1. When to apply? If you are absolutely sure about what you want, and if you are in a good position to supply the kinds of material that graduate programs in English customarily require in their applications, then there is no reason not to complete the application process in the fall of your senior year. Applications for most schools are due sometime in the month of January for the following academic year.

First, what if you're not absolutely sure what you want? Our own Director of Graduate Studies will tell you that very few of our beginning students are 21 or 22; most have been out of school for a year or two. There are several good reasons for waiting. You buy time to think through what you really want to do, and you may also be able to put aside some money to help you through the first year or so of a graduate program when fellowship money is tight and competition for it is fierce. You may also have time to improve your credentials, giving you a better chance of getting into the graduate school of your choice (more about credentials in a minute). And it is also true that the job market for Ph.D.s is very bad right now and might improve. And you might just decide not to go to graduate school in English. It tends to be a long haul for most students--eight or nine years from the B.A. is not unusual in our program at IU. After a large investment of time, money, and energy, you might finish and either not get a job or else get one which is distinctly inferior to the kind of position you thought you were looking for.

Second, are you in a good position to supply the kind of material graduate schools require? One hurdle is the GRE exam (see number 3 below): you could use some extra time preparing for the GRE and the Literature in English subject exam (practicing test taking, doing additional reading, etc.) and doubtless improve your score. You could also work on the longer paper many schools require by way of a writing sample, and you could always do further work in your first foreign language and begin a second.

2. How to prepare for graduate school If you start by looking at some graduate school catalogues with descriptions of their programs and applications, you will quickly get an idea of the kind of profile they are expecting. Obviously you want to have good grades, especially in your English courses, but you should also consider joining the Department's Honors program. In it you will get the training in writing a longer paper of the sort that many graduate schools will ask you to submit. An important by-product of writing a senior thesis or essay is that at least one faculty member will know your work quite well and will be in a position to write about it and you in some detail. Given the conventional nature of the kind of knowledge tested in the Literature in English subject exam, you will want to develop a good working knowledge of British and American literary history in all periods and you will also want to take a course in literary criticism, for the Literature exam assumes some knowledge here. In addition to the usual course work and the Honors program, you should try to distinguish yourself in as many ways as possible--through editorial and/or teaching internships, through winning various literary prizes for essays or creative writing, through taking independent study courses, etc. Also consider taking an independent study course in an area of special interest. You will be asking your professors to write letters of recommendation for you, so make a point of getting to know them. Consider starting a second language and/or improving reading skills in the first. Consider doing a double major.

3. The GRE and the subject test, Literature in English The GRE is an aptitude test on the order of the SAT, and preparation for it would be similar. There are "prep" books by Barron's and ARCO that you can consult in the Undergraduate Library or purchase in the local bookstores. Alternatively, you can take a course from Kaplan Test Prep (421 E Third St./339-0084). It's expensive ($999 as of Fall 2002) and it sounds pretty thorough; if you aren't good at these tests, it might be worth it. Scores aren't everything, but they do constitute a kind of base line for many schools. If your scores aren't at least up to a certain level, schools may not take much trouble with the rest of your application.

The subject test, Literature in English, assumes a conventional but thorough knowledge of British and American literature from all periods plus an acquaintance with history and kinds of literary criticism. The obvious route to preparation is a lot of reading, and if you start early enough you can enlarge your background by taking not only the survey courses but also period courses, together with our English L371 course, Introduction to Criticism. Kaplan doesn't offer a course for this exam, but again, as with the GRE, there are "prep" books to consult at the library or better still to purchase for yourself. One piece of traditional advice is to spend the summer before you take the subject test re-reading all the literary texts and all the headnote and introductions in a good standard survey of English and American literature, such as the Norton anthologies.

The GRE general test is given on-line.The English subject test is still taken the traditional way--on paper--on designated test dates. For information and applications, write to Graduate Record Examinations / Educational Testing Services / PO Box 6014 / Princeton, NJ 08541-6014, or log on to the GRE website (www.gre.org). ETS publishes test-preparation information and sample tests, including Practicing to Take the GRE General Test, 9th edition, and Practicing to Take the GRE Literature in English Test, 3rd edition. Copies of these and related materials are available in the Career Reference section of the Undergraduate Library. The IU Bookstore, Borders, and Barnes & Noble carry an array of useful titles.

Obviously you ought to begin to collect information about the tests well before your senior year.

4. Selecting Schools In deciding on which schools to apply to, you should have some idea of your ultimate professional goals and reasonable expectations of where you might hope to be admitted. Probably you expect to teach at a college or university, but what kind of school? At one end of the scale are research institutions with relatively light course loads but high expectations for continuous research and publication. It's very difficult to get a job at such universities, and tenure (normally awarded at the end of six years) depends on a substantial amount of publication as well as excellence in teaching. At the other end of the scale, are schools with heavy teaching schedules, often involving the grading of hundreds of papers each semester. In between there are very good liberal arts schools and universities where one can combine teaching and research without some of the intense pressures of the top universities. When you apply to a graduate program, ask yourself what kind of job you are likely to get with a degree from that school.

Find out the strengths of the programs at the schools you are interested in, especially whether the program is strong in areas in which you think you might specialize.

Finally make a realistic estimate of your chances of being admitted.

Do some research to help you decide where to apply. Many schools now provide their program information on the World Wide Web, and the undergraduate library has microfiches of the bulletins of most graduate schools as well as standard reference books such as Peterson's Guide to Graduate Programs. Ask for help at the reference desk. When you read the bulletins on line or in print, take down the names of faculty who teach courses you're interested in and check IUCAT or a reference bibliography like MLA to see what they've written. If you do decide to apply, it will be helpful to show awareness of a department's strengths and to mention professors you hope to study with. Talk to your own faculty about schools, especially to those who are fairly recent graduates. At the back of the booklet Designing an English Major (available in the main office and the advising office), you'll find a list of faculty with dates and schools of their Ph.D.s and a list of their interests.

Once you have informed yourself, you'll want to apply to a range of schools, which you might think of in the following categories: 1) The very best, where you think you have even a slight chance of getting in; 2) Excellent, where you'd be pleased to be admitted; 3) Good, where you'd be willing to go. Some geographical distribution might also be advisable. Indiana students tend to know schools in the midwest, east, and midatlantic areas. But don't fail to consider the south, southwest, west, and northwest where there are fine schools, a few of which may have more financial aid to offer.

5. Financial Aid If you have a truly outstanding academic record, inquire about the Mellon and Javits Fellowships, for which you may be nominated. Needless to say, these are very hard to get.

Private universities generally have somewhat more and better financial aid packages to offer than most public institutions. Like Mellon fellowships, these go to the top applicants in the country. Public universities also offer a limited number of fellowships.

The most common form of financial aid comes in the form of teaching fellowships. Most universities rely heavily on graduate students to staff freshman composition and other lower division courses. Find out what sort of teaching fellowships are available and what percentage of first-year and second-year students normally get them. Quite a few large graduate programs in English, including our program at IU, do not normally give teaching assistantships to first-year graduate students.

6. Help with the application process When you ask faculty to write recommendations for you, provide them with a list of courses you've taken from them and, if possible, the best paper(s) and exam(s) you wrote for them. Also supply pre-addressed and stamped envelopes.

The success of your application may depend on your personal statement and writing sample. It's legitimate to ask someone on the faculty--perhaps someone writing a recommendation for you--to look at these and make suggestions for improving them. Or you may take them to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, who can arrange for an anonymous review by a member of the Undergraduate Studies Committee.