[Laurel Soup]

I dropped out of grad school, so take all this with a grain of salt:

Definitely dig through their department's website to figure out who you're advisor is most likely to be. Then send them a short introductory e-mail. When you make the admittance semi-finals, and say--the board doesn't think you have enough Latin--your advisor to be might just e-mail you to tell you that, and you can tell him how you just finished up a summer course.

Also do not believe the department websites. They don't get updated that often, and the 20 professors dealing with your specialty might in reality be three.

The GRE didn't appear to be a big deal. My grades and sample work seemed to carry more weight. That probably varies school to school, but I'd wager most academic types aren't too keen on standardized testing.
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