20 Steps to a Successful Phd Application

Introduction

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If you’re reading these words, you have probably already sampled the unique terror and isolating confusion that comes along with applying to graduate school. Having recently survived the application process myself, I created this blog as a support tool for the poor souls who have yet to complete their applications. After hearing back from my schools, I tried to compose the guide that I myself could have benefited from as I struggled through the application process. The following bite-size entries guide you through what I consider to be the crucial steps, starting more than one year before you plan to apply for doctoral study. Most of my entries address issues that I’d never even considered before applying. Hopefully you, the reader, will benefit from my hindsight, compulsively organized into 20 steps.

Two important points before you begin reading the official guide:

First, my guide is based on the experience of applying to interdisciplinary, humanities-based programs. In other words, my blog explains how one applies to programs in English, other literary/cultural programs based on a national literature, cultural studies, philosophy, art history, comparative literature, critical theory/studies, film studies, media studies, women’s/feminist/gender studies, and the like. This focus also means that my own academic activity is highly interdisciplinary, or that I get around a lot in my research, and that the guide therefore reflects my disciplinarily slutty tendencies.

Second, the programs to which I applied only accept between two and nine students per year. I knew, starting out, that no matter how brilliant my application was, I would be rejected from most schools. There are many factors that go into the evaluation of applications, one of which is unfortunately sheer lack of space within a given program. Acceptance or rejection does not necessarily reflect how flawlessly you performed the application process, but for what it’s worth: of the nine schools, I was accepted to Northwestern’s Comp Lit Studies program with a five-year fellowship, SUNY Binghamton’s Philosophy, Literature and the Theory of Criticism program with a variable fellowship, and SUNY Stony Brook’s Comp Lit program with a 4-year fellowship. I was rejected from U of Minnesota’s Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society program, Berkeley’s Rhetoric program, Penn’s Comp Lit program, Duke’s Program in Literature, Irvine’s Comp Lit program, and NYU’s Comp Lit program. I am now a first-year doctoral student at Northwestern. If you’re interested in learning more about my work and teaching, follow the links in the sidebar to your right.

Okay folks, buckle your seatbelts and dust off your long-term planning skills, because we’re in for quite a ride…

#1: Seek out focused employment experience

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The minute you have the faintest inkling regarding your desired general area of graduate study, start orienting your employment and volunteer work decisions toward that area. Working jobs that relate in some way to your desired field will not only make your application more attractive, but will also likely help you to narrow your interests as you journey toward the application process.

After I completed my MA, I planned to eventually get my doctorate in some interdisciplinary field related to art, writing, philosophy and feminist studies. Having waitressed, catered and retailed my way through art school (and realizing in retrospect that I had no coherent résumé of paid employment to show for it), I swore to myself that I would refuse any job that failed to enhance my knowledge base in one of these areas. Realizing that this vow would almost inevitably put me far below the poverty level, I seriously buckled down and prepared for a miserable yet essential experience. Unbelievably, I actually managed to uphold the vow to this day, as I’m preparing to start my Phd.

Even before my MA, I understood the importance of volunteering in my field(s). I’d already worked as a phone counselor for domestic violence, a researcher on transgender issues and violence, and a magazine assistant for a transgender networking group, all part-time and unpaid. After making my post-MA pledge to only accept disciplinarily relevant jobs (and spending months in financial desperation,) I started babysitting to pay my bills. After all, I told myself, I did arts and crafts and homework with the kids, which could only help me to eventually become a better teacher of any subject, and would probably give me insight into issues of expression, representation and development.

My breaking point with babysitting eventually arrived, and I hit on the idea of teaching art and writing in summer camps. I used my experience “teaching” art to babysitting clients to land a job teaching comic book design at a local high-end camp. The administration expected your standard Marvel superhero curriculum, but I managed to effectively teach the kids about experimental narrative and book design. This authentic teaching experience helped me to get jobs tutoring literature and French, teaching art in the Philadelphia public schools and in community centers, and teaching creative writing, art and graphic design to gifted children at a prestigious summer program. All this combined experience, along with my conference work (see Step #2 below), my MA thesis being published, and some extensive and quite desperate networking, helped me to land a graduate-level teaching job at a small women’s college, which obviously enhanced my doctoral applications enormously.

Point is, do everything you possibly can to gain experience relevant to your field. Even if, as a die-hard women’s studies scholar, you volunteer at Planned Parenthood once a month while holding a ‘normal’ day job, your application will be the better for it! And remember, you can start small with, say, literally wiping the asses of vaguely artistic children, and gradually build up to teaching classes of your own.

#2: Participate in conferences

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After completing my MA, I nearly went straight into a Phd program. I decided, instead, that I needed to make sure I could function happily in an academic environment "on my own"-- which, for me, meant writing and adjunct teaching-- before committing myself to a life of institutionalized research. Upon reaching this decision, however, I felt I needed some kind of structure to aid me in this task of individual research. I hit upon the idea of using conference due dates to structure my academic writing time; it worked beautifully. But I gained far more than a writing schedule from my involvement in conferences-- I gained inspiration, networking opportunities, even a makeshift, geographically scattered academic community.

And of course, giving papers at conferences looks brilliant on your c.v. It also functions as a way to squeeze some telling content into your c.v.-- so even if you have never taught or volunteered, speak no foreign languages, and have minimal degrees from no-name schools, an application board can look at a list of your conference papers and get a rich sense of your interests and capabilities.

Here's a sample CFP link, one I've used many a time: http://cfp.english.upenn.edu

#3: Language acquisition

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More than one year before you begin the application process, you should determine whether you will need to learn additional languages to advance to candidacy. While you can certainly study languages while completing your graduate coursework, I guarantee that your application will be more attractive, and your coursework and research less stressful, if you’ve already started the process of language acquisition. Explore different options for learning languages: if you’re still an undergrad, participate in study abroad. If you can, spend a summer (or more) working or vacationing in a different country. Take language courses. Engage a tutor. Acquire children’s books in different languages and read yourself to sleep!

The programs to which I applied listed on their websites the number of total languages required to qualify to write your dissertation, but some, like SUNY Stony Brook, state that they prefer relative fluency in both French and German at the time of application. So if, in the year before you apply to school, you can gain basic reading knowledge in a desired language, your application will improve drastically! Some programs still require a Classical language, although this seems to be less and less common (and in most cases you can now substitute an additional disciplinary focus). Because I’ve known for several years that I’d need French and German for my degree, I employed a few useful tactics to acquire the necessary fluency before applying. Some of these could work for you, so read on…

First, I had learned French as a child, and to keep it up, I found a part-time job tutoring high school French. This job consisted mostly of threatening and bribing my impressively stubborn students. Tutoring a language you have some fluency in is great because it gives you pseudo-teaching experience and solidifies your knowledge of essential grammar rules.

Second, I made a point of giving conference presentations in France (see my discussion of conference work as a crucial way to beef up your experience and résumé in Step #1). This travel helped me to practice discussing academic work with peers in French.

Third, I took a basic German course with Berlitz. Berlitz is incredibly overpriced, far beyond the budget of anyone following Step #1, so a course like this is impossible to sustain. So after my basic course, I bought more materials on my own and hired a tutor. In one year, I have acquired basic conversational skills and can understand most dialogue in German films.

#4: Networking / keeping in touch

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The importance of keeping in touch with faculty, supervisors and other contacts as you move through life is a lesson that I missed in undergrad, but learned by the time I applied for my MA. After I completed my first degree in art, I failed to keep in touch with faculty members that had played formative roles in my development. I never really gave it a first or second thought, until I needed recommendations to apply for the MA, and had to contact people for the first time in over a year to ask them a favor. While my former teachers were for the most part happy to oblige, some were difficult to get a hold of, and I felt uncomfortable pursuing my request further because I hadn’t remained close with them. Many years later, I have started re-contacting some of these teachers, not to ask a favor, but simply to let them know I think about them often, to thank them for being pivotal figures in my life, and to share my current achievements with them.

When I finished my MA, I had learned my lesson—I still email my former teachers periodically to see how their teaching and research is going. When a teacher comes out with a new book, I read it and let them know what I enjoyed most about it. If I publish or otherwise create something relevant (like this guide!), I send them a link or copy. If I have a question that they could best answer, I pose the question to them. Consciously remaining in contact with great influences in your life is not only a good tool for ‘marketing’ yourself, but maintaining a relationship with them enriches and fulfills you (and them!). Sometimes life moves so fast that we forget to perform ‘maintenance’ on things like contacts—don’t make this mistake. New online tools like Facebook address this issue—these online forums allow us to read and comment on what our peers are up to, when we might not otherwise extend an email or phone call.

To sum up the point: staying in touch helps your teachers and employers to write more informed, more heartfelt letters of recommendation, and keeping them informed of your focus and exploits will help them to give you better advice on doctoral programs, should you seek it from them.

#5: Choose at least six programs

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As you can see from my application results above, if I had only applied to six instead of nine schools, I might not have received a single acceptance! As I expressed in the introduction, my programs admitted between two and nine applicants the year I applied. This makes your chance of being accepted as low as 2 in 200, and you need to account for that in the number of schools you choose.

#6: Research your programs

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One year before you plan to apply, you should know the basic deal at each program, including the faculty with whom you hope to work. Having sorted through many programs to choose those that make it onto your list, you will develop a good sense of why you are not a fit for the programs you passed over; this gives you an idea of why you are a good fit for your chosen schools. Having this knowledge and confidence will help you to make a specific argument regarding why you are the ideal candidate for each program.

#7: Read work by faculty members

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As soon as you have a list of faculty from each school, you need to choose at least one person per program and read their work. If you’ve already read some faculty, read them in more depth or extend to a second or third person. Obviously, doing this helps to make sure you really want to work with them. But there are many other reasons you should do this, which I’ll summarize here and detail in later entries. First, reading their work will help you to troubleshoot your writing sample in terms of appropriateness of content, ways you can connect your own work to that of faculty, and weak areas in your writing that could be criticized as ignorant by admissions boards. Second, reading their work will help you to write a highly informed and purposeful personal statement in which you detail exactly what areas you want to study with each of your preferred faculty. Third, a good knowledge of how their writing intersects with yours will help you to write convincing and relevant follow-up emails to faculty after you have submitted your application.

#8: Early testing!

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Take the GRE early. If you can, schedule it in the first half of the year, rather than the October and November date. If you did math in undergrad, take it even earlier so the math is fresh! The most important reason I can offer for this is that you will be immersed in the application process by the fall, and the last thing you need is to be studying math flashcards and writing practice essays in 30-minute session to prep for the test! If you can knock the GRE out of the way early, you will thank yourself later. Taking it early also gives you the opportunity to retake the test, if you feel you need to.

#9: Prep for that test!

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Engage in some form of test prep. I took a 10-session course by Kaplan, which was incredible—their online resources are unbelievable. The most important resource besides the endless online quizzes and workshops are their simulated tests, which score you as you’ll be scored at the testing center, but show you exactly which questions you got wrong and why. This way you can troubleshoot the sections you do poorly on (those sections will not necessarily be your weak points, academically speaking!). I took Kaplan’s baseline test and scored 450 Math and 650 Verbal (I had never even taken geometry in school). I scored 610 Math and 720 Verbal on the actual test. If I’d had a few more months to practice, I know that I could have scored a 700 Math. You must give yourself time to really digest the concepts and practice navigating the test format.

#10: Review rec and transcript requirements early

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In the early summer before the fall deadlines, before you have requested letters of recommendation or transcripts, review the requirements for both very carefully, for each program. Some programs only accept paper recommendations, while some prefer online recs. Some programs, like the graduate school at U of Minnesota, do not even require official transcripts until you have been accepted (which means that you can send photocopies of unofficial transcripts, thereby dodging transcript fees). On the other hand, several schools require two official transcripts up front, including Penn and some UC schools. I failed to see Penn’s requirement until I was on the log-in page of the online application, months after I’d ordered what I thought was the perfect number of transcripts. To mix it up even more, there are also schools, like SUNY Binghamton, that require two transcripts, but they can be unofficial. Like the first option, they will request official documents only after you are accepted.

#11: Recommendations

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Ask for your letters of recommendation in the summer before the fall deadline. Depending on where you live, it really can take months to acquire them. I emailed a previous professor in August and didn’t hear back from her for two months. Finally, I learned that she was on sabbatical and not checking her email. I had to call her overseas on her mobile, interrupting a children’s birthday party, to ask her to write my recs! She sent them out soon after, but they were promptly lost by the UK postal service, unbeknownst to me. I waited for another month, and finally got a hold of her again to send me duplicates. I received the letters two days before my first deadline. The motto of my story is: Request your letters in June! Better to have them sitting safely on a shelf somewhere so that you don’t have a panic attack later.

#12: Transcripts

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In a similar vein, request transcripts in the summer. I had another disastrous experience where I’d requested transcripts from the University of Greenwich in London in early October. The office reported that it would take several weeks to process my order because they were currently in the middle of registration for the fall semester. Apparently the same office deals with both transcripts and registration! When they finally sent them off, I waited for weeks, to eventually surmise that, like my recs, they had also been lost. I had to re-order transcripts and received them only after several deadlines had passed (I had submitted very unofficial photocopies in lieu of official ones). When I did finally receive them, I discovered that the office had failed to seal the transcripts in envelopes, instead sending me sheets of my grades! These obviously were unacceptable. The process was only resolved in late December when I finally received the original lost set of sealed transcripts. Because of this disaster, several applications had to be sent out incomplete.

#13: Decipher the meaning of deadlines; plan accordingly

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While some programs wait to review any applications until after the deadline (Berkeley wouldn’t even confirm receipt of my application until after the deadline passed), many start making decisions as the apps come in. Stony Brook, for example, says on their website that if you have stellar grades or other accoutrements, you should complete your application in early fall so that they can reserve the best scholarships for you! I failed to see this message until several days before their official deadline (but they also gave me a full fellowship; go figure!). For this reason, again, you must read carefully all the literature they make available.

#14: Writing samples

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Coming soon.

#15: Post-application follow-up emails

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One to three weeks after you have submitted each application, compose follow-up emails to as many faculty members as you can manage. Because I found this task to be so overwhelming, I made the rule that I would only write letters when I had something specific and profound to say about my desire to work with them. I could have avoided this problem if I’d followed Step #7 and started reading their work one year in advance. Following this step guarantees you that you will develop some kind of personal history with their work; you may even write about or at least draw inspiration from their writing in your own work before you make your applications.

Following my “only write emails that are informed and meaningful” rule meant that I failed to send emails to an entire program (Minnesota), simply because I had not personally read their work. I was rejected from this program. However, I sent two emails to faculty at Berkeley and never received responses; I was also rejected from there. I sent one email to Northwestern and did not get a response, but was accepted to the program several days later (!?). The faculty that did respond to my follow-up emails offered a range of reactions. One professor responded with extreme enthusiasm, and called the head of Graduate Admissions to give him my name as a “special case.” Several thanked me warmly for my email, but made it clear that they did not get to decide who was admitted. Through another follow-up email, I discovered that the main person with whom I wanted to work had just moved to another school (information that the university website did not in any way reflect).

#16: Post-Acceptance Questions

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Before Northwestern accepted me, they contacted me to ask if I had any questions about their program. It was only after I responded with my questions that they offered me a position. Have questions ready for each program, not only to impress them, but to gain the most complete picture possible of each program. This preparation and research will help you to find the best program for your needs, interests and personality.

#17: Visiting Schools

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Things to ask at a visit that the host school may not automatically offer you: Ask to sit in on a class. This gives you a great sense of student scholarship, participation and community. Ask to see past dissertations. Looking at the titles and reading the first few pages gives you a good idea of the level of student work. Viewing dissertations also allows you to see which faculty supervise the work most like your own research.

#18: Thank you letters

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After you have completed the visitation process, write thank you letters to any faculty and staff that assisted you. They will appreciate this, and will remember you in the future when, even if you don't accept their offer, you may interact with their program as a conference participant or fellow.

#19:

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Coming soon.

#20:

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Coming soon.