TakeMyCoffeeBlack

Yes. If you go to my profile, for example, you'll see a reputation based on those likes/dislikes at the top right. p.s. Does anyone else always get "you're posting too fast you spambot" messages from gradcafe?

Northwestern starts on Monday. And yes, it is very fast as far as turnover goes. Although, the results page isn't comprehensive with info from them. I can only assume they receive fewer applications (they don't provide that information anywhere that I can find).

PM me.

By the way, congratulations on the 10th anniversary! That's great! And in Italy no less. Where will you be going?

Last year Urbana-Champaign started announcing second week of January. Don't know if I'll be applying yet.

I haven't put them in a spreadsheet, but I've looked through the gradcafe results more than once...

Also, I'd just encourage you to be open to the possibility of falling in love with a different path. You never know! At 18/19 it's difficult to have your whole life planned out. It's good that you're taking the steps now that will set you up for success in what you think you want to do, but keep an open mind. Undergraduate is about becoming an intelligent, well spoken, well read individual.

Move your research interests to the beginning. It takes a long time to find out what you actually want to do in grad school. Then talk about how your past research experience qualifies you for it. Just requires some quick reorganization, nothing huge.

Hope that by some intervention of a deity you find yourself with an acceptance considerably earlier?

It turns out that for the one he told me he handed in, he really thought he had, but the system rejected it because his pdf was too large. He took it off the official letter head to save space. In now. Oh, those writers are great! I only brought one new LOR on board this season, and after he wrote it (about a week after I sent him all the papers I had written for him), he submitted letters as I sent the notifications to him. In the cases where I could have a fourth LOR, that writer was pretty good too. It was my two closest academic advisers who were really slacking. Oh well. Everyone looking good to submit everything today?

Oh, those silly academics... I mean, I get it. He's in the middle of grading exams and everything. But I asked him back in September and have kept him updated on the whole process. Considering he told me "it has arrived" (whatever that means - it was in German: "das Gutachten hat dort angekommen") I can't help but wonder if he mailed it or e-mailed it? I wrote him this morning, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see...

You're a first semester freshman. You have plenty of time to get your GPA up, change your mind twenty times, and get everything in order for an application. Besides which, a 3.5 isn't going to keep you out of grad school if it's balanced with other good things (research experience, clear research goals, letters of recommendation, etc.). The GPA is just one, imperfect measure, and grad schools do not expect you to be perfect. Some grad schools will even make exceptions for sub-3.0 GPAs (in highly competitive Ph.D. programs) IF the candidate has other things going for them. Take it from this former Res Assistant, Tour Guide, and Teacher Assistant (i.e. a lot of experience with freshmen): do as well as you can in school, of course, but do not reduce yourself to numbers. Establish solid relationships with the faculty, take advantage of every opportunity you can, and remember to take a few social breaks for yourself. My first semester was also my lowest - there's a lot of adjustment and learning.

It's kind of funny that my closest adviser from undergrad, with whom I maintain a regular correspondence, and who has been telling me for three weeks that he's working on my recommendation, and even wrote me yesterday that he handed in the one that's already due, hasn't actually handed it in yet... And with five more deadlines today, I really hope he pulls through. I have enough to be nervous about. Funny thing is, he already wrote me recommendations last year (for my fellowship and grad apps), so it's just a matter of updating.

I think you missed the point of the prompt. You're talking about why laws should be different from region to region. The prompt is asking you - for example - to explain how traffic laws in any given place (e.g. in New York City) should have built in flexibility. For years, it was illegal to honk your horn in New York City, but the horn still has a vital place in safe driving, no? So the law had to be flexible enough to permit horn honking in exigent circumstances, such as warning other drivers of an upcoming safety hazard. I'd also avoid the generalizing statement you start off with. Just state what you're going to argue and defend it - you don't have enough time to try and come up with a clever start (and sometimes it won't be as clever to the graders as you thought it was when you wrote it).

Thanks for the insight. I'm not sure if it would make me feel better if there were more regularity or not, as an applicant. Of course, remove the applicant from the person, and I'm 100% without a doubt for the holistic approach. There are certain things numbers can't tell us - and at the same time, things they can. Just as the more subjective measures in the application process - SOP, writing sample - are limited (as one friend and first year in a poli sci program (and gradcafe alum) explained it, there's a lot of noise in the SOPs).

Alright, maybe I won't be adding the 10th... I thought I might because I was offered a fee waiver, but working on it now, I'm not positive I fit with the department. I think if by some act of God (or gods) I got in, I'd be choosing it over the other programs for ranking, not research fit. And so the problem becomes, even if it were the only department to accept me, would it be right for me to attend? I certainly overlap with quite a few faculty members in many ways, but often it's region with this faculty member, theory with another, and while my secondary interests are well covered, my primary interests don't really enjoy much presence there. And the game continues...

I certainly don't disagree with you, but that doesn't mean that adoption couldn't transcend its current place in the realm of "exceptional circumstances." That said, those who choose the route of biological child bearing should not be stigmatized or ostracized because of their choice. But I do think society could benefit from a generally more open stance toward adoption.

I don't know if I want children at all. It's pretty typical not to have a pull toward adoption, though, and it will be for years to come because of certain stigmas it still carries. You can't be blamed for that. Edit: okay, I recognize the above is poorly worded. But in any case, what I mean to say is that adoption has not at all been normalized yet.

Send Nov and Dec? Otherwise, I'd suggest only Nov, since it's only a three percentile difference on Quant but 12% different on Verbal.

But to quote you: "Adopting domestically is not only cheaper, but more ethical." I think it would have to be modified to say: "Adopting domestically is not only cheaper, it can be more ethical depending on the specific circumstances." Otherwise, the lives of the orphans living internationally are reduced to a generalized statement about government and business corruption - which is in and of itself unethical.

For an MPH program sounds fine. If it were a Ph.D. program I'd encourage you to exchange some of the biography info with research interests, but that's not the case.

There are certainly ethical considerations in terms of kidnappings and selling children, but that's no reason not to consider international adoption. Whereas many unadopted children will grow up in poverty in the United States, unadopted children will grow up in abject poverty and subsistence in some parts of the world. I think there's an ethical debate to be had about the value of all human life, regardless of where in the world it is. If we have the ability to alleviate that - whether domestically or internationally - there's no reason to be averse to that.

I'm going to do my surprise last minute one either tonight or tomorrow morning (it's almost 6 pm here). In the meantime, I'm gonna go buy wrapping paper...

Yes, it costs a lot more to adopt out of the country for a lot of reasons (most of them having to do with foreign governments, paperwork transfers, visas, travel, etc.). I'm going to have to agree with some of the above posters about adoption. It shouldn't just be a backup. And I understand why you feel the way you do - and the newborns need loving parents too! - but I'd encourage you to think about what a difference you could make - as the great mother you expect to be! - in the life of maybe a two or three year old just looking for some love.

FYI, everyone, adopting children in the foster system is actually quite reasonable. The high expenses come from adopting newborns. http://www.creatingafamily.org/adoption-resources/cost-of-adoption-in-the-us.html