Need the Real Story On My Top 5 Programs

[maxined93]

Hello all! I'm an English major getting ready to apply to Ph.D. English Lit programs for Fall 2016, and I'm in need of real talk from someone who's already gone through the process. Specifically, I want to know what other folks have experienced at my top 5 schools (from any specialty/program) and if there's any caveat I can use to narrow down my choices. I'm clueless, so ANY help is much appreciated. My top 5 are:

University of Southern California
Columbia University
Penn State
Emory University
University of Virginia
     
But I'm also thinking about:
Princeton
Yale
Harvard
Stanford
University of Georgia

Please help a girl out, as application time is drawing near!

[knp]

If this doesn't get much attention over the next day or two, you'd probably have more luck posting it in the Literature/Rhet Comp discipline-specific board!

[maxined93]

Thanks. As noted, a bit clueless here.