2020 Applicants

[Wimsey]

I noticed that both Chicago and Brown have eliminated all GRE requirements for their English programs!

[Cryss]

1 hour ago, Wimsey said:

I noticed that both Chicago and Brown have eliminated all GRE requirements for their English programs!

I did see that! Brown dropped it sometime last week, and I just noticed a few days ago that Chicago dropped theirs. The list is healthy and growing, and might just continue in the upcoming weeks as September approaches and the applications for 2020 will be opening. At least I'm hoping. 

[Warelin]

On 8/20/2019 at 3:01 PM, Indecisive Poet said:

Urg. Venting here. I am trying to narrow down my list and the more I research and re-research, the more it becomes clear that there is a group of programs all in the top ten that are all perfect fits for my interests. Outside of the top ten? Eh, there are a few that I could make work, but it's a stretch (i.e. there are people working in my period, which can be said of every university, but there is no overlap at all in interest or methodology). This is really frustrating because I do not want to apply to this many uber-competitive programs.

I think it is important to remember that your definition of 'fit' is likely very different from a department's definition of fit. Professors do not want to produce mirror images of themselves. They're interested in finding new ways to examine various types of studies.

[The Hoosier Oxonian]

So glad to have found this thread - thought I'd stop lurking and say hello!

A bit about me: I'm heading into the fourth year of my BA (which seems to make me a bit of a minority as a PhD applicant?) I'm a Modernist, sort of, mostly interested in queerness across the first half of the twentieth century (predominantly in Britain and the US) and in the legacy of 20th-century liberal humanism in relation to contemporary turns in queer theory. I'm earning my undergrad at an enormous and not at all prestigious public school (a regional campus of a reasonably well-regarded state institution) and am, as far as I'm aware, the only student in my department who's applying for PhD programs. My profs have been very supportive, but I worry about lacking a sufficient support system for this process and missing out on things I really ought to know, so this site is a godsend! I also worry that my school's non-prestigious status will weigh heavily against me in applying to top 20 programs (though I did do a year of my undergrad as a visiting student at Oxford, which I'm hoping will counterbalance that a little bit.) Just took my first full GRE practice test today and scored 165V and 146Q, which a little worse than I was hoping (obviously the math score is absolutely abysmal and I've heard very mixed things about whether that matters.) Scored 740 on the practice version of the Subject Test, so I'm hoping that's a good omen, but hardly anyone seems to require it anymore...

Anyway, greetings to all, and I would be enormously appreciative of any insights or advice from others who are currently undergoing or have recently undergone this process!

Edited August 25, 2019 by The Hoosier Oxonian

[Indecisive Poet]

17 hours ago, Warelin said:

I think it is important to remember that your definition of 'fit' is likely very different from a department's definition of fit. Professors do not want to produce mirror images of themselves. They're interested in finding new ways to examine various types of studies.

I've been trying to get a sense for departments that are more formalist-oriented in general and these seem to be the ivies, for the most part. But I think I'll have to expand my definition of fit, as you suggest, in order to expand my range a bit.

[Uchuuko]

On 8/19/2019 at 2:52 AM, onerepublic96 said:

whoops! seems you've posted on the wrong forum. we're humanities folks here 

Oh no... I'm sorry. 

[Tessjane77]

Hello everyone! Longtime lurker, first time poster.

    I am a senior in undergrad applying for a masters with the end goal of teaching. I have a good but fluid list of places to apply to; I think my first (realistic, lol) choice is Wake Forest. Does anyone have insights  about their program?

       My focus as an undergrad has been experimental poetry, particularly that of the beatniks. I’ve also taken courses in and published (albeit not on a massive scale) creative writing. I am near-fluent in a foreign language (French), have succeeded in high level French lit classes as well, and I have worked as a T.A. for underclassmen (that’s good for grad school, right? Maybe?) 

     I took the GRE this summer and scored 167 on verbal, 153 on quant, and 4.1 on analytical writing. I am taking the lit subject test this weekend, actually, but am a bit nervous because I haven’t distinctly prepared for it. I took a couple practice tests this week to at least see what it is like and scored around a 540. How much do percentiles, what scores are considered “good”, etc. change from year to year with the subject test?

Edited September 12, 2019 by Tessjane77

[Bopie5]

8 hours ago, Tessjane77 said:

I am a senior in undergrad applying for a masters with the end goal of teaching. I have a good but fluid list of places to apply to; I think my first (realistic, lol) choice is Wake Forest. Does anyone have insights  about their program?

Hi! Don't have insights about Wake Forest in particular, but if it's not already on your list, Villanova's MA in English program is excellent! Similarly to Wake Forest's program, Villanova's program offers both tuition scholarships and Graduate Assistantships with stipends. If you've been lurking, I'm sure you've seen this advice before, but the general rule of thumb is "don't go to a place where you don't get funding (especially if it's an MA)."

In my experience so far, Villanova's program is rigorous, supportive, well-structured, and supportive to students looking to pursue career paths other than going on to the PhD. There are a few faculty who focus on 20th/21st century poetics, and I'm actually in an excellent poetry class at the moment. 

Might be worth looking in to! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

[Tessjane77]

13 hours ago, Bopie5 said:

Hi! Don't have insights about Wake Forest in particular, but if it's not already on your list, Villanova's MA in English program is excellent! Similarly to Wake Forest's program, Villanova's program offers both tuition scholarships and Graduate Assistantships with stipends. If you've been lurking, I'm sure you've seen this advice before, but the general rule of thumb is "don't go to a place where you don't get funding (especially if it's an MA)."

In my experience so far, Villanova's program is rigorous, supportive, well-structured, and supportive to students looking to pursue career paths other than going on to the PhD. There are a few faculty who focus on 20th/21st century poetics, and I'm actually in an excellent poetry class at the moment. 

Might be worth looking in to! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Ah, I have heard good things about Villanova, but don't know much about it! I'll do a deep dive on their website, etc and PM you (thank you!) with any questions! Thanks for the suggestion.

[tinymica]

Hello! I'm new to this thread and this site  - I hope it's okay to post here.

I just graduated with my BA in English lit and I'm trying to apply this year for PhD programs in the same subject. I'm really, really nervous. I started a bit late, so it feels overwhelming to get everything together before looming deadlines. I'm working on my WS and studying for the GRE (a nightmare), but I'm worried I'm not a good enough candidate for doctoral programs. I'm primarily interested in Victorian literature and culture - particularly the novel, women, morality, and ecocriticism. I switched interests pretty late in my undergrad career and I've not been published. How can I work towards becoming a better applicant? To any other Victorianists out there, do you have any program recommendations? I have a tentative list going, but I'm also having trouble telling whether a program is a good fit.

It's pretty daunting reading advice online, so I guess I'm also just looking for reassurance that I'm not crazy to apply.

Thank you everyone for your time!

[HenryJams]

5 hours ago, tinymica said:

Hello! I'm new to this thread and this site  - I hope it's okay to post here.

I just graduated with my BA in English lit and I'm trying to apply this year for PhD programs in the same subject. I'm really, really nervous. I started a bit late, so it feels overwhelming to get everything together before looming deadlines. I'm working on my WS and studying for the GRE (a nightmare), but I'm worried I'm not a good enough candidate for doctoral programs. I'm primarily interested in Victorian literature and culture - particularly the novel, women, morality, and ecocriticism. I switched interests pretty late in my undergrad career and I've not been published. How can I work towards becoming a better applicant? To any other Victorianists out there, do you have any program recommendations? I have a tentative list going, but I'm also having trouble telling whether a program is a good fit.

It's pretty daunting reading advice online, so I guess I'm also just looking for reassurance that I'm not crazy to apply.

Thank you everyone for your time!

Hey, just popping on over to say you're not crazy to apply.  I'm also a Victorianist, unpublished, who switched interests later in my undergrad career.  Don't worry about not being a good enough candidate.  If you can put together a good writing sample, solicit solid letters of recommendation, and get a serviceable score on the GRE, then go for it.

I'm applying this cycle too, so I can't speak personally to any particular programs.  However, I've done a good bit of research on schools in the "top tier" and find that the following have a good number of faculty members specializing in Victorian lit: Brown, Rutgers, Berkeley, Cornell, UCLA, Princeton, CUNY, Columbia, and Chicago.  

You might be interested in Professor Anderson's scholarship at Brown.  One of her works is called "Tainted Souls and Painted Faces:  The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture."  Might fit in with your research interests.  Professor Luciano at Rutgers also produces scholarship on Victorian lit along with queer theory and environmental humanities, which might fit your interest in women and ecocriticism (somewhat).

As far as telling whether a program is a good fit, I'd recommend taking one (or both) of two approaches.  

The first is to read the bios/CVs of faculty members at all the schools that seem like places offering good funding in places where you might want to live.  I made a list of professors whose research interests fit mine at schools I saw myself being happy to attend (and which provide funding), and that made my decision easier as far as figuring out where I would send my applications.  

The second approach is to read journal articles that match your interests, and find out whether those articles' authors are working currently.  You may find (as I did) that the author of an article that really impressed you is a faculty member of a program you had previously overlooked.

Take my advice with sever grains of salt.  Like I said, I'm applying this cycle too.  But hopefully the schools I listed above will at least save you some work.

[signandsignifiers]

 

15 hours ago, HenryJams said:

The first is to read the bios/CVs of faculty members at all the schools that seem like places offering good funding in places where you might want to live.  I made a list of professors whose research interests fit mine at schools I saw myself being happy to attend (and which provide funding), and that made my decision easier as far as figuring out where I would send my applications.  

The second approach is to read journal articles that match your interests, and find out whether those articles' authors are working currently.  You may find (as I did) that the author of an article that really impressed you is a faculty member of a program you had previously overlooked.

Also Victorianist here (current grad student)! I took both of these approaches and it worked out fairly well: I only got 2 straight-out rejections.

I'd also look into Boston College, Boston University, University of Indiana: Bloomington, and UC Riverside, to name a few places that come directly to mind. While all of those top-tier programs that you posted are fabulous, you'll want some middle-ground applications as well.

[HenryJams]

11 minutes ago, signandsignifiers said:

 

Also Victorianist here (current grad student)! I took both of these approaches and it worked out fairly well: I only got 2 straight-out rejections.

I'd also look into Boston College, Boston University, University of Indiana: Bloomington, and UC Riverside, to name a few places that come directly to mind. While all of those top-tier programs that you posted are fabulous, you'll want some middle-ground applications as well.

You're absolutely right.  My list focused on the top tier, but middle-ground schools are super-important too.  I like SUNY - Stony Brook, Colorado, and Pitt, personally, as well as the schools you mentioned.  Thanks for emphasizing the importance of applying to a wide range of schools.

[karamazov]

Can the fact that people on an admissions committee know/have worked with/have studied with a letter writer benefit an applicant? My main undergraduate adviser, who will also be writing one of my letters, earned his doctorate from my top choice program, graduated with a man who is now the director of graduate admissions at another of my top choices, and seems to be in touch professionally with a number of my POIs. Could I possibly hope that this might do some good for my application? I know the WS and SoP hold the most weight, but could adcomms' familiarity with a letter writer make any difference? Does anyone have experience with this? 

[Glasperlenspieler]

1 hour ago, karamazov said:

Can the fact that people on an admissions committee know/have worked with/have studied with a letter writer benefit an applicant? My main undergraduate adviser, who will also be writing one of my letters, earned his doctorate from my top choice program, graduated with a man who is now the director of graduate admissions at another of my top choices, and seems to be in touch professionally with a number of my POIs. Could I possibly hope that this might do some good for my application? I know the WS and SoP hold the most weight, but could adcomms' familiarity with a letter writer make any difference? Does anyone have experience with this? 

Certainly! Academia is a land of nepotism (and is pretty incestuous too boot, in more ways than one). If your letter writer is friends with someone on they admissions committee, they might be more disposed to give credence to the what is said in the letter. This works both ways though too. If someone on the admissions committee has a personal or professional beef with your letter writer, they might be less kindly disposed toward your application (whether they intend to or not). Furthermore, I've heard of big name professors who are so exaggeratedly enthusiastic in their letter of recommendation that they've earned a reputation for this and admissions committees do not take their letters as seriously anymore. 

tldr: It can help but could also hurt in some cases.  However, you probably don't have a good enough grasp of the social dynamics at play to predict these things. So don't worry about it and focus on what you can control.

[tinymica]

On 9/13/2019 at 6:06 PM, HenryJams said:

I'm applying this cycle too, so I can't speak personally to any particular programs.  However, I've done a good bit of research on schools in the "top tier" and find that the following have a good number of faculty members specializing in Victorian lit: Brown, Rutgers, Berkeley, Cornell, UCLA, Princeton, CUNY, Columbia, and Chicago.  

You might be interested in Professor Anderson's scholarship at Brown.  One of her works is called "Tainted Souls and Painted Faces:  The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture."  Might fit in with your research interests.  Professor Luciano at Rutgers also produces scholarship on Victorian lit along with queer theory and environmental humanities, which might fit your interest in women and ecocriticism (somewhat).

As far as telling whether a program is a good fit, I'd recommend taking one (or both) of two approaches.  

The first is to read the bios/CVs of faculty members at all the schools that seem like places offering good funding in places where you might want to live.  I made a list of professors whose research interests fit mine at schools I saw myself being happy to attend (and which provide funding), and that made my decision easier as far as figuring out where I would send my applications.  

The second approach is to read journal articles that match your interests, and find out whether those articles' authors are working currently.  You may find (as I did) that the author of an article that really impressed you is a faculty member of a program you had previously overlooked.

Take my advice with sever grains of salt.  Like I said, I'm applying this cycle too.  But hopefully the schools I listed above will at least save you some work.

Thank you very much for your reply! I'm so glad I found this forum; it's such a relief to actually talk to people going through the application process. Thanks for sharing your experience! I was eyeballing UCLA, UCD, UW, and UT Austin, among others. I find I'm intimidated by the "big names" and I have something of an aversion to them.

I'll definitely be looking into Anderson, thank you. I'm very interested in the fallen woman, especially in anything that goes to bat with the traditional Victorian sexual mores. I appreciate your recommendations! It's been a little bit interesting trying to find a program that can satisfy my research topics, but it's certainly not impossible. My spreadsheet on programs just keeps getting longer.

Re: the "good fit" - Yes, I've been compiling lists on professors with whom I'd like to work and trying to read their research. It hasn't occurred to me to go the other way, but that helps a lot! There's a lot of awesome criticism that still sticks in my mind. Thank you!

Good luck to you this cycle! 

[tinymica]

9 hours ago, signandsignifiers said:

 

Also Victorianist here (current grad student)! I took both of these approaches and it worked out fairly well: I only got 2 straight-out rejections.

I'd also look into Boston College, Boston University, University of Indiana: Bloomington, and UC Riverside, to name a few places that come directly to mind. While all of those top-tier programs that you posted are fabulous, you'll want some middle-ground applications as well.

Hello, thank you for your reply!

Thanks also for giving me some more places to look into! I've heard great things about the University of Indiana!

[Englishtea1]

Hello, everyone! I'm writing to wish you all the best of luck this application cycle! I'm happy to answer any questions via the forum or pm about my current program and the application process in general.

[Karatani]

Hi! Not typically one to post on the internet but pleased to see this group exists.

Me: Recent B.A. grad from honors program at a public school; hoping to research modernist fiction (a dying breed, so it seems), race, and theory. Have some grad/PhD course experience from classes, a conference paper delivered, and have article under consideration for journal publication.

Any other applicants coming out of public school? What about modernists? What about people having a hard time coming up with a list of schools that doesn't seem relatively impossible to actually get into??? 

[punctilious]

On 9/29/2019 at 11:24 PM, Plurabelle said:

Any other applicants coming out of public school? What about modernists? What about people having a hard time coming up with a list of schools that doesn't seem relatively impossible to actually get into??? 

My husband (and I, but that's not really relevant) went to a public school. Don't let that affect your application process or limit you!

[Glasperlenspieler]

On 9/29/2019 at 11:24 PM, Plurabelle said:

Any other applicants coming out of public school? What about modernists? What about people having a hard time coming up with a list of schools that doesn't seem relatively impossible to actually get into??? 

I went to a non-flagship public university for my undergrad and it doesn't seem to have negatively affected my experience in grad school.

In terms of your last question, I would encourage you to not get too hung up on thinking about where you can get into. It's good to be realistic about your chances (applying to grad school in literary studies is extremely competitive), but you're unlikely to be very successful in guessing where you have a good or bad chance of getting in. There are plenty of stories on here about people with perfect stats who got shut out, people with sub-par stats who got into top programs, and people who got rejected from low ranked programs only to get accepted at a top-ranked program. Instead, identify the schools that are the best matches for your interests and research. You certainly shouldn't limit yourself to top-ranked programs, but if all the programs that make sense for your research are extremely competitive, so be it. You're unlikely to be doing yourself any favors by applying to programs just because you think you have a good shot of getting in. 

[VincentH]

Hello, everyone! I figured after gaining so much insight from this thread that I ought to stop lurking and just make an account already! Hopefully I'll be using it to update the status of my applications come the spring so I needed to have one anyway

I'm applying to ~15-16 schools this cycle (yikes - the app fees...). Which still sounds absolutely ridiculous to say out loud, but I know it'll give me a good shot at it! I would love to study 18th century British literature - my passion is Restoration drama, particularly. I absolutely adore the Restoration playhouse and all of the debauchery that went on there! I'm working on polishing up a brand new paper on Aphra Behn and the masquerade (masquerade phenomenology is a new-found love for me - so fascinating) that I've been working on with my mentor. She's a badass Restoration scholar in her own right with a successful career, so I'm hopeful that her advice and expertise will ensure an airtight sample! 

One worry I have, though, is how specific my areas of interest are. There are very few profs in my area (of all of the schools I researched, I can count on one hand the amount that have more than two 18th-century scholars, and even fewer were particularly Restorationists), and I'm anxious that I'll have a very strong application but schools will reject me simply because they don't know where I'll "fit." I'm applying to some of the best 18th-century programs in the country (WashU, Rutgers, and Brandeis are the schools I'm most excited about), but if I get rejected from those, I'm terrified the rest will be resounding rejections simply because of my field. Should I broaden my scope/adjust my language in my SoP? Am I digging my own grave writing about my love of the Restoration in my SoP and writing sample? 

Any advice is much appreciated!  Wishing you all the best of luck with your applications!

[mobydickpic]

Hi all, happy to introduce myself as a 2020 applicant. I am currently a senior in my undergraduate program and am planning to apply to 10-12 programs during this cycle; I am currently honing my list. My period of primary interest falls around 1750-1830, the latter half of the "long" 18th century, with occasional forays into the Victorian period. Specifically, I am interested in material feminist readings of British abolition, literary depictions of the British East India Company, eighteenth century foreshadowings of communism, depictions of incarceration in the British Empire (especially India), anti-colonial book histories, and the materialist history of modern gender as read through fictional and legal prose on sex/sex work/pornography. Many of my projects engage equally with the 18th and 19th centuries, and I hope to trouble the dominant reading of the 18th century as a period in which identity was invented primarily through rethinking the self/the individual, and instead look toward labor histories, collectivism, and material feminist epistemologies to understand the "invention of the self" as an insidious project intended to prepare for a then-unnameable, yet imminent and likely predicted, global turn toward socialism. Lately, much of my work experiments with the digital humanities, with a particular emphasis on geographic imaging systems (GIS) and an increasing interest in quantitative approaches to narrative/novel studies. I look forward to engaging more with (and hopefully contributing as much as I can to) this community of support, and please feel free to reach out if you want to discuss any common interests! 

[merry night wanderer]

20 hours ago, PercivalV said:

Should I broaden my scope/adjust my language in my SoP? Am I digging my own grave writing about my love of the Restoration in my SoP and writing sample? 

I discovered the Restoration in, of all things, my GRE Subject Test studies, and I loved it! So raunchy. 

Regarding your question: this is something I'm also concerned about, and have seen a comment or two to the effect of "scholars want someone who can be molded" on these boards. However, I also saw a much more specific anecdote that UC Boulder rejected a candidate for "not being specific enough," and a number of people who wrote in their SoPs that they already had a notion of their dissertation topic. I'd love to hear from previous applicants on what worked and what didn't.

[ArcaMajora]

I've thought over the role of the SoP and here's my thoughts now after having settled into my graduate program and the general expectations for first years at least from what I have seen in Irvine so far.

I want to stress that the statement of purpose is by no means a contract. You are absolutely not beholden to it once you are in the program. I've talked with my advisor about how my fields could well shift in the duration of my fellowship year and that the questions I raised in my SoP would instead be much different ones depending on where my lines of thinking go. That being said, it is productive to be as specific as you feasibly can without appearing like you're completely calcified in your field/period. When I was writing the basis for what became my statement of purpose, I thought of it as a sort of 'prospectus.' I wrote a vision of myself as a scholar at that moment then; and accordingly then had a tentative dissertation topic/larger lines of thinking that could form the seed of the eventual dissertation prospectus or master's thesis if I sustain that project beyond just applying to graduate school. Being specific enough without appearing like you're too set (to the point where you may not benefit from graduate education) is a balancing act. If you are a restoration scholar, then it is very much okay to write yourself as such in your SoP, as that will ensure a higher (but not guaranteed) chance that your SoP will be read by a faculty specialist that is within or adjacent to your time period. If you know what kinds of texts, authors, theorists, etc. you're working on, make that apparent in your SoP.

The flexibility (ie. being molded by the program) comes if you make it clear with confidence that you know your project can benefit from having the influence of discourse with faculty within the program either due to its general strengths or if there's a particular faculty member you're looking to work with. For example, this might mean writing in your statement with strategic moments of 'While so-and-so project represents the current inquiry I have into this specific time period/issue/question, this is by no means a closing off of my wider scholarly interests. Indeed, OMG University's strengths could complement my project by way of so-and-so-and-so and possibly even expand my research into these ways/areas.' It becomes an exercise in showing how you and your project/lines of thinking could be molded by the program that you are applying for, and it's one of the many ways in which you can demonstrate your potential fit to an admissions committee. Thus, don't sacrifice your specificity (the adcom will want to know what you're studying) but make sure to appear as such that your interests can change, expand, and of course be complicated.

The SoP is a barometer of fit just as much as it is the adcom's way to hold a litmus test in how well you can present yourself as a scholar in an academic and professional context and also as a way to see if you can start proposing the kinds of projects that are expected of graduate students to produce. The best way I can phrase it is that you do need to be specific enough in order for a program to identify not just your field, but the methodologies you favor (you like queer theory? are you more into ecocrit? continental philosophy?), the texts that you gravitate toward, etc, but the possibility of change (either the refinement of interests or even an outward expansion) by either faculty discourse, the program's strength, seminar, etc. will definitely need to be there.

Edited October 2, 2019 by ArcaMajora