does accepting a fulbright ETA help my chances at Ph.D programs in english?

[mezzanine]

In late April 2014 I accepted a Fulbright ETA offer. But because of a set of unforeseeable family circumstances, it would be better for my family overall if I stayed home next year and applied for jobs in the region. I'm considering rescinding my acceptance. However, I am applying for a Ph.D in English in the fall, and I have heard a lot from various students and professors about the ways that the Fulbright ETA can enhance my application to top schools (in terms of gaining teaching experience, demonstrating to grad schools that I can sustain longer-term commitments). I've also read comments on gradcafe indicating that the teaching grant is not as prestigious as the research grant, and so the ETA might not help me that much. 

 

I would like to know if anyone has any insight on how much a Fulbright ETA can help in terms of getting into Ph.D programs in English. For more information, I don't plan to read in the language of the country I got a Fulbright in, but I will specialize in women, gender, and sexuality studies, and I'm interested in being exposed to the ways that these are configured and negotiated in that particular country. 

[juilletmercredi]

It's not really about the prestige (getting a Fulbright is an accomplishment no matter what kind you get) but more about the tasks.  PhDs are research degrees, and therefore PhD programs want to admit people who have proven that they can do good scholarship/research.  A Fulbright full grant shows 1) that you can win funding for a research proposal and 2) that you can complete a long-term research project in your field.  The ETA doesn't really do that, and is kind of tangentially related to scholarship in the field, so that's why it's not quite as useful to a prospective PhD student as a full grant.

 

I would say that it probably does help your application in a small-to-medium way.  It is a prestigious grant and yes, it does show that you have some teaching experience (although teaching ESL classes is very different from teaching composition and/or literature).  There's also something powerful about tacitly showing "This other very prestigious program picked me."  But it's not the same as doing some kind of scholarship in your field in the interim or something.