eklavya

Cool. But I can see that after so many users, the patterns will be repeated. Here's mine anyways:

trunk junk

'bhikhaari' stands for 'a beggar' in my language. i was deeply moved by a poem titled 'bhikhaari' written by the most renowned poet in our country. thus, the alias. my avatar is the sage grouse - a bird that predominantly lives in the intermountain united states, and its survival is obligate to sagebrush. i am performing some molecular genetics study on sagebrush. and thus, the avatar.

perhaps the 1500 is the number of total grad students that have applied this year.. not just in your dept, but in others as well. but it could be various other things. if the 1500 email ids are 'legit', which i think they are as the admission office sent the email, i wouldn't worry about spammers getting to you. if they do, you can always hire a lawyer and either blackmail the university to let you in, or sue them

green garden

Not yet. Adcomms in the schools I have applied to won't even meet till Jan.. so there's no rush. Am not going to bother about this till come end-Feb/early-March, as that's when I will be making my picks. Perhaps I am also not worried because I am/will be living solo, and you all might agree, living solo is a lot easier duet/band life because of the unrestricted freedom.

First, you never know what the adcomms are looking for. They might see a spark in you (and your application) beyond the grades and GPA. What accounts the most (from what I've heard) in application review is your research, SoP and LoR. If these three things are rock solid, don't worry. Second, forget about the B, C, etc. Albeit in different field than yours, I have seen people with horrible grades and stinky GRE from my dept go onto stellar universities. Because they had good research and strong LoRs. So, the advice here is that go ahead and apply with confidence. Of course, apply to some backup-type schools as well, but also apply to big name schools. You never know if you have a chance till you apply.

opera master

magic finger

dirty language

That's EXACTLY what I've been telling the screwed-by-GRE-folks in here.. but no one is ready to listen!

oh no, they can't do that. we grad students are their cheap work horses. think how much it costs them to hire a full time employee. they can get 3 grad students for that price! and what about all the fun they have in humiliating us, deprecating our work, and making jokes outta us? they certainly don't want to miss this!! that's why they take in grad students.

heh - that might be fine, but the gradsec will be like 'this dude is unbelievable!'

end zone yeah!!, now we talkin' football!!

red eye

Really, in your field? In mine, and from what my profs have told me, GPA is almost useless once you start your PhD. Of course you need to maintain a certain GPA (usually >3.0) to qualify for fellowships, but for obtaining postdocs and/or tenure/research positions, your nature of research, quality and quantity of your publications and who you network with are far more important than your academic performance at grad school.

Take this with a grain of salt: your grades from classes 11 and 12 won't buy you anything. Don't even bother reporting it.. actually, you will see in the applications that you are asked to mention college grades only, not high school. Don't worry about your AW score either. While 4 is considered a good score, GRE is probably the least important component of your application. And you are a computer science (cs, you say?) student? You got great scores in both V and Q, so don't worry about your GRE scores at all. 73%, when converted straight to GPA scale comes down to a C. But this isn't fair/right. Most schools know that grading methods and criteria are unique in different countries. And turns out that 73% isn't a bad score... I got 78% when I graduated from my high school, which is one among the top 3 in our country. I got into a top 50 private university in the US with scholarship. Since then, it has been my belief that scores (in %) in the line of 70s is pretty good. Don't worry. Go ahead and fill out your applications. Good luck!

sweet!

but seriously guys, i look at the 'results' section, and i see that schools i have applied to have started giving out decisions, albeit in other majors/programs. still, the first thing i can think of is 'GODDAAAAMMMMITT!!! why the hell haven't the adcomm for my program met yet!?!' i wish there was a 'poke' feature in our applications - we could poke all day all week long till they finally give up and start reviewing!

family saga lets get this twilight out of the conversation, eh?

Yea, it happens. One of my school says they still don't have my GRE, while all other schools got it almost 3 weeks ago. Some schools are really slow at processing documents. And December is the month of application overloads, so I wouldn't worry much.

fish fillet

From what I have heard, GPA/GREs matter nothing once you start your grad program. You will be evaluated based on your research ability, teaching potential, publications, and how creative you are with your mind. Think about it - 4 years ago, we used to think that high school GPA is ALL that matters. Not anymore it doesn't. Same thing for our current GPA. And once you start your pro life, GPA will become obsolete.

calamity zone

Some schools let you resubmit your application if the deadline hasn't passed. You can try this. If you have emailed graduate secretaries, they will definitely help you out.. as they probably go through hundreds of similar cases. Do not panic, and let the situation play out. It will be alright.