English Ph.D. Applicants' Support Group

[Eli-Why?]

Let's talk:

Who's applying? Where? Why?

Your biggest fear about the application process?

Best/worst scenario if you don't get in anywhere?

BOOKS great enough to DISTRACT us from this b.s.?

[Venetia]

Okay, I'll start...

I'm an American who's done all her previous study in the UK and Ireland, so don't know what my GPA is really. It's decent but not great. I'm applying to Yale, Notre Dame, UPenn, UVA, Indiana Bloomington, Cornell, WashU, and Fordham. I chose these because they all have strong Medieval faculties and/or Medieval Studies programs that I could tap into (my Masters was in Medieval Studies).

I'm worried that my graduate school won't send on the transcripts in time, that one of my referees won't send the LoRs in time, that my Personal Statement sucks (because I have no profs to look at it for me). But most of all? Naturally, that I won't get in anywhere, or that I'll get in somewhere with NO funding. If I don't get in anywhere, I'll try and find a job. I'm trying not to think about that!

And books to distract? It has to be 'Possession' by A.S. Byatt. All about the crazy world of academia and research, love it!

I look forward to hearing what others have to say, this was a great idea for a thread, Eli!

[_alyssaryan_]

Huzzah, English people.

- From Ohio.

- BA: U of Cincinnati (Honors diploma, completed in 3 years).

- MA: Texas Tech University (4.0, 2-3 conference presentations - including one at next year's PCA/ACA).

- Studied American Lit/Contemporary American Fiction. Switching to Film and Lit.

- Applying: Indiana Bloomington, Iowa, Ohio U, Nebraska, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, WashU, Purdue, SUNY Buffalo/Albany.

- Also considering: Carnegie Mellon.

- Fears: I think we all fear rejection. I also fear... not getting everything to the right place on time.

- If I don't get in: I am going to teach community college or join the peace corps.

- Books to get you by: Haruki Murakami's After Dark. You won't even know you're reading. It's like... floating. On words.

Question: Anyone else have to write a diversity statement? I am... trying. I do not feel very diverse.

[Eli-Why?]

A "diversity statement"? I've heard the term, but haven't written one. What's it for?

[_alyssaryan_]

A "diversity statement"? I've heard the term, but haven't written one. What's it for?

Minnesota requires it for their general application. They want to know what diverse experiences you bring to the table. It was interesting to write.

[Pamphilia]

Applying to: Princeton, U. Penn, Penn State, UVA (my alma mater), UNC, Duke, Emory, U. Michigan, WashU, Northwestern, Stanford, UC Davis, UCLA

Why? They're all programs with strong early modern/gender studies

My current first choices are Penn, Northwestern, and Stanford...though I'm excited about all of these schools and my "first choices" shift daily.

If I don't get in anywhere? Er...I'll probably apply next year for combination MA programs in English/Education and try to teach high school. NO idea what I'll do in the meantime...maybe go overseas again.

Biggest fear? Not getting in anywhere, or not being offered any funding.

BOOKS awesome enough to distract: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. READ it. I'm working on some Rushdie now, but my brain is so fried in the wake of finishing my apps that I can generally be found vegging out with an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer rather than reading a book.

[missesENG]

I’ve sent in 10 apps:

U Michigan

Brown

Ohio State

Penn State

UPenn

Duke

U Toronto

McMaster

Columbia

WUSTL

I’ve applied to programs titled “English,” “Women’s Studies,” or both with exception of Brown, where I applied to the American Civilization program. My research interests and experience have been best served by the interdisciplinary approach and I can’t separate the two. Each program has faculty doing the kind of work I’m interested in and I’ve applied to so many because one of my recommenders told me to cast my net as far and wide as I can afford to. I completed my MA in English and BA in Journalism, both at Rutgers.

Of course, my biggest fear is an all-around rejection. I’m excited about all the programs I applied to, especially Michigan, so it would be a huge disappointment to not get in anywhere. Many of the programs guarantee funding but it would also be a heartbreak to get accepted somewhere with no funding as I am not going to pay for a PhD out of pocket. I’m currently living abroad and working at a university so if I don’t get in anywhere I suppose I’ll just stay where I have a job. With a full-time job, my reading has been limited and the book I’m currently reading (Lucky by Alice Sebold) is not exactly a happy distraction. I watch movies for that kind of escape.

What is everyone else up to in the meantime? Anyone still in school?

[tinuvielf]

On 11/22/2009 at 2:00 PM, Eli-Why? said:

Let's talk:

Who's applying? Where? Why?

Your biggest fear about the application process?

Best/worst scenario if you don't get in anywhere?

BOOKS great enough to DISTRACT us from this b.s.?

I've applied to six schools with one more application to complete (all is ready to be mailed tomorrow). The schools are Brown, University of Reading (UK), Harvard, Columbia, UC-Davis, WUSTL, Yale. My reason for applying to these is that they all have faculty that have an interest in literature and science, and I would like to explore how the scientific discourse of the early 20th century impacted the literature of the Modernists.

The worst case scenario I envisioned (apart from being rejected by every school) was not getting my transcripts from my current university in on time. I had a bad experience with a professor who took several months to submit a grade for me. Only a letter to the dean was forceful enough to induce him to submit my grade. When I found out from other students that he was notorious for that I began to panic, but luckily complaining to the dean did the trick.

If I don't get in anywhere... I might try to take a trip to South America somewhere and learn Spanish fully once and for all. Or I'll just stay at home and get a job. Either way, I'll pursue my research topic on my own time.

Books great enough to distract... Tough one, since a lot of the literature books feel like work, especially when you feel compelled to read with a pencil or highlighter. I personally find popular science books interesting, but of all the "literature" books I've read it's been Edith Wharton's works that have been page turners. Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth are wonderful and great at keeping you interested in the people. The Never Ending Story is also good and distracting. It gave me the feeling I had as a child when reading came with no strings attached.

Good luck to everyone!!

[Eli-Why?]

"Is anyone still in school?" -

Yes, I am. Or, rather, I was in school, out of it, and am now back in it. I'm in the MFA program in writing at UC-Irvine, and this June I shall be christened Master of the Flatulent Arts.

Also, I guess I asked, but didn't share: I'm applying to NYU, Duke, Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard (that's right, five prospective eggs nestled in one hell of a hell-bound elitist handbasket). I'd be happy living in any of these places, and all of them have faculty interested in what I want to study, which has to do with narrative theory/poetics and the later 20th-c. American novel.

Now that application season has slumped to its unspectacular finish, I lie alone at night with my fears that 1) I WON'T GET IN ANYWHERE; 2) I will get in somewhere dreamy but for some obscure eugenics-related reason I'll be denied any (or enough) funds from their silvery fund-font; 3) I WON'T GET IN ANYWHERE; 4) My GRE quantitative score, which is lower and more obscene than a ninety-year-old postfeminist's decolletage, will keep me from getting in anywhere, so that 5) I WON'T GET IN ANYWHERE. 6) Also, I have a(n irrational?) fear that admissions committees will see the letters "MFA" and toss my junk away immediately, thinking that all I'll be capable of producing are minimalist short stories about hummingbirds that vibrate with their own painful sincerity.

If I don't get in, I'll try again next year with lowered expectations. In the meantime, I suppose I'll try to keep overhead low and (writing) output high. (Is there anyone out there with an extra attic? Basement? Garage? Tent?)

[Eli-Why?]

Oh, and books....

Things I've read recently and liked:

Walker Percy's "The Last Gentleman"

Lorrie Moore's short stories (incredibly entertaining -anyone read her novels?)

Moby Dick (finally got around to this, and it's the most hilarious thing I've read since Infinite Jest, back in ought-two)

Richard Yates's "Revolutionary Road" (I mean...it's good...in a specific way)

Almost done with Doris Lessing's trenchant "The Fifth Child" - good

Also in the midst of Nabokov's last (I think?) novel, "Ada" - so funny you have to think about it, and it gets funnier when you do.

[Eli-Why?]

AND, good luck to everyone, and fuck all the neuroscience applicants whose plans for the fall have already been titrated, or whatever.

[intextrovert]

Oh, and books....

Things I've read recently and liked:

Walker Percy's "The Last Gentleman"

Lorrie Moore's short stories (incredibly entertaining -anyone read her novels?)

Moby Dick (finally got around to this, and it's the most hilarious thing I've read since Infinite Jest, back in ought-two)

Richard Yates's "Revolutionary Road" (I mean...it's good...in a specific way)

Almost done with Doris Lessing's trenchant "The Fifth Child" - good

Also in the midst of Nabokov's last (I think?) novel, "Ada" - so funny you have to think about it, and it gets funnier when you do.

Creeeepy, you just listed some of my favorite books, and/or ones I've recently read or ordered. Are you tracking my Amazon account? I'm a diehard Walker Percy fan, just finally read Moby Dick since I assigned it to my honors students, and I LOVE Ada and all things Nabokov. I ordered Revolutionary Road but haven't gotten around to it, because fretting over my already-submitted application materials is incredibly time-consuming. Same with The Golden Notebook - not the same Lessing novel, but still. Lorrie Moore is the only one I can't relate to, but I do own and love the Best American Short Stories edition she edited. Since we clearly share the same book taste genes, I'll have to give her a shot, twin.

The schools I'm applying to are in my signature. I love them all. My fears, like all of us, are also across-the-board rejection or "acceptance" without funding, which I basically code as rejection. Just ONE accepts me and my bags are packed. I do have a good job on the faculty at a great school, so I'm not dangling over a black hole, but I'm so ready to move on and really dread the idea of going through this process again. I miss learning and having my own projects to work through.

(P.S. No way is the MFA going to be a disadvantage.)

By the way, y'all should post on the Literature, Rhetoric, and Composition forum on this site...it's been a ghost board lately! Also, is everyone planning on posting results on the results page once they start coming in in about a month? I can see that info becoming a major source of anxiety for me, which I'll appreciate in a sort of masochistic way.

Edited January 4, 2010 by intextrovert

[RachelCW]

I applied to North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Missouri

I am interested in Literatures of the Great Plains, Willa Cather and such, and other female writers of the Great plains that don't get much exposure, like Native American women.

I applied for TA positions, but I am not sure I really want one at this point. I am a full-time Spanish teacher right now, so I'd like to either teach Spanish or English full-time again at a local high school while working on the PhD. I am slightly older (26) and have been in the military. I have no desire to attempt to live on 12,000 a year. Plus, I really want this degree for myself, for my own personal satisfaction. If it takes me 7 years then that is fine. Not getting a stipend will not deter me from going at all. I worked full-time while getting a BA while in the Air Force, and full-time as a Spanish teacher while going to school full-time at night for a MA in English. If I don't get in anywhere, I'll keep doing what I am doing. Teach Spanish or English in High School.

[irelandatheart]

Let's talk:

Who's applying? Where? Why?

Let's see:

Purdue because I applied last year and got waitlisted, so I'm hoping it might make a difference this year.

WashU because I would love to live in St. Louis and they have spectacular faculty.

LSU and UL because I love Louisiana, and I applied to LSU last year.

Mizzou, because the program looks good.

Albany, similar reasons as the first.

UC Riverside, I would love to live in Cali.

Your biggest fear about the application process?

That I won't get in and it will feel like I'm worthless and all that money will have gone down the drain.

Best/worst scenario if you don't get in anywhere?

Best...it's an excuse to go back to my original institution and slowly pursue another degree in French, and try to get a job teaching in France.

Worst...I'm stuck teaching in bureaucratic conservative community colleges for very little pay.

BOOKS great enough to DISTRACT us from this b.s.?

I haven't really had time with all the teaching...Why Women Have Sex.

[irelandatheart]

"And books to distract? It has to be 'Possession' by A.S. Byatt. All about the crazy world of academia and research, love it!"

I thoroughly enjoyed that book as well! I think I was late in reading it. But, I'm a pretentious academic, I'm picky about contemporary literature.

[Venetia]

"And books to distract? It has to be 'Possession' by A.S. Byatt. All about the crazy world of academia and research, love it!"

I thoroughly enjoyed that book as well! I think I was late in reading it. But, I'm a pretentious academic, I'm picky about contemporary literature.

Lol, I'm the same- I only picked it up because we were studying it in my Historial Fiction course. Another good one from that course that I would never have picked up otherwise? 'An Instance of the Fingerpost' by Iain Pears. A mystery told from four points of view that gradually reveals gaps and biases in each story. The funniest part was that it was quite long, and there was a kind of twist near the end, so when we talked about it in our seminar and the prof asked what we all thought of the twist some students started to look really panicky...