The Bad Place
Avram is in in a bad place. I understand. We, collectively, understand.
Avram, when a certain friend of ours applied to the Ph.D. program, I was with him, not just in spirit, but physically. Let's just call him J.. I remember the day when I said, "hey J., have you mailed out your transcripts yet?" The transcripts were do at all of his schools in three weeks. All schools have a two to three week expected arrival date for transcripts. He was,in fact, pressing his luck for not having transcripts ordered. So, J. and I walked the 100 yards necessary to get the transcripts. We walked this route together because I did not trust him to do it alone.
First trip: "oh my God! Where's my form for Rutgers?!?"
Second trip: "Oh my God! Where's my wallet?!?"
Third trip: "Oh my God! Where's my checkbook?!? No, I won't take a loan from you for a day. You're treating me like a child!"
Fourth trip: Honestly, I don't know what was said on the fourth trip. I got so damned fed up that I couldn't manage to juggle his self imposed personal crisis. He had to do this one alone.
J. is not alone in his neurosis. I myself had to go to Sacramento to get my transcripts from Sacramento State. I could not for the life of me figure out how to order them over the phone (a task that took five minutes once relieved of the joy of having some menial little something or other decide my whole future). I applied to twenty schools, Avram--twenty!!! My file was complete for only fourteen of them. That means that I screwed up six envelopes worth of application. To give everyone some idea of how easy it is to stuff an envelope:
To Grad School--Application, check
To English Department--Writing Sample, Personal Statement, Letters of Recommendation
Just to be sure I duplicated all material and stuffed all of it into BOTH envelopes (except for the check). Having done that, I still managed to fuck it up six times. It took me four hours to stuff forty envelopes.
My writing sample? Well, I didn't notice that Tasso was the worst possible choice of writers. First of all, I'm twentieth century, he's sixteenth. I deal with literature in English, he writes in Italian (I don't know Italian, and I wasn't applying for Comparitive Literature). I deal with novels, he writes epic poetry. Moreover, no one has ever read Tasso except Karen Hatch. I might as well have said, "here, could you throw this away for me, please?"
J.'s writing sample? Until the night before the last possible day he could send it, it was a collection of paragraphs interspersed by commentary like this:
. He would then skip three pages, literally just include three blank pages, to indicate the space that needed to be filled with this explanation.
I hated my writing sample--HATED IT!!! I thought many times of burning it in the yard, knowing that with the flames would go my last shred of sanity, and perhaps the only thing that kept me sane was the knowledge that if I went, nobody would be around to change J.'s sentences like "epistemological skepticism apriori is indicative of a cultural matrices that both affects, and is affected by, constructs outside the philosophy qua philosophy," to, "A person's belief system is shaped by the culture in which they live."
I could not sleep. I could not eat. I did little besides chain smoke and read books on the Inquisition and the Crusades--and when a moment of relief came, I pretty much filled it with alcohol.
End result: no grad school for me.
Next year, not nearly as bad and I made it in. I don't know that I could have taken a third try. I'll be honest about that. Had I not gotten in, I would very likely have applied to law school.
So, I know where you are Avram. I really do. You can't be worse off than J. and he made it in. So, I'm going to give you the same advice I gave him--it seemed to help. Ready, here goes:
I DON'T CARE HOW FUCKING STRESSED YOU FEEL, IF YOU WANT TO GET INTO A PH.D. PROGRAM YOU WILL SEND ME YOUR WRITING SAMPLE AND YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT.
Believe me, I only shout because I care. Now, do it. Please.
Avram, when a certain friend of ours applied to the Ph.D. program, I was with him, not just in spirit, but physically. Let's just call him J.. I remember the day when I said, "hey J., have you mailed out your transcripts yet?" The transcripts were do at all of his schools in three weeks. All schools have a two to three week expected arrival date for transcripts. He was,in fact, pressing his luck for not having transcripts ordered. So, J. and I walked the 100 yards necessary to get the transcripts. We walked this route together because I did not trust him to do it alone.
First trip: "oh my God! Where's my form for Rutgers?!?"
Second trip: "Oh my God! Where's my wallet?!?"
Third trip: "Oh my God! Where's my checkbook?!? No, I won't take a loan from you for a day. You're treating me like a child!"
Fourth trip: Honestly, I don't know what was said on the fourth trip. I got so damned fed up that I couldn't manage to juggle his self imposed personal crisis. He had to do this one alone.
J. is not alone in his neurosis. I myself had to go to Sacramento to get my transcripts from Sacramento State. I could not for the life of me figure out how to order them over the phone (a task that took five minutes once relieved of the joy of having some menial little something or other decide my whole future). I applied to twenty schools, Avram--twenty!!! My file was complete for only fourteen of them. That means that I screwed up six envelopes worth of application. To give everyone some idea of how easy it is to stuff an envelope:
To Grad School--Application, check
To English Department--Writing Sample, Personal Statement, Letters of Recommendation
Just to be sure I duplicated all material and stuffed all of it into BOTH envelopes (except for the check). Having done that, I still managed to fuck it up six times. It took me four hours to stuff forty envelopes.
My writing sample? Well, I didn't notice that Tasso was the worst possible choice of writers. First of all, I'm twentieth century, he's sixteenth. I deal with literature in English, he writes in Italian (I don't know Italian, and I wasn't applying for Comparitive Literature). I deal with novels, he writes epic poetry. Moreover, no one has ever read Tasso except Karen Hatch. I might as well have said, "here, could you throw this away for me, please?"
J.'s writing sample? Until the night before the last possible day he could send it, it was a collection of paragraphs interspersed by commentary like this:
I hated my writing sample--HATED IT!!! I thought many times of burning it in the yard, knowing that with the flames would go my last shred of sanity, and perhaps the only thing that kept me sane was the knowledge that if I went, nobody would be around to change J.'s sentences like "epistemological skepticism apriori is indicative of a cultural matrices that both affects, and is affected by, constructs outside the philosophy qua philosophy," to, "A person's belief system is shaped by the culture in which they live."
I could not sleep. I could not eat. I did little besides chain smoke and read books on the Inquisition and the Crusades--and when a moment of relief came, I pretty much filled it with alcohol.
End result: no grad school for me.
Next year, not nearly as bad and I made it in. I don't know that I could have taken a third try. I'll be honest about that. Had I not gotten in, I would very likely have applied to law school.
So, I know where you are Avram. I really do. You can't be worse off than J. and he made it in. So, I'm going to give you the same advice I gave him--it seemed to help. Ready, here goes:
I DON'T CARE HOW FUCKING STRESSED YOU FEEL, IF YOU WANT TO GET INTO A PH.D. PROGRAM YOU WILL SEND ME YOUR WRITING SAMPLE AND YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT.
Believe me, I only shout because I care. Now, do it. Please.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
11:22 AM
3 Comments:
Avram,
SEND MONSTRO YOUR FUCKING WRITING SAMPLE AND PERSONAL STATEMENT AND DO IT NOW!!
I went through a disasterous year of rejections too- not getting funding at a single program I applied to. The next time around I sat at my computer and cried for days before finally producing a writing sample that matched what I wanted to do. To this day I can't tell your whether it is any good or not because I've never read it again.
I'm sending my good karma your way.
Such funny people. I laugh out loud at you all. He Hee hee. Will send writing sample and personal statement to get hounds of hell off my back. Because I appreciate all the care and help. And you are all such wonderful people.
But ...
Such folly is of little applicable value since I hath already sent everything away. Far away where it will do the most good. It goes to a wonderful, far off better place.
I sent everything by both WASTE and regular post just in case. A plethora of personally constructed clay postal golems with official U.S. Mail Lunchboxes for heads were imbued with incantational postal script by the light of the last full moon. A futher army hath been constructed to obey my every whim should I be forced to lay siege to any program foolish enough not to accept me. Eagles have been sent to inform each departmental patriarch of this, and have been instructed to nest on top of their computer monitors until I personally appear on campus triumphant.
I have submitted both regular paper and online application forms. Graduate office, individual program coordinators, department secretaries, graduate advisors, The Secret Departmental Gnarg, and the department chair of each program have been sent huge padded insured envelopes with all transcripts, personal statements, writing sample, CV's, Spongebob Squarepants AND Jean Toomer Commemorative Literary Chanukah Gelt, Application Forms, Letters of Recommendation, Teaching Statements, pertinent measurements, and 8 X 10 glossies.
Remember, this is try number 3 for me. I got y'all beat in the "why the hell am I doing this again field." Now maybe I have become a master of the wrong way to apply true, but I applied to 15 programs this year, 18 last year, and 5 the year before that. And before you mention said track record of 37 failures -- I did get into one program that didn't give me any funding or means of getting to them. Their loss. I have given them another opportunity to welcome my ass back to their fold.
There comes a point when no matter how crappy you feel something is -- it's as done as its a gonna get. Send it off and deal with POSSIBLE rejection later. I know my limits. I know how long I can procrastinate. I know at what point I will no longer improve.
I pushed things as far as I could. It is December 18th. The last weekend before Mr. Christ and his Frankincense Trio put everything on hold. We are coming up on the always afeared Christmas mailing horrorshow. Then New Years. Application deadlines for this last batch are January 15th. No one will be at any of the schools until at least the second week of January anyway.
You do the math.
I'm done. I'm ebullient. I feel good about myself, good about what went out in the mail, good about my chances. I even felt so good that I actually enjoyed the idea, and carried out the impulse, of buying the whole Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy on DVD. That's right -- all 3 years of the war on 953 disks. And I'm thinking I may watch them. I may even watch the 17 extra years of Peter Jackson commentary. Including the hidden easter egg where Jackson dresses up as a Feeble and snorts heroin off Frodo's backside.
I'm on the upswing of the moodswing baby. Babbling boisterously, running wild, and ready to inflict some blue haired lunacy on all 15 of those programs.
congratulations.
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