The Classical Journal has a good site with writeups on graduate programs in Classics from around the country -- you can start here to begin learning where to apply.
cover letter/personal statement
writing sample
curriculum vitae
GREs
letters of recommendation
asking for help
*cover letter/personal statement*
This is a very important part of your application. It should probably not be more than three pages, double-spaced (and be sure the first part is interesting enough to encourage the members of the admissions committee to keep reading). It is an opportunity for you to create a personal narrative that "joins the dots" of your academic self.
The main purpose of your personal statement is to create a sense in the members of the admissions committee that you are going to succeed well and quickly in their program. In order to do this, you need to demonstrate that you are:
--the admissions committee wants to admit people who will do well in the program and whose work, both in the program and afterwards, will redound to the greater credit of the program--
Unlike the personal statement you wrote for college, this one does not need to give a sense of you as a well-rounded person. It needs to give a sense of you as a scholar. To this end, you may wish to talk about particular subjects, approaches, or areas you have found interesting, how your interests in them have developed, and how you think you wish to pursue them in graduate school. You may talk about particular changes in direction that you have experienced in your coursework and interests so far. You may talk about ways you perceive different courses or interests intersecting or augmenting each other.
You are creating a narrative of self that should give a sense of direction (past, present, and future). You want to convey the sense that you are now ideally situated to launch yourself in a particular way. You may in fact have several areas of interest you wish to pursue. You may wish to pursue something in a new direction now. That's all fine. Just be articulate about it.
It is possible to tie your writing sample into your personal statement in good ways. You might talk, for instance, about the ways in which the process of writing this paper sparked your interest in such-and-such, or the fact that you explored a particular approach in your writing sample that you want now to develop in a new direction, or whatever.
If your GRE scores are lower than you would wish, you can address that in your personal statement -- "My GRE scores are lower than my work in courses would have suggested and are the result of my inability to take standardized tests" or whatever.
If your first semester in undergraduate years shows your crash-and-burn approach to majoring in Engineering, say so now too -- "My low overall GPA is the result of an unfortunate first semester in the College of Engineering; my GPA in Classics-related courses is a more satisfactory 3.97" or whatever.
Your personal statement should be geared to each specific program to which you are sending it. You want to talk about why the program will help you reach your goals -- talk about that program's strengths in key areas (subject matter, areas of strength in overall faculty interests, library holdings, fieldwork possibilities, funding, study abroad opportunities, papyrus or other collections, etc.). Be sure to have done enough research into that program that you know what they have to offer and can tailor your personal statement to that. For instance, do not leave in a blanket claim to be interested in the orality of Homer if you are applying somewhere with no Greek scholars. Opinions vary about the advisability of mentioning specific scholars with whom you wish to work. Some feel that this is a bad idea, since individuals retire or leave, and you don't want to give the admissions committee the impression that there is only one person on the entire faculty who would interest you. Others feel that contacting individual scholars who share your interests is a very good idea: they will usually be forthright about their career plans, and it can be very helpful to have an advocate on the faculty at the time the admissions committee receives your application.
Avoid praising or criticizing the work of particular scholars or approaches in your personal statement, as you will almost certainly raise the hackles of one or more members of the admissions committee.
Be sure to proofread carefully before sending in your statement -- replace all those "Berkeleys" with "Harvards" *before* you send it off.
You have to walk a fine line between modesty and self-confidence. Do not assume you will be accepted, or that you know everything about a subject. Convey instead a sense of someone who is fascinated by various aspects of the field, has thought about them seriously already, and hopes to be able to take advantage of the possibilities offered by this particular program to continue learning about these particular things.
This is the second area of your application you really have influence over. Grades are in, GREs are over, and you can't write your own letters of recommendation (usually). So it's your personal statement and your writing sample that give the admissions committee a sense of how you perceive your academic self.
Your writing sample should be as good, polished, well-researched, thoroughly thought through, articulate, persuasive, and exciting as you can make it. It does NOT need to be an example of a paper you turned in for class, unchanged since that time. Indeed, it *should* not be. Most of all, *DO NOT* do what I did: xerox a paper you turned in and got back, complete with comments, and send that off to graduate schools....
Take a paper that was originally excellent and rework it to incorporate all the comments you received on it. Then give it to one or more faculty members to read and incorporate their new comments. Make it as good as you possibly can. It will have a big impact on how the admissions committee thinks of you.
Do not expect the committee to read the whole thing. The beginning should be excellent. Many people on committees will not read past the first two or three pages -- make them good.
Do not turn in something longer than 20 pages. Shorter is fine. Be sure your bibliography is up-to-date and full. If you have images, be sure they are good and you have cited their sources adequately.
Expect that your writing sample will be passed around the department to whichever members of the faculty are most knowledgeable in the area you discuss. Your work does not have to be publishable! But it has to be good enough that it will make a favorable impression on someone with real expertise in the field.
If you can, polish up a paper that is at least somewhat related to the areas you claimed were of special interest to you in your personal statement. If a paper you wrote for a completely unrelated class is far and away your best effort, you may consider sending that in, but try to find something related.
In your personal statement, mention something important or interesting to you as a scholar about your writing sample. Did it open your mind to something? Did it change your direction of interest? Does it exemplify an approach you want to continue pursuing? Etc.
Nobody expects you to have done much yet. But make this look professional and carefully-done, anyway. This is part of "packaging yourself as someone who will succeed well and quickly in the program." Do not hand-write it. Print it on nice paper. Check for spelling and spacing errors.
It need be only one page long, but that page should be full. Some of you have teaching experience etc.; list it. You can list ancient authors you've read, or languages in which you've passed graduate exams (not course exams, but -- for instance, PhD qualifying exams in German and French). Be sure to orient it all towards yourself as a scholar. If you have been playing intramural volleyball all along, and you need something to fill up the page, go ahead and list it -- but think of a good category or explanation why this is worth mentioning on a Classics c.v. (nothing is springing to my mind but perhaps you could talk about teamwork??).
The higher, the better. If you have low GREs, mind you, do not panic: this will not automatically exclude you from consideration even at excellent programs. You may wish to mention them directly in your personal statement, however, as mentioned above.
If you think you can do much better than you did already, by all means retake the GRE. It is probably not worth retaking them more than once, though.
If you have very high GREs, that will help you. Some places, like Harvard, will tend to have students with GRE scores mostly in the upper 700s, but even there you will find people with GRE scores well down into the 600s. Some places have much lower GRE scores overall and still produce excellent students who sail into jobs immediately upon completion of their degrees. Do not let your GREs dishearten you.
You should think of four people to write for you, even though most places only require three letters. Some require four. Those people should ideally be recognized scholars in the field who know you well. If you can avoid asking a graduate student TA for a letter, do. Pick people with whom you have had at least one small-ish class in which you have done well. At least one of your letters should be from a faculty member with interests or areas of expertise at least vaguely related to what you claimed were yours in your personal statement.
Ask for letters at least six weeks before they are due.
Provide your recommenders with samples of your personal statement and your transcript (unofficial printout is fine). This will help them write a letter tailored to your current needs. If you have it, provide them also with your c.v. Be sure to give them a list of due dates for each program to which you are applying, and include addressed and stamped envelopes if you are asking them to send snail-mail letters. If you have taught and can provide them with FCQ results or with a teaching statement you have written, do that. If you have a copy of work you have submitted to them (exams, papers, etc.), include that too -- most faculty teach so many students that it is hard for them to remember specific details about your work unless they happen to take notes on it on their computers and have access to those files as they write for you. Remember: the more information your professors have when they write for you, the better!
If you take a class with someone that goes very well, and you feel you would like that person to write for you but you don't think you are likely to study with him or her again, ask him or her right after the semester is over to write a letter for you to put into your file. You can be clear that you will be applying for <whatever> in the future and would like to have a letter in your file from the person. Even if you are not applying right away for anything, this will be of great help to your recommender: this way, he or she will have a letter about you ready for use and editing when you actually are ready to use it. If you are not certain what you might want the letter for, pick the most demanding thing -- say, applying to PhD programs -- and then if you apply for summer study abroad sessions the letter can easily be reworked. It's much harder to beef up a letter for someone you no longer remember very well as an intellect than to revise something too rigorous.
Waive your right to read letters. If you do not, the readers will not take seriously the good things your recommenders say about you.
It is not only okay but a good idea to ask people outright if they could write a good letter for you, or what kind of letter they could write for you. In general parlance, the scale is "fair - warm - good - very good - excellent - outstanding." There is some variability in how people use these terms. But I'm telling you this so you will know that "good" is actually not at the top of the scale.
Do it. You can ask as many people as you like for help. All the faculty will be glad to read your statements, talk with you about your work, and help you think about where to apply. Each faculty member will have a different opinion, and each faculty member will be sure that his or her opinion is the most valid. You need to hear as many opinions as possible to figure out what will work best for you. Do this tactfully, and at least convey the semblance of respectful attention....