English Literature PhD 2008

[Minnesotan]

I think I'd be better off if I was, though. I've spent twice as much on my education to begin earning half as much in triple the time.

I'm obviously not a math major, either.

So, umm... where are you applying? What field(/s)? Give us the scoop, man!

[schamber]

Ha! I forgot my funny footnote in the last post, which was

"And what's up with all of those parents posting on behalf of their graduate students? Anybody else's parents drop them off at college on move in day and never look back?"

But, Minnesotan, to answer your question, I'm looking to specialize in narrative and history of the book/literary technologies (connected, somehow and improbably, through the concept of verisimilitude) at one of the following places:

Stanford English

Harvard English

Yale English

Northwestern English

U-Chicago English

Berkeley English

WUSTL English and Comparative Literature

Princeton Comparative Literature

If I don't get into any of these schools, I plan to move to Switzerland, purchase a gross of black turtlenecks, and perch unfiltered cigarettes between my nail-bitten fingers. And if I only get into UCSD, the same. I only applied because I work in the grad studies office there, and various co-workers would have been deeply offended if I snubbed them.

Incidentally, do schools really start notifying their first choices at the end of this month? Too soon! I liked that whole undergraduate "radio silence until March 15" business.

[Minnesotan]

If you check the stats from last year on the results page, you will notice quite a few English programs send early acceptances by the beginning of Feb. That seems like incentive enough to have my apps in early.

Some science folk are already accepted for next year. Another reason I should have listened to my dad and majored in something useful.

[schamber]

Oh, so you only get February notification if you submitted an application early? In that case, maybe I really won't hear until March. (Thanks, former advisor! That waiting until 4:30pm EST yesterday to submit a rec you wrote weeks ago was a great idea! And it didn't raise my blood pressure AT ALL!)

So you're applying in history and literature, right? I was in the Hist. and Lit. concentration at Harvard, and I admit that it was a tough choice for me as well. Ultimately, though, I decided that while English departments tend to let you do everything (history, science, law...) history departments have a more narrow idea of what officially constitutes their subject. I may live to regret this.

[rising_star]

Who are you interested in working with at Princeton? There are some good folks in comp lit there...

[Minnesotan]

Not literature so much as the history of rhetoric.

I think you can get Feb. notification with a few schools, as long as you got your stuff in on time. Places with rolling admissions would be the ones to worry about, re: getting stuff in early. Then again, there are only a few decent programs in English with rolling admissions (that I know of).

As for compartmentalization, you're right regarding many history programs. Especialy places like UToronto. Other places treat History like the inderdisciplinary pursuit it is, and don't handcuff you to narrow areas of inquiry.

[schamber]

Quote

Who are you interested in working with at Princeton? There are some good folks in comp lit there...

April Alliston and Claudia Brodsky. Princeton seems to be one of the few places (other than WUSTL) that has strong offerings about the novel in comparative literature departments.

Okay, that's a broad generalization. Brown does, too. I'm really torn, because I speak four languages and I'd really like to use them for something or other, but comparative literature departments just don't really do what I want to do, generally speaking.

[bluewhisky]

hello hello...did everyone have a good holiday season? i dont think i noticed new years eve go by...everyday feels the same...wake up, check mail, check online tracking systems for 10 univs, shoot off frantic email about supplementary material, wait until next day to do it all over again. forgot to add "panic about ETS mixing up my GRE scores."

hi schamber...we seem to have quite a few univs in common...four in fact! good luck

[Minnesotan]

You forgot the last part on your list:

Go to bed feeling bad because you didn't get any thesis work done (or if you did, you were too distracted by app-xiety to make it quality work).

[schamber]

Hi bluewhisky: I've been lurking for awhile and noticed you were also applying for English. Which universities do we have in common? What are you hoping to study? How did the GRE subject work out for you? What an exam. I almost admire it...in a white-knuckled, cold-sweaty sort of way.

[Minnesotan]

I'm glad my field of English doesn't require that behemoth.

[rising_star]

schamber said:

April Alliston and Claudia Brodsky. Princeton seems to be one of the few places (other than WUSTL) that has strong offerings about the novel in comparative literature departments.

Okay, that's a broad generalization. Brown does, too. I'm really torn, because I speak four languages and I'd really like to use them for something or other, but comparative literature departments just don't really do what I want to do, generally speaking.

April and Claudia are both super-nice people. Pretty much all of the undergrads in comp lit love them. Though I feel like April doesn't really do email, if I'm remembering correctly...

What exactly don't comp lit departments do? I loved being in comp lit because it was the opportunity to do everything!

[schamber]

April and Claudia are both super-nice people. Pretty much all of the undergrads in comp lit love them. Though I feel like April doesn't really do email, if I'm remembering correctly...

Oh, were you a Princeton undergrad? How did you like it?

[picklejar]

Hello, all! I sent of the last of my 13 applications yesterday, and am celebrating today by planning my syllabi for next quarter's teaching. Ah, the life of a part-time instructor.

I'm interested in interdisciplinary work and the formation of female subjectivity in American lit, and have tried to apply to schools that offer a minor/concentration in American Studies. My list is:

U Minn

UT Austin (American)

Washington University in St. Louis (WashU/WUSTL)

Purdue

Kansas

Nebraska

Brown University (Modern Culture)

Saint Louis University (SLU)

Southern Illinois University

Georgia

UMass

Ohio University

Iowa (american studies, not English)

All over the board (but mostly in the midwest) as you can see.

[Minnesotan]

I wish I had the time and money to put out 13 applications. I was stretching myself thin with 6 of them.

Good luck with the apps.

[picklejar]

Ha! I know. I was regretting my decision about halfway in. But I'm in the middle of a "year off" (finished my master's this summer and am adjuncting this year) so money and time were a little more ready. Although with an 18-month-old baby, that's all relative!

[Minnesotan]

Wow! I barely have time to get my grad work done, and all I have is a significant other who is also in grad school (meaning we see each other far less often than most couples of a similar age, relationship level, and temperament). From what I've seen, taking care of a kiddo is a full-time job in itself.

[picklejar]

It is a full-time job...and my husband's doing it, thank goodness. He's a writer, and he stays home with the li'l pickle when I'm in class/teaching/researching.

[Minnesotan]

You would almost need to have an arrangement like that. I'll do my best to wait, and hope no "oopsies" come along the way.

[rising_star]

You would almost need to have an arrangement like that. I'll do my best to wait, and hope no "oopsies" come along the way.

This is why two forms of birth control are always better than one. But I feel you on the significant other busyness thing.

[rising_star]

Oh, were you a Princeton undergrad? How did you like it?

Yes, I went to Princeton. And I hated it but through not fault of the school. It's just a strange school, in a strange place, which makes the experience extremely isolating. Plus they really don't give a damn about graduate education*, which is why I'd never go there for a grad degree.

*when compared to undergraduate education. You don't get teaching experience as a graduate student and, quite frankly, the undergrads relentlessly make fun of the grad students, particularly in the humanities. That said, the funding is pretty sweet from what I understand and in comp lit the grad students rarely interact with the undergrads in the department. East Pyne is an awesome building if you get to visit campus.

[Minnesotan]

Not having to teach is a bad thing? I know one guy (me) who would love to have the extra time this semester to polish his thesis!

It is a good learning experience, though, and maybe two extra years of teaching will make me more attractive to adcoms. Whatever I have to do (legally and ethically, of course) to get in is fine. Jump through flaming hoops for a top program? I'm putting on my asbestos underwear now, sir!

[bluewhisky]

Hi bluewhisky: I've been lurking for awhile and noticed you were also applying for English. Which universities do we have in common? What are you hoping to study? How did the GRE subject work out for you? What an exam. I almost admire it...in a white-knuckled, cold-sweaty sort of way.

Hi Schamber, let's see..we've both applied to the following four (what i like to term as my shots in the dark):

stanford

yale

chicago

berkeley

the subject GRE was like being hit by a bus to be honest! and it didnt help that the school neighboring my test centre was having its annual sports day....figuring out milton and donne amidst cheers & track announcements is not fun. at all. but having said all that, it didnt go too badly. how about you?

if i don't get a single admissions offer, i'm retiring to the himalayas.

[schamber]

Yes, I went to Princeton. And I hated it but through not fault of the school. It's just a strange school, in a strange place, which makes the experience extremely isolating. Plus they really don't give a damn about graduate education*, which is why I'd never go there for a grad degree.

Hmm...that's something to think about. I finally received a very nice reply to my October 2007 email from April Alliston today about the congruency of our research interests. It was good to get some feedback, finally. I had very little luck contacting people in general, except at Harvard and Stanford. One of my advisors was a Princeton Comparative Literature graduate and spoke well of the program, with the caveat that he hadn't been there for awhile and didn't really have a good sense for the faculty anymore. I think Princeton's isolation from the world might be solved by being able to drive to other places (a luxury afforded few undergraduates at the eastern residential colleges, I think) but maybe I'm wrong about that. It's the one place, apart from Yale, that I'd really need to visit before I agreed to attend. I was a Harvard undergrad, so I know Boston well. I grew up in Michigan, where Chicago was the local Big Deal. I live in Southern California now, so the San Francisco area is at least somewhat familiar and easily accessible in any case. But Princeton and Yale are total unknowns to me, in terms of the living arrangements. From my husband's standpoint, they'd be good choices because of their proximity to the kind of work he does, but neither of us have done much more than drive through New Jersey or Connecticut.

[schamber]

Hi Schamber, let's see..we've both applied to the following four (what i like to term as my shots in the dark):

stanford

yale

chicago

berkeley

the subject GRE was like being hit by a bus to be honest! and it didnt help that the school neighboring my test centre was having its annual sports day....figuring out milton and donne amidst cheers & track announcements is not fun. at all. but having said all that, it didnt go too badly. how about you?

if i don't get a single admissions offer, i'm retiring to the himalayas.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I know Stanford's crazy competitive. In some ways, it's the best match for me, because I want to do novel stuff, but the cost of living in San Francisco makes even us San Diegans cringe. In Chicago, I'd probably go for Northwestern over the University of just because of match, but I always hear such good things about the academic rigor at the latter.

I have a love-hate relationship with the subject GRE. In principle, I think it's a fine idea. Not to sound snobbish, but I can't count how many people I've met out there who claim to be studying English literature but can't tell you anything about the literary traditions outside of their narrow subfield (i.e. Western Caribbean fictions, 1967-1990), traditions which might well have influenced what they're studying. I know it's kind of a trivia contest, but maybe it should be: just to show that you, you know, have some idea about the plot and motifs of Lear. On the other hand, it's annoying little bugger and I hated that I had to study for it. On the third hand, I actually learned something in all that studying. I did much better than I thought I would and apart from the seven weird questions on identifying puns (uh?), one of which I'm sure I got, I think it was pretty fair.