VioletAyame

I don't know much about CU Boulder and DU, but I just wanted to point out that a Mass Comm Research program is probably very different from a Strategic Comm one. The former should be more theory-oriented and prepare you to become a researcher or a doctoral student. The latter should guide you toward a career in professional-oriented and guide you toward a career in communication management such as PR, advertising and the likes. Or I might be entirely wrong just guessing from the names of the programs. But if you haven't already, check out the courses and curricula and see which one is more compatible and beneficial to your goals.

Everything fuzzy said. Especially when it takes at least 2 flights and costs at least approx $1000 for me to fly back home. But can we really petition the US government when we're not citizens?

Why did we stop with the hilarious suggestions and move on to reasonable advice already? I want more free GradCafe comedy!

Because of cheese. I don't like cheese and to a lesser extent, carb. I believe pizza falls under the "cheese-related stuff" I mentioned above. But don't worry, I'm sure you'd hate some of my most favorite things in life too. We're different people after all

Damn I'm out of upvotes! I overspent them on this thread This is the perfect response!

Agree completely and would add vulgarity to the mix. I think Tosh and Jeselnik are very good at delivering unexpected punchlines. To the main topic, cheese, pizza, lasagna, most of the things cheese-related really. Cinnamon and Starbucks. Animal patterns and bedazzled stuff. Reality TV. Apple products.

That is what I'm planning on doing, mainly because it's not very feasible for me to fly to wherever I end up to search for an apartment (both time and money constraints), plus I have virtually no furniture save some some kitchen appliances. It's a very good idea in my head to live in university housing for the first year, then find an apartment when I'm actually there and start accumulating furniture. I hope you guys can tell me if that all makes sense outside of my head.

This. So much this. I just sent a decline email to an unfunded MA program yesterday, one that there's absolutely no chance I'm attending and I still wanted to puke. I shudder to think of when I have to turn down the other two. And yes to the multiple-future fantasy. I often think about that these days. I also want one version of me to remain here and now and continue on this life. Is that weird? Probably. Very likely. Oh well.

I'm out of upvote, but I wanna give one for the "5 acceptances in 2 days" thing! That's awesome!

Ah I was lucky to have an undergrad advisor like that too. She believes in me so much I just couldn't believe it. She told me to apply since my senior year, and it took me almost a year to make up my mind about it. She absolutely believed that I will get in and I will finish my Ph.D and I will get a job upon graduation, and she already started giving me career advice! When I came and told her all the good news, all super excited and bewildered, she said plainly: "I'm not surprised." That was really one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I laughed so hard. 2 hours. Humid. Wow.

Let's not get into an argument about how valid the GRE is or how well it can predict grad school success (though I assume we would not disagree too much about that). I don't claim to know how adcoms actually look at GRE for international vs domestic students; my point is I'm not surprised or upset if we receive the same treatment. If a given program doesn't think highly of GRE scores in general and decides thus to give it less weight in international students' profiles, great. If not, I would not blame them. Does it mean we'll have to work harder, take more time to complete work, etc.? Yes of course. But so will American students studying in Germany or German students studying in Japan. I think once we make a conscious decision to study abroad and in a language that is not our own, we should anticipate the challenges that arise from the language barrier and not expect anyone to make exception for us (I do have to say that most people I meet do make exceptions and are understanding; I'm just saying I don't expect an institution to change its rule for a particular group of students). You said "Ask yourself, how fast can you read in a second language in a less familiar alphabet? Is that really correlated with how good your science is?" Perhaps not, but understanding the literature in that language and being able to write and publish in that language are the outward indicator of how good one's science is, because frankly, if you can't tell people they won't know how smart you are. So the working harder part is kind of a given, if not for the GRE or to write a great SOP, it'd be for reading journals and revising papers afterwards. It's unavoidable. I got a 170 V It's kind of a reverse situation, because my status as an international student does make it more impressive than it actually is. I have to say I don't actually know how I got that, but I can tell you my V score was consistently in the mid 160s in my practice tests. Spunky already gave you a lot of good advice. You have to cram the vocab; there's really no way around it. Flashcards help, and you can tackle them by word groups - suffixes, prefixes, similar meanings, etc. I think Magoosh has a free app to help you learn the vocab, kind of like a vitural flashcards collection, but I might be wrong. I myself used Manhattan practice tests (I think you can get 6 for about $30), plus the PowerPrep tests as benchmarks. I feel that Manhattan underestimated my V score and overestimated my Q score, but considering that you want to improve the verbal, that might not be a bad idea after all.

Hi, I'm not sure if I'd be the best person to answer this since our interests are different. Hopefully some folks who do political comm around here can give you better advice. My first instinct is to ask whether you've been in touch with any of the professors at both programs or checked out their works and interests. If you've already picked out your POIs, perhaps you can contact them and ask if they are available to take on a Masters student. I hope that helps, good luck!

Don't be so negative! Like rbamattre said, it's self-deprecating and most of all a joke, and a funny one IMO. For me it's not so much "I'm now too good for your program" but "I sincerely question your judgment in admitting me." The school is not devalued but I have a nagging suspicion that a few months into my first year they will discover that they mistook someone else's file for mine and that's that.

I just want to say that the title of your thread is a bit misleading. I thought it was gonna be some xenophobic sentiments expressed publicly Anyway I don't track the Results board closely but it seems that the IHOG page is relatively quiet compared to other subforums.

I'm not sure how it would be unfair. If accepted, we will be doing the same coursework, studying with the same faculty, probably getting the same funding package, and at the end receiving the same degree - I don't see how we should not be judged on the same standard in the admission process. The only thing I can think of is maybe a strong TOEFL score can mitigate a low GRE V score, but that is something you should check with the programs you're considering. Also, check with them to see if they have a fixed cutoff score (like what you implied here) or is the 160 just a general guideline and a low score can be compensated by other parts of your application (as a rule for all applicants). I'm not in your field so perhaps you can post in the Art History subforum and get a better idea there. I do have some experiences in getting a decent verbal score. I don't know if you're interested or if you've already tried everything and I don't want to be presumptuous, so if you like to talk more about it you can reply here or PM me. I'll be happy to share anything I know.

I'm jealous. You guys, as members of the TGC Philosophy Forum for the 2014 app season, will forever be bound to one another by this amazing experience with dfindley. Not a lot of people on Earth have that I tell you.

I'm not even sure I'll go there but those are harsh words and I feel for UCSB. Don't know about the physics department but I'm international and I had no trouble getting accepted, as did some other international prospectives.

Guys I just got an acceptance for Penn State yesteday, so I think anyone who applied should be hearing from them shortly. They didn't offer me any funding though, so I will be turning this one down. Good luck everyone!

I'm from Vietnam and I will be studying Communication in one of those 3 excellent programs. I really should make up my mind soon.

Have you been in contact with anyone at the program (for example your POIs, the DGS, the Grad Coordinator)? You may politely ask them if there's a chance to improve your chance on the waitlist and clarify 1. How does the waitlist work and how many students (percentage) usually get in per year, and 2. Is there anything you can do this late in the process. I'm not familiar with your field but I don't think they will allow you to resubmit your GRE score as that wouldn't be fair to other students and I suspect they would care that much about your Verbal score being in Engineering and all (your AWA score is very high though!). So in summary, I don't think you will be allowed to send another set of score and it wouldn't matter anyway. But if you insist, check with them and see what they say - they may be able to point out something you can do and it might be entirely different from what you think! Certainly don't register for the test and was your time and money before checking though.

Ah I give up. Gnome, you're on your own.

If she is entitled to feel the way she does, he is entitled to the way he feels too. As I said, unfortunately his opinion is that she is not entitled, which you may or may not agree with, but I don't fault him for wanting to back that opinion up. Now this part is my opinion: it might not be the most helpful thing in this thread but there's a grain of truth in it which I agree with. I will refrain from commenting on the effects of a bad childhood because I was lucky enough not to have a crappy one, but I will say that I believe you can control your feelings and your attitude in life. Now hypothetically the OP might say, well you did not have a horrible childhood like I did, what do you know? Now this is where the "I went through the same thing" person comes in. I do realize the face that every personal experience is, well, personal, so we can't really compare them, and even different people go through ge same experience differently. But if they can't relate to each other at all, why are there support groups? I think the "I suffered too but I got better" argument can be a double-edged sword. It can be helpful and inspiring, or it can be used to shame people. I'm not saying that was Gnome's intention; he can be blunt sometimes and that might be the way people perceived it. But what he said, at least to me, definitely has its values for the reasons above.

I thought we're way past this issue with Gnome on this thread; why are you guys suddenly bringing it back and now he's here defending himself again? He's made some good comments and given some good advice to OP, so it's not as negative as people made it out to be. And about the bad childhood thing, the way I see it is this: Gnome is saying a bad childhood does not justify your negative behavior, which you may or may not agree with. To him it is not a valid excuse, which the OP was using as a reason for her outlook towards life and her inability to control her negative feelings. To back that up, his anecdotal evidence is that he himself had a bad, or potentially worse, childhood, and he does not have problem controlling his negative feelings. I don't see it as bragging or measuring bad experiences at all but as an "your argument is invalid because of this exception" type of thing, and also because it would be insensitive and invalid if he said that without having experienced a rough childhood himself.

I have seen questions and answers about this matter too many times on the forum to count, ranging from before, during, and after application, during interviews/visits, in correspondences, etc. and I have heard many different opinions. In my own experiences going through this process, answering this type of question did not change anything whatsoever. I have a hard time lying or omitting the truth in front of people so I was always compelled to tell them the truth about what schools I applied to and what acceptances I received, depending on where I was in the process. So far it has not cost me any acceptance or prevent any rejection (to be fair the programs to which I got rejected didn't bother asking in the first place). I think it is really field-dependent, and logically if there's a gap between where you've already been accepted and offered funding (higher rank) and where you're being interviewed (lower rank), it may deter them from making you an offer, but if they're comparable programs and/or they feel they're a good fit for you, I don't see why they would not throw their hat in the ring and compete for the best candidates so to speak. Sorry that was a long sentence. In summary, my own view is to just tell them the truth and let them worry about the rest. You have a hard enough decision to make later on.

All of my applications were still accessible after submission - meaning I couldn't change or edit anything but was still able to log in, open it and see the info I submitted. Right after I clicked Submit, they also generated a copy of the entire application which I could save for my own record. So chances are you can still go back and check to see if you selected that little box, and if not, you can try contacting the Graduate Coordinator and see if he/she can help you with that (probably yes).