eklavya

this is terrible, if it is true. however, i have found out that schools get GRE scores in different ways. some get it right after you pay the 23$ (4 of my 7 schools got the scores the very next day); some get it in a week-10 days via post mail (1 school); some get it either bi- or tri-weekly or in a month either in a CD, or bulk-snail-mailed (2 schools). However, the schools that get GRE late can view your scores online on ETS's secure website (or something similar i assume). i suggest that you email the gradsec or grad coordinator to find more about what's actually happening in your case.

i've come to realize (painfully) that we are the ones being played by the 'waiting', and not the other way around

ditto scores here! well, almost think and decide, if verbal is really that important for your proposed field of study. if not, why spend the hard earned $$? you don't have to worry about your application not reaching the hands of your prospective professors because you have >1200, which means it will definitely be passed on to the dept from the main (university) grad admission office. i didn't retake it because i am a science guy, and my research/internship/publications BY FAR put the low verbal into shame. if you have relatively high experience in your field of word and have strong LoRs, i don't think you really need to retake it.... especially if you are a science person as well.

yep, start right away! no title (not even 'Statement of Purpose'), and no name either! (although, name can be included in the header - but i didn't do it) formatting, i did mine this way: font - times new roman, 12pt, black space - single indent - only the first sentence when you change paragraphs body - aligned left (DO NOT justify the text) numbering pages - not recommended if the essay is under 3 pages because people have different writing styles, you might get varied responses here in the forum

idk if they'll get back to you (and all other early birds, including me ) that soon. i emailed the graduate coordinator at one my schools asking if i could send my resume if the application hasn't entered the review process yet. this school didn't have an upload option for supplemental materials such as the resume, and i couldn't remember if i snail-mailed it. so i wanted to make sure that it reaches the grad admissions/adcomm in time. anyway, he told me that they haven't started looking at the apps yet (mind you, my complete app reached this school around early Nov, and resume isn't required for the review process), and that they might start reviewing in few weeks. to me, few weeks = at least 3 weeks. i don't see me having any chance hearing till early/mid jan although i do hope that santa brings some good news for me. oh god, please!!

seconded. you can go a little outside - math, finance, etc professors might not be bad choices, but don't step out of the circle if you have a choice

movie ending

this will only work with advanced version of Adobe Acrobat (or any other pdf file viewer). if you don't have it, perhaps someone around you does - your parents (at their home or office), professor, dept secretary, or even the copy center in your university. someone should be able to help you out.

your recommenders need energy boost then although, if your apps are in, it's fine if your LoRs reach little late. i turned in mine early because i had already talked to few profs from two of my top choice schools, and they gave positive nods. so the hope here is that they'll contact me sooner. but who knows! ya man, that's a wise thing to do. give SoPs plenty of attention. i started writing my SoP in August, and had two months to view, edit, re-view, re-edit.. countless times. call me a perfectionist, but i wanted to extra-polish my SoP to make for meager GRE verbal. no matter what you say, waiting period is like the squiggly lines of your eyes - you think it's gone, but nah... it sneaks right in.

i am. 100% finished. absolutely nothing to do but wait for the results now. i applied to 7 schools. started the applications in early october, and submitted by the end of october. other remaining materials such as LoRs, transcripts, resumes (wherever applicable) and GRE scores were received by all schools by the end of the week before thanksgiving week. the deadline for one school is tomorrow, and most others have Jan 1 as their deadline.. i wanted to have the applications in few weeks in advance. but now, the waiting game is unbearably excruciating!

i'll do it for you, 8$ per hr.. ah, that's why ApplyYourself was freezing on my when i tried to check my status this afternoon!

these are my opinions: 1. first off, preferable means 'it would be nice if you have a score of 100, but we might consider all applications that have >90. however, their statement says that their preferred minimum is 100. my spidey sense suggests me to re-word their statement as this: our regular minimum is actually >100. perhaps 105? 110? 2. now, if you submit your application, the central (or main) admission office might toss away your application because you did not meet the minimum toefl requirement. game over right here. i honestly don't know what happens in the main admission office before forwarding to the dept grad office. if somehow it goes through, you are lucky. otherwise, app fee gone to total waste. still, worth a shot. 3. why don't you try contacting the professors you are interested in working with anyway? you can explain the situation, and if your remaining app credentials are stellar, toefl won't hold you back from going where you want to go. being an international student myself, i know how much these little hurdles can hurt your application. good luck!

you have till tomorrow 11:59pm. there was a similar query few days earlier. here's the link:

unlike what has been told above, i experienced something else. i was allowed to take water with me, but in a cup. yea, sound ridiculous. i didn't bring any water because it was early in the morning and i thought i wouldn't need any. but i got thirsty during the test, and asked out to drink water from the water fountain in the lobby. there were cups nearby, so i filled a cup with water and asked the receptionist if i could take it in with me. she said yes. maybe it differs by location - town/state/country (i took the test in the US), and if the people there are cool. bring a bottle of water with you and ask the people in the testing center. i don't see why they wouldn't let you have water.

probably not, but if you are in a position where it might actually help you (minority, first/second gen college student, etc), then i suggest you turn that in as well. another positive impression it might have upon the adcomm is that they'll see you have submitted the application in full detail, without leaving any perhaps-relevant question/field unanswered. only one school i have applied to asked for this kind of statement, and since it was optional, i turned in a short one (3 medium length paragraphs). idk if it'll help me at all, but i know it sure won't hurt to have it done!

nope. publications usually mean peer-reviewed articles published in journals related to your field. however, you can mention any thesis/honors paper you have presented to your dept, but still have to specify these as thesis/honors work and not 'real' publications.

writing professor/s (or prof.) instead of dr. and vice versa is just fine. these are trivial things anyways.

although english is widely spoken in india, indians aren't native speakers of english. agreed, they learn it in/from their infancy, but they aren't recognized as native speakers. although i think this needs to be changed... for the benefit of students from several other countries, not just india. i am an international too (not an indian though, unlike what my screen name might suggest), and although i learned english all the way through high school, i had to take the toefl to come to the states. the only reason why they aren't asking it again is because i got my BS here.

if you are mentioning the name of all professors in a single sentence, you can say something like: i am interested in working with profs abc, def, ghi, and jkl. if the names go separate, something like: dr (OR, prof) abc's research work overlap with my research interest, and therefore,............ however, let me tell you that in the US, most profs like to be called dr, and not prof. as someone said above, NEVER use mr/mrs/ms

told ya.... this is just one of the numerous dumb explanations ETS comes up with, after they screw people in the rear. guys, lets raise money to build an empire-state-tall effigy of ETS, and burn it in front of them. i'll bear the consequences

if those summer classes were counted in for your required # of graduation hours (by transferring those grades into your last school's transcript), then yes, they must be sent. if not, then you have a choice, like the post above says. also, if the grades you got were good, sending them would be a good idea, regardless of the transfer/non-transfer. it is better, however, to send all transcripts nonetheless.

not much difference. they ask you to state the score in the application so that they get a feel of how serious you are about your application (and grad studies). they will review your application based on if you have recently taken the test (and have mentioned the scores) or will be taking the test in the near future. if you look at the app again, you'll see that mentioning the test date and the scores is optional (they all were in my case). no matter what you do with the form, the app review will be hold till they get the scores, the official scores that is. and all other supporting materials.

hehe, another fired up rant! against ETS! this is gold

why are you waiting on the toefl score to submit the application? i am asking this because i assume that you will be sending all schools an official copy later. right? even if you enter the scores, by no means it is official. you must send an official copy later. therefore, i suggest that you go ahead and enter the date when you took the toefl test, and submit the application. approximately doesn't cut it sometime - they can take up to a week more to post the scores.

no dude, forget the awful writing score. the adcomm will be wayyy impressed with your verbal and Q scores. i'm a no sociology major, but I bet everyone in this forum will say the same thing.