avflinsch

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I did mine in person, but did take a few online courses It seemed to me that the online classes were way more time consuming than the traditional offering. The actual amount of work was probably the same, but the constant checking in and review of the class discussion forums was annoying. The asynchronous nature of the online classes also makes immediate feedback impossible.

Welcome to the new normal.

I was responding more generically for PhD admissions, and a writing sample is not required for all programs. I would probably put in the same place as the personal statement. I am in Info Sci, and no writing sample was required, but I also did my undergrad & masters in the same department, so I was a 'known quantity' according to the faculty members I interviewed with. I do know that some folks were asked to provide a writing sample but it was not part of the main application package.

This is what seems to filter process for admissions - Coarse filter - test scores & grades Medium filter - LORs Fine filter - personal or purpose statements Very Fine filter - overall fit for the program and faculty availability based on research interests. It is that last filter that is the most important. If there is not a faculty member that is willing to take you on based on how well your interests match theirs then you probably will not get in. This is a pretty arbitrary decision in many cases, and hinges on what is in your personal statement and any interview you may have.

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Look at the bright side - You are not on the reject list yet You are on the 'will consider - we just need more info' list

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PhD and Ph.D. - both are correct, as long as you were consistent there shouldn't be a problem. 8pt font - you are totally screwed (just kidding ), Most folks will notice, but probably won't care.

I have a commute that is about 1 hour each way, I am also working full time and doing the PhD part time. Fortunately I do work for the university, and my department does allow me to be somewhat flexible when it comes to office hours. 1 hr home->office 5 minutes office->school (different campus) 1 hr school->home Bad weather/traffic/construction easily doubles the commute time. The last time I had a commute that was less than an hour each way was over 25 years ago. While you do get used to it, I would not do it if I had any other option.

I think most schools understand that the LORs may be late, and received after the deadline, especially those that don't send the prompt to the letter writer until after the applicant has clicked on the final submit and paid the fees. i can tell you that my daughter was accepted and conditionally admitted long before her final LOR was received. She was invited to apply to the program she is in about 2 weeks before classes started, and managed to get 2 LORs in right away, but the final one was delayed for various reasons. She ended up getting a phone call 2 days before classes began, and was told that she should start taking classes right away, and that she would be officially admitted once the third letter arrived, which didn't happen until the middle of the semester.

The preferred format here is -- name, masters degree if any professional position at the university if any Doctoral Student - department university address university name Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx The 'Doctoral Student' part gets changed to 'PhD Candidate' after completing qualifying exams, I tend to use '--... ...--' instead of '--', as it is the morse code abbreviation for 'best regards'

The gel ink that is used for the Everlast notepads is heat sensitive, and they will erase themselves if you leave them in a hot car, so be careful with them. What you can do to avoid that is to download their pdf of a blank page, that has all of the grid lines etc used for the app. Just print out a few dozen pages, then write on them with whatever pen you like, and use the app to do all of the synchronization.

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I am getting the same thing - it seems to be happening on all of the sub pages linked to from the ranking page.

It would depend on the school / department / faculty availability / your availability, absolutely nothing consistent about it. It is just like making a Doctor's Appointment - which it sort of is

I worked full time while completing my undergrad, for the entire masters and am still doing while starting the PhD (all academic work is part time). I will also state that I am only able to do this because I am a full time employee of the university, and my administrative department is VERY flexible on me taking time out here and there in order to do this. I would not recommend doing it if you had any significant commute between home/work/school, or your employer is not flexible. I would even consider doing both work & school full time, at least not for grad school.

Rolling admissions happen more often in professional programs than in the standard academic programs, even still they are fairly uncommon.

Revoked is probably not quite the right word - degrees are generally not 'revoked' unless there some proof of an academic issue as mentioned above. Is it possible that any professional certifications might expire if you are not active for a certain number of years, and that is what she is referring to? Even so, that should not have any impact on your degree, or future grad school applications.

Your final gpa is what matters, and the 3.88 is nothing to be ashamed about. You really don't need to mention anything that you are uncomfortable with in your personal statement. If you really wanted to reference it, you could always say something along the lines of "It took me a while to complete my Associates degree because I was having difficulty finding my focus, but after taking some personal time I realized where I needed to be..." FWIW - I had no focus at all during my early undergrad years - changed direction several times before taking a 20 year absence from academia. I didn't return to finish my undergrad until I was 46, and finally finished it when I was 52. After that it was straight thru the masters and now starting the PhD. While our reasons for taking a long time may be different, what matters is that once you found your focus you showed a great deal of determination in getting things done.

That would be one of the more difficult topics to integrate into an event theme...

I am in a different field, but I just started my PhD, and I am over twice that age, and know of several others that are 50+ also.

What type of class is it? Only asking because you might be able to integrate some of the course work into the event theme (obviously more difficult for some course topics than others).

I thought the same thing also, but I suppose that it is better to have an advisor that is bubbly and energetic than one that is flat and stale.