eklavya

sweet pea

You have to defend your prospectus? In my dept/school, thesis and prospectus are two different entities.. and only thesis is defended at the end of the MS program. I discussed my prospectus with the committee Dec 1st week and turned it in last week. All my apps were done by the end of November. Nothing but a long long long wait to endure!

pumpkin pie

This looks pretty good. I would move the 'are you taking new students next fall?' type of question to the front of the email from down where you have it right now. Am not saying your style is wrong.. that's just the way I prefer. Also, please search the forums first before posting. This is a very generic question and the number/type of responses you get will be limited. If you search the forums, you will find threads on this/similar topic from not only this year, but from previous years as well, and those could be more helpful.

I think it is a good idea to throw in a sentence or two in your SoP regarding the repeated courses.. the transfers might not do much harm if left unexplained. I too had to repeat few classes because of various reasons (teacher being a bad grader, me getting sick, etc) but I did not explain these in my SoP - now I think I should have. But I am on my MS and have been doing tremendously well in classes, research, internships, publishing papers, etc. So I thought I'll just leave it to my fate. But I strongly suggest you to address any dark spots on your transcript... you never know what goes through the adcomm's mind.

Not from polisci, but can share my experience here. Some schools I applied to do not provide the option/service for checking status, and wanted the applicants to email the gradsec. Other schools provided this option, but in a very obscure way. I had to go through either the department website and find links/directions that led me to a status check page, or through the main graduate admissions office where the status check service would be buried in the application instructions, before you apply, FAQs, etc sections. Try these.. you might get lucky.

I too am contemplating about my universities. While I haven't heard back from any, I am planning on going to schools at states with warmer climates. Two of my top choices (best of 3) are in cold climates, and am thinking, unless they provide me with lucrative funding and/or awesome research, I will definitely choose the schools with warm/humid climates. But again I think that money is not the only thing to look for. What if a school [A] in warm state offers me the same amount of funding as the school in cold state , but the peers and faculty in school A are not as competitive as those in school B? And what about post-graduation? What if school B has better placements in academia and industries than school A? Considering all these things, I will make my decision. Still, weather plays a huge part in decision making.

You can email them now.. or whenever you prefer. The online recommendation form fields where you provide your letter writers' names and email ids can be added, deleted or altered even after you turn in your application. So, there's nothing to worry about. Simply add their names and email ids and that should take care of the rest.

True. And may I add that this has a high chance of happening if the person added is an immature + total idiot. In my case, the X was/is pretty renowned guy in my field, but still he didn't contribute to the work. The person who proposed that X should be added to the paper is the type of person who tries to be on the good side of people by providing them favors, which in my case, happened to be a bullshit authorship for X. Oh, the world and its colorfulness!

nervous chicken

silver lining

I will keep this short. Something similar happened to me as well. One person (call him X) who pretty much did not contribute to the project was invited (by Y) to be an author in my paper which we are sending off for publication coming week. When Y proposed this to me and my prof via email, I was shocked, confused, and even angry, for X did pretty much nothing. X also did not know the premise of the project till then. Long story short, X is in the paper now, but as the least important author. I got around the situation by calming myself down. I thought 'hey, no matter who is in the paper, and how many, as long as I am the lead author and KNOW that I did most of the work, I can take pride on my work, and the paper'. So.. you see, it's all about the state of your mind. I agree, X and Y in your case deserve less credit.. hell, Y deserves no credit. But calm down. Let it be. You know the work is yours, and you can/will be able to take pride on it any time.... but NOT X and Y.

While it depends on the adcomms and the dept policy, most places take the highest score if you send them multiple. I haven't heard of anyone averaging the scores, but can't see why that couldn't happen either.

ha! - that's a great way to fork achievement out of a crappy situation. i too had worked on my SoP when i had almost no work to do in my research project. no work + grad school stuff + money = awesome!

This means that if your scores (both general and subject) were available (aka grading completed on all sections of the tests) on the day you requested the scores, then they will be sent asap. But if the scores aren't available (due to grading procedures or other situations), then they'll hold out till they have the scores, and then send it to the requested schools. Now from what you say, it looks like you requested the general scores a day before the subject scores. In this case, they will process the general scores (first request) and then move on to the next. I don't think they send out the scores the same day (unless the schools receive the scores electronically), but basically, they'd send your general scores before the subject scores.

I made my diversity statement very personal. I talked about the way I grew up, the way we did farming back home (I am an international student), how I picked up multiple languages growing up in a multi-ethnic society, and the struggles I went through to arrive up to this point. Because I am applying to plant science and I grew up in a farming society, I mentioned (and gave examples of) how hard it is to be a farmer in my country. I also wrote that with the degree from here, I could certainly contribute back to societies like mine where growing food is tremendously difficult. The last paragraph was something along the line of 'I am hopeful that I can add to the diversity of ABC university'. So you see, it was pretty personal. I do not know if this was the right way to write it, but I thought that giving the adcomms something very different could help me. Like you said, I also don't think diversity statement will carry as much weight as the SoP. Still, I was honest with my writing, and worked hard on it.

large audience

awesome!! keep expanding the list guys! here's one i gotta share - a TRUE gem, cover by Johnny Cash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m_VBR8XZYI&feature=fvsr

day dreamers

If you are feeling really uncomfortable about that person and his behaviors, you can try to ignore him. But I'll tell you, dodging him for the entire period of your graduate studies might be a hard thing to do. So, what you can do is talk to your peers (and/or gradsec) about the person and find out what type of person he is. If he is actually a nice person (that is, has been a nice person his all life), then I'm sorry, but he's just trying to be friendly. And you need to be friendly with him too.. in a platonic way. Like the person above said, talk about your married life, husband and flash the ring. If he's a good person and no intention of getting personal with you all along, this will settle down easily. However, if he doesn't have a good history with people, esp ladies, you can dig more about him, and perhaps talk to your peers and you advisor about getting help. A little nudge from the dept and/or the cops might help him control his actions. But again, he hasn't done anything wrong, so you don't want to be ignorant and hasty in the actions you take against him. Just give it some time, think through and be patient... it'll be okay.

I was able to fit everything I wanted to say in a page - which is about what, 650 words? 1000 words would be a page and a half then.. which seems like a good length too. Since this isn't a term paper, going for longer length isn't a healthy choice. Like the person above said, if you stay short and crisp, it'll do the trick.

I do not see anything wrong with this. Opening/holding door, saying 'hi', exchanging smiles are courteous gestures, and not flirtatious. In fact, from what you've written here, I do not see how they are trying to flirt with you. If you are from a different culture than those people, then this makes sense to some degree. And if this really is the case, please realize that they are not trying to pull a flirty trick on you or anything - it is completely normal for one human being to act human in front of another human being. And you said that they are staff? Then perhaps they know that you are new there, and therefore might have been showing extra friendliness to make you feel comfortable in the area, in the school. From your post, it seems you are a lady/girl. Not trying to pull any sexist stuff here, but guys generally are nice to ladies because that's how most of us are raised. We are taught by our moms, grandmas and the society to respect females, to treat them nice, and to talk clean with them. Maybe this person is doing just that. He's being a nice guy to a lady. Nothing flattery, nothing flirtatious here, imo. I read somewhere that once you turn the envy/hatred you have for someone into friendliness/praise, then you will come to realize how wrong you were before. While this does not hold true all the time, it certainly offers you a chance to come in pact with your feelings. Just give it a shot. Perhaps things are not how you think they are.

Stress? What stress? Where? See, I am choosing to ignore it. You don't give it space, it won't take space. Ignorance is the best medicine!

I saw the trailer on PS3 market.. I don't think the official trailer has been released to the 'world' yet. It looked cool, but I can already predict it'll be going around and fending of zombies and greedy humans. I am not a big fan of horror genre in video games. But I like to watch most of the decent horror movies that come out.

younger brother