interesting advice link

[hopefulJ2010]

i don't know if this has been posted here before, but it is certainly interesting (and humorous) at times. if you're obsessed like me, you will probably read all 32,000 words in a single sitting regardless of whether it is 1am (the time it is now that i have finished reading it)

http://www.pitt.edu/~mikewest/advice.html

[ornithology]

i was surprised by the end of the article--the point which they analysed each student who applied to grad & their outcomes. especially when they out-and-out called former students "lazy" or implied that certain students were only accepted because of affirmative action. is that even legal?

i also noticed they seemed to play up pitt's writing prizes & throw the word "outstanding" around. do you think schools really take this into account? what if your undergraduate institution didn't give prizes? and anyway, is a prize from pitt really worth anything?

[Belltolls]

I'm bothered by the fact that the author continually says so and so scored in the 100th percentile in verbal. Isn't that impossible? I thought ETS only allowed scores through the 99th percentile?

Overall I'm not sure how entirely accurate the article is, though in a way helpful. Although I will say I'm very glad to have two languages under my belt with a French minor after reading this!

[ColorlessGreen]

I'm bothered by the fact that the author continually says so and so scored in the 100th percentile in verbal. Isn't that impossible? I thought ETS only allowed scores through the 99th percentile?

This author appears to be confused about how the GRE scores. There are a few different definitions of "percentile" floating around, but ETS clearly defines scoring in the X percentile as scoring above X percent of the test-takers.

On a different note, although his advice may very well be helpful to applicants to English programs, I find this author rather snooty and judgmental.

[spozik]

I'm not applying for English, but I checked out the link. I particularly enjoyed reading the parts at the end. Really, the author made the candidates seem stellar for the most part. All of those awards! Does anyone not get one?

Also, I'm surprised that they author didn't suggest for you to pay for the GRE exam by withdrawing money from the ATM machine after you enter your PIN number.

[hopefulJ2010]

I'm not applying for English, but I checked out the link. I particularly enjoyed reading the parts at the end. Really, the author made the candidates seem stellar for the most part. All of those awards! Does anyone not get one?

Also, I'm surprised that they author didn't suggest for you to pay for the GRE exam by withdrawing money from the ATM machine after you enter your PIN number.

it seemed that everyone got an award! i don't even think my school gives awards. now i kinda wanna make one up and award it to myself to feel accomplished vs. this article haha.

[JennyFieldsOriginal]

Thanks for posting this link!

Personally, I felt this to be a little disheartening. I think a lot of commenters share my feeling. But I really feel like no one should be discouraged by this. Awards that are specific to a university are great for your CV but I don't think they make a giant amount of difference as to whether you get accepted or not.

These people might not have recommendations that carry a lot of weight in a field.

They might have applied with particularly popular interests.

They might not have that elusive quality that makes someone a really exciting thinker and future scholar.

I think a lot of the GRE score information was good in the sense that it lets candidates know that a great GRE score isn't going to be the ticket to across the board acceptance, but I think in a sense the article is both over and under stating its case. By that I mean it seems to insist that good scores don't mean much and you should apply to a broad range of schools, but at the same time if you don't have stellar scores you shouldn't try to get into a top notch school (I think Harvard was the example given).

I also found the information about knowledge of a foreign language to be a little misleading. If you are bright and motivated you can learn enough of the languages to pass a translation exam. I've talked with numerous professors who say they have NEVER come down to picking a candidate based on language proficiency. It certainly is a really useful and wonderful skill to have to know a foreign language, and I think it will definitely make things smoother for you once you arrive, but it's not a prerequisite for all fields English. (Note: I'm an Americanist, not a Medievalist, where I think it is basically a must. Everyone I spoke with was also an Americanist and I think if this aspect was downplayed that's why)

I think that it's really hard because with a limited amount of information, who can say how compelling these candidates who maybe didn't get the acceptances it seemed they deserved were? There was a student at my school who was really a pet of a huge big shot professor while others didn't seem to back her candidacy for a PhD program very strongly. She followed the advice of this woman, who is a bit of an eccentric genius, and didn't really have spectacular results with her admissions. But knowing her, I could have told you that. Which is not to say she's not extremely smart and deserving of being in a PhD program. In fact she is now a PhD student. Also, if you saw her stats you would have thought Yale and Harvard would have been banging down the door to get at her. But she gave me her materials for some editing help and critique and there were deficiencies...perhaps intangible but they were there and I knew they were going to hurt her. I think anyone in the field would have seen it too. I think when people write articles like these it's wonderful because they give us the information that we're often starved for during this process, but by the same token it's one person's opinion.

There are so many mythical tales floating around about The Perfect Candidate with everything going for them who get rejected everywhere. I honestly think it comes down to having a little spark that admissions committees know they can fan into a flame with intensive training (please pardon the truly awful metaphor). I think your professors (note the plural, there) know if you have it. If one sees something in you and no one else does it doesn't mean you don't have "it" it just means you might need work to make it more evident to other people.

I think the really valuable thing about this article in the end is to acknowledge that even spectacular candidates are going to suffer A LOT of rejection. No matter how many schools you applied to and no matter how good you are, you're not going to get in everywhere.

I'm glad I gave this a read, and thanks again for posting it!

Edited January 20, 2010 by JennyFieldsOriginal

[Pamphilia]

On a different note, although his advice may very well be helpful to applicants to English programs, I find this author rather snooty and judgmental.

Ditto on both counts. Plus, the writing is often inane and overwrought. This excerpt, for example, is ludicrous:

Uncertain how these credentials would be evaluated, she had applied very widely in the hope of finding some program that might tender her an honorary fellowship, and the results amply justified the wisdom of this strategy (even though it cost her parents handsomely in application and test fees), illustrating the variety of responses to the same credentials that an applicant may encounter. Johns Hopkins and Pitt rejected her outright. Wayne State and Illinois/Chicago admitted her without money. Maryland and Indiana admitted her unfunded but with the promise of a TA second year. Temple and Kentucky waitlisted her for money. Case Western and Penn State offered her TAs. But lowly Baylor offered her their top honorary fellowship of $16,000 while 59th-ranked Texas A&M weighed in with a newly founded first-year fellowship of $33,000 plus tuition--the most munificent by far of any program including the Ivies (after the first year of luxury sufficient to pay off her undergraduate indebtedness, it reverted to a more modest TA for the next four years, but left her free to pursue her options elsewhere after the MA). Moreover, when she contacted Penn State to explain her situation, the Director of Admissions there, though unable to match it, promptly offered to supplement her TA with $3,000 more in honorary money in the hope (vain, as it understandably proved) of tempting her to spurn filthy Texas lucre. Other seniors applying in '05 encountered even more various responses and options for supplements; see Section 17. So while competing offers hardly entitle an applicant to bargain arrogantly, tactfully presented they just might enable one to nudge an offer up somewhat or otherwise enhance one's appeal to a given program.

Call the editor!

I feel like all I really learned from this article is that apparently if you sneeze at Pitt, they'll give you an award.*

*Not to knock Pitt itself...just this author's absurd representation of it.

[ColorlessGreen]

Ditto on both counts. Plus, the writing is often inane and overwrought. This excerpt, for example, is ludicrous:

Uncertain how these credentials would be evaluated, she had applied very widely in the hope of finding some program that might tender her an honorary fellowship, and the results amply justified the wisdom of this strategy (even though it cost her parents handsomely in application and test fees), illustrating the variety of responses to the same credentials that an applicant may encounter. Johns Hopkins and Pitt rejected her outright. Wayne State and Illinois/Chicago admitted her without money. Maryland and Indiana admitted her unfunded but with the promise of a TA second year. Temple and Kentucky waitlisted her for money. Case Western and Penn State offered her TAs. But lowly Baylor offered her their top honorary fellowship of $16,000 while 59th-ranked Texas A&M weighed in with a newly founded first-year fellowship of $33,000 plus tuition--the most munificent by far of any program including the Ivies (after the first year of luxury sufficient to pay off her undergraduate indebtedness, it reverted to a more modest TA for the next four years, but left her free to pursue her options elsewhere after the MA). Moreover, when she contacted Penn State to explain her situation, the Director of Admissions there, though unable to match it, promptly offered to supplement her TA with $3,000 more in honorary money in the hope (vain, as it understandably proved) of tempting her to spurn filthy Texas lucre. Other seniors applying in '05 encountered even more various responses and options for supplements; see Section 17. So while competing offers hardly entitle an applicant to bargain arrogantly, tactfully presented they just might enable one to nudge an offer up somewhat or otherwise enhance one's appeal to a given program.

Call the editor!

I feel like all I really learned from this article is that apparently if you sneeze at Pitt, they'll give you an award.*

*Not to knock Pitt itself...just this author's absurd representation of it.

I'm ashamed to say I used to write like this in high school. It took me years to train myself to be concise - I used to imagine Hemingway was my editor, and then I would cut out the most baroque passages. Maybe the author of the page linked could try the same technique?

[Mondo]

And this student couldn't "spurn filthy Texas lucre" and ended up at Texas A&M only to leave after one year. And then she's decided to stay far, far away from Texas!:

D. Concerns like those of student A above motivated this remarkable student, whose record is described in Section 12, to walk away from her prestigious $34,000 Presidential fellowship at Texas A&M after only one year sans degree to work as a tutor for disadvantaged high school students rather than continue further with "a system of graduate education that encourages students to question the construction and maintenance of injustice -- and then write papers about it rather than attempt to alter it." After winning more than half-a-dozen essay prizes at Pitt she felt that literary academia teems with Ph.D. wannabes who can write such papers as well as she while there are too few people willing to deploy their talents in the educational trenches where real social progress can be made. She tutored bilingual students in Texas for a year, then worked for two years in a charter school in a high needs area of Boston, which she loved. Currently coaching preppies in NYC on how to mount successful applications to Ivy League schools, she finds this less satisfying and has not ruled out the prospect of returning eventually to grad school.