waparys

I'm leaning more towards 1Q84's opinion. The SoP and Writing Sample are supposed to be polished through and through. It's possible they'll see that mistake in the first sentence and think you didn't even read your own writing sample through before you submitted it. I say try to reach out to the secretary to get it replaced. If you decide not to, though, I also don't think it'll be a huge deal. But it will be noticed. Either way make sure to correct it and read through your writing sample again! (Or get a friend to do it!). Best of luck.

I think as long as the SoP has a word limit, double-spaced it fine. But when it's a page limit, you might want to double check what it is they're looking for.

Most schools don't specify. My writing sample is obviously double-spaced. Chicago gave their required lengths in single-spaced pages for the SoP and double-spaced pages of the WS, so--unless a school expressly forbids it--I've been writing my SoPs single spaced.

My NW one is 515. It fits on one page. I think as long as you fit on one page (single-spaced, obviously), you'll be okay. Good luck! OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS - My life right now.

OK, so re: UMD. The SoP instructions on the supplemental app are different from the ones on the dept. website. I've written to them and they say the ones on the dept. site are accurate (i.e. no personal/diversity statement necessary) but it's still stressing me out.

Hey any chance you could share where you found this Michigan information? Thanks!

Yeah but my point was you don't get to the supplemental application until you've completed, submitted, and paid for the main application.

Urgh Maryland does that, too. Now they keep reminding me to submit their supplement--as though I've forgotten!

I LOVE the chiller font. Damn, should have gone with that one. If you make it really large and red it looks like blood...

Northwestern is my earliest. Dec 2nd.

Maybe if ETS ruled the world...all essays would be five paragraphs and everyone was known by a number between 200-800 rather than a name...

I just put my name and email address in the top right corner of the header. And page numbers if it went over one page.

I went with Calibri. And I think the spacing looks fine with this font and it's very legible. I'm happy with my decision!

I just submitted two (one has an early deadline, one I just wanted to send since everything was ready). It's sorta my first time around--I applied to UK master's two years ago (totally different I know). Still waiting on one recommender to submit his stuff. When that's done I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Good luck to everyone!

Unless there's an explicit warning such as the one you cite, I say submit. This discussion is also going on in a different thread...I forget which one. But the consensus is to submit a resume, but not exceed the maximum lengths of other documents.

Definitely after. What if they flake and don't submit? You need to actually be grateful for something other than them just agreeing to write it. And I know a post-doc researcher at an Ivy who writes a lot of letters and he says a thoughtful, hand-written note is the best way to say thank you.

Calibri is the new default on Word...

I'm a firm believer in condensery. If I don't make an impression in the few precious pages they require, then I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

I would have to disagree with some people and say stick with what you know. I learned English in Britain but went to an American high school and did my BA in the States. When I went to Scotland to do my Masters, I did not use British spelling, punctuation, vocab (actually, I refused) and it was fine. If you think you know every American convention (well), then feel free to use it. But if you're unsure, then stick to British spelling, etc. It'll be clear from your background why you write the way you do. P.S. Punctuation outside quotation marks really irks me. "This just looks so much better."

What's wrong with sans serif fonts? I personally thing Calibri looks neater than any other font, but I appreciate people's nostalgia for TNR.

Nope. At the top of my first page (I don't even have a cover page) I have my name, email address and the date I originally wrote the paper with the revised date in parentheses. The subsequent pages just have my last name and page number on top. I considered keeping my email on every page just in case they got separated but I figured (and hoped) the odds of that were pretty slim.

Ahh, my bad!

I can't tell if you're kidding or not, but I have to disagree. There's a reason so many departments don't ask for that test--and that's because the correlation is LOW.

My problem right now is that the test I took last weekend could not have had more than 15 ID questions on it. My studying, sadly, did not encompass "how to read 50 unrelated passages and stay sane."

I'm with hashslinger on this one.