anhonestmouse

Okay: so I'm (overly) early to the grad school process. I'm hoping to apply for Phd or Ma-Phd track programs for Fall '14. I am already panicking about applications. Maybe I've gotten cynical because of too much googling, but I'm fairly certain I'm not going to get in anywhere. Penn State is my first choice, based on the program offerings, job placements, location, etc. I was wondering if you had any first hand knowledge of what the general stats needed are to get in. I know this is basically THE question on the grad cafe (that what are my chances threads), but I'm more or less looking to see if you've heard anything about cutoff numbers, focuses in SOPs, etc, from people in your class. Thanks a million

I'm actually an undergrad at UB right now, working my way through the grad school application process. I'm looking at schools out of the area (I would love to stay at UB, but seriously a BA and Phd at the same school is suicide, right?). I've talked to my professors and DGS at UB trying to get an idea of what adcoms are looking for. UB is big on their Poetics program, and is supposedly a pretty "innovative" program, so I think their website is meant to reflect that. Having spoken to my profs who've been on the adcom a few years ago it seems like they do follow a pretty normal admission procedure (as a lot of people mentioned), meaning that you can't completely bomb your GREs and expect to make up for it elsewhere. From what my thesis advisor tells me the most important thing UB looked at is "your own writing" - meaning the SOP and writing sample. Apparently members of the adcom have gotten pretty defensive about certain students whose work they "connected with" and felt strongly about.