PREPARING FOR GRADUATE STUDY
English majors considering graduate school should consider the following recommendations:
A) Talk to your advisors about directing you to faculty members qualified in your areas of interest with whom you can discuss plans. Be aware that it takes time to initiate, develop, and maintain contact and communication with faculty. You will need strong letters of support for acceptance to top graduate programs.
B) Seek advice about advanced study at least one or two years before you graduate.
C) Get a general understanding of the numerous fields of specialization possible in English at the Masters level—Professional Writing; Creative Writing, Theory Emphasis, Popular Culture or Cultural Studies, English as a Second Language, Certifications for Teachers, Trade and Academic publishing, Journalism, Advertising and Business Communications, Independent Scholars. Each of these fields has different admission requirements.
D) Spend time looking up the websites of several English departments. Our English dept has a link to these sites and it is very easy to access them.
E) Read course descriptions carefully before signing up. In addition to taking courses that are topic oriented, take courses that offer a “survey” of the field or period. Each category in our curriculum has at least one course that will offer a broad introduction to the field or period. (The catalog descriptions are helpful in determining which courses to look out for.)
F) Familiarize yourself with key figures and terms in theory and criticism. Avoid specializing in only one or two of your favorite theoretical fields—feminism, postcolonial discourse, deconstruction, etc.—and instead develop a good grasp of the central debates and conversations that these fields have addressed and are continuing to address.
G) Make plans well in advance to take the GRE General and Subject tests.
GRE GENERAL AND SUBJECT TESTS
Sampling of GRE Admission Requirements for Masters in English
Mid America
Iowa State University
General = required; Subject = not required
University of Illinois , Chicago
General = required; Subject = not required
Loyola University Chicago
General = required; Subject = required
New England
University of Massachusetts @ Amherst
General = required; Subject = required
Brown University , RI
General = required; Subject = required
New York University
General = required; Subject = required
University of Maine
General = required; Subject = not required
Greater South
University of Alabama
General = required; Subject = recommended, not required
Florida Atlantic University
General = required; Subject = not required
Florida State University
General = required; Subject = required
Georgia State University
General = required; Subject = not required
University of Georgia
General = required for Masters; Subject = required for Ph.D.
West
University of California @ Sonoma ( Sonoma State University )
General = not specified; Subject = required (65 th percentile) after admission to gain candidacy OR grade of B or better on Dept. Comprehensive Exam
University of Colorado
General = required for Masters; Subject = required for Ph.D.
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SUBJECT TEST: LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Two issues seem worth noting: a clear emphasis on periods/history and a major focus on British literature, with American literature coming in second.
Each edition of the test contains approximately 230 questions on poetry, drama, biography, the essay, the short story, the novel, criticism, literary theory, and the history of the language. Some questions are based on short works reprinted in their entirety, some on excerpts from longer works. The test draws on literature in English from the British Isles, the United States, and other parts of the world. It also contains a few questions on major works, including the Bible, translated from other languages.
The test emphasizes authors, works, genres, and movements. The questions may be somewhat arbitrarily classified into two groups: factual and critical. The factual questions may require a student to identify characteristics of literary or critical movements, to assign a literary work to the period in which it was written, to identify a writer or work described in a brief critical comment, or to determine the period or author of a work on the basis of the style and content of a short excerpt. The critical questions test the ability to read a literary text perceptively. Students are asked to examine a given passage of prose or poetry and to answer questions about meaning, form and structure, literary techniques, and various aspects of language.
The approximate distribution of questions according to content categories is indicated by the following outline.
• Literary Analysis 40-55%
Questions that call on an ability to interpret given passages of prose and poetry. Such questions may involve recognition of conventions and genres, allusions and references, meaning and tone, grammatical structures and rhetorical strategies, and literary techniques.
• Identification 15-20%
Recognition of date, author, or work by style and/or content (for literary theory identifications see IV below).
• Cultural and Historical Contexts 20-25%
Questions on literary, cultural, and intellectual history, as well as identification of author or work through a critical statement or biographical information. Also identification of details of character, plot, or setting of a work.
• History and Theory of Literary Criticism 10-15%
Identification and analysis of the characteristics and methods of various critical and theoretical approaches.
The literary-historical scope of the test follows the distribution below.
1. Continental, Classical, and Comparative Literature through 1925 |
5-10% |
2. British Literature to 1660 (including Milton) |
25-30% |
3. British Literature 1660-1925 |
30-35% |
4. American Literature through 1925 |
15-25% |
5. American, British, and World Literatures after 1925 |
20-25% |
No one is expected to answer all the questions correctly; in fact, it is possible to achieve the maximum score without answering all the questions correctly.
Notes:
# Some schools also specify the scores on GRE general. Often they are above 500 for the verbal section. A few schools also specified combined verbal plus analytical or quantitative. All cautioned that scores are part of a broader evaluative process including several factors.
# The GRE website has a 2002 edition practice test. Take the test and check out your score. It will give you a general idea about your preparedness for the test.
Visit the GRE website for even more information!