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Nov. 4th, 2011 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jenni_the_oddAfter more research, I've added four more schools to my list: Texas Tech, Western Michigan, Missouri, and Southern Mississippi.
My GRE scores were online, though ETS said they wouldn't be available until next week. I did about as well as I thought I would on the verbal and math sections (94th and 74th percentiles, respectively, since my math skills have deteriorated significantly since high school) but bombed the analytical writing something awful (48th percentile), which is weird. I don't remember feeling like I had any problems with it. No way of knowing what I did wrong or just didn't do, either, which pisses me off. I handle failure a lot better when I'm told where/why I failed.
The literature GRE is next Saturday, and I am dreading it. There's SO MUCH material to cover, and I am not at all even a little prepared. It's 230 questions, two and a half hours, and the material it's pulled from is the major works of the entire English literary canon (including poetry, novels, plays, and criticism). It is a nightmare test.
I have to keep reminding myself not to get my hopes up; that there's a very, VERY good chance I won't get in anywhere. I don't have an MFA, the degrees I've got are from a tiny university no one's heard of, I have virtually no background in literature, and my test scores aren't all that amazing. I've never been published anywhere but the tiny magazine from my tiny university. On top of that, Creative Writing/Literature PhD programs are crazy-competitive, and most only accept a few people per year. It's just not at all likely that any school is going to take me.
My GRE scores were online, though ETS said they wouldn't be available until next week. I did about as well as I thought I would on the verbal and math sections (94th and 74th percentiles, respectively, since my math skills have deteriorated significantly since high school) but bombed the analytical writing something awful (48th percentile), which is weird. I don't remember feeling like I had any problems with it. No way of knowing what I did wrong or just didn't do, either, which pisses me off. I handle failure a lot better when I'm told where/why I failed.
The literature GRE is next Saturday, and I am dreading it. There's SO MUCH material to cover, and I am not at all even a little prepared. It's 230 questions, two and a half hours, and the material it's pulled from is the major works of the entire English literary canon (including poetry, novels, plays, and criticism). It is a nightmare test.
I have to keep reminding myself not to get my hopes up; that there's a very, VERY good chance I won't get in anywhere. I don't have an MFA, the degrees I've got are from a tiny university no one's heard of, I have virtually no background in literature, and my test scores aren't all that amazing. I've never been published anywhere but the tiny magazine from my tiny university. On top of that, Creative Writing/Literature PhD programs are crazy-competitive, and most only accept a few people per year. It's just not at all likely that any school is going to take me.
