chaucerettescs

I agree completely. This blog sent me into a terrorized tailspin for several days, but I righted myself. And while that blog is brutally honest about many very real problems with graduate study, the strains of misogyny, racism, and nostalgia for the ~golden days~ of education when cohorts consisted of ten wealthy, white young men who could read Latin and Greek in both the blog and its comments rub me the wrong way.

I can definitely count myself on the typos-on-submitted-materials club. I made the mistake of doing one final "clean-up"on my SOPs for Berkeley and Duke. I realized about ten minutes after submitting that the first four words of my statement are "I very fortunate enough". Ugly sobbing ensued. The moral is: STOP editing your SOPs. Just stop. And when you get a funny twinge right before you hit submit... go back and check your app materials one last time.

She is wonderful and I have utter faith in her. I don't believe she would ever let you down.

The application for UC Berkeley asked for a thorough breakdown of resources/expenses, including how much money I think I'll make in Summer '13, what it'll cost me to move to the university, health/dental expenses for the 2013-14 school year and on and on and on. It was a bit overwhelming and frustrating because I genuinely don't have a way of knowing how much money I'll have come September and felt forced into answering with my worst case scenario numbers.

I am 99% positive I know which professor this is and if it is indeed her, I'm sure this is precisely the case, haha. I went ahead and splurged on Interfolio (since almost all of my apps accepted it) and it was definitely worth it. Having control over my recs helped me breathe a lot easier. I am so sorry, bfat, that Michigan is being so rigid about the rec. What I find so frustrating about this is that one of recommenders told me (re: why I should e-mail profs I'm interested in where I'm applying, introducing myself) is that, realistically, it's unlikely that most committees will even touch the pile of apps until late January, as there are hirings to take care of first.