Comp LIt PHD MA

[Francophile1]

Hello,

I will be applying for PhD programs Fall 2012- Comp. Lit and although I plan on applying to a variety of schools I also had not very good GPA in the first two years of my undergraduate life so my overall GPA upon graduating will be 3.0 or somewhere in that range. My major gpa is 3.8 in French. I do have the advantage of being fluent in 3 foreign languages and learning a 4th one now and I am hoping that my statement of purpose, GRE scores will help offset my not so good previous GPA.

So I have two questions:

1. Do I have a chance to get into a good PhD program?

2.)I also want to apply to master's programs, if you can recommend some good ones in this field it would be great!

Much appreciated!

[Medievalmaniac]

On 1/24/2011 at 3:13 AM, katerinaver said:

Hello,

I will be applying for PhD programs Fall 2012- Comp. Lit and although I plan on applying to a variety of schools I also had not very good GPA in the first two years of my undergraduate life so my overall GPA upon graduating will be 3.0 or somewhere in that range. My major gpa is 3.8 in French. I do have the advantage of being fluent in 3 foreign languages and learning a 4th one now and I am hoping that my statement of purpose, GRE scores will help offset my not so good previous GPA.

So I have two questions:

1. Do I have a chance to get into a good PhD program?

2.)I also want to apply to master's programs, if you can recommend some good ones in this field it would be great!

Much appreciated!

Hi there, and welcome (back) to the Grad Cafe....I see you have been a member for a while, but only three posties - you have much more restraint than I do! lol In terms of the first question, the standard answer applies - you have as good a chance as anyone else filling out an application, sending in required documents, and paying the application fee, of getting into a good PhD program. Certainly, your language preparedness recommends you in particular for Comp Lit., and the fact that your grades went up over the second half of the undergraduate degree is a plus.

There are a number of excellent comp lit programs, and if you just scroll down in this sub forum, or type "comp lit" into the search box, you will find a number of threads devoted to discussion of the various pros and cons of these programs. Michigan, Yale, WUSTL, UCLA, UCSB, UVA, UMASS-Amherst, Rutgers, Brown, UPenn, Cornell - all have programs in Comp Lit, for starters.

[Francophile1]

Thank you for quick reply!!!

I definitely will check out those schools that you mentioned and some of them I already have- but if you know of any MA programs only that I could apply to also feel free to write them too. I pretty much have about 10 Phd programs that I would like to apply to now but I also want to have some MA back up options. I heard of darthmouth but if you know any other ones please advise because I am having a little hard time with finding one with my particular interests.

Thank you...and anybody else feel free to add to this

[Alyanumbers]

I was never particularly interested in an MA (in the US), but in any case, none of the Comp Lit programs I've looked at offered stand-alone MA programs. You might want to look overseas, though, if you can do that.

Otherwise, for good programs in the field, it'll depend on your interests of course, but given your background in French I recommend Yale and Cornell.

[mayakeys]

It doesn't seem like the GPA should get you in trouble at all; 3.8 sounds like a good major GPA, and I happen to know that in the application for UC Berkeley they ask you in addition to the overall GPA to specify both your major GPA and your GPA from the last two years at school. This suggests that they specifically don't want to punish people for lower grades that they might have had in the first two years.

Go for it!!