asking for feedback

[yank in the M20]

Hey, have any of you guys that applied to schools before asked the schools that rejected you for feedback on your application? I'm expecting to have to apply again next year as I too (like so many others on this site) found this site late and because of money and time only applied to three schools. I got my MA in England so my lecturers haven't been able to provide much advice re. the application process since it differs so widely from the funding apps over here. The site has been hugely useful in reevaluating my SOP and writing sample so that I can be more in line with what the schools are expecting next time around, but of course hearing from someone that's seen my work would be hugely useful. Advice?

And since I haven't done my roundup yet:

rejected from Northwestern and Duke

waiting on Brown

[tortola23]

I asked for feedback from a school last year because they offered it. I talked to the graduate director on the phone, and while he wasn't extremely specific about what I could change in my application, he was helpful and encouraging.

[lyonessrampant]

When I applied a couple of years ago, I applied to UChicago, Northwestern, Princeton, and UIUC. I asked all of them via email for feedback. Only UChicago and Princeton gave me any,but it doesn't hurt to ask at all, and what I did get as feedback was reassuring. I would definitely ask.

[yank in the M20]

Thanks guys! I gave it a go with Northwestern since we received emails from someone in the department rather than the automated email and never heard back so thought perhaps it was a big faux pas. It's reassuring to hear that it's not. I'm going to go ahead and send an email to Duke's program director and see if I hear back.

[Medievalmaniac]

You certainly have nothing to lose in doing so, since they have already chosen not to extend you an offer of acceptance this season.

On the other hand, you might not like the answer. I know a gal who solicited feedback in this fashion, and she heard back from one DGS:

"Nothing you have done...neither your 4.0 at the Master's level, your publications, your conferences, your recommendations, nor any other aspect of your application is sufficient to compensate for your undergraduate GPA."

(Yes, that's a direct quote).

Just saying...can you handle a response like that in your inbox? If so, then by all means, ask for feedback - but if that made you cringe and flinch, you might want to forego it and remember that ignorance really is bliss, sometimes...!

[yank in the M20]

Wow, that's harsh. I guess the positive side is that if you aren't going to get in because of something you can't change, you'd better reevaluate your goals. It saves you spending a large sum of money on applications next year. Or if you know what the problem is, find a way to sufficiently explain it in your SOP. Did your friend end up in a funded program eventually?

[RestorationJunkie]

I had no idea this was even a possibility. How would one go about asking for feedback? Via email? And to whom?

[coffeem8]

I had no idea this was even a possibility. How would one go about asking for feedback? Via email? And to whom?

People I know who have done this have generally contacted a POI (caveat: only if they had established contact prior to applying, and that contact had been substantial and/or positive. If you didn't speak to someone on the phone or exchange several emails, I wouldn't bother contacting a POI).

If a POI isn't an option, then the DGS in the dept. would be the way to go. I would ask them who to contact about possibly receiving feedback if they aren't the right person to ask, also. They might direct you to someone higher up in the process, such as someone within the department of graduate admissions.

Edited February 7, 2011 by coffeem8

[yank in the M20]

I had no idea this was even a possibility. How would one go about asking for feedback? Via email? And to whom?

After posting on here and getting some positive responses, I just looked for the grad director's email. For Duke I assume the person to write to is Professor Alexis Psomiades kpsomiad@duke.edu. And as I was writing you this, I got a response from her. So, she's the one.

She told me that my writing sample was just not close enough to my topic area and so people in the field I am proposing to study won't be able to judge my sample as experts. Well, now I know and at least it's something I can fix next year.

For all of you Duke rejects (I can only be that harsh since I'm one of you), she said that they received 312 applications and were only authorized to admit 12 people, less than 4% acceptance rate.

[RestorationJunkie]

After posting on here and getting some positive responses, I just looked for the grad director's email. For Duke I assume the person to write to is Professor Alexis Psomiades kpsomiad@duke.edu. And as I was writing you this, I got a response from her. So, she's the one.

She told me that my writing sample was just not close enough to my topic area and so people in the field I am proposing to study won't be able to judge my sample as experts. Well, now I know and at least it's something I can fix next year.

For all of you Duke rejects (I can only be that harsh since I'm one of you), she said that they received 312 applications and were only authorized to admit 12 people, less than 4% acceptance rate.

Thanks! I think I'll do that. May I ask what your topic area is and what your writing sample was about? (I completely understand if you're trying to stay anonymous or something and don't want to share.)

[yank in the M20]

Thanks! I think I'll do that. May I ask what your topic area is and what your writing sample was about? (I completely understand if you're trying to stay anonymous or something and don't want to share.)

No problem. It was way off period-wise, but I'd hoped that the linked underlying themes would be enough. My writing sample was on work ethic in Jane Austen and my proposed project was on Englishness and class in (as one of my lecturers calls it) the early Modernist period--the early 20th century, not Shakespeare. I wanted to consider Modernism as not the totality that most look at it but follow new scholarship that separates it into distinct categories with the early significantly different from High Modernism and so study the early part of the period for these themes. Anyway, while these link in my mind (or at least they linked enough when I was in a time crunch and knew I couldn't fix up a Modernist essay in time to use as a writing sample), she said that it would mean having Modernist scholars read about Jane Austen and not be able to situate my work within the scholarship or know how I would succeed as a Modernist scholar or having 18th/19th Century scholars read and situate my work, but not be able to evaluate me as a Modernist scholar. Double bind.

Good luck in your feedback. I'm going to steer clear of 'ignorance is bliss' toward 'knowledge is power'.

[yank in the M20]

Thanks! I think I'll do that. May I ask what your topic area is and what your writing sample was about? (I completely understand if you're trying to stay anonymous or something and don't want to share.)

What about you? What are you planning to study?

[woolfie]

You certainly have nothing to lose in doing so, since they have already chosen not to extend you an offer of acceptance this season.

On the other hand, you might not like the answer. I know a gal who solicited feedback in this fashion, and she heard back from one DGS:

"Nothing you have done...neither your 4.0 at the Master's level, your publications, your conferences, your recommendations, nor any other aspect of your application is sufficient to compensate for your undergraduate GPA."

(Yes, that's a direct quote).

Just saying...can you handle a response like that in your inbox? If so, then by all means, ask for feedback - but if that made you cringe and flinch, you might want to forego it and remember that ignorance really is bliss, sometimes...!

It's not that that's harsh, it's more so that that's crazy. I mean, how could her GPA be so bad that her 4.0 at the master's doesn't make up for it? I mean was it a 1.5 or something? That seems petty. I'd love to know what school this was.

[RestorationJunkie]

What about you? What are you planning to study?

Hm yeah, I see how Austen and Modernism can be linked but I guess her point makes sense too. I'm interested in issues of sexuality and gender, specifically queer theory. But I don't really have a specific time period, which could be a problem. My writing sample uses Foucalt's The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 to analyze the deployment of sexuality as an identity between M.G. Lewis's The Monk and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Edited February 7, 2011 by cyborgmanifesto

[ahlacruz]

That poor Grad Director at Duke is now going to receive many emails asking what was wrong with their application. What can one say with an acceptance rate of 4%? I suppose we did pay 70 dollars or whatever the application fee was. Those application fees are large enough that they should give us some feedback.

[grifter]

On the other hand, you might not like the answer. I know a gal who solicited feedback in this fashion, and she heard back from one DGS:

"Nothing you have done...neither your 4.0 at the Master's level, your publications, your conferences, your recommendations, nor any other aspect of your application is sufficient to compensate for your undergraduate GPA."

I am inclined to believe that this might reference a graduate school requirement that was unmet, and isn't a teller of her abilities at the graduate level. The protocol for most schools, of course, is to have an undergrad GPA above a certain level for admission, and if it doesn't meet that, then you can't be considered, regardless. Simple gatekeeping mechanism, I hope? If not, then yikes. Yikes is the word I choose.

[Medievalmaniac]

Wow, that's harsh. I guess the positive side is that if you aren't going to get in because of something you can't change, you'd better reevaluate your goals. It saves you spending a large sum of money on applications next year. Or if you know what the problem is, find a way to sufficiently explain it in your SOP. Did your friend end up in a funded program eventually?

She should know between now and April 15....

In the meantime, she is a senior researcher for the Female Biography Project (Gina Luria Walker, General Editor; Philippa Gregory, subject editor; Chawton House, forthcoming), is presenting a paper and presiding over a panel at the International Medieval Congress in May, has been asked to preside over a second panel at a regional conference in March, is writing a chapter on Chaucer's Parliament of Fowles for an edited collection due in June, is working on an entry on Biblical Reception in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene for the Encyclopedia of Biblical Reception (Brill Press), and is working with the medieval editor for a well-known publishing house revising her Master's thesis as a monograph for publication. And, teaching 6 classes a term, 5 terms a year, at a private boarding school.

She claims it all keeps her busy and preoccupied so she can't stress over being a loser...!

Edited February 7, 2011 by Medievalmaniac

[Medievalmaniac]

I am inclined to believe that this might reference a graduate school requirement that was unmet, and isn't a teller of her abilities at the graduate level. The protocol for most schools, of course, is to have an undergrad GPA above a certain level for admission, and if it doesn't meet that, then you can't be considered, regardless. Simple gatekeeping mechanism, I hope? If not, then yikes. Yikes is the word I choose.

Well...when the undergraduate GPA in question (which was only a few points shy of the 3.0) was earned in 1997, and a Master's Degree with a 4.0 was earned in 2009, you have to wonder about that.....but, I guess rules are rules.

[yank in the M20]

Hm yeah, I see how Austen and Modernism can be linked but I guess her point makes sense too. I'm interested in issues of sexuality and gender, specifically queer theory. But I don't really have a specific time period, which could be a problem. My writing sample uses Foucalt's The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 to analyze the deployment of sexuality as an identity between M.G. Lewis's The Monk and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

That sounds really interesting. I would guess that maybe having such a strong theoretical perspective, you don't have to be as rigidly within a time period, but I don't know. I'm definitely going to look for work back in England after (or if, I should say) I get my PhD because there it is much more common to span a range of time periods in one's studies. One of the lecturers at my old Uni studied Early Modernism, but also historical fiction and representations of history. Whereas I met a lecturer from an American Uni at a conference who said that she had to really stretch to be allowed to research on turn of the century (as in the 20th) when her area of specialization was Victorian. And I don't think Jane Austen links to Modernism, I meant that the themes of work ethic and labor have much in common with my interest in class in the later period.

[yank in the M20]

Well...when the undergraduate GPA in question (which was only a few points shy of the 3.0) was earned in 1997, and a Master's Degree with a 4.0 was earned in 2009, you have to wonder about that.....but, I guess rules are rules.

That's ridiculous! I myself am worried about my undergraduate GPA which I stupidly let drop from over a 3.75 to just over a 3.5 because of adding, yes, I'm serious, an art major. As in painting/photography. I feel like a moron now, but at the time it was refreshing to work for work's sake and not care about making the Dean's list. But I graduated in 2000 and did my MA just this last year so I was hoping that they'd consider my undergrad less because of such a gap. I'm glad she's so successful now and I'm sure she'll get into a program. If not, she might consider applying for funding in Scotland. They look much more at your research proposal than at your grades and Scotland (unlike England/Wales) still offers the Overseas Research Scholarship for non-citizens. Hard to get, but it covers fees and maintenance. There's always a way around these things if one's willing to work hard enough and she clearly is.

[woolfie]

Well...when the undergraduate GPA in question (which was only a few points shy of the 3.0) was earned in 1997, and a Master's Degree with a 4.0 was earned in 2009, you have to wonder about that.....but, I guess rules are rules.

If it was because of a bureaucratic requirement, that's one thing. And the person of contact could have said as much. But the way s/he said it the way you have quoted, that is just over the top rude. Any decent human being could say it nicer, explain the graduate requirement, instead of putting it that way. It seems so spiteful.

[Medievalmaniac]

If it was because of a bureaucratic requirement, that's one thing. And the person of contact could have said as much. But the way s/he said it the way you have quoted, that is just over the top rude. Any decent human being could say it nicer, explain the graduate requirement, instead of putting it that way. It seems so spiteful.

That was from the department DGS. The applicant in question had been assured prior by the director of the graduate school of Arts & Sciences that since her undergrad GPA was so old, the newer MA GPA would count more (she was smart enough to check that out before shelling over application fees). The POI in the department never saw the application at all, which she found out later when she ran into said person at a conference and was asked why she had not applied. POI was somewhat surprised and didn't think the undergraduate GPA should have been a factor. In the end, it was probably simply a matter of too many applicants, not enough slots.

(To pre-empt: She chose not to make a stink about the discrepancy between what the graduate school director/ POI and the department graduate studies director told her about the undergraduate GPA because - what good would that do, at that point? Instead, she did what she could to strengthen her application further and re-applied to several programs this year.)

The department DGS who wrote that response is no longer the DGS at that department, however, so hopefully no one else will have to go through a similar situation.

The moral of the story, however, and to come back to the original question posed, is - If you are going to ask it, make sure you are prepared for whatever they tell you by way of responding to "can you tell me why I didn't get in? I'd like to strengthen my application."

If they tell you "Well, there's nothing you can do about the problem with your application" - what will you do in that case?

It's just an example, from experience, by way of suggesting caution in proceeding.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Medievalmaniac

[fall-11]

In the meantime, she is a senior researcher for the Female Biography Project (Gina Luria Walker, General Editor; Philippa Gregory, subject editor; Chawton House, forthcoming), is presenting a paper and presiding over a panel at the International Medieval Congress in May, has been asked to preside over a second panel at a regional conference in March, is writing a chapter on Chaucer's Parliament of Fowles for an edited collection due in June, is working on an entry on Biblical Reception in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene for the Encyclopedia of Biblical Reception (Brill Press), and is working with the medieval editor for a well-known publishing house revising her Master's thesis as a monograph for publication. And, teaching 6 classes a term, 5 terms a year, at a private boarding school.

Honestly, if an adcom can't see that this is an incredible candidate despite her slightly-less-than-3.0 GPA from 14 years ago, that's really not a school she should go to anyway. As far as I can see, it's the school that's missing out on someone who would have done them proud.

[swilson]

After posting on here and getting some positive responses, I just looked for the grad director's email. For Duke I assume the person to write to is Professor Alexis Psomiades kpsomiad@duke.edu. And as I was writing you this, I got a response from her. So, she's the one.

She told me that my writing sample was just not close enough to my topic area and so people in the field I am proposing to study won't be able to judge my sample as experts. Well, now I know and at least it's something I can fix next year.

For all of you Duke rejects (I can only be that harsh since I'm one of you), she said that they received 312 applications and were only authorized to admit 12 people, less than 4% acceptance rate.

Did she mention anything about not being finished with sending out acceptances and rejections? I am going bonkers waiting for an answer either way, and, though I'm glad you got a swift response to your query, I'm a little peeved that that time wasn't devoted to LETTING ME KNOW SOMETHING, ANYTHING.

[Hermione]

You certainly have nothing to lose in doing so, since they have already chosen not to extend you an offer of acceptance this season.

On the other hand, you might not like the answer. I know a gal who solicited feedback in this fashion, and she heard back from one DGS:

"Nothing you have done...neither your 4.0 at the Master's level, your publications, your conferences, your recommendations, nor any other aspect of your application is sufficient to compensate for your undergraduate GPA."

(Yes, that's a direct quote).

Just saying...can you handle a response like that in your inbox? If so, then by all means, ask for feedback - but if that made you cringe and flinch, you might want to forego it and remember that ignorance really is bliss, sometimes...!

Jesus. It's nice to know there are still those out there who get their "feel good feelings" by perpetuating the stereotype of the snot-nosed English academic prick.