danieleWrites

I think the determination of applying to "too many" is defined more along the lines of whether or not you're considering knocking over a convenience store to pay for the application fees rather than a numerical value. Now, there is such a thing as accepting too many admission offers.

These hidden essays are an atrocious practice, really. It's not like the ghostwriters so very many students pay to write things like admissions essays, SOPs, personal histories, writing samples, and whatnot are immediately available to write those hidden essay questions. Perhaps I am an admiring cynic full of schadenfreude. Perhaps I regret not pocketing the 100 bucks to write a personal statement for a fellow BA student all those years ago. Nahhhh.

The title of this threat reminds me of Dana Gioia's 1991 article in the Atlantic: Can Poetry Matter? Of course, it's about poets, poetry, and the academy, but it does have some pretty thought-provoking insights on MFA programs and the expectations MFA students often have. It's less of an issue for stagecraft than poetry, I have no doubt, because there's a market for drama graduates who get paid to do what their MFA taught them to do, whereas, there's little to no market for poetry. Still, a look at MFA mills.

Demographics: in 2004, 26% of US MSW students were male. 6% of DSW students were male. Overall 17% of graduate SW students were male. Those numbers don't reflect much change. Currently, 81% of people working in social work are female. To compound matters, in 2004, the average age of MSW students was 41.4. In comparison the average age of *all* graduate students in the US was 32.4. The average age at which people in the US received their doctorate: 33.3. A nearly 10 year gap between people working on a masters (2 year program) and people receiving their doctorate (2 years for masters, average of 5 years for doctorate) means that a majority of MSW students are starting the graduate program when a majority of students in other fields are graduating with a terminal degree. Translation: MSW students are more likely to be older women who have worked in the field for a few years before returning to get their MSW. Join the graduate student council, or other university-wide graduate student organizations. Figure out your hobbies and interests and join groups that do those things. Religious organizations, hiking, bicycling, intramural sports (my university has a fabulous kickball program). Find hobbies that you genuinely enjoy and that are less likely to have gender gap. Knitting groups are usually all female and four-wheel-drive groups are likely to be all male. Don't join in an activity you dislike just to find a man, but don't not try an activity you haven't done before either, just because it might seem desperate. If you don't like it after you've tried, be honest. People hate it when someone pretend to like something just to get a date. Never works well.

Here's kind of where you have to do a cost/benefit analysis. What do you plan to do with your MFA when you get it? The vast majority of low-res MFA grads want a job in a university because, frankly, non-teaching jobs for MFAs are few. If you are considering a teaching position, particularly in creative writing, it's better to get in grad school when you have a department supporting and training you than as an adjunct or professor, when you're expected to do it on your own. If your social anxiety is so severe that you can't do public speaking, and you can't get past it, you should think hard about your goals with an MFA. What do you want to do with it when you graduate? How much will it cost you to get an MFA? Particularly if you don't have a TAship to cover tuition and basic expenses? If social anxiety is a significant problem, how can you get help to solve it so you can make use of your MFA? One of the things about a regular program is that you have access to the university counseling center at low or no cost, so you can have sessions with a therapist to deal with your anxiety. Low-res won't cover that. JoeyBoy has an excellent idea. You've, presumably, got work. Find something in your area that will allow you to present your work in some way. If it's art, put together a charity show if one isn't available, or volunteer to teach little kids in some program. Do a reading. Go do karaoke.

I have epilepsy and ADHD. I mentioned none of it at any time during the application process. Considering my epilepsy was large and in charge through three degrees and half a semester of adjuncting (and collecting data on the programs I was interested in applying to), some people would consider it relevant in light of my requirement to TA. But blah. It affected my grades and gave me a metric ton of credit hours in the first field I tried, but couldn't pull off because the epilepsy got in the way too much. I got into my preferred school. I got into my preferred school with two blank semesters and one semester with really bad grades that were later not-bad-grades when I retook the courses. I have Rs on my transcript. The problem with illness and disabilities is that they are not allowed to judge you based on disability or illness, but it's human nature to do it anyway, particularly when professors have heard every "I was too sick to do homework/take the test/show up for class (but not too sick to par-tay! hope you don't find out!)" in the book. If you bring it up, do so in a positive way. My brush with tuberculosis brought about my interest in Keats.... As for the second, your SOP should focus on you. What are you interested in researching? What can you bring to the program? How does the program fit your interests? What makes you a better candidate than anyone else? Name drop your research interests and the faculty that can help you. Your friend is good for a casual mention with the POI or DGS, but not in the SOP where you want the attention focused on you.

You should ask Pitt if they'll accept a Coursera or other MOOC stats course. Princeton taught one on Coursera this semester called Statistics One. It had all of the stuff I had to have for my BA in sociology. Some Coursera courses come with certificates of completion. MOOCs like Coursera tend to be free. I don't understand why you'd need to take algebra to take stats, unless you virulently suck at math, in which case, you'd be better off not taking algebra. You can also poke around at a wide variety of universities and community colleges and other accredited, um, let's call them institutions for brevity for online courses that you might be able to take for cheapsies as a non-degree seeking student. You'd be looking for Statistics One, Elementary Statistics, Statistics for Social Sciences, or so on.

A complex of vitamin B, V8 juice (low sodium, regular) rather than or in addition to caffeine, and some exercise that involves being outside, and some sunlight (if possible). Add jiggling around and Ritalin to your list of feelings when staring at a blank word processor, and you're talking about me. The problem you're running into (writer's block) is pretty usual. You have some options available. First, figure out your writing process. No doubt, you have some ideas about how to develop your papers' topics, by now. So go back to the invention stage of writing. See what kinds of ideas you can worm out of your topics that are more interesting, if that's possible! If one of my comp students had to write a paper on socialism, I might suggest s/he explain how the NFL is a working model of socialism. After that, plan it out. If you're running into a wall, most writing centers can help you out. They're not just there to fix draft, they're also there to help generate the paper, all the way from "this is the assignment, what now?!" panic to looking for missing commas. If the writing center sucks for you, maybe a member of your cohort will like the opportunity to bounce ideas with you. Some do, some don't. This isn't helpful for everyone. But I will be toddling off to take my own advice now. With a piece of chocolate. Ghiradelli. Nummy. Motivation, I feel that. I have a picture of my future PhD diploma that says "YOUR NAME HERE; THAT'S WHY!" taped to the wall. It doesn't always help.

I teach composition in the US, and I've dealt with international students. The culture of both the society the program is in (Malaysian) and of the discipline (mechanical engineering) matters when you're creating a document. That SOP wouldn't fly in the US. Half of it doesn't say anything substantial and the rest focuses on your accomplishments without context important to the program. For example, your A+ means what to the program? Why should they care that you got that grade? In other words: so what? The questions you will be answering in an SOP doesn't change: What are you research interests and how do those interests match what the program has to offer? What makes you qualified to be in their program, specifically? Why should they pick you rather than the dozens of other just as qualified applicants? What sets you apart, in the field of mechanical engineering, from others who have high marks? My suggestion: put aside what you've written, take the three questions above and structure your SOP to answer them. Make use of writing conventions in mechanical engineering, and the conventions for professional writing in Malaysia. Meandering monologues about your past and how you are now turning to look at the future, as well as overly obvious pandering to the program may or may not be appropriate for the person reading your SOP, I don't know because I'm not part of that culture. However, nothing in your SOP distinguishes you (in terms of the questions the SOP is supposed to answer) from the average SOP writer. Nothing in your SOP explains the specific reasons why you selected their program, aside from the fact that you liked their website. And really, what bearing does a website have on the quality of instruction and research opportunities in mechanical engineering?

In other words "traditional" students, not "non-traditional" students.

What do you mean by "address the page" in MLA?

He should only write about things he knows for certain. Intentions and motivations aren't things he can claim real knowledge about. He can state that you seem interested in the underlying problems of Some Thing because you always do extra research about the problems when you deal with Some Thing, but he can't say what motivates you, aside from what you tell him, and if he did say that you were motivated to pursue this path because you're interested in social policies involving inequity, how would he know that, other than your SOP and PHS? The dilemma is that you want his recommendation to "sell" you to the committee, but he's not being specific. Instead of sending your SOP and PHS, give him an annotated list of things you have done while working for him that he can use as specific examples to support his general statements. You order the list by the things that would be more important to the programs you're interested in, rather than by what would be more exciting to your boss, and let human nature take it from there. Why this? What does the committee want to know about you, from your letters of recommendation? What you're interested in and what motivates you? They'll get that from your other materials. How well you work? Your scholarship? Your aptitude? The letters are someone else's judgment of your work in the field. So provide your boss with examples of your work in the field so that he has something meaningful to comment on.

I agree that the needs of the department are greater than the preferences of any teacher, be they TA or chair. But, I see a difference between making a preference known (politely and with understanding of the realities of TAing and departments) and making a demand. As you say, YMMV.

I'd suggest a literature review research paper, particularly if you have the background to bridge neuroscience and psychology. You can't do primary research, so you're stuck with secondary research, or maybe some pedagogy. Anyway, the literature review research paper is a synthesis of a relevant selection of sources. You did this in undergrad if you wrote papers. Select a topic of interest that you are familiar with, then hit the databases (JSTOR, EBSCO, Proquest, Sage, Pubs, and so on). If you don't have access, check your local libraries. You may have to drive to the nearest college that lets the community into the library. Get articles on your topic. A lot of articles. Not tons and tons, but enough to have a substantial bibliography. Read the articles (critically, analytically, with annotations and maybe some summary). Put them aside, get out a pen and write a thesis statement. If you can't write a research question. Statement or question, is should be an argument or explanation informed by the articles you've read. Then develop the rest of the paper. Science writing is about proper handling of data, primary or secondary. It's about objective language and intelligent conclusions from the data. You do synthesis all of the time as a scientist, but if you're at a loss, google "synthesis essay" and the OWL at Purdue should pop right up. The other option is pedagogical. You've been teaching; surely you've formed some observation based opinions about science pedagogy. I teach English, and despite the "literature" next to program, I'm a sociologist in literaturologists clothes. Well, more like near-the-end-of-semester undergraduate clothes, but they are comfortable. I have scientific writing. I have a paper discussing interactions with people and spaces after a series of observations at of one Walmart pharmacy. Seriously, you can spend hours in a Walmart without being bothered. Put a couple of items in a cart, get out the notebook and pen, stick a phone to your ear, and observe. Holidays are coming up, plenty of opportunities to watch the natives. You have a psychology degree. Review your text books to bone up on a theoretical perspective and go people watch, then write a paper. To be perfectly clear: I don't write neuroscience papers, but I have been reading a few off and on. My father thinks that my unfortunate lack of Ann Coulter fangirling is totally not my fault, I can't help having defective genes (from my mother, since his rabid Ann Coulter fangboying means he's got good genes). It's very strange. Anyway, this makes me unqualified to talk about what a neuroscience program would want, beyond the basic fact that I teach composition, and I've written science in one of psychology's sister fields.

I decided without even thinking about it too much. The scores I would send were the ones that were very near, at, or above the minimum required. If I bombed the test, then I'd send those scores the universities that never mentioned minimums. There are only three groups of people who think the GRE has serious value in predicting a student's ability in any graduate program: ETS (because they make money off of it), US News (because they use it as 1/3 of their rankings methodology), and people who are trying to get into grad school (because we're all neurotic and anxious and the admissions process is nearly a complete mystery). Focus on your writing sample, SOP, and recommendation letter writers.

This makes perfect sense and I can understand it very well. I had my marriage and children first, and then I started school. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to go through school single, but not very hard or very much. Again, I don't want to discourage you or make any judgments, but I do think that there's a certain naivete here. That you can get your degree, have a family, and then have your career when the kids are old enough. If you have one child, you're looking at five to six years before the child is in school. Add a year and half for each additional child. There's something called the baby penalty that career women pay. It's particularly penalizing for career women who take time off to raise the kids, rather than take minimal maternity leave. It can be done, get an MSW, perhaps a job for a short period of time, and then take several years off to raise the children to school age, and then return to the career. The usual outcome? Women who do that have a difficult time finding work, and the work they do find isn't in the same field they left, or at the same level. If you have a significant gap between the time you earn your degree and the time you begin to start your career, you will likely be passed over. Knowledge in the field has a use-by date; if it's too old? It become difficult to find work. This is important not because of the choice women have to face between family and career, but because of the choice you will specifically have to make. You're about to invest two years of time and money into a degree. Would it be better to earn the degree now, get married, have kids, and eventually have the career, or get married, have kids, earn the degree, and then get the career? Of course, this all presupposes that people can map out their romantic lives in advance, before they have a partner. In any case, the timing of the degree in relation to job hunting does matter. For some fields, it's less important than others. There's a difference between keeping up with the research in English literature and keeping up with the research in physics. The gap between school and employment dates has to be accounted for, and that's where the baby penalty rears its ugly head. Men don't have to deal with it. You do.

I'm with everyone else. I'd totally make the request. In deference to the person who has to wrangle the TA and adjunct assignments, I would phrase it in such a way that the person would know that I was very aware of the pain in the butt these things are. Perhaps dropping in with a chagrined, hey, I know how much a pain this is and I really hate to be a bother, but if it's at all possible, could I get sections that weren't so spread out in the day? I love campus, but being here for 12 hours a day? If you can't do it, that's cool, but I'm hoping you can. Thank you so much! As for not making requests even when they ask? I don't see the sense. It's not rude to make preferences known. It's rude to think one is entitled to one's preferences and get all worked up when those preferences aren't possible. I've been asked what my scheduling preferences were, and if there were times I absolutely couldn't teach (aside from classes I was taking), and the reason why I couldn't teach at that time. I let them know my preferences, and made it clear that I considered my preferences pretty much low on the priority list when it comes to arranging the schedule, so however it works out, it'll work out. Of course, it's English in a large university, so there's 100s of sections to deal with and a few prima donnas.

The thing about your Japanese Studies degree is that it sets you apart from others coming at the program with one degree, particularly since your relevant degree is in sociology, not economics, and the sociological approach to economics is different. If you can slip in a sentence or a phrase that can relate something (a course, a paper, an event, a theory, a referent) from your Japanese Studies degree to economics, you can show more depth and value. Even if you have little interest in pursuing international economics. Example: In the Wallerstinean sense, Japan has yet to make it into the first world because it lacks a strong manufacturing base. Though, Japan's nearly unrivaled cultural industry focused my attention on how small businesses in the US use cultural capital to generate consumer interest. I'm interested in analyzing the use of cultural icons in product development schemes. Of course, I'm pretty much clueless on the field of economics and have no idea what you're into. However, you can make it relevant if you think it can help you stand out in whatever your passion is.

Correct is the wrong word. They are all "correct". What you're looking for is which sentence is best to 1) convey the information you are providing, 2) convince the reader(s) that this information is meaningful and impressive, and 3) use that information to persuade the reader(s) to offer you admission with funding. So. It's the statistics question. Which is more impressive: 1 in 5 women will be raped this year. 20% of women will be raped this year. It's the exact same thing, but the first "statistic" is more chilling because it seems bigger. It's why stores always sell thing in terms of 2 for 10 dollars. Your first sentence is meaningless, rhetorically. The numbers are too large and can't be well related to each other. Of the final two sentences, which is better, to tell them that you scored in the 98th percentile, or that you score in the top 2%? As for the wording of your sentence, without the context surrounding it, I wouldn't judge the syntax (way you've ordered the words). The beginning of your original sentences implies an important transition. Your previous sentence(s) are ostensibly about your goals. This sentence is about how you're reaching them. An abrupt shift from your goals to your scores is generally not good rhetoric. A transition from one idea to another is generally good rhetoric. A suggestion: I was able to achieve my aim by scoring in the top 2% in the Nationwide Selection Examination, which is similar to the GRE, and was awarded the full scholarship. You can shorten it in several ways, if you need the extra space for other parts of your SOP. However, there is an attitude difference between something like "I was able to achieve" and "I achieved". They mean the same thing on a literal level, but one of them is slightly less arrogant. I,personally, like the phrase "I was able" because it inserts your sense of ability. However, "I achieved" has a sense of economy and of confidence. These are style choices, not choices of correctness.

You have two issues: abuse and work. If you haven't started already, document the abuse you're receiving and who witnessed it. For example, Monday, October 28, beginning of lab, Dr. ___ said that I was stupid in lazy during the class session. His tone was angry, he was loud. Witnessed by 8 students: John, Joe, Jeff, Jason, Jennifer, Julie, Judy, and Bob. One of the things about graduate school is having to learn new ways of advocating for yourself. This can be especially difficult for international students. You have done what you can to advocate for yourself with this adviser. You've considered your problem and your options. You've verified that it's not just you. You've taken the first step and spoken with him honestly, and he did not listen to you. This is where it gets tricky. He is the person you have to work with for the next four or more years in order to get your degree, so you can't just complain or ignore the situation because you won't be in it next semester. You have several options, one of which is just dealing with it. As an international student, you have people who will help you advocate for yourself, or will do it for you. Go to the international graduate student office (the people employed by the university to help international students succeed at the university, not the student run clubs or associations) and ask for advice on how to proceed. I would suggest that you also visit the university counseling center. Therapists/counselors don't just help people in psychological crises. They also teach people how to communicate with others. The counselor can help you figure out strategies to speak with and to deal with your adviser. This can be particularly helpful because you have a language and cultural barrier. You may be using the same words with the same definition in the dictionary, but you're likely understanding them in different ways. These two resources can help you figure out what you can do to make things better, what rights you have as a graduate student, what resources are available to you to solve the problem, and what your next move might be if you can't get this guy to be reasonable. Document what you've done, by the way. Make a note of the dates and times of the people you've met with to solve the problem, what you discussed, and what the outcome was. For example, the date and time you met with your adviser, your specific purpose (why you met with him and what you wanted from him), what happened during the meeting, how the adviser reacted, and what the outcome was. When you meet with anyone else, do the same thing. Keep copies of anything they give you. We call it a paper trail. If it becomes necessary for you to take the problem to his supervisor (the department chair, director of graduate studies, or some other person who can do something about his behavior), you have documentation that shows what you've done and what you wanted from it. You can take your problem to the university ombudsman, dean of students, international students office, or graduate school. The real problem is that bullying in grad school isn't addressed. Advisers and professors get away with bullying students, particularly vulnerable students like international students depending on a visa or women. Few grad students stand up and complain, and those that do often end up with a back lash. There's a mindset or a sense that it's normal to be hazed and bullied by your adviser because it "toughens" you up for the harsh world of academia. Grad students aren't abused, they're trained to deal with criticism. Grad school is one of the places that no one wants to call it bullying. They want to call it toughening up, or showing the whiny students who can't handle crticisms that they need another job.Your documentation, backed by available witnesses, will make it so that it isn't a case of a whiny grad student's word against a distinguished professor's. There is always risk when it comes to standing up to bullies. Retaliation is a real problem, particularly if you're in a situation where no other advisers are qualified to advise you, or if your university prefers to pretend everything is shiny and happy, so would prefer to pretend no one is ever abused or harassed. Now, you do have rights as a worker if your primary problem is working too much as an RA rather than general harassment as a student. Your rights come from state and federal legislation and from university policy on GA employment. First, find out your university's rules on graduate student employment. They tend to be specific about hours worked. You can usually find the policy on the website somewhere by doing a search for graduate student employment policy, or similar. The graduate school will have a clear policy about graduate student workers. If you can't find it on the website (or in your graduate student handbook), you can go to the graduate school office and ask where you might find it. You should know this policy before you move forward. My university is very clear. Graduates with the full assistanceship (they call if 50%) may not work more than 20 hours per work. If your boss is violating university policy, you can make him stop. You may be one of the graduate student workers that not exempted from the Fair Labor Standards Act rules about overtime pay (the graduate school or human resources would be able to tell you definitively, but if you're required to keep a time sheet, odds are that you're not exempt). If you are not exempt from FLSA, then you are due a lot of money. Your original comments don't make it clear about how much time you're spending doing work as a research assistant or how much time you're doing work in the lab as a student. Sometimes these things mix.

Emily Post roolz. The general etiquette when it comes to addressing someone is to use the last name until invited to do so otherwise either directly or indirectly. If a person introduces themselves or is introduced by their first name, that's an invitation. I have one professor who said grad students use her first name because we're colleagues. I have another who is Dr. ____ only to students, and first name to other faculty. It's best to err on the side of etiquette in a new situation.

This has been an interesting thread, really. I would ask you why you want to be married and have children. Not because I think that it's wrong somehow, or right somehow, but you have a specific plan about relationships that you would like to see happen. You want a serious relationship by 23, a husband and children before 30, and then life spreads out after that. The most basic problem with this plan isn't the plan, but the assumptions that underlie it. What is a husband? What criteria, at minimum, must he meet to be a husband? What if you get your MRS and MSW when he gets his MA/MS/PhD and you can't find a jobs in the same state, let alone the same town? What do you do then? Get a job that has nothing to do with your MSW so he can get his dream job? Do you stay at home? If you're focus is on building a family, why are you going to graduate school first? While I agree that these things are not incompatible, they aren't necessarily compatible either. Not in today's economic climate. I have a spouse, and I'm lucky enough that he is able to move with me no matter what. To an extent. If they only job I can get is north of the Mason-Dixon line, I will have to choose between the job with him gone half the year for health reasons, or full-time with him. Can you choose between your job offers and your spouse? What if you have a child with him during grad school and you get a great job offer in Florida and has a great job offer in Seattle. What do you do? I do not want to discourage you from having a personal life. I would encourage you to look at the reasons why you want a marriage during grad school, rather than looking for someone to marry in the place where you're both settled down in jobs and in homes. There is nothing wrong with serious relationships in grad school. I've seen them happen and I've seen them work and I've seen them break up. The problem is that you're looking for something permanent, but you can't promise permanence to each other in grad school because the odds of you living in the same place, and doing the work in your degree field, after school really suck. Social workers have a lot more flexibility than most, but the government is in enough of a financial bind (at all levels) that jobs for social workers are still hard to come by. I don't know if you've figured out what you want in a life partner, or for your career. I would encourage you to use your graduate school time to have non-permanent relationships to figure that out. Serial monogamy is only bad if people are jerks about it.

All of your materials answer a single question: Why should you admit me into your program? Your biography is no different. It should show the reader why you're the special snowflake. Just no the way an SOP does. The SOP is about your scholarship. The biography is about what prompted you to do the scholarship, and what is prompting you to try to do it in graduate school. If I were to write one, I would write about how I developed my interest in the sociological aspect of literature. It's an incident involving Karl Marx and Arthur Miller. You can't tell you whole life story, so pick a few defining events or characteristics and work with those. I'm Mexican-American, and female, which would have made some great diversity fodder, but I wouldn't put that in there because my ethnic history isn't relevant to my interests. If it is to yours, go for it. If you spent hours fishing with a grandfather who loved Hiedigger, tell that story. Basically, explain the parts of your biography that inform your scholarship. I'm an American female who grew up in an upper middle class world, and then married into a lower working class world, focused powerfully on the lower enlisted segment of the military. Army. I could use that biography to explain why I get Marx and Wallerstein. I could talk about the crisis of faith that prompted me to define terms I'd taken for granted before, like evil, good, moral, right, wrong, and so on, and how this informs my research into how main street Americans define good and evil. And so on.