Fit-ness

[ecritdansleau]

I think one of the problems with talking about "fit" is the disparity between *perceived* fit and actual fit in the eyes of the admissions committee. Even those of us who with offers cannot know exactly why what programs chose us or not (although we can ask!).

I think that during the actual application process, it's best to take Dorinda's perspective: do everything in your power to make your statement the best it can be. At the same time, if you are not getting any acceptances, it is a bit soothing to acknowledge that chance factors in, as ComeBackZinc reminds us. There are plenty of complex variables at work in this process, many of which are invisible to us applicants.

Edited March 5, 2012 by ecritdansleau

[thestage]

The point is you cannot control the situation really at all. Looking at a blurb on a website doesn't tell you anything about a professor, and reading articles by them is an immense investment of time. Wouldn't you rather spend your academic time, I don't know, learning something, or improving yourself instead of figuring out who you can suck up to in three sentences in fifteen different applications? Especially when that one professor you found after hours of reading and guessing is, shucks, going on leave, or already has 4 students, or is moving schools, or maybe is just turned off by the way you used the word "conversation" instead of "discourse" in your fourth paragraph? And won't it just be cute when you get accepted and then the professors tell you "lol you aren't going to study that anyway "

The process can be over thought. As I type this there is a thread on the front page from a guy thinking about how he might, maybe look into Milton and some huge swath of post Miltonic poets spaning a time period of 125 years, and he's not sure which school to go to because he doesn't at all know where his interests would fit in. Poor guy, he's screwed--oh wait, he's trying to decide which offer to accept between Harvard and Princeton. One of the regulars here (I don't recall which) went 0-fer-a-lot and then got into Columbia--when questioned on her field, she said she wasn't really sure.

I mean. Write a really good paper and hope you get lucky. If you can bullshit your way to a fit statement based on a website, it probably can't hurt, but something tells me your writing sample isn't going to be all things to all people, and no website is going to say "this year Professor X wants a student interested in the aesthetics of late 19th century Irish poets in relation to British occupation as seen through the lens of Hegel."

[DorindaAfterThyrsis]

We are lucky to have the bounty of your wisdom, oh sage.

There is, of course, a more pessimistic take on all of this: everyone's opinion is conditioned by his or her success within the system. Those that got into their favored programs have a romantic view. Those that got into some programs but not the ones they wanted most will have a more critical take. Those who don't get in anywhere are likely to have a negative opinion of the whole process.

Dorinda, I don't doubt that close reading is important. And, as I have done consistently, I will support the broad notion that fit is very important. But where your comment misses the mark is in its implication that somehow, you can assure your success through your own close writing. And I just don't think that's true, all for all. Last year my program had a 3% acceptance rate. I'm at the program that I wanted more than any other. I'm happy and successful and fulfilled at school. So I'm the definition of a person who should endorse your version of events, for self-interested reasons. But I just don't think life works that way. I think, instead, that you can take your best swing, position yourself the best way possible, maximize your chances, and hope. The fact of the matter is that you can do everything perfectly in the application process and be rejected. That's just how it is.

I devote most of my days to reading education research on literacy. What I'm struck by, over and over again, is the perfectly arbitrary nature of who succeeds as a literate person, who can read and write at a high level. What the research tells us, over and over again, is that success as a reader and writer has very little to do with you and very much to do with chance. Were you raised by literate parents? What was their education level? How often did they read to you as a child? Were there books in the home? How often were you taken to the library? Those things are vastly more important for your literacy than anything that you yourself control.

So with most of life. When you do get into grad school in English, you read plenty of theorists who explain patiently that the idea of meritocracy is an illusion. But oddly enough, in this space, a profoundly American, regressive idea endures: that your success is mostly the product of your intelligence and your work ethic. It's about as conservative as it gets, and I don't think it's true. The truth is that you've got to accept the fact that this is all a roll of the dice, do your best, and be prepared to move one, when you have to.

But maybe I'm just drunk.

While I generally support drinking in all its forms (including the art of excessive drinking), I've always maintained that drunk posting is second only to drunk dialing in terms of potential for disastrous consequences.

Firstly, the idea that my view of this process is "romantic" because I was "successful" is rather flawed. My view of the process is a direct result (and very close to a direct quotation) of candid conversations I have had with members of admissions committees. While it may be pure hearsay, and an egregiously small sample size to be a definitive survey, it is certainly not "romantic". Also, in order to take a "romantic" and rose-coloured view of the situation, I would first have to consider myself successful which, as many of my posts in other threads can attest, is hardly the case. I did not get in to most of the programs where I considered myself a good "fit", nor did I get in to my top choice. I'm hardly inclined to look at this process in a self-congratulatory fashion.

While I appreciate your earnestly egalitarian stance (and your tangential treatise on the social conditions for literacy), that hardly speaks to the point I was attempting (albeit unsuccessfully, it seems) to make. I never suggested that one could "assure success through close writing", so I'm not sure where that assertion comes from. I was in my post trying to suggest that the application process is one in which a great deal of thought is invested on both ends of the process, which I offered as a contrary to the prevailing opinion among many on these boards that the process is merely a series of hoops to be jumped through, or that there is some "secret" to writing a successful SOP, and other similar notions. I was simply attempting to re-humanize the faceless readers of our labours, and re-position the role of the applicant as bearing the onus to present themselves as potential scholars, rather than as sycophants (which is a sentiment that I see lurking in many statements around these forums). You are absolutely correct when you say that "you can do everything perfectly in the application process and be rejected". Nowhere did I espouse anything contrary to that. The take-away from my post was intended to be, and apologies if my attempts to couch it in gentler language made it indescipherable, that the profs who sit on adcomms have agendas about who they want to work with, and their reasons may or may not be fair/tangible/expressible/rational/etc. If that person doesn't show up in your SOP or WS, you are shit out of luck. Professor wanting to work with you and willing to fight with other adcomm members for you = fit. Since we can't know in advance what they're wanting in any particular school or season, our best/only bet is to offer our best and most honest work and hope that we happen to be the kind of thinker they're looking for. Assuming we are providing our best work, the kind of thinker we are should be evident in our materials. If we get in, we're in a place that wants the real us (not a watered-down or over-varnished version of us). If we don't get in, we're not stuck in a place that doesn't want the real us. Small succor, but there it is.

My statement in no way suggests that adcomms always choose the "best" candidates (and I'm certainly not sure wtf the "best" candidate would look like), nor does it suggest that they always make the "right" decisions (if, as some people in this thread seem to, we equate "making the right decision" with "choosing students who finish the program", which seems a rather narrow rubric). It simply attempts to remind people complaining about the seeming arbitrariness or "invalidity" of the concept of "fit" that it is something to which adcomms give serious thought, and (if you're buying into the inherently subjective process of higher education) something to which we applicants need to pay attention. Fit matters, and the way you present yourself in you application materials is the only way (and I would argue a valid way, but that's another debate) the adcomms have of determining fit. "Fit" does not equal "smartness", "qualification", or "general awesomeness"....it just means something about your work clicks with at least one adcomm member to the point where they're willing to go to bat for you.

Like I said, there's no magic bullet.

I'm not entirely sure where you got "undying and romantic faith in meritocracy and my own awesomeness" from that, but I hope that clears things up.

As for my "regressive, American, conservatism", I'll just say that I'm a Canadian, and ascribe the rest to your drinking.

Edited March 5, 2012 by DorindaAfterThyrsis

[bigrelief]

Thestage--I mostly agree. I read the blurbs on the department website and used what I learned to write an extra paragraph on my statement of purpose directly tailored to each school. In some cases, I decided not to apply when I couldn't find anybody. But I did not put in the extra time to read things written by the professors I'd pointed out, in part because it would take too long and in part because I lost most of my journal privileges when I graduated last June.

I included POIs in my statement because it's convention. And though I'm not the Milton poster to whom thestage refers, I'm in a similar position. I've been accepted at Harvard, Princeton, and Penn. I don't know where I want to go. The work I did in the application stage (reading bios, lining up my interests with theirs) doesn't really help me at this point, and I don't really think that it helped me get in.

I wrote an undergrad thesis on an unfashionable modernist poet--my thesis advisor (and a rec writer) was worried about submitting it as a writing sample. She was especially worried about submitting it to one of the schools at which I was eventually admitted because that poet is ESPECIALLY unfashionable to that department. So I think that "fit" isn't so much about finding a particular person at a particular school who does exactly what you do--it's more about presenting yourself as a smart and well-read person who can offer something, because that's a good fit anywhere.

And, from reading the gradcafe, I can say with confidence that we are all smart and well-read people with a lot to offer

[ComeBackZinc]

. Assuming we are providing our best work, the kind of thinker we are should be evident in our materials.

If we're lucky.

My egalitarianism is not earnest, but rather empirical. To a large degree, I've said the same thing that you're saying: fit is a function of what a department wants, not of what the applicant wants it to be. Where I part ways with you is in your belief that you're disagreeing with the people who believe that this process is largely alchemical or arbitrary. I think, in fact, that you're saying the same thing that they say. You just say it in different language.

[DorindaAfterThyrsis]

You are welcome to your interpretation.

[vordhosbntwin]

Thestage--I mostly agree. I read the blurbs on the department website and used what I learned to write an extra paragraph on my statement of purpose directly tailored to each school. In some cases, I decided not to apply when I couldn't find anybody. But I did not put in the extra time to read things written by the professors I'd pointed out, in part because it would take too long and in part because I lost most of my journal privileges when I graduated last June. I included POIs in my statement because it's convention. And though I'm not the Milton poster to whom thestage refers, I'm in a similar position. I've been accepted at Harvard, Princeton, and Penn. I don't know where I want to go. The work I did in the application stage (reading bios, lining up my interests with theirs) doesn't really help me at this point, and I don't really think that it helped me get in. I wrote an undergrad thesis on an unfashionable modernist poet--my thesis advisor (and a rec writer) was worried about submitting it as a writing sample. She was especially worried about submitting it to one of the schools at which I was eventually admitted because that poet is ESPECIALLY unfashionable to that department. So I think that "fit" isn't so much about finding a particular person at a particular school who does exactly what you do--it's more about presenting yourself as a smart and well-read person who can offer something, because that's a good fit anywhere. And, from reading the gradcafe, I can say with confidence that we are all smart and well-read people with a lot to offer

i've been accepted to hopkins, yale, and a few other places for comp lit, and i'm also having a hard time deciding. but i have to say, after having visited some programs, i have a much better idea about where i don't want to attend, and that has a lot to do with having met professors. if you talk to folks who are in programs, or who teach in them, in my experience they will tell you to go where your interests are best met. you could probably find something to do in most programs, but sometimes people get it wrong, go to places that really don't make sense, and consequently transfer. most of the programs i applied to accepted less than 5 people, and honestly, i doubt they accepted those five people just because they can write well. i have empirical evidence, in the form of emails from directors of graduate studies, that in some cases my interests were just simply too far from those of the program, they wouldn't be able to accommodate me. it's true that i am having trouble deciding where to go now, but knowing what faculty are doing and what students care about is certainly helping me out.

and to thestage: you don't think that reading articles written by professors who are currently active in your field and operative in the greater academy is, um, academic? i actually did learn something and incorporated two of the articles i read into a paper that i'm giving at a major conference in germany. a necessity for being a successful academician, in my opinion, is curiosity, and i wouldn't have read those articles if i wasn't curious in the first place about what they had to say.

Edited March 5, 2012 by vordhosbntwin

[thestage]

There is a difference between reading for reading's sake, and reading to find something you can latch onto in an SOP.

One is sycophantic; the other is not. Hell, one may even be academically dishonest.

But what I'm talking about is time: no matter who we are or how much we want to get into grad school, we are only going to budget so much time for our applications. I'd rather spend as little of it chasing ghosts as possible.

Edited March 5, 2012 by thestage

[lyonessrampant]

While I can certainly sympathize with how little time everyone has as a student, applicant, grad student, etc., I personally found it very useful to read work (articles or book reviews even) of people whose interests seemed to match my own when I was deciding where to apply. I picked a lot of places because I was already familiar with someone's work, but for those I didn't know, I tried to read at least something. I don't think this is academically dishonest at all. In fact, I would argue the opposite--saying in your SOP you want to work with X when you really don't know anything about X's work--is academically dishonest. A profs writing is one of the best ways of determining how they think, what their methodology is, etc. I would also recommend seeing if you can look at course syllabi for classes profs have taught. That's another way of determining a constellation of interests and approaches that can be very helpful when determining whether you think you might fit.

[pinkrobot]

There is a difference between reading for reading's sake, and reading to find something you can latch onto in an SOP.

One is sycophantic; the other is not. Hell, one may even be academically dishonest.

But what I'm talking about is time: no matter who we are or how much we want to get into grad school, we are only going to budget so much time for our applications. I'd rather spend as little of it chasing ghosts as possible.

Re: the first two lines--yes, but there is also a difference between trying to "latch onto something in an SOP" and genuinely trying to learn more about the people who you are asking to learn more about you. I would have had a hard time trying to expect these professors on the admissions committees to genuinely care about the work I submitted had I not genuinely cared about THEIR work--particularly since the entire motivation for submitting these applications is, inevitably, to learn from these individuals (which is exactly what the process of reading their work engenders). I did not feel this was sycophantic; rather, much like I wouldn't dream of writing a paper on a subject without reading as much of the relevant texts as possible, I couldn't dream of writing a statement of purpose--in effect, a mini-paper with a thesis statement of "For reasons X, Y, and Z, I would like to attend your program"--without reading as much of the relevant texts as possible.

Re: the last sentence--I didn't look at it as chasing ghosts, but rather as chasing possibilities.

While I can certainly sympathize with how little time everyone has as a student, applicant, grad student, etc., I personally found it very useful to read work (articles or book reviews even) of people whose interests seemed to match my own when I was deciding where to apply. I picked a lot of places because I was already familiar with someone's work, but for those I didn't know, I tried to read at least something. I don't think this is academically dishonest at all. In fact, I would argue the opposite--saying in your SOP you want to work with X when you really don't know anything about X's work--is academically dishonest. A profs writing is one of the best ways of determining how they think, what their methodology is, etc. I would also recommend seeing if you can look at course syllabi for classes profs have taught. That's another way of determining a constellation of interests and approaches that can be very helpful when determining whether you think you might fit.

Chime.

Edited March 5, 2012 by pinkrobot