rising_star

If my undergrad senior thesis hadn't been a requirement for graduation, I wouldn't have written it. It ended up being 105 pages and I think I wrote the entire thing in about 3.5 weeks right before it was due. We also had two four-hour exams (comprehensive exams for our major) to complete right after all the spring semester papers were due. While I hated it all, it prepared me quite well for my MA program.

Agreed. Presumably the adcom will find out without you telling them. FWIW, I wouldn't bother reporting anything other than a final grade. After all, we all know students who had great grades at the midterm and then did poorly on the final (not saying that you would but just trying to give some context as to why adcoms may not care much about the midterm grades).

I agree about them probably not doing the math. If you want them to know, either put your "major" GPA or CC GPA on your CV, or get a letter writer to address it. I would *not* put it in your SOP.

If cultural geography, literature, and space and place are what you're looking for, check out Univ of Toronto's geography program.

See I actually think summer can be one of the worst times to contact faculty. Why? They're not paid then! Also, in some fields, that's the only time faculty have to go out in the field and actually do their research. You might want to rephrase that to ask if they are accepting new advisees or willing to serve/chair your committee. In my program, profs don't "take" students, though there are exceptions on the science-y side for RA positions, so it's really about finding someone that wants to serve as your advisor, though not necessarily fund you. I think this is very important. They should understand that you know enough about the program and other options out there that you won't bother to apply there if the best potential advisor for you isn't taking on new students. Certainly, one aspect of these emails is to help you ascertain whether the person is willing to add to their advising group. I had success in fall 05 and fall 07 in the social sciences when contacting a variety of schools. There's a whole other thread on that in "Applications" that you may wish to consult. As an aside, I'd point out that your question ignores that many of the most active posters on this forum are women. I assume you're interested in their responses as well?

This is a great idea. I'll mention it to bgk.

I did. I started out with a template that I used to write each one, but what I actually submitted varied from one school to the next. AND, this may or may not matter, but I did more than just have a fit paragraph at the end. I made references to faculty and department strengths throughout my statement, in an effort to *show* and not just tell them that their school was a good fit for me. Whether it mattered or not is impossible for me to say but I did do really well in that round of apps (7 for 7).

Most geography graduate students come in with real world experience, which was probably the profs point. Also, going straight through makes it much more likely that you'll suffer from burnout.

Kansas and Michigan State come to mind. Any place with a Title VI center in that area might be a good idea. You can always just search through the websites of individual departments (there aren't so many dept websites that this would be really arduous). There's been a good bit of faculty movement since the 07-08 guide was published, so definitely consult dept websites as well.

PhD in Sociomedical Sciences (I think that's the name) at Columbia.

Fit is most important. You do realize that "average" means that some people's GPAs are higher and others are lower than that, right? You can't do much about your GPA now so why worry about it?

Here's the thing though: If they are faculty elsewhere on campus, they may not have influenced the OP's thoughts or studies to date. I don't think that mentioning people in other departments who do related research and/or may be appropriate as committee members will make the SOP any less specific. What it would show, in my mind, is that the OP has done research on not just the department/program but the university as a whole to make sure it would be a good fit. Granted I'm in a different social science discipline, but I was encouraged to make sure the university as a whole had the resources to support me by potential advisors when I contacted them prior to applying. Note: I'm not saying that the OP shouldn't make his/her fit with the department clear. That is important, obviously. But showing that you will be able to have all the appropriate resources at your disposal is seen as a good thing, at least in my field. (For something like anthropology where you may need specific research languages that are not taught everywhere, showing that you know where to find these on campus can be an asset. Like if your research requires Bambara and you need to further your language skills, applying to a program & university with no expertise in African languages will likely seem weird and won't help you get where you need to.) You can definitely mention people you haven't contacted, particularly if they are in other departments. It's all about how you do it. I don't think anyone expects you to have contacted every potential dissertation committee member in the department. For example, I only contacted potential advisors at each school. In my SOP, I referenced a few other faculty with similar interests that I'd also like to take courses from and have on a committee. No one looked askance or said anything negative about this. One person said it showed that I'd done my research on the faculty as a whole. Because really, one person isn't enough. You have to take classes from more than one person if you expect to earn your PhD. Maybe the life sciences are different but there is a lot of collaboration between faculty in different departments in the social sciences. I'm not in anthro but a lot of the faculty in my department collaborate with anthropology, sociology, and area studies faculty. In fact, most of my advisor's collaborators are outside of our department. The problem with this is that a lot of departments say they collaborate when they don't really. If you need such collaboration to really advance your studies, why not be upfront about it in your SOP? Anecdote time. My research interests are focused on a particular region of the world. On one PhD program visit, my potential advisor actually arranged appointments for me with a number of the faculty in the Area Studies Center for that region. Why? Because he wanted to make it clear to me that there were plenty of resources on campus to support me doing research in that region. These faculty were from all sorts of other social science and humanities departments, all were very encouraging about my research interests, and all were trying to make it clear to me that the university had strong support for research in that region. Now granted, I didn't know that when I applied but I can't imagine that mentioning faculty associated with that center would've hurt my application in any way. I hope that story made sense. It's hard to tell and keep anonymous. If you're confused, just PM me.

The only time I ever addressed my statement to someone was when it was labeled a "Letter of Intent". So, I addressed it to the Director of Graduate Studies.

It's never a bad idea to thank someone.

I last applied 2 years ago and, when I applied, things like CV, writing sample, SOP, and LORs all were handled on paper so I had to mail them in. (Well, my LOR writers mailed those in themselves.)

To be honest, I would be pretty careful about doing this. While I doubt my advisor is wholly insensitive to mental health issues, he takes a completely hands-off position when it comes to the personal lives of his students (doesn't want to know if we're dating or whom, about pregnancy [though he does have a pregnant student and a couple of students with young kids], or medical issues [just say you need a medical leave and you're good]). So yea, I would be wary about mentioning it unless it's absolutely crucial for you to do so.

I always call people Dr. LastName in correspondence until explicitly told not to. In fact, I think most of my MA calling my advisor Dr.LastName in emails, even though I called her FirstName in person. But maybe I'm just weird/overly formal.

As long as your applications are in by the deadline, I don't think there's any "proper time" to submit. I submitted everything just before the deadlines (I never mailed anything more than 4 days before the deadline). I don't think it hurt my applications at all, in spite of what the other poster's professor told him/her about submitting things a month early.

For some programs, having contact with a professor is necessary. Other times, it's useful just to know if a person is taking new students. For example, my advisor is telling prospective students to find someone else they want to work with because he does not intend to take on any new students in this admissions cycle. The only way to know that would be to contact him. (For that matter, his current research isn't really mentioned on his website so contacting him would be the only way to know what kinds of grants he's trying to get funded now.) The program where I did my MA requires that students list the faculty they've been in communication with on their application. So in that case, contact is definitely necessary.

1) I never bothered with doing that. I switched disciplines for my master's and switched subfields and regional focus for my PhD. I never really explained it other than to explain the research I would like to do. 2) I'm not creative enough to ever start with a "hook'. The hook I used in my PhD apps was a description of my master's thesis.

Pick a research focus and apply to PhD programs. Your credentials (GRE, GPA, language knowledge) are plenty solid, provided you know what it is you want to do. Given the tight time frame of some of the MA programs you listed (1 year from start to finish), I'm not really sure they'd boost your credentials much unless you took time off between the MA and the PhD. As in, by this time next year, you'd be applying again but only be halfway through a semester of coursework, not have written a thesis, and will have little potential to secure positive recommendations from your graduate school professors.

Sounds to me like you'll have plenty of time. It's not as if they're going to start reviewing materials one week before the deadline anyways. Also, no need to overnight. I would save $10 and send via USPS Priority Mail, which will still give you tracking. Apparently greekdaph and I are from the same school of thought. I was overnighting applications on Dec. 30 for Jan 1 deadlines and on Jan 14 for Jan 15 deadlines. Given the stress and the $10 additional per school, it's probably better to finish things with 3-4 days to spare so that you can use less expensive mailing options. I seriously never got a single application in more than 5 days before the deadline and, though I'm in a different discipline, I can't say it had any effect whatsoever on my admissions, receiving funding, etc. But, I'm a procrastinator by nature so I actually prefer to leave things until the last minute then cram them in.

Find the UPenn English CFP website and search for conferences on it.

There's nothing wrong with sticking with this plan but you have to be brief about it. Yes, it sucks but as coyabean has said, it's a part of academic life. In several years, you will have to write a 250-word abstract of your dissertation. I know it seems insane but you'll have to do it. For reference, I wrote a 500 word SOP that discussed not only my master's thesis (theoretical background, literature drawn on and in conversation with, and key conclusions) as well as my PhD research interests (in a different subfield and geographic region) and a bit of a fit paragraph. So, it can be done. Just ask yourself if each thing is necessary. Do you need that word or phrase? Do you need that sentence? Will the SOP make sense if you cut that sentence/phrase out? If so, then do it.

I have a dog that lives in another state (she always has lived with family friends and I see no need to move her across the country now) and also foster dogs through a local rescue group. I recommend keeping your pets if at all possible. While writing my MA thesis, I took in two foster dogs, who not only forced me to be better about my own time management (I had to teach them *everything*, including housebreaking them) but also brought me some happiness during the doldrums of writing.