Fall 2011

[Alette]

I saw this topic in the History forum, and I've decided to steal the idea.

What is your plan of attack for this application season?

[wreckofthehope]

On 7/23/2010 at 8:46 AM, Alette said:

I saw this topic in the History forum, and I've decided to steal the idea.

What is your plan of attack for this application season?

Hi there - I was hoping someone would take the initiative, so thanks

I'm applying for both English Literature and Comparative Literature PhDs; at the moment, my list of definites looks something like this:

Stanford (English), WashU (English), Chicago (Comp' Lit - comp' disciplines path), Rutgers (Comp' Lit'), Toronto (English), UBC (English), The University of Copenhagen (Comp' Lit and Cultural Studies), The London Consortium (Humanities and Cultural Studies), and University College London (Comp' Lit').

I'm from the U.K., wanting to study both American and European lit', hence the scattered-across-the-globe approach. There are also a couple of other schools in the States that I'm still deliberating on...

I'm writing my MA thesis at the moment, and don't submit that until the 15th of September, I work in Quality Assurance almost full time as well, so it's going to be difficult to find the time to actually work on my app's between now and September, but I'm going to use part of my thesis as my writing sample, and can certainly get started on my SoP. So, at least I'm working towards it in some ways. It's the GRE I'm worried about, as I have pretty much no time to revise for it.

[Alette]

I'm having moments of panic when I realize that summer's almost over, and I have so much more to do before I start teaching in the fall. On the applications side of my to do list, things I've begun:

1. Study for GREs, especially the quantitative section. A professor revealed that that is important, because your application is seen by the administration, not the department, first. I'm studying vocabulary, of course, but when I took the exam three years ago the analytic and verbal sections came out just fine; the quant, on the other hand, was simply dismal.

2. Assemble a list and meet with professors to discuss courses of action. I have charts and charts of research with potential advisers, publications, due dates and all the rest.

3. Study for the GRE Lit exam - which is actually fun and useful in filling the many holes in my knowledge. My field is contemporary American poetry, which is not represented in the Nortons (not at least the people I study), so I have no "safety" bank of questions.

4. Approach professors to write letters of recommendation. I've worked with them closely for the past two years, and I know how far behind they can get in their work.

5. Start drafting a statement of purpose, which is more difficult than I thought it would be.

I am very glad to have a year "off" to teach after finishing my Master's. I couldn't imagine doing all this while attending classes!

[Medievalmaniac]

Well, I've already posted this somewhere, but I'll repeat it, because I know everyone is looking for everyone else's take on this All Consuming Topic.

I'm honestly not sure how much better my application can get. My undergraduate grades, which are now almost 16 years old, were not great (2.77, although that's only for the last six semesters, following a transfer from another school where I was a Dean's List student with a 3.5 - they would not combine the GPAs, which would have put the cumulative at a 3.1), but I have an MA with a 4.0 GPA from 2009. My GRE scores were OK - abysmal Math, but verbal in the 89th percentile, and a 6 on the writing section. I do, however, have twelve years of teaching experience at the middle school through college levels, in English/Writing, Art History, and French; for the past eight years I have designed and written my classes from scratch and been able to focus on the subject matter I love best, medieval literature and medievalism. I have seven languages with an intermediate to fluent proficiency including Latin, French (Old, Anglo-Norman, and Modern), Spanish, German, Italian, Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, and I have multiple publications already out (Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, Encyclopedia of Medieval Chronicle, Student Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry, a reference book on Literary Romanticism, and an article in the Virginia English Bulletin, among others). My chapter on teaching Tolkien in an Epic Lit class is currently being edited for the MLA Approaches to Teaching Tolkien Volume. I have also presented at multiple conferences, and been a session organizer; next year I will be presiding over a session at my third appearance at Kalamazoo, and I am an active member of multiple organizations in medieval studies. I have also served as a reader and editor for Hortulus, the online medieval graduate studies journal, for the past three years.

In other words, I am a serious, committed and dedicated scholar, and I have clearly demonstrated not only that I have an aptitude for this work, but also that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life; but that seems not to have been enough for admissions officers in the last go-round. I know it was a tough year, and I also know that my undergraduate GPA isn't up to snuff - but there isn't anything I can do about that nearly twenty years after the fact. Since the undergraduate GPA was the deciding factor in my rejections, despite its having been so old and my having the 4.0 at the Master's level, the only way I can apparently redeem the application is to do better on the GRE.

I have therefore spent the summer studying Math with a tutor, and will begin in on reviewing for the English section next week, with an eye to registering for and taking the GRE general examination at the end of September. I am also taking the subject test in October, and have begun reviewing for that. My entire focus at this point is to push those scores up, because everything else in my application, undergraduate GPA excluded, is honestly as good as it can be. My writing samples are from my published and under revision for publication work, and my statement of purpose says exactly what I want to research, why I want to research it, and how I am going to research it.

i have also contacted a different third recommendation, in order to freshen up that aspect of my application.

If I don't get in this year, it will not be for lack of preparation, desire, and working my ass off to that end. But, if I don't get in this year, there's always next year...and the year after that...and the year after that...

And meanwhile, I am still teaching, researching, writing, and publishing, as well as conferencing...so not getting a PhD will be depressing and heartache-making, but it is not going to stop me from being a medievalist.