Nausicaa

Getting back into the Sims 3 was an active decision I made in response to being done with applications. I can't control my fate now but I can make sure Melody Pond realizes her dream of becoming quite the adventurer.

Not a one of my Sims has any sort of literary ambition, I assure you.

I applied to Harvard (a few years ago) and have two letters from them: The first in March saying they were unable to offer me admission. The second in July saying that there had been a "security breech" of their admissions database and my personal data may have been compromised.

I applied to Harvard and all I got was a lousy year of free credit monitoring services.

I am going to SPSP next month.

I think it is important to attend for the following reasons. One, you want to utilize the path of least resistance at the off chance they are on the fence about your application and they are not sure if they want to invite you for an interview on campus. Two, showing up at a national conference is a commitment signal that you want to be part of academia and that you are serious about graduate school. They know its expensive. They know its a hassle. Showing up says, I found a way to solve that it's expensive and it's a hassle just to be here and be part of this collection of scholars and researchers to obtain and share information. Three, it is a good place to social network and meet graduate students your POIs are working with.

I just got an acceptance to my first-choice program.   More info will come with the "official" acceptance, but they're providing a bunch of money as travel support to come out for their welcome weekend and the prof who wants to work with me (I think? She's the one that emailed me) is going to try to be there to meet up with me that weekend - she's on Sabbatical!!!
 
I am on top of the world. My mentor is BEYOND excited, as is my Mom. Oh my gosh!!! I'm going to graduate school!!!!!
 
Mentor is talking about possibly multiple acceptances, etc...   I feel so cool.

Is anyone else finding themselves jealous/resentful that certain fields find out way before others? I understand it's frequently due to the need to interview, but nonetheless - how hard is it to just make a decision and put us out of our misery?

I will not look for POI's on twitter. I will not look for POI's on twitter. I will not look for POI's on twitter...past tonight....

I made the mistake of looking at one of my POIs' twitter accounts (because let's take the craziness up a notch, shall we?!)... and saw she posted something about reviewing apps and complaining about SOPs not addressing why they wanted to get into that particular program.  Cue me immediately opening my SOP to make sure I didn't botch it somehow, lol.  (I didn't... I think...)

Yes, probably. It isn't exactly a great place to "find" yourself, even the super-motivated feel like crap and question why they made the mistake of starting school again (for some portion of their time). And schools won't accept you with that attitude, unless you lie to them about where you are coming from (not an awesome start). And grad school will not make you feel more secure about rent, especially if you get forced down the same paths since you can't afford to go back and take different classes (not a lot of full stipends in the humanities, unless you are really motivated and lucky with fellowships). I would agree that MLIS is not a great move for easy employment, and it is super competitive to get in regardless. And I don't think an MBA fits your ideas about not being in debt the rest of your life.
 
So I'm going to suggest something completely different, that I think could actually be awesome for you:
Join the Peace Corps, Americorps, or Teach for America (your resume is basically perfect for that last).
 
You'd have your expenses covered for a couple years at least, you'd get to travel, you'll meet interesting people. You'll have an awesome CV blurb and the experience to get involved in NGOs or NPOs, and you might even find a new calling in something hugely worthwhile, like education, international development, or public health.
 
Many of the volunteers in all the programs are 30+, contrary to popular perception, and the older ones often have higher retention and job satisfaction. With TFA, you'd have a masters in education when you came out to boot, so it is grad school of a different sort.
 
Just my two cents though, maybe you'll go to grad school right now and it will be the best thing ever.

They play a game of roulette for each applicant.  Reds are maybes, blacks are no's and the greens are the coveted yes.  The numbers stand for how much funding you get.  And that, my dear friends, is how the admissions process works.

Let's be honest here. As much as we have all read and talked to professors and contacted POIs, none of us really know how it works. I have been admitted to a few programs and I still really don't know "how" it all works.

Social psychologists loooooove the study of processes. "Mediation" is the magic word that gets you into JPSP.

ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED THE ADCOMS ARE, LIKE, BOOZIN’ IT UP AT HAPPY HOURS EVERY DAY INSTEAD OF NOTIFYING YOU OF THEIR DECISION TO PROBABLY CRUSH YOUR DREAMS
 
 
and meanwhile, you’re all…
 

Oh boy, interesting propaganda here. Vivisection is a multi-billion dollar industry and frankly is intrinsically bad. If you have no empathy for the suffering of sentient beings than maybe it's fine.

An RA is a research assistant. You help out in a lab run by someone else.
 
Independent research is when you run your own project.

*hug* I feel your angst, friend...

well, i haven't mentioned this yet, because it's pretty personal: i'm black and she did sort of say that "black people are less intelligent because their skull sizes are smaller, which is supported by scientific evidence" to the class. this completely alienated me from her.

I'm so sorry to hear about this! I think this story shows how our society (especially self-righteous "feminists") is so willing to villainize men to the point that men are dehumanized. i really think men have feelings equally as women do.

i don't know what to tell you except to keep insisting on your innocence and tell them that you'd be in jail, instead of in academia, had you really been guilty?

Applying to grad school is expensive. Save up before you apply. Costs include application fees, transcripts, GREs registration and re-takes, fees to send GRE scores, application supplies (envelopes, etc.). I was really surprised at how hard it hit my wallet.

Be organized about your application. For each LOR writer, fill out as much of the paperwork as you can. Provide the list of schools and deadlines, as well as the date you'd prefer to have the letter submitted. Check in every week or two (most of them really appreciate this). Also provide your CV, the latest draft of your SOP, and an unofficial transcript; this will jog their memories and remind them how awesome you are. Also, it'll show that you're on top of things and make their lives easier, which will naturally make them happier about writing a letter for you.


After you get in, save like crazy for when you move. Moving to a new place is always costly, and stipends won't start coming in for awhile after you start.

You should be aware that while Asher's book has lots of good tips about good writing, and lots of fantastic sample SOPs, some of the advice isn't great for PhD programs because he's trying to address academic master's and PhD programs, MD programs, law schools, and MBA programs all in the same book. And guess what? Those all have really different admissions criteria, and want different things in their essays! For example, he stresses certain kinds of leadership and character-reference activities a lot that are basically worthless for PhD admissions (though they might be useful for certain fellowships). Nobody in PhD admissions cares that you founded some random club, or that you were a resident assistant in your dorm. They care about your research potential and ability to complete the program (as demonstrated by research experience, recommendations, grades, and GRE), your focus, and to some extent your professionalism and professional involvement (which can be demonstrated by involvement, service, and leadership in the professional societies of your field, the student clubs in your field, the honors societies of your field, etc).

I felt that of all that was in the book, I got the most out of reading the sample SOPs in areas of study similar to mine.

I don't recommend against the Asher book, but I suggest that you combine it with other sources that are tailored to PhD applicants. Here are two very good ones (science-oriented):

Katherine Sledge Moore's site
http://sites.google.com/site/gradappadvice/home

Philip Guo's pages on PhD applications advice and fellowship application advice, respectively
http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/grad-school-app-tips.htm
http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/fellowship-tips.htm

I've felt kind behind as I waited 3 years after I graduated from undergrad to apply to grad schools. However, I used these three years to find out for certain what I want to do and how to get there so I'm glad I did. I've learned a lot about where I want to work, how I work best, what truly motivates me (not doing something just because I'm supposed to) and what mark I want to leave on the world. I don't think I would have been sucessful had I gone to grad school after undergrad because I needed to see some of the end result of school (jobs and real life) before I could plan for it.

So my advice,

1. DONT apply to school just because you don't feel like your ready for the real world yet. I've seen people go this route, and it doesnt really get them the answers they think it will. If you're in this boat, join the peace corp or teach for america. You will certainly learn something new about yourself and will probably look at the world from a new prespective (also, after a few years out its hard to go back and have these experiences). Apply to school because you really truly want to learn more and you need the extra degree for a specific job.

2. Don't underestimate what schools you'll get into. Even if you have under a 3.0. The really do take the human element into account so take the time to visit and get to know professors.

3. Make sure that you get advice from everywhere you can. Especially if you aren't going into academia. The work world puts stock into name recognition (not just harvard, but also that school down the street) more than rankings, and nobody in HR reads US news and world report (Here, they just pass around avon catalogs ) . I'm definitely not saying that Harvard is never a good decision, but it's truly overkill if you want to say... work in a local school district.

4. Student loans are serious things; much more so for grad school than Undergrad. Undergrad is more of a life experience, and its worth the debt. However, Grad school is about a job (whether academic or not). For example, if you want to be a librarian and it pays 50,000 a year, then don't take out 100,000 in debt for an MLS. I don't care if it is harvard (look at advice #3).

5. If you don't have a specific job or industry in mind, then you should probably take a couple years off to determine that first. Too much education can hurt you as much as too little. For example, you find out that you really want to be an accountant...but you have a master's in Psychology. You probably aren't getting hired. It'll be hard to convince an employer than you're more serious about this career change then you were about the years of school you just went through to do something else.

6. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Meaning there's more than one field you can study to get to the same end result (job). Do some informational interviewing and see what other people studied. You'll probably be suprised and this may lead you to find other programs you can apply to.

You're definitely in last-minute mode here, but if it were me, I would go ahead and reach out to other professors at the university you're applying to.  It sounds like you need to list potential professors as part of your application, and if your main POI doesn't end up responding or isn't taking on graduate students for fall 2013 (which is a realistic scenario), then you're screwed if you don't have some "backup" professors that you've also contacted (assuming you have a strong research fit with them as well).  Best of luck!

It's killing me too :\
 
Have you looked at the archived dates in result search re: when accepted people were contacted in previous years? In my field (education) it seems that in all previous years most people entered in their acceptances Berkeley between Jan. 25th - 28th (and the rejections came much later), so I'm not really expecting anything until then.  I'm really glad the results search section exists -- having an idea of the time patterns in previous years keeps me from obsessively checking my email all of the time.  However, I'm going to be going crazy on those days, and I'm going to be really sad if I don't hear anything by Jan. 28th! 

The advice I received was to assure them that you are excited about the offer and are strongly considering it, and will let them know as soon as possible. Then you don't give an actual deadline, you let them know that you are interested and show enthusiasm, but don't have to tell them where they actually stand. And since most applications have a spot where they ask you to fill out where else you've applied, no one is going to think they are the only program that wants you. One of the POIs I spoke to acknowledged that they notify about admissions about a month before two other programs with which they are in competition for students, so they don't expect anyone to let them know until those other programs have notified. So I would think that most programs have a similar familiarity with the others in their field, in terms of when they send out notifications. 

Well, I just posted this in the other forum, but here goes:  I dreamed that I was religiously checking all my app status websites, and one of my top schools had changed my status from Submitted to Accepted.  I thought it was a mistake, so checked my email, where I saw the congratulations email.  Then, every applicant to the program showed up at my house, and the adcomm made us line up in 3 lines.  It was kind of like Goldilocks... they said "the front line is too young" and then "the back line is too old"... "middle line, congratulations, you are all in."  And, then I saw a gradcafe buddy in the "too young" line looking all sad, while I was happy for being 28... right in the middle!  Lol.  Then I woke up, and I tried to make myself go back to sleep so I could bask in the glory of an acceptance... sigh...