<p>This is the deal: I am graduating with my B.A. this winter from a public university in the Northwest— it's a decent school, but nothing super esteemed. I am currently applying to graduate programs for English, and I am really bad at gauging what my options are, realistically, so I was wondering if some of you could weigh in.</p>
<p>I anticipate to graduate with an overall GPA of 3.8, and around a 3.9 in my major GPA. </p>
<p>I took my GRE in November and did awful on the math (145), but I scored 159 in verbal reasoning, and scored 5 on my analytical writing section, which I've been told are both above average scores. As far as extra curriculars are concerned, I don't have a whole lot as I mostly worked nights throughout my time as an undergrad waiting tables— didn't have a lot of time for ECs. </p>
<p>That said, I did have a three month internship in the writing center at a local community college where I tutored college students, so I have that under my belt (worked with a lot of ELL students and others who just needed general help with academic writing). I also did unrelated volunteer work in high school doing errands for the elderly and things like that. This fall I completed an internship at a local farm teaching kids about sustainability and farming practices, but it was in correspondence with my university capstone requirements.</p>
<p>I have three letters of recommendation from people I'm comfortable with— one from a hard-ass of a professor who I took several classes with my junior and senior years, who I felt I learned most from. I sought him first because he pushed me and I did extremely well in his classes; he told me to rest assured that he would write me a very strong recommendation. My second letter is coming from the leader of the writing center where I was an intern. I worked with him for three months and he was a good mentor for me when it came to the art of "teaching" how to write. My last letter is coming from my capstone course instructor, who I sought because I wanted to have one of the letters in my application come from someone outside my main field for the sake of objectivity I suppose. She was a great professor and a really positive influence.</p>
<p>I have chipped away at my statement of purpose over the past five months. In it, I have lightly outlined my academic career, what I'm interested in in the field of literature and how I came to be interested in that, and briefly addressed my future goals. </p>
<p>All this considered, I am having a difficult time trying to gauge what I should be expecting with the stats/story I have. It may be absurd of me, but I don't really feel compelled to attend graduate school unless I can get into a solid program— I feel like going into a mediocre program is simply not worth my time or money. That said, I'm not banking on Harvard or Columbia or anything like that— I think I'm somewhat realistic, but you tell me. I am applying at the University of Washington, NYU, Fordham, and my current university (which I'm not even sure I'd want attend for grad school if I did get in). I know that NYU is probably a stretch, but I really have fallen in love with Fordham and am wondering if I have a fighting chance at their program. UW seems feasible, but still not necessarily easy to gain admittance to. </p>
<p>In all honesty, I am worried sick about this and am not sure I can deal with the next several months waiting to hear back from these schools. I feel like my entire future is hanging in the balance and I literally can't stop thinking about it. </p>
<p>There is a gap on my transcript in which I took a year off from school which bothers me a bit— I had cancer, but I didn't want to flat out say that in my statement of purpose, so I just acknowledged in a sentence that I had to take a year off from school due to a "serious illness." I avoided bringing that into the equation because I felt like it would be tacky and sympathy-seeking, but I had to acknowledge the year long gap in my records somehow.</p>
<p>Basically, I'm just unsure of myself and don't feel totally privy to what I should be reaching for in terms of graduate programs, or what realistic goals are for me. I have gotten some emails from the University of Chicago, USC, and Claremont asking me to apply to their programs (I believe this is because of my GRE scores), and my friends and family are confident in my applications because of this, but I feel like a lot of that is just schools reaching out for the sake of gaining more applicants; not necessarily because I'm good enough for them. </p>
<p>I know this is totally tl;dr, but I'm curious as to what other people would say based on this information. Are the schools I'm applying to totally out of reach? Is my head in the clouds on these? Like I said, I'd die to get into Fordham, but I'm not holding my breath on any of them because I don't really know what I'm worth to these schools. Help?</p>