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[mountainguy]

I'm in communication studies/rhetoric, which is slightly less competitive in terms of admissions standards than other humanities. As a graduate student, I'm not privy to the deliberations of the admissions committee in my department. However, it's my understanding that the number one reason the committee rejects "qualified" applicants (with high GRE scores and GPAs) is because their expressed research interests do not align with faculty members in the department. Similarly, the committee will be suspicious of unfocused applicants that express interest in a particular research area without showing that the applicant understand what that area really entails.

I also second librarianx's suggestion to talk to as many potential advisors as you can before beginning the application process. Conferences are an especially good place for this. While it's not necessary to do this (I had never met--or even heard of--my eventual advisor while I was applying), it will help you to figure out who is interested in your work and who isn't. During my MA program, I approached a well-known scholar in my field to inquire about the doctoral program at his school. He replied that his department "wasn't the best fit" my research area and that I would be "well-advised to look elsewhere, perhaps at School X's program."  I was taken aback at the time, but in retrospect, his honesty was refreshing. It spared me the $75+ in unnecessary application/GRE fees.

[roarheels]

I did an inordinate amount of apps over three years in a tight humanities field. For me, I now break it down in three categories. My field always has walk on water type folks who get five admits right away. Credentials are always top 20 undergrads with 1500+ GRE and stellar languages (hugely important in my field). Behind them come those that fit a particular program and have happened to have found where that actually is (as evidenced this took me a while). Most programs get these people, as those who walk on water are often highly recruited. Those who fit have a great advantage therefore.  Finally, there are the lucky ones, who find a faculty member really interested in them and who takes a liking to their application. I have a good friend who gained an admit to a program for which he did not apply and matched nearly none of the credentials. A prof (my advisor), with whom he had taken courses as part of his program at a different uni, really liked his work. Consequently, even though he could not be admitted in this profs.' (and my) home dept, the prof found him a slot in a related field with funding. Two years previously, the reverse had happened to me. Only instead of receiving an application transfer, I was denied the first year and instructed to switch my application to a different department the second year into which I was admitted. There is no rhyme or reason to this process. My credentials match the other dept really well and my friend's match mine. The process has been really difficult to understand, particularly for my friend as he is now being crushed under a curriculum structure for which he had little preparation (missing a language). In the end, I think that it rarely makes sense, and all you can do is make as many visits possible to a uni you want to attend. I would go so far as to take a class with an advisor in a very tight field. Of all the admits the two depts I have been involved with have made over the past three years, most have been people with some limited institution tie though not a full undergrad degree from the school. I.e. they took a course, they went on a summer program with a prof, etc...These ties are key and they are the only real way to get full information about anything. I spent hours last semester answering prospective emails from students interested in my program only to find out in March that my program made no offers in my subfield. Only professors really know how something is decided, and only they can really help if you get denied.

[hegemony]

This "finding a fit" is not how it works in my department at all.  The admissions committee is made up of three faculty members from different fields.  Different people are appointed to the committee every year, and they couldn't possibly cover all the fields we offer, as we offer far more than three fields.  Applicants often (but not always) specify what field they're interested in.  But we also know that some applicants will change fields once they get here.  So some applicants say "I'm interested in literature," and we think, "She'll find her niche once she gets here."  And then some say, "I'm interested in the nineteenth century," and we think, "She'll figure out what aspects of the nineteenth century she wants to specialize in once she gets here."  And some say, "I'm interested in the effects of the early Poor Laws on representations of female vagrant children," and we think, "That must have been a nice seminar paper. She'll figure out what else she's interested in once she gets here."  We don't think, "We have no experts on the Poor Laws and so this applicant shouldn't come here."  We just assume she'll find some common ground with a faculty member once she's here.  If she's met up with a faculty member at a conference, they might shoot us an e-mail: "I met Rhonda Smith at the Vagrancy Conference, she's applying, seems good, do consider her" -- and we'll look at her file and make exactly the same decision we were going to make before.  However, the fact that there are only three people on the committee does make it a crapshoot when it comes to very outré topics.  I myself have a liking for less "academic", more pop-culture topics, and I have hectored the committee until we accepted three applications from people studying subjects that others on the committee tended to dismiss.  (A writing sample analyzing Brazilian waxing on "Sex and the City" comes to mind.)  So if you favor outré subjects, who you happen to get on the admissions committee could make the crucial difference.

[minnesotan]

A writing sample analyzing Brazilian waxing on "Sex and the City" comes to mind.

O tempora!  O mores!

I cannot imagine a self-respecting academic writing on such an inane topic.  Why not a voting analysis of the last two seasons of American Idol?  Themes of competition and collaboration in Survivor? 

What a valuable addition to humanity's pool of knowledge.

Sigh.

[sciencephd]

A writing sample analyzing Brazilian waxing on "Sex and the City" comes to mind.

Hopefully it was at least compared/contrasted with the brazilian waxing scene in the latest episode of Orange County Housewives. 

Honestly, this is the kind of stuff that has the potential to debase the intellectual reputation of a department.

[hegemony]

No, it was actually fascinating.  A very, very smart analysis.