Advice on Applying to Graduate School

Created by Eleanor Hersey
University of Iowa English Undergraduate Advising Office

Is GraduateSchool the Right Choice for Me?

If you have ever told a professor or academic advisor in Iowa's English Department that you would like to get a graduate degree in English, you have probably witnessed the GradSchool Look, a combination of shock, nervousness, and compassion which is generally accompanied by inexplicable or paradoxical words of advice. Graduate students who work in the Advising Office surprise many undergraduates by saying "Oh, no, you don't want to go to graduate school. . . there are no jobs, it takes eight years, it's brutal on your self-esteem, there are lots of other options" and immediately shutting down the conversation. Faculty members have also been known to launch into passionate and embittered descriptions of their own (usually harrowing) graduate experiences in response to a student's commenting that she is considering graduate school. No doubt, these responses from those of us on the "inside" of the graduate school circuit are relatively unhelpful, as they are based on our own personal and emotional involvement in the profession. The fact is, the decision to attend graduate school in English should be a careful and rational one, based as much as possible on the facts of admissions standards, graduate degree requirements, and job market statistics, as well as a serious analysis of your own goals, talents, and desires.

Am I Eligible for Acceptance?

Many undergraduates do not realize that admissions standards at most Big Ten PhD programs in English are extremely high. If you request application materials to programs at Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa, you will receive letters which warn you not to apply if you do not have a certain verbal GRE score (at least 650 or the 90th percentile) and a certain undergrad English GPA (at least a 3.7). Since it is very expensive to apply to schools (from $40-$60 per school in addition to GRE costs), it is crucial that you determine which schools you have a chance of getting into; you do not want to waste time applying to Ivy League or Big Ten schools with a 2.5 English GPA or 60th percentile GRE verbals. Of course, all students considering graduate school should strive for the highest possible grades and test scores, but it is equally important for you to determine whether your college transcript and writing sample make you a competitive candidate for doctoral work at this time. If they do not, you may want to consider other options.

Am I Ready For a Five to (Gasp!) Ten Year Commitment?

Similarly, most undergraduates considering (and even entering) graduate programs do not fully realize the amount of time, energy and money it takes to get a PhD in English. (Although some students may plan to get an M.A. only, most intend to go "all the way.") Many people who start graduate school at age 21, straight out of their undergraduate programs, are stunningly na•ve about what they are getting into. They may know the statistic that it takes five to ten years to get a PhD, but they do not grasp the fact that they will be well into their thirties before they are settled in a tenure-track job. Since graduate work demands a more than full-time commitment, pays a barely living wage for a single person, and often requires at least one major geographical leap (from New York City to Iowa City, for example), it exerts an enormous pressure on your personal life, making it far more difficult to be married, have children, and pursue other interests than you many have bargained for. Of course, graduate students do successfully balance several roles, but it is worth talking to several of them to get a sense of what's at stake. In addition to all of these factors, graduate school can be incredibly expensive; although many graduate students receive tuition waivers as a part of a teaching or research assistantship, most end up taking out thousands of dollars of loans each year in order to pay tuition (ranging from $1000-5000 at a place like Iowa to as much as $20,000 at an Ivy League school) and to supplement their meager incomes. Since new professors make only $20,000 or $30,000, you will most likely be paying off this debt, in addition to any undergraduate debt, for years after you get your PhD.

What Are My Chances of Eventually Getting a Job Like My Professors' at Iowa?

The answer to this question is, extremely slim. As everyone bearing the GradSchool Look will eventually tell you, the job market for English PhDs is extremely competitive; you need to consider the fact that at the end of five to eight years of graduate work, you may face several years of job searching, an expensive and time-consuming process which often involves one to three-year stints as a visiting professor, and which may lead to a job very different from that which you dreamed of as an undergraduate: a writing professor at a community college, a professor at a small rural college or an inner city college, etc. In other words, you should not enter an English graduate program simply because you want to be a certain kind of English professor. You need to do some soul-searching in order to decide if the process will be worth it even if you do not ultimately get the job you hoped for.

How Do I Know If This is Right For Me?

As you can tell, graduate school in English demands a very specific type of person, one who is not only talented and hard-working enough to make it, but one who is willing to make a series of personal sacrifices. There are several ways to determine if you are this type of person: talking to your professors, advisors and other graduate students, enrolling in an M.A. program (which can introduce you to the profession without requiring the commitment of a PhD), or taking a few graduate courses while working at another job.

Where Can I Get More Information?

Definitely check out The University of Minnesota's page called "Applying to Graduate School." The best site which I have found, this gives detailed advice about program types, choosing the right program, admission factors, and timelines for the application process, as well as providing links to dozens of sites from the Princeton Review web page and GRE online to a huge and extremely useful site called Graduate School Planning (where I especially recommend Phil Agre's "Advice for Undergraduates Considering Graduate School"). This site also provides links to those at The University of Alabama and Connecticut College, among others. Also worth checking out are Indiana's "Advice for English Majors Applying to Graduate School in English." and The University of Pennsylvania's page. If, after careful consideration, you decide that you would like to apply to graduate schools, please consult "Applying to Graduate School in English: A Guide Down the Paper Trail" available here. Finally, be sure to visit the advising office for answers to all of your questions, as well as information about upcoming evening sessions dedicated to applying to graduate school, where you will have an opportunity to ask questions of a panel composed of faculty and graduate students on these and other subjects. The decision to apply to graduate school may be one of the most important of your life; we are dedicated to helping you make that decision a careful and informed one.