spottedzebra

Thanks! It's the last school I'm waiting on so I'm definitely stressing hard.

Congrats on Stanford!! And yes, the California weather is quite hard to beat

Congrats!!!! Was this your first choice??

steelkokoro: around what time did you receive the email??

I just logged in and if you scroll all the way down to the bottom it should say admissions decision Good luck!!

I was notified by Yale through an email to check the website. No word on funding yet, apparently it's going to come later via the good old fashioned USPS

yh2654: I'm in the same boat as you are right now. Just wondering though, how much do you know about the Columbia program and it's selectivity, etcetc. I know it boasts a pretty amazing faculty and a very impressive PhD program but I'm left kind of clueless about the MA

I had a friend get into Stanford's EAS master's program two years ago and she heard on March 13

I just want to pretend that the real world doesn't exist....

Congrats to everyone who has gotten acceptances this past week!!! I just heard back from Columbia's EALC program! Such a great feeling knowing I have somewhere to go next year )

MastersHoping: I'd be glad to!

MastersHoping: Sorry to hear about Fulbright, but I'm sure it's just a sign for future grad school success steelkokoro: So sorry to hear about Berkeley. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you (and everyone else) during the rest of the process.

We might as well be twins )) Yeah, my mom is francophone Chinese-Russian. She speaks French, passable Russian, Chinese, and okay English (so. much. accent. lol) My dad is Eurasian too... half Chinese and half Serbian, but he grew up in Scotland so he manages to speak okay Chinese and English with a horrendous Scottish accent hahaha. The good thing I get out of all of this... I can fake a Russian, Chinese, French, Scottish, and Serbian accent pretty well. I dont think it'll hurt if you're not doing academe. I can only assume their looking for a wide variety of people. Best of luck with Yale, I'm sure you're as competitive as anyone else ))) Also, just a random thought/question, but how important do you think LOR are weighed in for something like this??

Also, does anyone know how many people use their Masters as a stepping stone for a PhD?? Maybe I'm getting too ahead of myself with this academia thing...

Hey Mastershoping, I'm pretty much in the same exact boat you are GPA-wise. I started as premed (yikes) and my transcript looks like I suffer from extreme schizophrenia. I go to a school with very very very notable grade deflation, but my school includes a letter in our transcripts so maybe that will sway the decision slightly (although it very well may not... life is so difficult lol). I go to a top 5 liberal arts college so maybe that will all go into play. Shrugs, I try not to break things down into too much detail. I figure some of it has to do with luck too. My first choice waffles between Harvard and Columbia, curious to know how competitive Columbia is (if anyone knows )) Oh and as for my French, my mom is half Chinese/half Russian, but she grew up in France. My grandfather is emeritus at Sorbonne so he made sure EVERYONE could at least babble a bit in French. I really liked Victor Hugo so I just ended up reading a lot with him and picked up most of my French that way. In high school I didnt feel like learning Spanish or German so I just weaseled my way into the IB class and called it a day hahaha

I can't really say for certain, although it seems as though you have as good a shot as anyone. I had a bit of a freakout moment about my application and the way my professor put it is that no one has a perfect application and that everyone wishes something about their credentials were different. You seem to have amazing work experience and other credentials to make up for a low GRE score, but I think it really depends on who gets your app and how they see it. At the end of the day, it's a holistic process, right?

Overall, I feel like graduate school is less of a numbers game and more about fit...

MastersHoping, not sure about Yale, but on their website Harvard says that between 180-200 people apply and the entering cohort consists of 25-28 people. Doing a bit of statistics mixed with some game theory, logic dictates that they need to accept between 20-23 more people than their entering class. So, out of 180-200 people anywhere between 40-50 people are accepted. I only took a year of econ so this might be flawed lolol Also, fun fact, I'm fluent in French too!!

All applied... now I just want to crawl in a hole and cry. Applying to schools is such a humbling experience

Hey saltome! What other programs did you apply do (if you don't mind me asking ) Are you doing EAS for your PhD also?

Congrats on FSU Authorization!!!

My actual score was slightly higher than the scores on my practice exams (but then again I had the TV on in the background and eating during most of my practice exams... short attention span lol) Manhattan 160 V/158 Q Kaplan 163 V/160 Q PP1/PP2 158 V/155 Q (lawlz Castle marathon with some friends...) 160 V/160 Q Actual 167 V/165 Q 5.5 AWA EDIT: All of these practice exams were taken within 72 hours of test day... yeah, I'm just full of procrastination this year

It's that time of the year again, figure I'd go ahead and start the East Asian Studies thread for Fall 2014. Let's all get acquainted now, so we can commiserate together later 1. What program are you applying to (MA/PhD/Other) 2. Where are you applying or thinking of applying? 3. Background information (undergrad, major, etcetc) 4. Fun fact unrelated to grad school I'm going for a master's in East Studies, probably going to follow in the footsteps of an EAS alum from my school and go for Stanford, Duke, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Berkeley. I'm an EAS/English double major with a premed concentration at a top 5 liberal arts college in the states. Overall GPA is a 3.5 (shakes fist in air, damn you premed classes), major GPA for EAS is a 3.8. Haven't taken the GRE yet (o.O). I'm hoping to focus on China and specialize in either history or literature. Fun Fact: I have a cat who is leash trained but doesn't know how to use a litter box and a dog who has a fear of leashes, trees, cars, squirrels, and any other thing that moves except for himself.