applying pdf

8/14/2019 applying pdf

1/52

(Daniel Fried)

1973 1994

1998 Stephen Owen

2003

(University of Alberta)

PMLAReview of English StudiesComparative Literature

Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews


2/52

GRE


3/52

University of Alberta

Canadian Review of Comparative Literature

2005


4/52

Contents

1. Should you attend graduate school in the humanities?2. How to select a program3. Application list4. TOEFL and GRE5. Writing sample and letters of recommendation6. Preparing the statement of purpose7. Other things to remember8. After youre admitted


5/52

1. Should you attend graduate school in the humanities?

While there are many people who get graduate degrees in the humanities, and

then go on to careers in business, government, or publishing and journalism,

humanities graduate programs are primarily intended to train university professors.

Those who finish degrees in humanities and then go into fields outside of academia

generally do so as a second choice, because they were unable to find academic

positions that satisfied them; moreover, you can get a job in all of those other fields

without having a graduate degree in humanities. Therefore, before you actually apply

to a graduate program in the humanities, you ought to ask yourself: do you really want

to be a professor? Is that really the best thing that you can do with your life? After

all, the salaries are generally quite low; yet one has to work just as hard as any

high-powered business executive. Dont be fooled by the fact that your professors

teach class only a few hours a week and get summers off; besides preparing classes,

grading student work, and administering university business, we also have to publish

large amounts of research, and this takes up all of our weekends, evenings, and

summers. And research in the humanities is basically self-assigned homework. Do

you like spending all day in the library doing homework? Do you like reading until

you fall asleep at your desk? Do you like writing final papers about your reading?

Would you like to write longer papersand then books? If so, then go ahead and


6/52

apply to graduate school; youll make a great professor.

If not, then you should probably find something else to do with your life. Dont

go on to graduate school by inertia. By now you have been going to school a long

timebut its ok, you can stop now. It isnt a horrible tragedy to go get a job; lots of

people do it.

If you do decide to go on to graduate school, you should be prepared for your

workload to increase immediately, not in some distant future after you have already

finished your doctorate. You probably think that you study hard now, but you will

be asked to do much more in a foreign graduate program. Do not base your

expectations on what you are told by friends or older siblings in local graduate

programsthey simply are not as rigorous as foreign universities, and do not expect

the same workload from graduate students. When professors here try to assign as

much work as they can assign abroad, students simply do not finish the workbut

this is not the case abroad. If you go into a foreign graduate program, you will be

assigned hundreds of pages of reading each week for each class; your classmates will

all finish the assignments, and you will have to do so, as well. You should consider

carefully what effect such workloads will have on your life: will you have time to

exercise and sleep well? Will you have time for hobbies? For MSN with your

online friends? For romantic relationships (or even for casual sex, if thats your


7/52

style)?

If this sounds scary to you, but you still want to be a professor, you might be

tempted to apply for a local graduate program, rather than going abroad. However,

this would probably be a mistakebecause once you finish your degree, you will be

competing for academic jobs with those students who did go abroad. And even a

Ph.D. from the top local university is probably only as attractive as a Ph.D. from a

merely average foreign university. Hopefully, this will not be the case forever, but it

is the case now. Of course, even going abroad for graduate school will not guarantee

you a jobevery year, there are many PhDs from the very top universities in the

world who have to leave academia because there are simply no jobs for them.

Therefore, if you continue down this path, you should expect a lifetime of hard

work, and little financial rewardif you can even get a job after years and years of

study. The rewards of this work are different: the opportunity to read, write, and

think all day and be paid to do so; the satisfaction of teaching the complexities and

nuances of culture to engaged, thoughtful adults; the privilege of serving as one of the

de facto guardians of civilizational memory. If this is enough to make you happy,

then go ahead and apply to grad school.


8/52

2. How to select a program

There are thousands of universities in the world, and at least hundreds of good

universities. Once youve decided to go abroad for graduate study, you will have to

find some way of choosing a group of schools to which you wish to apply.

First, do not limit yourself by country unless you have some strong reason to do

so. Many students only consider applying to U.S. schools, and this is understandable,

since U.S. schools are in general both the wealthiest and most prestigious. But this

is only a general rule, and there are some very obvious exceptions. Harvard, Yale,

Princeton, Stanford, Duke, and Chicago are not necessarily better or more prestigious

than Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, Toronto, Leiden, or Tokyo. Even outside those

groups of the worlds top elite, there are still many excellent universities in Britain

and Ireland, continental Europe, Canada, and Australia. Some of your choice of

schools would have to depend on your own interests and abilities: you certainly could

not attend Sorbonne unless you can speak fluent French, and you probably should not

apply to English literature departments in non-English-speaking countries. But that

should still leave you dozens of great non-U.S. programs from which to choose, in

addition to dozens more within the U.S.

More important than choosing a list of big-name universities is choosing a list of

departments that are strong in the field you wish to study. Sometimes lesser schools


9/52

have highly respected departments. So, for example: in most fields, it would be

useless to have a Ph.D. from the University of Tulsa or the University of Nevada at

Renobut a Ph.D. in Womens Studies from Tulsa or in Environmental Literature

from Nevada-Reno would be very respectable. The same is true outside the U.S.:

many people would think it a weird choice if you were to attend the University of

Ljubljana, in Sloveniaunless, of course, you could tell them that you went there to

study Lacan under Slavoj iek. Contrarily, even the most elite schools can have

weak areas: Harvard, for example, has no program in Cultural Studies. So you ought

to research what schools have the best programs in whatever field you wish to study.

Like generations of students before you, you can ask your professors for advice on

which departments would be best; unlike earlier ages, you have the great advantage of

web access. There is no excuse for not Googling.

However, even investigating individual programs is not detailed enough research;

you should also think specifically about which professors you would want to work

with. This is especially true for students interested in common topics, simply

because you will have too many good choices. If you wanted to study Shakespeare,

you could go to any English department on the planet. But even if you are a brilliant

top student, and can take your pick of getting a Ph.D. in English at Harvard or at Yale,

there is a huge difference between studying Shakespeare with Harvards Stephen


10/52

Greenblatt and Yales Harold Bloom. Both are equally famous, but have radically

different approaches to the work. Hence, part of choosing a graduate program

should be reading the articles or books published by professors in the fieldif you

find one scholar whose work you love, then you should consider applying to her or his

department, even if it is only an average university in other respects.

Also worth remembering while investigating specific faculty members is that it

will be important to work with a professor who is not just a good scholar, but also a

good person. Your dissertation advisor will have considerable control over your life,

and could make you miserable if she or he has a mean streak. This information is

harder to come by, because it usually circulates in personal conversation (i.e., gossip)

rather than in publication. However, you can ask your current professors what they

know about whom; you can also try to contact current or former students of the

department in which you are interested.

Of course, you will also be concerned about selecting programs on the basis of

where you think you might be accepted, as well as on where would be ideal. This is

a tough choice: based on your GRE scores and your knowledge of your own work,

you might be able to estimate your chances, but there really are no easy ways to know

where you can get in. Hence, it is a good idea to apply to a range of schoolssome

top schools, some average, and some safeties. It is also a good idea to apply to


11/52

more schools rather than less: at the top schools, a department might have fifty truly

outstanding applications and only ten openingsas a result, many brilliant, genius

students may be denied admission on the basis of the random impressions of

whichever faculty are reading the applications. Really average students will never

get into the top schools, and really bad students will never get in anywhere, but since

the process is at least partially random, you should take as many reasonable shots as

you can. Your chances of getting in somewhere are definitely much better than your

chances at winning the lottery.

Finally, pay attention to how each school structures the relationship between its

M.A. and Ph.D. programs. In the U.S., the M.A. is generally considered rather

unimportant. Most schools offer an M.A., but they conceive of it as simply a

temporary marker on the way to the Ph.D. Some schools have done away with the

M.A. altogether, and simply expect students to go directly from undergraduate studies

to a Ph.D. program. However, even where the M.A. has been kept, it is merely a

formality, and hence, often American schools will not allow students to apply for an

M.A. only, because they consider the M.A. and Ph.D. as a single track, and dont want

to waste time on students who arent planning to get a Ph.D. Even if a U.S. school

does allow you to apply separately for the M.A., it will almost never offer you

financial aid to attendthey want to save their money to give to those students who


12/52

are committed to becoming scholars. However, this downplaying of the M.A. is

most true of U.S. schools; in Canada and Britain, for example, universities often

require that students go through the programs separatelyapply first for the M.A.,

and then apply again later for the Ph.D. In these cases, schools do (sometimes) offer

financial aid for M.A.-only students, because they know that they are the ones

requiring you to get the M.A. first.


13/52

3 Preparing the Application

Here is a list of some of the most commonly items which departments will

request that you include in your application. TOEFL and GRE exams, letters of

recommendation, writing samples, and statements of purpose will all be discussed in

greater detail in following sections.

Application forms Application fees Financial aid forms TOEFL GRE Transcripts

Your transcripts, of course, need to be in English. But you do not just needto translate the course titles, you may also need to translate your scores.

For instance, at Taiwanese universities, any grade over 80 is usually

considered an A; but in the U.S., a grade of 80 would be considered a B-,

and would often be the lowest grade in the class. You should ask your

university or your department to supply explanations of the grading

standard used at your university.

Sometimes, a university might ask you to provide course abstracts, or


14/52

short descriptions of your courses. This is somewhat unusual, but if

requested, you should ask your professor from each relevant course to

provide a paragraph in English about the course.

Departmental summary This is a one-page description, in English, of your current department,

written by the departmental chair. It is not often requested, but you might

want to ask your department chair to provide you with a copy anyway.

This is especially true if your home department has special expertise in the

field you plan to study while abroad; U.S. universities in particular pay little

attention to their foreign counterparts, and may not even know which are

your top local universities, much less which departments are strong in

which fields.

Resume/c.v. If asked to provide this, you should write one that focuses on your academic

achievements and any academic work experience (such as research

assistantships, etc.), rather than non-academic jobs.


15/52

4. TOEFL and GRE

In order to attend graduate school in the U.S., it is almost always required that

you take the TOEFL and GRE; occasionally, schools in other countries may have

other national exams that they prefer you would take instead, but for the most part, the

TOEFL and the GRE are international standards.

Regarding the TOEFL, there is not much to say. You know that it is a basic test

of English proficiency, and that there are lots of test prep books and courses that you

can take. Honestly, if you are going to go into graduate school in the humanities, the

TOEFL should not be a big problem for youif you cant pass it fairly easily, then

you should probably stop thinking about graduate school abroad. Most universities

publicize on their websites what TOEFL scores they expect foreign applicants to

receive, and most dont care what score you get, so long as you pass. A perfect score

on the TOEFL isnt going to matter to your application.

The GRE is more important and also used more subtly in evaluating candidates.

However, while important, it is not the most important part of your application. This

may seem hard for you to believe, since your entrance to college was probably

determined entirely by your test scores. But your writing sample and statement of

purpose will be significantly more important. A perfect score on the GRE would be

nice, and would be noticed more than a perfect score on the TOEFL, but it wont


16/52

guarantee that you are accepted.

Usually, the way that universities use GRE scores is to screen out bad candidates,

rather than to select from good ones. A good university will often receive four times

as many applications as it has open spaces; the very top universities can receive up to

twenty times as many. Professors are busy people, and they do not want to waste

time reading endless application essays from mediocre students. Hence, they start

by throwing out all applications with GRE scores below a certain levelsometimes

this is done directly by the department itself, other times by a central graduate

applications office, which then sends only the high-scoring applications on to the

departments.

What is the level that you have to reach on the GRE? It changes every year, for

every department. Occasionally, a university or department will tell you that directly

on its website, but for the most part, there is no set standard. Instead, a department

will simply collect all its applications, and decide to read only the top 30 (or 40, or 50)

by GRE score. Once the GRE scores have been used to determine which

applications are thrown away, they are forgotten, and the admissions committee will

look at the other materials to make the final decision about who is admitted and who

is not.

The result is that, while good GRE scores cannot get you into graduate school,


17/52

bad scores can keep you outand you have no way to know exactly where the

dividing line is between good and bad. Probably, if you have scored in the 60th

percentile or below, you really need to retake the test and get a better score; probably

if you scored 95th percentile or above, you dont. But between those markers, you

have to make your own guesses based on the schools to which you wish to apply. If

you know anyone who is at the school and can take a survey of their scores, go ahead

and ask. Otherwise, guess.

While the GRE general test is almost always required for admission to graduate

programs, the GRE subject tests are less often required. Departments whose focus is

clearly matched by one single subject test usually will require it; unrepresented or

interdisciplinary departments often do not. However, this varies greatly by

individual departments: some English departments do not require the English

literature subject test because they find it too heavily dominated by the traditional

canon; on the other hand, some comparative literature departments require that you

take the subject test for whichever literature you plan to focus on. Hence, if you

really do not want to take the subject test, you can and should search for departments

that do not require it.

You can and should study for the subject test, just as you can and should study

for the general test. However, the method of study should be different. The only


18/52

way to learn how to do a general GRE is by doing lots and lots of practice exams,

studying your mistake, and perhaps memorizing additional vocabulary words. But

since the subject test matters college-level knowledge, rather than college-level

intellectual ability, you will have to review your undergraduate coursework, and

perhaps learn new material on your own that was never offered in courses. The

subject test in English literature covers the whole scope of English, American, and

Anglophone literatures from the medieval period through the presentbut most

English students in East Asia have huge gaps in their knowledge of literary history,

perhaps having read nothing before the 19th century but one or two plays of

Shakespeare. If you have huge gaps in your knowledge of your subject, then you

need to go learn it: in the case of English, this would probably mean reading through

all of the Norton Anthologies of British and American literature, as well as

memorizing authors, novels, characters, stylistic movements, etc. from an

encyclopedia such as the Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature or the Oxford

Companion to English Literature. And, of course, if you can find some practice tests,

go ahead and take them.


19/52

5. Writing Sample and Letters of Recommendation

Your writing sample and letters of recommendation are more important than your

test scores. They are important and you should put thought into them.

First, the writing sample: this should be an example of your best scholarly

writing. It should be narrowly focused, make a fascinating and original argument,

demonstrate a mastery of both primary and secondary sources, and show deep

understanding of relevant theoretical frameworks (though you should not feel

pressured to endorse any one theory). It should be written clearly and, if possible,

with some attention to good English prose style; and it must use perfect grammar,

spelling, and diction. And, by all means, stay within the maximum page limits set

by each department. More is not better. Professors who review applications are

busy, do not enjoy reading applications, and if they see that you have given them a

huge writing sample, they may resent you for it. That does not mean that you should

send as short a sample as possible, just stay within their posted limits.

Normally, your writing sample will consist of either your bachelors thesis (if

your department requires such a thing) or, more likely, the final paper which you

wrote for one of your courses (or, for M.A. students, one chapter from your M.A.

thesis). Do not simply use the paper that you got the best grade on; use a paper that

your professor is willing to give you advice on revising, and help you proofread for


20/52

errors. You should expect to spend at least as much time revising your paper for

applications as you needed to write it for class in the first place. It is also often a

good idea if you can submit a writing sample that is related in some way to the

particular field you will propose studying in your statement of purpose, but that is not

absolutely necessaryit is better to submit a great and unrelated paper than a merely

good paper on the right topic.

Similar principles apply to how you should choose which professors you want to

ask for recommendation letters. Do not simply ask those professors who gave you

the best grades, or even those who like you the most (although dont ask anyone who

gave you awful grades, or who hates you). The best professors to ask are

internationally famous scholars who know your workbecause a recommendation

from someone who is known abroad will carry more weight than one from someone

unknown. If you dont have any famous professors, you might want to at least

consider asking professors who have connections at one or more of the schools to

which you want to apply.

In addition to famous or well-connected professors, you should also prefer

professors who specialize in the subject matter that you propose to study in graduate

school. You might also want to consider asking those professors whose letters in

past years have helped other students in your department get accepted abroad.


21/52

Of course, whatever professor you ask for a recommendation, that professor has

to know who you are. The better a professor knows you, the more detail he or she

will be able to offer about you in the letterand detail is good. Anyone can write,

Amy is a very intelligent student, and she did very well in my class, but the

professor who can write honestly about your strengths and weaknesses, describe your

intellectual interests in detail, and the progress of your mental growth will be much

more helpful. Actually, this is a great problem with most recommendation letters

from East Asia: they are rarely detailed, and rarely candid about a students

weaknesses. As a result, all applications from Chinese-speaking students are at a

disadvantage, because Western departments have learned to ignore all the

wonderful-but-vague recommendation letters they get from Chinese-language

universities. Hence your professors will be doing you a favor if they can write (a

little) about your weaknesses as well as your strengths, and by all means go into

detail.

When you have chosen your professors, you need to be very nice about asking

them. They are doing you a favor. Hence, ask them a long time in advanceat

least a month, maybe more. You should also prepare everything neatly for them:

give each one a packet containing the papers you wrote for them in the past, your

completed c.v., writing sample, and statement of purpose, all the forms they need to


22/52

fill out, along with stamped and addressed envelopes, and a neat timeline of due dates

for each schools letter. If you need to, send a couple of polite email reminders close

to when the due dates are close.


23/52

6. Preparing the Statement of PurposeThe statement of purpose is probably the single most important part of your

application. Because it is your only chance to speak directly to the admissions

committee, it is your best chance to convince committee members that you are a smart

scholar-to-be, with a sensible plan of research and the determination to finish graduate

school in a timely fashion. Moreover, because it is relatively short, the committee

will be likely to read it more carefully than your writing sample. You should plan to

spend several weeks writing and revising the statement in conjunction with a faculty

member whom you trust and who is knowledgeable about foreign graduate programs.

Although the statement of purpose is sometimes referred to as a personal

statement, it should under no circumstances be personal. Rather, your tone

throughout should be professional and scholarly. You do not want to be confessional

or autobiographical. Do not offer inspiring stories of your personal triumph over

adversity. Do not reminisce about your grandmother who taught you to appreciate

poetry. Do not talk about fulfilling your dreams to be a professor, or about your

patriotic dreams to serve your homeland. Do not talk about your own sexual,

political, or religious experiences, even if your proposed plan of research involves sex,

politics, or religion. Keep everything intellectual.

This will be surprising to many undergraduates, since there is a common


24/52

assumption that applications to U.S. graduate schools are intended to be personal.

Partially, this is due to mistaken assumptions about American university life: since

American professors both in the U.S. and abroad are often more relaxed and

egalitarian in the classroom than their foreign peers, some students wrongly assume

that American academic life is always informal in all respects. However, this

assumption has been compounded by misinformation sold in graduate-school guides,

both in English and in Chinese. Many of these books are reprints or translations of

books sold in the U.S., and uniformly urge students to be as personal as possible in

their personal statements. Some books offer dozens of sample essays that got

students into Harvard or other prestigious universities, every one of them personal.

What you may not realize is that such books are written for U.S. high school

students applying to college, not U.S. college students applying to graduate school.

This makes all the difference. Undergraduate applications should be personal,

because of the nature of undergraduate admissions and college life. An

undergraduate admissions office receives thousands upon thousands of applications

from students with high grades and high standardized test scores. Since colleges do

not expect high school graduates to be intellectually mature and certain of a career

path, a high school student can only make himself memorable by giving an interesting

personal narrative. Moreover, undergraduate admissions offices are staffed by


25/52

professional administrators, for whom managing admissions is a full-time job. The

university expects them not only to find a group of intelligent students, but to craft a

viable undergraduate community. Since the university knows that undergraduates

will be living in campus dorms, they want to make college life as a whole an

educational experience, and that means admitting a diverse group of freshmen each

year. The admissions office does not just want the smartest students, it wants a

balance of smart students from different ethnic, national, educational, religious,

political, and philosophical backgrounds. Hence the high school students personal

statement should really be personal, to give the committee a sense of how he would fit

in with life at that college.

In contrast, graduate admissions are handled in a much different way, and for a

much different purpose. Although a university may direct all graduate applications

through a graduate admissions office, all admissions decisions are made by the

individual departments. Each department will receive a few dozen to a few hundred

applications (depending on the size and status of the program) and the applications are

reviewed by a small group of the departments professors. For them, this is an

unpleasant extra chore: faculty consider their main job to be teaching and research,

and will want to handle application reviews as quickly as possible. When they do

review the applications, these professors are not at all interested in the applicants


26/52

personal lives. Graduate students may live on or off campus, but no school puts all

of a departments graduate students together, and hence no department has to worry

about whether its graduate students will form a viable community. Graduate school,

unlike college, is not meant as an opportunity for holistic personal growth, but as an

intellectual and professional training.

Therefore, what the faculty committee does care about is whether an applicant

has sufficient intelligence and education to adapt to high-level instruction and

research. In addition, they are looking to see that an applicant has a cogent and

well-defined intellectual stance, and a clear idea of what sort of research he wishes to

pursue. This is not to say that you are expected to know, by the time of application,

what the specific topic of your dissertation is going to be. However, you are

expected to be able to identify a direction for your research, to explain your interest in

a given subject, and to demonstrate that you have a basic knowledge of the field

sufficient to begin serious inquiry. Finally, the admissions committee will want to

know that you have a research plan which matches their departments resources. If

you know, for example, that you want to research Asian American literature (or

medieval poetry, or queer theory, or whatever), you need to make sure that you apply

to departments where there is at least one scholar who specializes in Asian American

literature (or medieval poetry, or queer theory, or whatever). Otherwise, the


27/52

admissions committee may be very impressed with your intelligence and preparedness,

but will conclude that you arent right for their department and had better go

somewhere else.

Therefore, your statement of purpose should contain the following elements:

1. A clear statement of research interests, including relevant periodsor authors, and theoretical assumptions or planned methodology

2. An explanation of why the research is relevant and important3. A description of how your undergraduate training has prepared

you to begin advanced study and research in your proposed field

4. An explanation of why you wish to pursue this particular programof research at that particular university to which you are applying

More detail about each of these is given below.

1. A clear statement of research interests, including relevant periods or authors, and

theoretical assumptions or planned methodology

Many applicants to graduate school are applying simply because they enjoy their

field of study, and dont particularly want to get a job, and dont know what else to do

with their lives. This is exactly the kind of applicant whom admissions committees


28/52

dontwant. It just isnt enough to enjoy reading literature, or history, or any other

subject, and no matter how well or how passionately you describe your love for

literature in general, admissions committees will not be impressed. They are not

looking for passion, but for ideas. They want to admit students who have clear ideas

of what kinds of problems or issues they want to research, know why they are

interested in them, and have enough basic training to begin to approach their chosen

subject intelligently.

Therefore, you should think of the statement of purpose as a very vague first draft

of a dissertation proposal. Obviously, you cannot know before you begin graduate

school exactly what the topic of your dissertation will be, and admissions committees

will not expect you to make exact or binding proposals. But they will expect you,

from the first, to have some idea about what are the kind of topics that you might want

to research. In most humanities fields, one normally begins by choosing a historical

period in which one is most interested. However, merely selecting a period is not

enough. One also has to choose a specific issue, or a set of related problems which

are important in that period, and have some kind of idea about what methodologies

one will want to use in analyzing these problems. This is not a real research

proposal, since a real research proposal would also have to include a clear statement

of what the argument of the thesis would be. For the statement of purpose, you dont


29/52

have to know what you will want to argue, only what you will want to study.

Therefore, it is not enough to propose: I want to study English literature. Nor

is it enough to propose: I want to study British Romantic Literature. Nor is it even

enough to propose: I want to study issues of gender in British Romantic poetry,

though that is getting closer. You have to make your proposal even more specific,

and propose something like: I want to study the interaction between constructions of

masculinity and epic form in Blake, Byron, and Keats. This kind of statement isnt

a dissertation proposal; dissertation proposals have to be much more specific and

detailed even than this. However, it is a very good proposal for a course of study in

graduate school, and the first paragraph of your statement of purpose should be

dedicated to making and explaining this sort of proposal.

But what if you really dont know what exactly you want to study? Think about

which subjects you enjoyed most as an undergraduate, and make your best guess as to

what you would like to study. Then write a proposal that sounds like you are

reasonably certain of your topic. Dont worry; all that matters here is getting into the

program. Once you are in, you can change your field of research; no one will stop

you from changing. Most likely, no one will even remember what exactly it was that

you proposed to study in your statement of purpose. Of course, departments make

admission decisions in part based on what kinds of research programs they are


30/52

well-suited to support. If, once you are in the program, you decide that you

absolutely must study some field in which your department is weak, you might be

stuck. But if you are willing to take responsibility for the consequences of your own

choices, it is a gamble you may wish to take.

2. An explanation of why the research is relevant and important

When professional scholars make proposals for research funding, they usually

spend a great deal of time and space explaining why their research is important and

must be supported. For a prospective graduate student, you do not need, and will not

be able, to convince a faculty admissions committee that one particular question is of

utmost importance to the field.

Nonetheless, it is often a good idea to offer some sort of explanation as to why

you think your proposed field of research is important. The object is not to convince

professors that it is, but rather to demonstrate to them that you are capable of thinking

in such terms, that you are aware of the major trends and debates in the field, and

have some idea of how your own narrowly-focused research might be related to those

large-scale trends.

In addition, this gives you a good opportunity to display your understanding of


31/52

the important theoretical issues currently in favor in your field. You will not be

justifying the importance of a field of research in personal terms (I need to research

this because it will help me to be a better person), nor in terms of your hopes for a

career (I need to research this because my professor says all the new jobs are in this

part of the field), but rather in scholarly terms that demonstrate the quality of your

undergraduate education (I need to research this because it perfectly gets to the heart

of the debate between nativist and poststructuralist responses to colonial aggression).

3. A description of how your undergraduate training has prepared you to begin

advanced study and research in your proposed field.

For the most part, a statement of purpose ought to be about the future, not the

past. Your other documents are about the past: your transcripts tell how hard you

worked, your standardized test scores tell what language proficiency you have

achieved, your writing sample is evidence of your acquired analytical abilities, and so

on. The main point of the statement of purpose is to give an admissions committee

some idea about what your plans for the future are, after you are admitted to their

program.

That said, it makes sense if your future plans are built upon a solid educational


32/52

foundation. If you propose to research the connection between masculinity and epic

form in Blake, Byron, and Keats, then you ought to be able to explain what

experience you have had reading Romantic poetry, and how you became interested in

this topic. If you have never taken any courses on the subject, admissions

committees will either not believe that you are really interested in it, or they will think

that you simply dont have the foundational knowledge of the field necessary to begin

a graduate program dedicated to the research project you have proposed.

Therefore, after you have given a detailed and convincing explanation of your

plans for a research program in graduate school, you should go on to explain how you

came to be interested in that topic from your readings and coursework while an

undergraduate. This does not have to be long; one paragraph will do. Simply

describe what courses you took in the field, and what you read both inside and outside

of classes, and how some particular aspect of that material caught your attention. If

your research plan continues to develop some theme that you first wrote on for a final

paper, then describe that final paper. Explain what your thesis was, how you argued

it, and what you learned from the process of research. Finally, turn back to your

current project and end with a sentence explaining how your current and future

research interests are a continuation of (or perhaps a revision of) your previous work.


33/52

4. An explanation of why you wish to pursue this particular program of research at

that particular university to which you are applying

Even if you have proposed a wonderful, complex, and important program of

research, and you thoroughly convince an admissions committee that you are a

brilliant student who ought to be in a doctoral program, you still might not be

accepted. Not only do you have to convince an admissions committee that you

belong in graduate school, you also have to convince them that you belong at their

university, in their department. So, for instance, if you propose to do research on

contemporary Asian-American literature, but the department to which you are

applying has no one who specializes in Asian-American literature, then you will

probably be rejected from that schoolnot because you arent smart enough, but

because there will be no one there to help you do your research. Or if you make it

clear that you are very conservative in your approach to literature, you might be

rejected from a liberal program (or vice-versa). Or if you propose a very

interdisciplinary research program to a department which is not set up to be

interdisciplinary, you might be rejected. Or if you propose a research program that

will need access to special collections, and the university library does not have the

right archives, you may be rejected.


34/52

If this sounds harsh, remember that the same factors will also help you to be

accepted if you propose something appropriate to a given department. If you want to

work on Asian-American literature, and you apply to a department with three top

scholars working on Asian-American literature, you will be more likely to be accepted,

especially if your research proposal addresses similar issues to one or more of those

scholars. If you are proposing a radical research program in queer theory to a

department known for its radical sexual politics, you will be more likely to be

accepted. If you are proposing to research a certain modern author at a university

which possesses all of that authors manuscripts, then you will be more likely to be

accepted. In short, you have to know the resources of the departments to which you

are applying, and prove that you would be a good match for them.

Ideally, you ought to come up with a research program first, and then choose

which schools you want to apply to. Think about what you would need to pursue

your proposed researchare there special collections that you would need to have

access to? Is it an interdisciplinary project that would need the support of an

interdiscipinary program? Is it a highly ideological project which needs to be done

in an ideologically supportive enclave?

Most importantly, you have to decide who are the best scholars in the field to

support your research. To some degree, this is a matter of prestige, and your


35/52

undergraduate professors can help you to identify who are the most renowned

scholars working in any given field, and what their research is focused on. However,

prestige is not the only factor: there should be a good mesh of your interests with the

professors. If you know that you want to pursue a research program in postcolonial

theory, and you apply to Harvards English department because you want to work

with the highly prestigious Homi Bhabha, you might or might not be accepted. But

you will probably not be accepted if you say that you want to study postcolonialism

by disproving Bhabhas theories of hybridity, which you find ridiculous.

Therefore, you should also do some research of your own. Hopefully, your

undergraduate professors have already made you find scholarly articles on the topics

which you have researched for your course papers. Think about what were the

scholarly books and articles that influenced you the most, or that you found the most

interesting or useful or intelligent. Then look up which departments those professors

are in, and apply to them, and in your application make it clear that you know

such-and-such a professor through her work, and are anxious for the chance to work

with her.

Of course, this means that you will need to edit your statement of purpose for

each school to which you are applying. Dont say that you are dying to work with a

Harvard professor in your application to Yale. This is especially true if you have


36/52

chosen your schools on the basis of reputation rather than on the basis of what makes

sense for your proposed research program. If all that you want is to go to a famous

school, and you dont care what you research, then you may have to edit your

statement of purpose quite heavily, and not just in the paragraphs about what

professors you want to work with. You might have to actually propose quite

different (but equally specific) programs of research for different schools. Or, if you

are proposing a constant topic of research, you might at least emphasize different

aspects of it for different programs. So, if you are proposing a research project on

nushu (), you would emphasize the sinological aspects of the project in an

application to a Chinese department, the gender aspects to a program in womens

studies, and the oral-formulaic aspects to a program in folklore.

Even after all of this description, it still may be hard to imagine exactly what a

statement of purpose should sound like in practice. Therefore, let us consider

hypothetical examples of how a statement of purpose ought and ought not not to be

written.

Imagine a student, Christine Chang, who is a senior in the English department of

National XYZ University. Christine has always liked literature, and has always also

been good at English. She has been in good public schools in Taiwan from


37/52

elementary school through high school, and she has attended buxiban and worked

hard. Her parents do not have very good English, or many opportunities to go

abroad, but Christine has been able to spend two summers abroad, one in Canada

during high school, and one in the United States during university. As a result, she

feels comfortable going abroad, and wants to perfect her language and literary skills

by going to the U.S. for graduate school.

Christine is one of the better students in her class. Some of her classmates have

lived abroad and have perfect English; Christine is not quite as fluent as them, but she

knows that she is intelligent, and has always gotten good grades in her college

coursework. She has taken a number of different kinds of courses in university, but

she has liked her classes in English literature most of all. She took one class in

Shakespeare, one class in Romantic poetry, two classes in Victorian novels, one class

in modern novels, and two classes in film. Of these her favorite were the three

classes on novels, which she took with a famous professor who is an expert in

feminist theory and made the courses very interesting explorations of gender in fiction.

Christine thinks that she might like to read more novels from these periods in graduate

school, and perhaps do more with feminist theory, but she isnt sure. Actually, she

would be willing to study anything, so long as she got the chance to go abroad.

Here, then, is an example of the kind of statement of purpose that Christine


38/52

should notwrite:

I am a free and independent girl, always willing to tackle new challenges and full

of an unconquerable spirit. Though I have grown up in a small country, I am filled

with eagerness to see the world and to experience the different sights and sounds that

various cultures have to offer. Since I have began my life as a student in the English

department of National XYZ University over three years ago, I have grown in my

experience of foreign literature, and I have also perfected my ability in English.

However, in order to take the next step, and to continue growing as a person, it is

necessary that I move to an environment where I can interact directly with people of a

different culture, and to try new kinds of food and make new kinds of friends. This

is the reason why I want to pursue graduate study in the United States, and why in

particular I want to attend State University, because I know that your university values

diversity.

If you ask anyone I know, he or she will tell you that I am a very diligent student,

yet one who is very sensitive to the beauty of literature. I have been a devoted fan of

literature ever since I competed in a national poetry contest for kindergarten pupils,

and won first place. Since then, I have loved to read every day, and sometimes I

think that literature is the soul which gives meaning to my life. I continued to be an


39/52

excellent student in high school, and spent many hours every day perfecting my

English reading ability. Although it was a struggle, I finally conquered all obstacles

and managed to get an excellent score on the national college entrance examinations,

allowing me to enter the English department of my beloved alma mater, National

XYZ University.

When I was a freshman, I continued to struggle to get used to university life, but

I never lost sight of my goal. I successfully completed the university required

courses in Mathematics, Science, and Chinese, and the departmental courses in

Freshman Writing and Freshman Oral Conversation. Since I got straight As, I was

filled with confidence in my English ability, and motivated to work even harder.

Eventually, I was able to take several courses in the love of my life, English

literature. I took a class in Shakespeare, and though it was especially difficult to

understand his antiquated English, I was very happy to at last have the chance to read

this very famous poets works for myself. The next semester, I took a course in

Victorian fiction with Professor Wang, and was enchanted with the many memorable

characters of Charles Dickens in Great Expectations andHard Times, and the skillful

irony of William Makepeace Thackeray in his novel, Vanity Fair. After successfully

completing these courses, I took other classes in film, modern fiction, and Romantic

poetry. Then, during this first semester of my senior year, I had the chance to take


40/52

another of Professor Wangs classes, this time concerned with the fiction of George

Eliot. This is a graduate-level class, and I think that it shows my determination to

absorb literature at an advanced level.

Therefore, to conclude, I am a great lover of literature who has overcome many

obstacles and who is determined to succeed. I have graduated from a top university,

and am ready to meet the world. This is why I need to come to the United States to

attend State University, since I see from your website that you welcome a

community of scholars from many countries and cultures. This is exactly the kind

of community I have always dreamed of joining, and hence I am determined to be an

outstanding student who can make many important contributions to your English

department.

The English of the above essay is perfectthere are no grammatical mistakes,

spelling mistakes, or awkward expressions. But it is an awful statement of purpose.

It is vague, trite, boring, overly personal, focused on the past rather than the future,

and talks about graduate study as if it were a vacation to an exotic foreign country,

rather than as a serious program of research. The statement of purpose tries to be

inspirational, but it just ends up being silly and embarassing.

Instead, here is the kind of essay that Christine should write:


41/52

I am a prospective scholar who wishes to research issues of gender in Victorian

fiction. In particular, I want to go beyond simply asking how writers construct

discourses of femininity and masculinity, and to inquire how the construction of such

discourses is related to the gendered conditions of production and consumption of

period fiction. Since the well-known study of So-and-so was published twenty years

ago, it has been widely acknowledged that the novel market in mid-19th-century

England was still primarily organized around the well-to-do young woman, and that

plot, theme, and characterization were adjusted to meet the tastes of the market.

Although the gender-bias was not as strongly marked as in the consumption of

eighteenth-century fiction, and certainly moralistic and didactic elements were less

overtly manifested, it is clear that the propriety of the young gentlewomans boudoir

was still a main criterion of selection for book publishers, as well as for the literary

periodicals.

I am fascinated by this process, and think that it must have a direct bearing on

the ways in which period norms of masculinity and femininity were constructed

through fiction. Such constructions have been examined intensively, of course, since

the rise of gender theory in literary criticism; however, it seems to me that such

analyses are often not strongly grounded in social history, and treat the individual


42/52

novelist as an autonomous and unconstrained intellectual agent. In contrast, I start

from the assumption that authors choices about gender constructions are determined

by their relative position as men (or occasionally women) seeking to market lifelike

and moral depictions of gender relations to a largely-female audience. The

possibility of performing such an analysis exists with almost any of the major

novelists: currently my interest and experience is largely in Thackeray, Dickens,

Hardy, and, of course, George Eliot. However, I am also hoping to gain some

comparative insight into some of the less well-known authors of the period, especially

ladies authors and lower-class and religious mass-market fiction.

My interest in this field grows directly out of my work as an undergraduate at

National XYZ University. While here, I have taken several courses in related areas;

but I have especially benefitted from two courses in Victorian literature offered by

Professor Janice Wang. For my final paper for the first of these classes, I undertook

a research project on Great Expectations, in which I argued that, through the story of

Miss Havishams molding of Estella, Dickens comes close to acknowledging the

constructed nature of gender identity, and only falls short when unable to

acknowledge the possibility of self-construction of gender identity. This was a

breakthrough paper for me, in that it was the first time in which I not only fully

grasped the fundamentals of contemporary gender theory, but also found myself able


43/52

to apply it to the analysis of literary narratives.

Although I am applying to several graduate programs, the English department at

State University is one of my top two programs, because I would love to work with

Professor Fictional Name. I first became aware of Professor Names work while

preparing the research paper described above: her seminal essay Dickens and

Gender was one of my primary theoretical references in that paper, and I have gone

on to read her monograph on George Eliot with great pleasure. Naturally, it would

be an honor to study under a scholar who has already helped shape my thinking about

these topics, and I therefore sincerely hope that you will give me the opportunity to

join your program next fall.

This is much better: it includes all of the four main elements above, it is focused

on the future rather than the past, it is intellectual and professional rather than

personal. It does not waste time on meaningless phrases, and does not try to be

inspirational. Instead, it demonstrates an aptitude for literary study by discussing a

specific topic in literature. Perhaps Christine Chang isnt perfectly certain that the

research proposal outlined above is exactly what she wants to pursue. Frankly, it

doesnt matter. If she is admitted, people will remember that she is Professor

Fictional Names student, but they wont remember exactly what she proposed.


44/52

And once shes in, shes in. Christine can change her focus of research if she wants.

She could switch from gender in Victorian fiction to deconstruction in contemporary

Anglophone African poetry, if she really wanted to. The important thing for the

application is that you demonstrate that you know what kind of research can be

proposed, and that you are able to demonstrate that you have enough background

knowledge to be able to begin a course of graduate study.

Finally, I ought to note: do not copy the above essay or any part of it. Do not

copy any sentence or any part of a sentence. I know it will seem tempting, since I

am offering this essay in English as an example of a perfect Statement of Purpose.

But dont do it: that would be plagiarism, the worst academic sin. Moreover, it

would be stupid, because you will get caught. Remember that you are not the only

one reading this: your classmates are reading it too, and some of them may decide to

ignore my advice here, and to be lazy students who will copy phrases rather than

compose their own essays. But admissions committees are not stupid, and when

they notice a pile of statements of purpose from Taiwan that all begin, I am a

prospective scholar who wishes to research they will know that these applicants

are dishonest, and they will throw away the materials. Use the above essay as a

model, but for your own sake, do not copy so much as a single word of it. You will

get caught if you do.


45/52

7. Other Things to Remember

Many students wonder if it is acceptable to take a few years off before applying

to graduate school. In general, this is fine. It is especially a good idea if you arent

sure that you want to go to graduate schoolmuch better to try working first for a

few years; if you hate it, you can always go onto graduate school later. However,

there are a few things you should remember. First, it is easier for you to take time

off between your undergraduate degree and your masters than between your masters

and PhD; if you do the latter, some schools might wonder why you decided to stop in

what they consider the middle of a unified course of graduate study. Secondly, you

should think about demographics. Right now, in 2007, there is a wave of high

enrollment in U.S. colleges; this means that for the next few years, there will be more

and more competition each year for entrance to graduate programs. You might want

to think about applying sooner rather than later, to maximize your chances. Finally,

you should realize that when you are done with your PhD, it will be easier for you to

find a job the younger you are. Age isnt very important, certainly not as important

as which school you attend or the quality of your dissertation. However, it is one

consideration, because universities want to hire scholars who have a longer time to

build up reputations in their fields.

Once you have decided that you want to go to graduate school, it is better to


46/52

begin preparing as soon as possible. If you want to go to graduate school directly

after you finish college, then you cant start any later than the summer before your

senior year. Besides taking the GRE (studying for which might take you all summer,

or longer), you will also need time to research which programs and which professors

you would want to work with, as well as writing your statement of purpose and

revising your writing sample. All of this takes more time than you think it will, and

you need to remember that applications are often due about the same time that your

fall semester ends.

You might want to try to improve your chances of being accepted by publishing

something. Probably, publishing a scholarly article in a peer-reviewed journal will

not be possible for you just yet. But it may be possible even for undergraduates to

present a research paper at a scholarly conferenceit has been done before. And

there may be other kinds of professional publication which might look nice on your

c.v.publishing a short story in the student literary magazine wont be very

impressive, but getting one into a professional literary magazine would. Publishing

translations might be a testament to your language ability.


47/52

8. After You Are Admitted

Hopefully, you will be admitted by more than one university; if so, you will have

the pleasant problem of choosing which offer to accept. The most important rule is

this: do not go into any graduate program that would require you to borrow money in

order to live. Graduate school is fantastically expensive, and you have no guarantee

of getting a job when you are doneit is just not worth going into debt for this.

Some schools are richer than others, of course, and can offer better conditions. Rich

private schools might be able to give you full tuition scholarships plus US$20,000 per

year, without doing any undergraduate teaching until you are past your general exams;

poorer state schools may only offer you the opportunity to earn your way by teaching

classes immediately. But all schools should have some way to keep you from

borrowing money, and you should insist on this.

There is another good reason to only go to schools that offer you financial aid

awards: if the school gives you money, it is investing in your development, and hence

will have an interest in your success. Often, departments will admit students without

offering them financial aid, thinking at least that the students wont do anybody any

harm. But this shouldnt be enough for you: you want to be someplace where the

faculty is excited to have you there, and believes strongly enough in you to bet their

money on you.


48/52

Oh, and then, of course, having financial aid will usually make your application

for a visa much simpler. Since 9/11, no foreign visa has been very easy to get,

especially U.S. visas, and even if you have a full scholarship to Harvard you may get

rejected for no good reason. But financial aid helps, because embassy personnel are

more likely to believe that you really are a good student, and that you wont need to

try to work illegally in order to have money on which to live.

Once you have decided on a school, and accepted their offer (send your

acceptance letter by registered express mail!), then get ready to go. Apply for your

visa immediately, because it is a slow process even when it works, and buy your

airplane tickets early as well. Your school should also have an international student

office to help you adjust, know what to bring, how to sign up for dorms and classes,

etc.; look for their website or ask the secretary of your new department for help.

When you get to your new department, study hard. Get professors to like you

(they will have to write you recommendation letters when you look for a job). Start

submitting papers to scholarly conferences (at least one per year); then start sending

your good seminar papers to journals, and try to publish. Get to your dissertation

quickly, and once youve gotten to it, try to finish it quickly, because it will be easier

for you to find a job if you do. Along the way, apply for every fellowship, every

graduate student research program, every essay prize that you candont assume you


49/52

arent good enough. Dissertation-writing fellowships are especially important, both

because they are prestigious and because they will help you finish quickly. The

more prizes, the more honors, the more grants you can rack up, the better your resume

will look, and the more chance you will have of getting additional money and honor

(and job offers!) the next time.

Oh, and enjoy your reading!


50/52

400

$250

$250


51/52

Jonathan Spence


52/52

applying pdf

Documents