eklavya

Either f*cking accept me or die!!

And don't worry too much about LoR reaching the schools few days after the deadline. While it's in your best interests to have them in by the deadline, it doesn't alter your fate terribly if they are a little late.

The question I have for you is if you talked to your letter writer BEFORE or AFTER he took AWOL. If before, your chances of getting letters from him are slim to none. He might have taken the leave due to health, family, financial - plethora of any reasons. But if it was after, then as Strangefox suggested, it's better to call him up. It could very well be that he is working on the letters. Or he's out of the country or somewhere where there's no internet (there was another person posting about his prof gone abroad, not replying emails, etc. turns out that his prof was at a place with no internet) and hasn't responded yet. Just be patient, and wait it out. Also, it might not be a terrible idea to start looking for another writer.

Things like these - small/big typos, choice of words, forgetting to switch department/program names between different SoPs, etc - are common. There is no way any one is going to be 100% satisfied with their applications. We all make mistakes, and the adcomms know that. They won't come to a decision based on a trivial error. Chill out. You'll be fine.

oh, the horrible writers' strike! i was disgusted by the act of everyone that season. man, it was so disappointing to not be able to watch new shows!! yea, heroes showed a lot of promise the first season. the second season wasn't too bad imo, but then they gave way to family, drama, relation, etc and totally disregarded the awesomeness about using power to fight bad guys and save the world. what a letdown man! but i tell you what, sylar was the best character. he had this poise almost like hannibal lecter. adding on, did any of you watch prison break? the first 2 seasons (breaking out, and on the run) were awesome!! i watched the third, but didn't care much as that writer's strike hit mid season.

Yes.. 2 pages shouldn't be a problem. I was pointing fingers to those who barely finished their undergrad or Masters and yet prepare a CV >3/4 pages to send to a graduate program. And it makes more sense in your case as you've been out of school for a while.

no. none. but now that i am done with my finals, i think it's time to devise one.

Of course send it. But CV? Why not send a resume? I have been advised by my professors and folk who graduated from my lab (and went to grad schools) to send a resume. The reason being that adcomms might think that it's boring to go through a long CV as you're applying for a grad position, not a full time and long-impact job position. Someone sending a short and sweet resume might have a leg up.

It shouldn't be a problem.. as you said, content is more important than stylish formatting. Although, the name, position, and correspondence address of the letter writers are must, which they put anyways at the bottom of the letter.

watched Sunshine (2007) and Moon (2009) yesterday. both are Sci-Fi and must watch if you love the genre. well, must watch anyway because life is boring as hell during this waiting period!

awesome!

rough pattern

they will look at your/our fall and winter grades once we start school next fall, and depending on how horrible we did and correlating that horribleness with our deliberate conscience, they might make us take a class or two. but who cares after we get in!?

shouldn't that ^ be her and not his? ETA: i see now - dude wrote a letter by himself using his pen and brain (=HIS, right?) for her.

'lets piss on the pile of application files'

rocking bed

I haven't been in that situation but there was a similar thread created two days ago, take a look:

slight edge

welcome to our lives

Most schools consider that you are applying for scholarships and fellowships as well when you turn in your application. If otherwise, the department website usually instructs on how to go about it, if not the main grad admission webpage. However, this is mostly for PhD applications, and is certainly true in my field. I do not have adequate knowledge in other fields and/or with MS applications.

sweet!

I'm sure ETS did.. I mean, UF got my scores within a week of me reporting the scores. Probably your scores got lost or the main grad office or the dept office mishandled it. If it's any of these cases, it sucks man. Good luck!

I applied to UF few weeks ago, and all my materials have been uploaded successfully. I did not take/send TOEFL scores but GRE was handled promptly. Are you checking the status of materials using the application page or the status page? You should be using the latter, here: http://www.admissions.ufl.edu/appstatus.html

oh.. so you are talking about the plan B AFTER grad school? isn't that still too far to worry about? i don't have a backup plan at all. being an international student, i will most probably go home (after few years of fooling around in industrial research after phd), and be a bigshot scientist/researcher there! hehe though, this is what i have in mind right now... who knows what turn the life will take next

Yes, it is OK to contact professors after submitting application, given that the deadline has not passed already. If your POI has already started looking into candidate files, sending an email might bias his/her judgment - since this can swing either way (good or bad), you don't want to take the risk. If the deadline is little late, say, after Jan 15, then I don't see why you can't talk to someone whose research interests you. You can still contact profs if you didn't do it before sending out the apps. I might actually do that.. am heading to a conference in mid Jan, and I know that this prof will be there. I already have indirect link to this prof via another prof in the same dept (I emailed this second prof, and he said that including him, the first prof (the one coming to the conf) would also be interested in me) but now I want to meet him and talk to him. And the conference data is before the deadline for this school. I digress. I did contact few professors in other schools before I applied, and they encouraged me to apply, and said they'd be excited to see my application. But that's all they will say. However, one leg up you'll have is that they'll remember (hopefully, right?) your name, and you might stand out based on pseudo-familiarity.