rising_star

Actually, I know of many people with English PhDs that are working outside of the academy. Given the discrepancy between the number of jobs available for English PhDs and the number of graduates each year, it may be useful to show that you know how your academic research can be applied outside of the academy. Then again, this kind of depends on the field and may be more appropriate in mine than it would be in English. To answer your question JackieW, I didn't just talk about wanting to be a professor but talked about how I would use my current and future research in the classroom, what size/type of institution I'd like to work, and my kind of agenda within the discipline.

I would say you have a shot at getting in. Most programs place more emphasis on your grades in the last two years of college anyways. Make sure you really tell them what you want to do as a graduate student and why in your SOP.

GO TO ISTANBUL! Keep in contact with professors you've had while you're gone. Make solid connections with professors while in Turkey. Use the combo to get letters.

I didn't specifically cite or quote any research in either of my SOPs (MA apps then PhD apps). Instead, I focused on explaining what I wanted to do in my research and who some of the influences in my past and current research have been.

I didn't apply to programs in either, but have experience with both. If you google, there's an university that has a list of almost every Latin American Studies program in the US. Where exactly you should go really depends on what your interests are. If you're unsure about whether to do comparative literature or Latin American studies, maybe you should do a master's degree in one field or the other.

FWIW, my mom's PhD program in school psychology was housed in a psychology department so you probably can do a general MA and the PhD later.

Community college tenure-track jobs aren't all that abundant from what I understand. That said, I have a friend that has one, and he actually left his PhD program before finishing all of his exams. BUT he's a math professor and had a bunch of teaching experience when he got the job. Now he's actually working on a PhD in math education, not because he needs it, but because he wants to pursue it. So I guess what I'm saying is that yes, you can get the CC t-t job with a master's but you better have a boatload of teaching experience to go along with it because you'll be competing for the job against people that have 4-5 years of teaching experience (even those that haven't finished a PhD or even reached ABD status may have that much teaching experience).

If researching sports makes you happy, then find a way to pursue it. Make it a chapter or two in the dissertation, that you can pull out and expand on for a subsequent book. Apparently sports is the new thing. I'm hoping to bring it to my own department, ideally through an undergraduate course but we'll have to see what happens.

UT-Austin keeps them, but only if you apply. Actually, that might apply to the entire Texas system because they use the same application system. (I only know this because I applied there for both MA and PhD. I used the same application id for both, so the GRE scores were already there.)

Plenty of people live in NYC on 22K. Also, keep in mind that the top fellowships at CUNY pay about $18K/year.

Actually, the lockdown starts late on Saturday night. In Athens-Clarke County, it's 11:30pm. In Oconee County, it's 11:45pm (at least at Kroger). You get used to it or you go to a bar/restaurant that gets enough of its sales from food that it can be open on Sunday.

It depends. What are the qualifications for the program? Do you have relevant work, internship, or research experience that you can apply to the programs? Do you have similar courses that might meet some of the prerequisites/requirements? Econ and psych are very different so maybe taking some classes in each would help you figure out which direction you would like to go in. Even community college courses could be useful, though they're lower-level so would be more general rather than specific. Hope this helps!

This might be a dumb question but I thought you had to have a master's before you could get a specialists. Am I wrong about this? I wouldn't worry so much about the research interests of professors if your goal is to be a practicing school psychologist. Instead, try to get funding and make sure they have good internship/fieldwork placements since that experience will help launch your career.

It depends. My car registration and driver's license are still in my home state for a few reasons: 1) I jointly own my car with my mother so I can't just register it where I live without a bunch of signatures and having the title (which resides in her safety deposit box at the bank in my home state); 2) neither my MA university or where I'm doing my PhD now require me to establish state residency (and in fact, I can never be a resident here for tuition purposes which is why they don't make us do it if we don't want to); and 3) I really like my license plate. Okay, I might be sort of kidding about that last one. But, there are often laws about this (though some may not apply if you're a full-time student and can claim temporary residency). In my home state, you have 30 days to get a new license and register your vehicle once you move though it's never an issue unless you get pulled over by a cop.

Things get lost, sure. But that doesn't mean you won't get the chance to resend whatever goes missing. I'm one of those people that always applied at the deadline and I was able to resend materials with no problems for admissions consideration.

Actually, they're combined in one show which airs on Oxygen. It's called "Dance Your A** Off"... Clearly your girlfriend and I have similar tastes.

Find favorite spots to do things. For me, the key was finding a good coffee shop (which sadly closed in May), a good happy hour bar, a good place to watch football, and a good work spot on campus. They are things I use regularly when school is in session so it was important for me to find them before classes started.

fruit

jlee, if your field is School Psychology, you may not need research experience at all. Make sure you have experience with students, particularly with those with particular like those you may encounter as a practicing school psychologist (those with physical, mental, or learning disabilities, for example). Good luck!

Hmmm... I find that grad school #2 in my case is more like college. I possibly had too much at grad school #1. And whoever says that you don't have time for extracurriculars/partying in grad school is clearly not in my discipline. I view the national conference as 5 nights of 5+ beers and have to prep my liver beforehand. Every week is a week full of drinks and I love that about my life.

GRE

It is WAY too early to be emailing about graduate school. If you want to work in someone's lab, look for NSF-REU programs, which are designed to give undergraduates research experience, and use one of those to get into the person's lab.

I always send at the deadline. And I mean at the deadline, never more than 3 days before (which is how long it takes priority mail to arrive). I did overnight several application materials and upload things online something like 45 min before midnight (in that time zone). LOL. But I like to do things at the last minute. Did it affect admissions? Probably not. I applied to a school on Dec 30/31 (no mail on Jan 1!), and heard back before the end of Jan. Another with a deadline of Jan 15 (again, I sent in the stuff no more than 3 days in advance) I heard from before Feb 1. Both of those admissions gave me decisions earlier than the general applicant pool because they were nominating me for university-wide fellowship competitions.

Umm, perhaps because the GRE includes hundreds of words that are rarely used, and often aren't even found in academic papers. I'm a native speaker and was a literature major in college. I got a 610 on verbal and a 6 on AW.

Ah, but the food is amazing. Plus NGC is the one on the golf course, right? Great sledding right outside your door.