minimum for those upper tier schools are 3.7 - 3.8. Worst part of all is my references aren't that great. I'm one of those unfortunate many that didn't network or schmooze very well with their undergrad professors so while I did well in their courses, I don't know them all that well. Thank you for that vote of confidence though! I really wish I could just apply to UCLA and Berkeley now... might save me some time!

Well, I've spent the last 5-6 weeks sifting through university websites! I've gotten a fair amount of information but I found grad secretaries definitely the most helpful. The sites are just so incomprehensible but that might just be because I'm unfamiliar with the American system. Not to mention some schools (ahem CSU Fullerton) have completely broken sites with nary a link that doesn't say "content missing". Wah! Anyway, thank you for the responses. It'll definitely help me when writing my SOPs

Very interesting. So much I don't know! I've already been in contact with a lot of professors so I guess it's too late to turn back now... but most have been pretty open to answering my questions with the exception of a few who just didn't reply. I'll take what you said to heart, Two Espressos, and leave them be! One of the main differences, I suppose, is that I've been emailing graduate advisors... it's kind of their jobs to put up with my annoying questions right? The kindest professor I spoke to also offered to Skype in August. I was very touched! In all honesty, many of the inquiries I've made have been "what the heck does this part of the website mean?" I read in other threads about people complaining about how department websites are incredibly vague and poorly laid out. I couldn't agree more! I would've saved so much more time if they just had a simple checklist with a list of definitions. As a Canuck with no idea of how the American system works, I hope they took pity on me and weren't annoyed by my constant questions. I plead internationality!

Oh absolutely... working super hard is on my agenda no matter where I go, especially after my slippage in undergrad. UC Berkeley and UCLA do apparently have the best graduate program in Renaissance Lit so, yes it's a departmental fit thing, not a status thing... hope it didn't come off that way! It's kinda different for me, I guess, as I'll be paying nonresident tuition no matter what. I'm really banking on some scholarships/awards! Here's hoping.

Amazing to hear! I was going to apply to SFSU too but it's too far for me... So what I'm taking from that is that if I go to a state university I just have to work twice as hard as the private university folk? I guess that's good and bad news! I was hoping I could still claw my way up to a UC Berkeley after the MA but I figure that's probably a little out of range eh? It's so strange though... CSULA is so terribly rated (in fact, in most ranking sites it's not rated at all). I hate to rely solely on numbers but I feel like if it's that bad, attending might be something of a stigma. I don't mind repeating courses. As long as they'll take me! I'm thinking the highest tier schools (like UC Berkeley and UCLA) won't accept MA students from state universities?