Incompletes

[hopefulscribbler2014]

Hi all,

 

I'll be applying this winter to PhDs in English whilst in the third year of my MFA. It is the practice of my thesis advisor to award incompletes for all thesis research until he's got the book bound in his hand, so if I don't ask him to make an exception for me, there'll be incompletes dotted all over my transcript, even though the research is graded pass/fail. I'm just wondering whether anyone else currently in grad school has this problem and how this will look to adcoms. My thesis advisor is fairly stubborn about most things so if I want this changed I think it's going to cause me a lot of fuss (getting the chair of my department involved, etc.) and for obvious reasons, I'd rather not get on the wrong side of my advisor. That said, if I have to cause a bit of a stink, I will! Thoughts?

[Datatape]

If your thesis advisor is going to be one of your letter writers (and he probably should be), ask him to make a point of that in his LOR, that an incomplete is just his practice and merely reflects the fact that you were progressing satisfactorily toward the thesis.

[smellybug]

If your thesis advisor is going to be one of your letter writers (and he probably should be), ask him to make a point of that in his LOR, that an incomplete is just his practice and merely reflects the fact that you were progressing satisfactorily toward the thesis.

 

I agree. They won't consider your transcript separate from the LOR, so that should clear it up.

[hopefulscribbler2014]

Thanks, that makes sense. Although I wasn't planning on asking him to be one of my recommenders. I've been advised it's better to have lit profs rather than CRWR profs attest to your work (relevance, I guess), however, if a program will accept 4 letters, maybe I'll ask him to be safe. I doubt very much he'll be thrilled about the idea of a lit PhD for me either, and he's notoriously begrudging with everybody when it comes to recommendations, so I'm putting off that conversation as long as I can. He's a great advisor, btw, just a tricky writer-type!

 

If I don't ask him to write an LOR, will the incompletes look bad? I guess I'll have no way of explaining them except in the SOP and I don't think that's appropriate or the best use of space.

[smellybug]

Thanks, that makes sense. Although I wasn't planning on asking him to be one of my recommenders. I've been advised it's better to have lit profs rather than CRWR profs attest to your work (relevance, I guess), however, if a program will accept 4 letters, maybe I'll ask him to be safe. I doubt very much he'll be thrilled about the idea of a lit PhD for me either, and he's notoriously begrudging with everybody when it comes to recommendations, so I'm putting off that conversation as long as I can. He's a great advisor, btw, just a tricky writer-type!

 

If I don't ask him to write an LOR, will the incompletes look bad? I guess I'll have no way of explaining them except in the SOP and I don't think that's appropriate or the best use of space.

 

Maybe another professor can mention them in a letter? If not, I think you've got to mention them in the SOP. In my opinion, yes, I think that would look bad. 

[practical cat]

Maybe another professor can mention them in a letter? If not, I think you've got to mention them in the SOP. In my opinion, yes, I think that would look bad. 

Yeah.

[hopefulscribbler2014]

That's what I suspected, thanks. Oh, boy. I'm not looking forward to this conversation.