First Steps

[Dr. Old Bill]

So I've been going through a lot of old threads on GradCafe, and have been bolstered and encouraged by most of what I've read. I'm so glad this forum exists!

 

I recognize that this is sort of an inactive period between the 2014 acceptances and the 2015 application process, but since things seem to be quiet on the forum lately, I might as well ask a few general questions.

 

I have the summer off, for the most part, meaning I've got a lot of time to do some preparation for application season. As of a few days ago, thanks to the PM-based advice of another forum member, I've decided to take the GRE subject test in October. Having printed out a reading list posted here a year or so ago, I've gone ahead and purchased about 20 of the books I didn't already have, and will start reading as much as I can over the next few months (fortunately I'd already read about half of the works on the list, so it might be possible to finish everything if I'm lucky...). I haven't started my SOP yet, and still have to do some significant work on my CWS (I'll be assembling two previous essays into one, and adding another large section). I may retake the GRE general, since I only got a 162 on the verbal and a 4.5 on the analytical writing. Borderline scores there, so I'm on the fence. I'm also in the process for zeroing in on what schools I want to apply to. I have three or so possible specialization interests, and I may simply roll with that -- figure out four or five programs for each possible specialization interest, and apply accordingly.

 

Based on all of the above, my all-encompassing question is this: what else should I be doing? Any suggestions for what takes priority? I'm a fairly good self-starter, and I like getting things done well in advance, but knowing what to do, and in what order, is a touch murky for me right now. As a result, I'd love to hear any and all advice.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Shaun

[hj2012]

Sounds like you're on the right path! I personally think it's worthwhile to put together a draft of the writing sample early, and potentially get some feedback from friends or advisers. Ditto for the statement of purpose; drafting the SOP may also help you narrow down your research interests and your list of schools. If you have access to your undergrad advisers, you may want to schedule a meeting and ask for program recommendations. This was immensely helpful to me.

 

I would only retake the general GRE if you have your heart set on schools that are more or less firm with the 165+ rule, whether explicitly or implicitly e.g. Baylor, Harvard, UVa. 

 

Good luck!

[Dr. Old Bill]

Thanks, hj2012! Yes, I'm strongly thinking of applying to Harvard -- I've read a lot of Helen Vendler's work, and one of my LORs will be from one of her former students / proteges. Plus it seems their poetics department is quite strong and geared toward formalism. As for UVA, given my location about 60 miles away from their campus, it should be a no-brainer to apply there. I have some reservations though -- can't put my finger on why...I just do. Beautiful campus though. So yes, those are two compelling reasons to try to bump my GRE up from 162 to 165+. But I'm on the fence, because I understand that it's really the least important part of the whole application, and if the rest of my material is strong, would a mere three points off of the ideal affect me? Impossible to say. There's also the "can I do better?" element regarding the verbal. I've got a large vocabulary, but it's hard to gauge how much study would bring me from 90th percentile on a standardized test to 95th percentile...

 

Having said all of that, thanks for your advice. My SoP has been on my mind a lot lately...I'm just not sure when I'll finally put proverbial pen to proverbial paper and sketch out a first draft.

[hj2012]

Yes, depending on the specifics of your interests UVa may be a very good fit for you. (You may already be familiar with Stephen Cushman and Mark Edmundson, both of whom work on poetry and are absolutely amazing. But I'm biased since I did my undergrad there!)  I can't speak for Harvard, but from one Virginian to another, I've heard from many professors at UVa that those few points might indeed make a difference. When the median GRE score is a 169V, you want to be as close to perfect as possible. 

[lyonessrampant]

Make sure you expand your potential list beyond schools like Harvard and UVa.  It's hard getting in pretty much anywhere these days, and even if you have some connection to a particular prof or profs, it won't matter much if they're not on the ad comm, not taking students right now, or don't work much with grad students anymore.  There will be people who get in at Harvard and other top 10 programs without the 165 or without the big name undergrad school or without connections, but there are so many qualified people applying that it is best to apply widely.  The SoP and writing sample are the most important parts of your application, and I agree with the previous poster that getting those done as early as possible so you can have as many people as possible read them for you (ideally profs or graduate students who've been through this process somewhat recently) is the best idea.  Also, when you prep for the subject test, it isn't really necessary to read all of the books on any given list--that's what comps are for.  This is true because the subject test isn't testing for depth of knowledge but merely breadth.  Use sites like vade mecum, hapax legomenon, and prep books to supplement your reading and, I'd argue, replace reading whole books.  Take as many practice tests as you can because the actual tests vary significantly with some more on identification of text/author from a quotation, some with more emphasis on reading comprehension, some with more emphasis on British med/EM texts, some more on lit theory, etc.  That said, the WS and SoP really should be the things that you spend the most time with.  

 

Edited to add that once you pick schools to apply to (or even as you're picking), I'd recommend building an Excel spreadsheet or coming up with some method to track things for each program like all due dates, LORs requested/received, materials required, records for each time you contact the school and with whom you speak, etc.  Organization is really key to this whole process.

Edited June 9, 2014 by lyonessrampant

[mikers86]

Make sure you expand your potential list beyond schools like Harvard and UVa.  It's hard getting in pretty much anywhere these days, and even if you have some connection to a particular prof or profs, it won't matter much if they're not on the ad comm, not taking students right now, or don't work much with grad students anymore.  There will be people who get in at Harvard and other top 10 programs without the 165 or without the big name undergrad school or without connections, but there are so many qualified people applying that it is best to apply widely.  The SoP and writing sample are the most important parts of your application, and I agree with the previous poster that getting those done as early as possible so you can have as many people as possible read them for you (ideally profs or graduate students who've been through this process somewhat recently) is the best idea. 

 

This. There are so many variables working for and against you in this process that everything in your application needs to be as strong as you can make it. The feedback I received from programs was that it came down to the SOP and WS. LORs are important, but the material you generate is what matters most (at least for the particular programs where I was accepted). So yes, get your scores up to where you're satisfied, but really work on those documents.

 

I'd also suggest setting aside time for yourself. The process is a marathon and then some, so keeping yourself grounded, sane, and as relaxed (as possible given the circumstances) is important. Don't get burned out before application season even begins!

[Dr. Old Bill]

Oh, absolutely. I hope I didn't give off the impression that I was only applying to a couple of programs. I'm having a hard time whittling down my "shortlist" from 15 or so. 12 sounds like a reasonable number for me to apply to, I think, balancing the time / cost / effort elements. As for a spreadsheet, I actually put one together back in February, and when I started reading Grad Cafe, I saw that the spreadsheet recommendations were almost identical to what I already had!

 

Here's a follow-up question for anyone who cares to reply: if you have five or more professors willing to write LORs, is there a good way to pick and choose which letters will go where? There are some obvious instances, but generally speaking I want to limit the workload for each professor as much as possible, while I also want to give each one several places to send the LOR.

[lyonessrampant]

As far as LORs, obviously if someone was a student of a prof at a school you're applying to, they should do an LOR or if they know someone at the school.  Name recognition doesn't hurt.  Beyond that, as many of them in your potential subfield as possible to speak to your depth/preparedness can help.  If you were a TA or RA for one of them (officially or not) and they can speak to your work ethic/potential in independent research, that can help.  The more specific the letters are to you and your work and interests, the better.  Everyone has letters that say "So and so is the best student I've ever taught blah blah blah."  Personalized letters with specifics will be more likely to stand out.  It's really the same advice for the SoP.  Show not tell and all that.

[rhetoricus aesalon]

I'll echo what has already been suggested and say make your SOP and WS an early priority. I gave myself a good two months to fine tune the SOP, and I had wished I started much sooner. Even if it's just a "zero" draft, the sooner you have something down, the sooner you can ask for feedback from your mentors. And that's another thing: give your SOP to as many people as you can for feedback. The SOP is a strange genre, and there is certainly a right and wrong way to do it, and that way has changed considerably in the past 5-10 years.

[unræd]

Edited to add that once you pick schools to apply to (or even as you're picking), I'd recommend building an Excel spreadsheet or coming up with some method to track things for each program like all due dates, LORs requested/received, materials required, records for each time you contact the school and with whom you speak, etc.  Organization is really key to this whole process.

 

How delightful to know that others do the whole borderline-obsessive Excel spreadsheet gambit, too!

 

For what it's worth, here's where I stand thus far:

 

• My list of schools has been pretty well finalized, which is a good feeling--although I have the vague worry I'm not applying to enough places.

 

• The writers of my LORs have all been given notice that I'll be using them, but they all will want to see/give feedback on my SOP before they start drafting in earnest, so that's a bit on hold.

 

• My writing sample, which was a research paper I did for a graduate seminar I sat in on this last spring, is in pretty good shape. I need to clean up a bunch of little errors, of course (bleh), but my main informal advisor/mentor/professor for whose class the thing was written only has two edits she'd make for applications. The first is easy; the second will involve a bunch of additional research time spent trudging through dusty German etymological monographs, so it'll take a bit more of a slog. The real trick will be editing it down; it's a perfect length for all of my schools but one, which requires writing samples of only 10-12 pages.

 

• This morning I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly sitting down and banging out about half my SOP, although mostly in the form of a bunch of disjointed sentences, unconnected paragraphs, ledes trailing off into nothing, etc. My goal is to have a draft by mid July that doesn't make me want to vomit (a tall order, looking at what I've currently got), submit it to my English department's advisor for undergrads considering grad school, and then to my letter writers, with my grad school friends reading it at some point in there, too. 

 

• I start my GRE studying in earnest next week--which I realize is tomorrow, actually. Ugh. Pace your approach, Wyatt's Torch, I'm going the more cocktail-party knowledge route for the subject test, and won't actually be rereading much except short verse. It's flashcards and plot summaries for me!

 

As far as what I'm focusing on when, I'm deliberately trying to frontload the much more intellectually intensive parts of the application--the writing sample and the SOP--earlier this summer, so that during the fall semester I'll just have the tail end of my GRE studying, the CV (required for some of my schools), and the actual application-filling out minutiae left to worry about.

 

That being said, I've never done this before, and--like Wyatt's Torch--would be very interested in recommendations from those also starting the process and from those who've been once through the mill!

Edited June 29, 2014 by unræd

[queennight]

Also just to jump in - in terms of extra practice tests, where do you guys recommend finding them? I know that ETS provides one on their website, but I can't seem to track down any others.

[queennight]

• The writers of my LORs have all been given notice that I'll be using them, but they all will want to see/give feedback on my SOP before they start drafting in earnest, so that's a bit on hold.

 

• My writing sample, which was a research paper I did for a graduate seminar I sat in on this last spring, is in pretty good shape. I need to clean up a bunch of little errors, of course (bleh), but my main informal advisor/mentor/professor for whose class the thing was written only has two edits she'd make for applications. The first is easy; the second will involve a bunch of additional research time spent trudging through dusty German etymological monographs, so it'll take a bit more of a slog. The real trick will be editing it down; it's a perfect length for all of my schools but one, which requires writing samples of only 10-12 pages.

 

• This morning I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly sitting down and banging out about half my SOP, although mostly in the form of a bunch of disjointed sentences, unconnected paragraphs, ledes trailing off into nothing, etc. My goal is to have a draft by mid July that doesn't make me want to vomit (a tall order, looking at what I've currently got), submit it to my English department's advisor for undergrads considering grad school, and then to my letter writers, with my grad school friends reading it at some point in there, too. 

 

• I start my GRE studying in earnest next week--which I realize is tomorrow, actually. Ugh. Pace your approach, Wyatt's Torch, I'm going the more cocktail-party knowledge route for the subject test, and won't actually be rereading much except short verse. It's flashcards and plot summaries for me!

unread, you are definitely way more advanced than I am, and kudos to you for being so organized aha !! Also I liked the 'cocktail-party' quote above - I'm glad to know that you've chosen the Princeton prep book like me I'm hoping that it will definitely work to our favour. If not, at least the author really seems like he's on our side, right?

 

I still have to contact two of my professors for LORs (one I already have), so that's amazing that you're that ahead - I'm thinking I'll probably drop by their office hours when September starts up back again. That's ironically one of the areas of my application that I'm most dreading - for some reason asking professors to write LORs for me always feels to be a somewhat awkward and needy experience. I'm incredibly tempted to just shoot them an email (RIGHT NOW), but I feel seeing them face-to-face would be a more polite way to broach the topic.

[unræd]

Also just to jump in - in terms of extra practice tests, where do you guys recommend finding them? I know that ETS provides one on their website, but I can't seem to track down any others.

 

I seem to recall seeing a really old book published by ETS w/ practice tests floating around Amazon, but the reviews all said that the tests contained therein were too different from the current test to be useful. Anyone else familiar with this?

 

Given their scarcity, my current plan is to use the one in the Princeton Review book (yes, cocktail party!) to prepare and then take the practice one on ETS's website after the bulk of my studying, only seeking out others if I completely bomb that one.

Edited June 30, 2014 by unræd

[Dr. Old Bill]

Just curious -- does anyone know when subject test registraion will become available? The ETS site says "July," but obviously that's a little vague. I want to sign up as soon as humanly possible...

[unræd]

Just curious -- does anyone know when subject test registraion will become available? The ETS site says "July," but obviously that's a little vague. I want to sign up as soon as humanly possible...

 

Nope, I have no idea beyond their cryptic "July," and it's annoying me as much as the programs who say their online apps will open "in September." 

[unræd]

unread, you are definitely way more advanced than I am, and kudos to you for being so organized aha !! Also I liked the 'cocktail-party' quote above - I'm glad to know that you've chosen the Princeton prep book like me I'm hoping that it will definitely work to our favour. If not, at least the author really seems like he's on our side, right?

 

I still have to contact two of my professors for LORs (one I already have), so that's amazing that you're that ahead - I'm thinking I'll probably drop by their office hours when September starts up back again. That's ironically one of the areas of my application that I'm most dreading - for some reason asking professors to write LORs for me always feels to be a somewhat awkward and needy experience. I'm incredibly tempted to just shoot them an email (RIGHT NOW), but I feel seeing them face-to-face would be a more polite way to broach the topic.

 

Hah! The organization is much less kudos-worthy than it appears; it's not out of any actual drive so much as that I know my default state is slothful indolence, and if I don't start planning months in advance my tendency toward procrastination will keep me from doing things on time. It's a bit like setting your watch fifteen minutes fast, really.

 

And I totally understand the hat-in-hand feeling about requesting letters, even from professors who've been enthusiastic about writing them in the past. I remind myself they do this all the time, the more notice the better, etc. But--again with the slothfulness--I started the letter process early because it's the one that requires the least actual work!

[Dr. Old Bill]

Nope, I have no idea beyond their cryptic "July," and it's annoying me as much as the programs who say their online apps will open "in September." 

 

Ugh. Well, at least they have the US testing dates posted. September 27th and October 25th. And as frustrating as ETS is in general, I'm very glad they put the test dates on Saturdays.