Advisement

Graduate School Bound?

Graduate school constitutes an advanced program of study focused on a particular academic discipline or a specific profession. Traditionally, graduate school has been "academic" (centered on generating original research in a particular discipline), but it may be "professional" (centered on imparting skills and knowledge to future professionals), or a combination of both traditions.

How is Graduate School different from Undergraduate Education?

Graduate school differs from undergraduate education in terms of expectations regarding the quality and quantity of your academic work and its concentrated nature. Generally, you arrive at graduate school with the desire to pursue a course of study in a specific discipline or profession; typically, there is not a lot of room for exploration or elective courses. Your work will be more rigorously evaluated, often by both faculty and fellow students. Classes tend to be small; interaction is expected and often necessary to excel. Most likely, you will be required to produce some type of original research. These demands are often coupled with a work experience, be it a career-related internship, grading, teaching, or researching.

What Graduate Degrees are available?

Graduate degrees are available in almost any subject and come in three levels-Master, Specialist, and Doctorate. Depending on your graduate school program and degree level desired, your program requirements and time to complete the degree will vary.

  • Master's degrees are offered in many fields of study. Some are designed to lead to a doctorate degree while others are the "terminal" degree for a profession (e.g., Master of Library Science; Master of Business Administration). For full-time students, completing a master's degree usually takes 2 years. As a part of a master's degree, you may be required to write a master's thesis or complete a fieldwork experience.
  • Specialist degrees are usually earned in addition to a master's degree. A specialist degree may require coursework, training, or internship experience beyond what was required for a master's degree. This type of degree usually prepares students for professional certification or licensing requirements (e.g., Ed.S. for school principal).  A number of your professors in English Departments, for example, have MFA degrees in poetry, fiction, play writing, etc.
  • Doctorate degrees are the highest degrees possible. They usually require the creation of new knowledge-be it basic or applied. In order to complete a doctorate degree, you will need to be able to conduct independent research. Including the time it takes to write and defend a dissertation, this degree may take anywhere from 5-7 years to complete.

Grades:  It's never to early or late to think about this.  From your freshman year, though, remember that grades count. 

  1. Masters:  If you plan to enter a master's program, you need to plan on at least a 3.0 average.  Schools and programs that are more competitive may require a higher QPA.
  2. Ph.D.: Did you know that you don't need a master's degree to enter a Ph.D. program? Work toward at least a 3.6 average. In addition, that's where the real funding is.  In general, Ph.D. programs in English fund their candidates with fellowships and also have them teaching undergraduate courses.  Not only do you not pay for the program, but they pay you.  There are two other reasons to work toward this: 
    • If you have a fellowship/teaching appointment, you don't pay out of state tuition.
    • If you have earned one of their fellowships, your professors are likely to take your work more seriously and read it more generously.  Remember that you will usually need to be voted on by the graduate faculty to move from the status of a Ph.D. student to a Ph.D. candidate.  The reality is that more students with fellowships make that leap than those who don't have such grants.  Is that because the very best students are the ones with the fellowships.  Partly, but I suspect it's only partly: Professors are human, and somewhat impressed by labels.  And, students with the big fellowships take themselves more seriously.

Visit potential choices for graduate schools

In your junior year, start researching these issues:

  • Which are the graduate schools rated most highly in the field you would like to study? In other words, all graduate schools are not necessarily highly rated in each sub-area. If, for example, you are a poet think you'll want to do a creative dissertation, you'd want a school with a strong creative writing program that ALSO permits creative dissertations and not just MFA degrees. So, if you think you are most strongly interested in Comparative Literature, African American Studies, or what have you, investigate for that. Of course, you may well change your mind on that while in graduate schools, so you want first and foremost to choose a top ranked Ph.D. granting institution in English.
  • Identify a list of schools to investigate. If possible, make plans to visit some of them over the year.
  • Become familiar with the graduate programs at each institution. Research these issues:
      • Placement Rate: You want a school that consistently sees most of its Ph.D. grads move on to teaching positions in good schools.
      • Years to doctorate: Some graduate schools tend to be places students get stuck. You don't want a school that typically takes 8+ years to get that Ph.D. Think 6 years or less.
      • Size: You don't want to be the only Ph.D. candidate graduating that year, all but lost in a sea of undergrads and masters candidates. A good program has a number of students who can work (and compete) with one another.
      • Diversity: Beware the school that has only white, upper class males (both faculty and grad students)...unless that's actually what you're looking for.
  • Speak to graduate advisers and/or the head of the graduate program in the department(s) you are considering. Note: All graduate programs do not equate. For example, you might find that one school tucks American Studies or Linguistics under the English Department, while at other institutions have them set up as separate entities

    • Having done campus visits and assembled other sources of information, prepare a final list of schools to which you will apply in the first semester of your senior year. Now, ramp up your research process.

  • Consult with your faculty adviser(s) about graduate schools and programs you are considering applying to. Ask what they know about each one.
  • Speak with people who were recently graduate students and post docs in your own department about their experiences.
  • Interview professionals in the field you are considering.
  • During the summer before your senior year, begin writing personal statements.
  • Obtain a copy of last year's graduate school application from your selected schools to use as a foundation for your essays.

    Take the GRE:  Take both the general and subject exams.  Most students find taking both of them at the same time exhausting.  So, you might want to study for and take the general exam over the summer and then take the subject exam in early autumn.  You can take them either online or in person.  If you have financial hardship, there are programs in place to cover the cost. Remember that you can take the GRE exam either online or in person. Caution: if you take it online and get some early questions wrong, you'll be given only the easier questions, with a resultant lower score...and that's not made terribly clear in the exam. So, you may want to take the exam in person.

    Papers:  You will need to submit a paper you have written when applying to most programs.  A number of programs request a paper with the professor's remarks still on it.  So, this means two things. 

  • Take courses with a long paper requirement.
  • Write with the submission in mind in your Junior year, as you will be applying fall semester of your senior year.
  • Save the paper with the comments appended, not just your own version.

    Researching the school:  What program should you enter and why?  Consider the following issues:

    1. So you are thinking about becoming a professor. Good for you. If you have a high GPA and test well on the GREs, then there's little point in doing a master's degree. So, consider going straight into a Ph.D. program from a bachelor's degree. After all, you're going to spend 4+ years in grad school anyway, and master's degrees aren't worth the powder to blow them up.
    2. How portable are you?  Some students are, for any number of reasons, limited to the area in which they are living.  That's fine.  Pennsylvania is blessed with a number of very good schools, and many of them are within driving distance.  A number of our students and faculty have also chosen Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  There are evening and satellite programs in many of the institutions as well.  You'll also want to consider Villa Nova, Temple, The University of Pennsylvania, and Penn State right off the bat. 
    3. What's the reputation of the program?  Programs are rated, and the best ones place their students well. Shop the ratings: PhDs.org. You do not want to go to a third rate school for several reasons:
      • The best schools have professors who are more up to date, easier to learn from, and have (in the main) more generous spirits than do professors at weaker institutions.  Learning there will be not only better, but easier. 
      • Working on those professor's projects and/or teaching with them will help you to understudy for the profession.
      • Competing against better students helps you develop stronger academic muscle (it's like pumping iron).  Classes will be more exciting as will get-togethers in the evening. 
      • The best schools do a much better job of placing their Ph.D.s.  Reputation counts. 
      • Travel to the school.  Check blogs and graduate student sites online. Meet with the professors, the head of the graduate program, and graduate students.  Get a sense of the climate?  How, for instance, are they toward women?  Gays?  Hard case (pick your political leaning here)?  How good is their library?
    5. With whom would you like to study?  You only do grad school once, so invest in the best institution/mentor you can manage.  As you do research for papers, really focus on the quality of scholars in the field writing contemporary articles in the last decade. Read current periodicals and books in the field that interests you.  Who knocks your socks off, and where does he or she teach? 
      1. Who wrote that recently published scholarly article, and where does he or she teach? Is it a Ph.D. granting institution? If so, send that person a letter or email, expressing your interest in his or her work and asking about the program. 
      2. When you go to campus,arrange to meet the professor with whom you've been corresponding.  You want a mentor and champion as you go through the program and outplace as a junior professor at your first teaching job.  A letter of recommendation (and a few well placed phone calls) from your mentor as you leave will go a long way toward launching you into your new career.
    6. How many schools should I shoot for, and what does it cost to apply?  Remember that there are application fees. You'll want to apply to several different schools, probably including one real reach and one 'safety school.'  I think I applied to five and got into all but one, but the deals they offered me varied widely. It makes sense to comparison shop. Remember: academics are snobs, so you want to accept the very best school you can get into that offers you a decent fellowship. That will mean that ultimately you will be in line for a better position as you seek employment with a Ph.D. from that institution. 
    7. There is a general deadline for accepting schools/fellowships. There are two kinds of deadlines, so you'll want to keep close track of the varying calendars. You'll want to plan for the earlier date, of course, as you want a graduate fellowship/teaching position.  That way, they pay you to go to school rather than you paying them, and, in addition, as a teaching assistant or graduate instructor, you'll not have to pay out of state tuition.
      1. One deadline has to do with receiving fellowships and graduate teaching appointments, and it's the earliest. There is a common market for graduate assistants, so all the schools in the U.S. have the same 'acceptance by' date. Do you know the terminology? Undergraduates get scholarships. Grad students get fellowships. Why? Grad students, and particularly Ph.D. candidates, are junior scholars in the field, working with their mentors doing teaching and research in the field. As a Ph.D. candidate, you will begin doing serious research in the field, functioning at first as a kind of apprentice working with your mentors. You will give papers at conferences, and even begin to publish your work.
      2. The other is simply for entrance into the program.  However, it is generally unwise to enter a Ph.D. program that does not offer you a fellowship. Why? Because they then do not have a stake in your success.

      8. There is a 'common market' date for graduate student acceptances, allowing schools to know who, exactly, is coming so that they can allocate their aid moneys well and staff their freshman composition courses.  You see, there is a very real symbiosis between graduate students and Ph.D. granting institutions in English. Many such institutions meet budget by having their Ph.D. candidates teach one or two Freshman Comp and other courses per semester. That's cheap labor from their perspective. However, from the graduate students' perspective, it means having teaching experience on their CVs as they apply for their first jobs after receiving the Ph.D., and also means that they incur fewer loan debts as Ph.D. Candidates.

    8. Weigh your choices.  All fellowships are not equal.  You'll want to valuate as follows
      1. Weight the institution and program reputation most heavily. In addition, no matter how good the institution, I would seriously recommend against your staying where you got your undergraduate degree. Why? Because you already know those professors, their approaches, even their courses. That's not a strong way to start a serious career as an academic.
      2. Consider what you are offered.  Is it a 4-year fully funded fellowship in a Ph.D. program with a year off with pay to write your dissertation?  An unfunded acceptance to an MA program?  Something in between?
      3. Consider the area in which the school is located.  Could you live happily for four years in New York while attending Columbia?  Or, would you be happier in Iowa City, Iowa.  For some of you, one or the other might constitute absolute heaven...or hell. Others of you, of course, are not quite so mobile, and must choose a school near home for a variety of reasons. If that's the reality, then it is what it is.

    Grad school is never quite what you expect.  All your courses will be within major, in the same building.  The courses, unless they are grad/undergrad, are likely to be smaller.  You will take high energy, tightly focused courses from amazing specialists.  So, it's not at all surprising that many students change their area of specialization (not their major, their specialty) after entering a grad program.  That's fine.  Know it's likely and plan for the possibility.

    Timetable for Seniors

    A. Summer before senior year

      1. Take the GRE General Exam in person or online.
      2. Start studying for the subject exam if you have not already done so. Pull out all your anthologies. This exam rewards broad recognition of many texts and concepts across a wide variety of different fields and areas from film and critical theory to African-American authors to Beowulf.
      3. Research graduate programs and the professors who teach in them. 
        1. Read periodicals in the academic sub-areas that most interest you.  Who's hot and interesting in the field?  Where does he or she teach?  Is it a Ph.D. granting institution?  Write that person and ask about his or her current research and also about the grad program. The odds are quite high that the individual will be thrilled to hear from you. (What? You thought professors actually had lives? We're tickled pink to hear that somebody actually read and liked our last article.)
        2. When you do your campus visit (and I'd recommend that you do so), you can bet that the committee ask you who you're reading, who your heroes are. They don't mean Shakespeare or William Carlos Williams. They mean live, actively publishing scholars in the field.
      4. Talk to your adviser and favorite professors about graduate school.  You'll want these folks to write for you, so it's time to start discussing your plans.  They'll also have good suggestions and advice.
      5. Budget funds.  It costs to apply to grad schools, so you might want to tell your folks to make that your birthday or holiday present.  Some of your selection decisions regarding where to apply will take place in the application process. Early in the fall semester of your senior year, you should write to graduate schools requesting materials for application (you can obtain the addresses for these letters from college catalogues in the library or by consulting the schools’ websites). In your letter you should ask for detailed information about the kinds of programs offered at each school, the availability of financial aid (especially assistantships), and all the forms and information needed to apply for entrance to that school.

        Most schools will ask you to pay an application fee of around $30 to $100; they should also give you clear indications of what their deadlines are for applying to different programs. For most schools, the application deadline is in January, although some have deadlines as early as December 15. This means that in October or November you ask professors to write recommendations for you, choose a paper to use as a sample of your writing, and make sure you know how to arrange for transcripts to be sent to different schools.

    B. September

      1. Register to take GRE Subject Exam. In some ways, it is impossible to study for the G.R.E., since it tests such a wide range of knowledge that you simply cannot "cram" the night or even the week before. You might be helped by reading through all of the historical introductions in your survey course anthologies, just to remind yourself of who wrote what in what era; you might also prepare outlines of historical periods, with names of prominent authors and texts of that era. The major benefit of such studying, however, will be to help you remember things you've already studied or read on your own at an earlier time.
      2. Contemplate key people to ask to write letters of recommendation
      3. Start thinking about what to use for your writing sample.  Besides taking the G.R.E. and arranging for transcripts and recommendation letters, you should prepare a paper or manuscript that you've written, to send to graduate schools as a sample of your work.
      • For students heading towards an M.F.A., you should send in your most creative, challenging, thoughtful piece(s) of writing; it would be wise to talk over your choice with a creative writing professor who is familiar with your work. In some cases, schools will ask you to send in a portfolio of your writing, so you should be ready to provide a number of different pieces, or varying approaches, for them to consider.
      • For literature majors, the best kind of writing sample would be a critical, analytical paper that is original in its approach to a specific topic; it should be a paper that uses sources but which is driven by a thesis that is clearly based in your own ideas about a text. If you are thinking of using a paper that you wrote for a particular course, it would be a good idea to ask your professor from that course to read through the paper once again, making suggestions for polishing or revision before you send it to the graduate school; the professor could also then give his or her estimate of how good a choice that paper would be as a writing sample.
      1. Finalize list of graduate programs and request application materials
      2. Begin to research forms of financial aid and assistance
      3. Begin planning campus visits.  If you can afford to do so, visiting the campus of a particular university, talking with professors who teach in that graduate program, and also talking with students currently in that program could be very helpful. This will give you a feel for the kinds of things the school is looking for; it will allow you to get ideas of what kinds of study might be possible at the school; it will show you the kind of atmosphere that exists at the place both in terms of scholarly expectations and in how comfortable you would be working, studying, and living there. Campus visits might be useful at two different times.
      4. If you are fortunate enough to be accepted by more than one graduate school, campus visits can help you decide which invitation you would rather accept.
      5. But if you have not heard from a particular school, and you are able to visit that campus, an appointment with the department's director of graduate studies might give the department a chance to take a better look at yourself as a graduate candidate than it would have otherwise. Sometimes, in fact, such visits have made the difference between being offered a position and being passed over. If you make such a visit before you're offered a position, you should prepare for the visit as if it were an interview, so you should be ready to talk about the kinds of things you would like to study and your reasons for applying to their school. But also keep in mind that it really isn't an interview, and that people at the school might not be expecting your visit. If you are courteous but also firm in expressing your belief that you would be a good student in their program, you might be pleased with the outcome.

    C. October

      1. Take GRE Subject Exam in person or online.  Because most schools have application deadlines in January, you should take the G.R.E. no later than October. The GRE Literature in English Subject Test contains approximately 230 questions on literature in English from the British Isles, the United States, and other countries.  You can download a Practice Book (80 pages) in PDF format for free.
      2. Begin drafting personal statement and any essays required of graduate programs
      3. Complete applications forms
      4. Request all transcripts be sent to graduate schools
      5. Ask for letters of recommendation or distribute recommendation forms

    D. November

    Finalize personal statements and essays tailored to each graduate program after getting feedback on them from your adviser or favorite professor -- or other key professionals

    E. December

    Mail completed applications -- only after carefully proofreading all materials

    F. January

    Follow-up with all graduate programs to make sure your application is complete

    G. February

    Consider visiting your top graduate school choices

    H. March/April

      1. Discuss acceptance progress with your adviser or favorite professor
      2. Notify each graduate program that accepted you of your intentions
    Useful sites: (This week, anyway. Websites are constantly changing.)>