GeoDUDE!

you should check, but a guideline is that 300 is the minimum for a graduate school approval. Below that, and departments have to make an appeal. This would be like having a 2.8 GPA, since 3.0s are general requirements. I would contact them. For competitive programs, I suggest a 320 or higher to be honest, but I dont know much about your programs. I just know that in general below 300 is like having less than a 3.0 gpa.

You might look at all the important scientists that work at Ivy Leagues. to name a few, Walley Broecker, Don Forsyth, Lisa Randall. I don't know much about outside of earth science and physics, but Harvard's math department is known to have some amazing alumni (and the hardest undergraduate class in the world, there is a wikipedia page on it). My guess is that as a group of colleges, the Ivy League out puts more scientific research than any other community, and probably the only group of schools that rivals it as a whole are the UCs (though the gap between Ivy's and UCs might not be as big as people think).

Just for reference, if a 300 is equivalent to a 3.0 GPA ( general minimum requirements) a 284 is like having a 2.0 GPA. You should ask them if there are minimum GRE requirements.

I would be surprised if you made the minimum GRE for any UC school, or any graduate school that has one (thats not the departmental cutoff, its the entire school cutoff which is generally lower than departmental cutoffs).

If it's not good enough, then you wont get in. If you aren't prepared to get rejected by graduate school, you should not apply. Graduate school is full of failures. If you can't handle failing then you cannot make it through.

I didn't study and scored Q:163 V:161 AWA:5.0. Its not even close to as hard as the LSAT. It's high school level material. You can do it with out studying (maybe take the power prep practice tests).

That seems like a good plan. I got a funded MS, so its possible you can to (my GPA was barely over 3.0). Make sure its a thesis based program. If you have to pay out of pocket you probably should think about doing well for a year and then trying to transfer to a higher ranked PhD program without completing your MA: paying for graduate school is very expensive and may not be the most efficient use of your money. Especially if you have some reasonable research experience and the only real weaknesses in your application come from obtaining 1 LOR (which can come from an MA class), taking the GRE (perhaps you can save up little by little to afford the test), and your GPA (which can be offset by a year of straight A's). Just make sure that everything you do from now on is excellent (if you take the GRE, try to get 75%, get as close to a 4.0 as possible). We thought you were being lazy by not taking because of two things one " also don't have GRE scores (I will not take the test on principle)" sounds awful lazy, and two, you would only turn in 2 LOR. Like said before, getting a flyer from someone in a class you did well in could only help your application. good luck.

You are totally missing the point, its not just about performance, but its also about checking the boxes. Being good at research isn't the only thing that is required to finish graduate school. Those of us who have been in it for a while know that. Perhaps you will be fine. You are correct, I don't know about your research; but other linguistic professors might never know either because you are too busy not filling in the boxes. Your extra letter will be beneficial: they asked for 3 letters and you gave it to them. Plenty of people have a mediocre letter and get into graduate school. The fact that you completely dismiss it is the bigger problem though: I hope that doesn't come through in your statements. Are your letters from 'big wigs'? Often, the name of the person is more important than the contents since they are all full of hyperbole. Perhaps the person/people you want to work with know your letter writers very well. If thats the case, you might ask them to send an email to them to see your application gets reviewed. If you make it into graduate school ( and I hope you do as that is what you seem to want) there will be far more bureaucratic annoyances that you will have to go through. You might have a committee member that doesn't even read your thesis before your defense (One of mine didn't). But when she makes minor corrections, you still have to respect them. Programs want to accept people that will make it through their program: beyond wowing them with your self proclaimed impressive research they want to see some sort of track record of reliability. And while a 3.2 in your major might not seem bad, one would ask why its so low if thats the thing you want to study. A 3.2 is awfully close to failing in graduate school. Perhaps you will dismiss my advice, and sure, I don't know a lot about linguistics programs. But my guess is that the field is competitive, and there will be applicants with similar research profiles to you (is this book an actual peer reviewed publication? If its not, then it hardly matters), or perhaps stronger, with way higher GPAs and GREs. This is a international competition. Why would they want to accept you? If you can answer that well, perhaps you have a chance, if you can get them to read your application; you would be surprised how much better you might do if you went back to school and retook some classes you did poorly in or took some more graduate hours to raise your GPA even .2. A very wise computer scientist is now a full professor of CS at UIUC (top 5 dept) had a 2.4 GPA coming from undergrad. He documented his experience in his blog post: http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2005/03/re_phd_with_low.html You will find people with low GPAs who got into graduate school (I am one of those people, and am at a top 20 dept in my field), but none of the one's i've met have exhibited such a resistance to giving the programs what they want. You are not the judge of your application. They are.

Your letters don't all have to be from linguistic professors. So get one more. Thats a really dumb thing to not do. You will not get in if you have a bad GPA and no GRE. In graduate school there are many hoops you have to go through. If you wont even go through the admissions hoops, why would they accept you? You probably wouldn't get in with that GPA and a perfect GRE, since you are below the minimum requirement. Perhaps you are brilliant enough, and could speak to someone at admissions. But your application will say "incomplete" and they will probably not review it. But here is a real question, if you are really that smart, then why wouldn't you just do these simple things? Belligerence is not a trait admissions committees look for. Some food for thought. If I had read this post, and was a Professor, I would not want you as my graduate student.

Especially in the computational science fields, you will eventually have to join a big lab if you want to churn out high impact paper after high impact paper. Large might be relative. I came from an MS where I was the only grad student working on computational geodynamics, and am now at the biggest, by population, lab in my field with about 6 grad students and 2 postdocs + maybe 5 programmers (and 2 PI's). There just isnt enough time to code all the things you need to code to explore novel relationships, but if each student/programer makes a module, it works out a lot better. Another thing is that even if you are in a field that uses community codes, it often takes a while for those codes to be updated. Also, chances are the community codes will still need heavy modifying. So in summary, if you want to do more "science" and less "programming" you need to join a bigger group. I hope this makes some sense.

Men also outperform women on IQ tests. Its all standardized tests I'm fairly sure (perhaps you have an example of where women do better.) There are probably biological reasons, or whatever, i'm not sure.

I don't think this is the proper way of having a civil discussion, and I'm not a moderator, but sarcastic comments in a discussion aren't very productive. I know Victorydance hasn't used appropriate language either, which is why I think many are put off by his argument, but when posting on the internet your response doesn't have to be immediate! You have time to think. Second, like I stated before, if you really believe that men are less likely to ask women out than women are likely to ask men out or these to ratios are equal, then I think there is some ignorance to vast societal norms. This isn't true in all cultures, from what I've heard, women in Asia have become more forward especially in countries where there is a decreasing female population and increasing male! But all our books, fables, stories, movies and whatever tell us that it's man's role to initiate and while you can't blame them for falling through this norm (the woman not asking the dude out) you have to admit that victorydance is probably right: the biggest factor for her not dating him right now is she never asked him out. Sure, she could have waited and he might have asked her out (he didn't) but she had no real control over that. This is a common sense argument in my opinion.

What's disturbing about that ? (In other words, why don't you put a few line summary under each article and actually articulate a point other than a feeling if you would like to have a good discussion about something.) You might think what you find disturbing is obvious, but then, that thought would be contradictory to your question "Does this disturb anyone else?" Men tend to do better on standardized tests, have higher IQs ect. Its been that way; does it make men smarter? No.

To be fair mases, I've only been asked out twice (both times I said yes). The vast majority of the time I have had to make the first move, and I think this is the experience of most males who date. I agree that both genders wait around, but victory dance's point is something that anyone, regardless of gender should learn: If you like them tell them. But it would be untruthful to say that men aren't more likely to make the first move, or that society doesn't expect them to.

It could also be, and no one has stated the obvious, that he is a graduate student, and graduate students tend to be nerdier than the general population. Perhaps he was too shy, and chickened out when she was very heavily hinting. It could be worth another flyer as long as you can handle it.

Go with the money.

It's not questionable at all. It doesn't happen much in educated circles of the united states, but most girls (and women) tend to be attracted to men that are older then them. People like easy things, so when someone shows interest in you, you tend to be more attracted to them. Adults are all equals. You see men dating younger women all the time as a result. I've never dated a woman older than me; I'm 24 and most of the women who show interest in me tend to be 20-22 year olds. That being said, I don't have first hand experience with this situation, and i'm no "expert" on these matters, but I'm pretty sure he was trying to figure out if you were DTF with no problems. A lot of dudes in grad school are looking to avoid the "two body problem", but also, a lot of dudes like having sex while having a "fun" relationship. I say this as someone who looks for the same thing. This might be teetering a bit on the misogynist side, but really a lot of people like sex without the 'baggage.' At some point, he probably realized that you weren't a fit, but still kept on talking to you to be 'nice'. I realize giving the 'bro' perspective might get a flack on here, but wanting this doesn't make the guy (or me for that matter) an 'asshole', but more of someone who is honest about what he wants in a relationship. He seemed he was nice enough, at least he hasn't lead you on; I would find someone else. Your feelings for him will go away.

5%

Why wouldn't it be legal?

Usually you are required to submit transcripts from all colleges attended. Perhaps read the application

I forget the bars we end up going to; UB seems to be fairly busy every night though.

Serious question. What if someone on this forum said indeed you were not smart enough to be a social worker, after having never met you in real life, or really know your situation? By corollary, what if someone indeed said you were? It would be really sad if you believed either of those two people. How does anyone here have the ability to measure your intelligence? Maybe people know how smart you have to be a social worker, but connecting the two seems like a very difficult thing having never met you. One thing you might take solace in is that no matter what program you are in, you are only tested when you have to take the test and not before. My quals arent for 5 quarters, but they arent giving me the test now. Perhaps worry if you feel this way a semester before your test, not 3 weeks in.

=\ you guys seem a lot more social than us. At least my department is very social (2-3 happy hours a week).

I am! how did you know ? I never see anyone.... There are a lot of international students here right now, so I think they are a bit shy. I'm not sure.

They do value these things, but they also value competency. In many ways that's what the GRE is.