How to improve my app for next year?

[elsueñodelretorno]

Hi y´all!

I have applied to 6 PhD programs and have been rejected to 5 so far. Though there is one decision yet to come, I´m not feeling optimistic at all and I guess I´ll reapply next year, so I´d like to ask you how to make myself a better candidate for next fall or what to improve. I applied to Spanish PhD programs at UT Texas, CUNY, Michigan Ann Arbor, USC, Princeton and Stanford. Was interviewed and waitlisted by CUNY, directly rejected by the rest ad nothing from USC. Here you have a summary of my profile:

International candidate from Spain pursuing a PhD in Spanish.

BA in Spanish, Spanish University, GPA 8.14/10.

MA in Spanish, Same Spanish University, GPA 9.6/10 plus award to best student in the promotion. Master thesis received High Honors.

During undergrad: one semester as an exchange student in Latin America and two semesters in Germany (top 3 German universities) and did an internship at the German college. (My BA was 10 semesters long). Both exchanges with scholarship. 

TOEFL IBT 107/120.

GRE: verbal 160 (percentile 85), quantitative 145 (percentile 21), analytical 4.5 (percentile 80).

Work experience: six months as an intern at my Spanish University Press, one year teaching Spanish at private center in China, one year teaching Spanish in top 10 US University, and one year (currently and probably next year too) teaching at another university (EXTREMELY low position, the top 10 thing was a one year opportunity).

LOR: one from my master advisor, one from another master professor and one from a VIP writer that I met in a summer course. 

Extra training: lots of courses, seminars and so on on Hispanic lit and Spanish.

Research: 4 conference presentations, one book chapter. 

Other languages: intermediate German, basic French, basic Latin. 

 

What do you think was my weak point? What could I do to improve? Should I forget about this kind of universities and try to score lower? I asked for feedback after each rejection but didn´t get anyhing useful, so I´m asking The Grad Cafe comunity. Thank you very much for reading and for commenting!  

 

[rack_attack124]

 Isn't there any information on the program website about class profile? I'm American so our GPA scale is on 4.0. I have no idea what your GPA converts to. Why didn't they give you feedback? Is it their policy not to? I would try to improve my quant score on GRE if I was you but I'm not sure how important quant scores are for Spanish.

[elsueñodelretorno]

Thanks for commenting, rack_attack124! My undergrad GPA would be like a 3.2 more or less and MA GPA would be 3.7 or so. They said that they couldn´t give feedback to everyone and that I should ask my own professors and advisors, but as you can imagine my professors in Spain have little idea about grad school apps in the US. 
Thank you

[knp]

Honestly, your profile looks very competitive, and that GRE verbal is outstanding for a nonnative speaker. Did you meet anybody during your year teaching Spanish at the US university who could give you more personalized guidance, even if you only chatted two or three times? With a CV and grades like that, I would probably guess that the weakness lay in your statement of purpose and/or writing sample—perhaps your project was too specific, or too general, or you didn't focus enough on fit?

[elsueñodelretorno]

Thanks for your comment knp! It comforted me. Last year when teaching at the great university a Latin American lit professor (this is my main area of interest) gave me some advice, mainly about choosing the program. My SOP was read by a few people and I thought it was good, but I´m definetively working on that during the summer. Writing sample was also "good", in the sense that it´s a hint of my best writing (it was from my master thesis) and I just can´t write better than that. Project was quite specific, yes, because I have an idea in mind, but it´s not super defined. But I already know in which authors I want to focus. My Stanford POI has been so far the only one in giving me feedback, but he considered everything quite positively, but he said that his/my research area is not extended at the department (most faculty work on other stuff) and recommended me to look for a research fit with the department in general, not only with one person. Next year I´m changing my SOP, perhaps my writing sample and looking for departments that fits me better.
Thank you very much!

1 hour ago, knp said:

Honestly, your profile looks very competitive, and that GRE verbal is outstanding for a nonnative speaker. Did you meet anybody during your year teaching Spanish at the US university who could give you more personalized guidance, even if you only chatted two or three times? With a CV and grades like that, I would probably guess that the weakness lay in your statement of purpose and/or writing sample—perhaps your project was too specific, or too general, or you didn't focus enough on fit?

 

[knp]

The best I did at a department where I only applied to work with one person was a waitlist. (And even then I'd made noises about the one other person in the department with even a faint interest in my theme.) The broader approach will probably help! 

[ChrisTOEFert]

While I am in a completely different program stream than you, I feel like your TOEFL and GRE scores could be hurting you a little bit.  Your undergraduate GPA shouldn't be an issue as you have a stellar grad GPA.  I think for the caliber of school you are applying to (very top ranked, some Ivy) you need to have a greater standardized test score.  I don't know what those would be, but a 21% in math, even if that isn't part of your major, probably really hurt you.  I know nothing of the TOEFL but I've heard that over 100 is okay, but over 110-112 is ideal (maybe I'm wrong, I'm not sure).  So if you get rejected all around, I would improve your written test scores and hunt for positions where you and the prof have very closely aligned interests.

[elsueñodelretorno]

1 hour ago, ChrisTOEFert said:

While I am in a completely different program stream than you, I feel like your TOEFL and GRE scores could be hurting you a little bit.  Your undergraduate GPA shouldn't be an issue as you have a stellar grad GPA.  I think for the caliber of school you are applying to (very top ranked, some Ivy) you need to have a greater standardized test score.  I don't know what those would be, but a 21% in math, even if that isn't part of your major, probably really hurt you.  I know nothing of the TOEFL but I've heard that over 100 is okay, but over 110-112 is ideal (maybe I'm wrong, I'm not sure).  So if you get rejected all around, I would improve your written test scores and hunt for positions where you and the prof have very closely aligned interests.

Thanks for your comment! I´ve received feedback from Stanford and UMich (this one just an hour ago, being quite detailed and extremely useful) and none of them mentioned my tests scores, so I thinkthey are not going to be a priority for me. (Because if I study for the quant maths that´s going to take me VERY LONG. In Spain, you don´t have to take maths in highschool (last two years of school before college) so you can imagine my numbers situation and I´d rather invest that time in something more related with my field (like writing a better writing sample). However, I might retake the TOEFL, because 107 is quite good, but it´s not super good... I´ll think about it (and goodbye another 200 bucks¬¬). 
You´re totally right with the correct prof "hunting", I´m definetively going to work a lot on that, too.
Thanks a lot for your feedback!