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eklavya

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Everything posted by eklavya

  1. given that your application term is Fall 2010, i believe you already are in the US. what about your peers in your program? are they unavailable to help? or perhaps you're pursuing a graduate degree outside US/english speaking country? your situation is befuddling, but i'm sure people around here, including me, will be glad to help you out.
  2. this issue has been discussed several times around here, and the general consensus is that it's fine to ask your boss. like you said, he'll be able to explain your work ethics, leadership skills, and how you get along with your peers. since most graduate programs house diversity and encourage students to provide helping hands, the letter from your boss should be a nice fit. if you want, you can explain it in the tiny section right after the SoP where they want you to explain certain circumstances. that said, the first preference should go to your profs. if you had a really nice one-on-one relation with some of your profs while you were in school, try budging them. they might remember you, and agree to do it.
  3. man, these $$ symbols are going to haunt me couple of years later!!
  4. nah, they won't. don't worry.. like Strangefox said above, they'll understand. they must have dealt with literally thousands of apps, and know that errors/problems come in variety of shapes and sizes. you'll be fine
  5. all but one of the schools i have applied to update the info on arrived materials online. some schools have the status as 'app sent to the program' whereas others have only acknowledged the arrival of materials. the one which doesn't, i've been in regular contact with the grad secretary and she seems chill. for some reason, (only) this school hasn't received my GRE scores, and she said i could send a scanned copy for admission purpose. sweet! and the pain from LoR writers... all three of my LoR writers told me that more time (at least few weeks) they have, better the letter comes out. it's not being flaky, if they are not the flaky types. which is a good thing imo. also, when and if we grow up to be profs, i forsee we doing the same thing to our students. it's a universal trend, with few exceptions.
  6. it's terrible that it happened to you. read this, esp comment #14: http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic43374.html however, even if they agree to fix it, it might take weeks, even months to fix it. one option you have is to contact the schools you are applying to, and tell them that ETS made an error. provide the schools with a copy of your passport to corroborate your statement. they should be okay with it. or perhaps take the toefl again, if you've enough resources and time? although this is a hassle i know.
  7. i've applied to plant breeding (aka crop sciences) programs in ncstate, wisc (madison), uiuc, minnesota, and few more. they won't be sending out interview offers till mid jan (i think). so there's a long wait, and am getting nervous day per day. cool. i know few people in purdue who graduated from my current lab. in fact, they all worked for the same prof whom i am currently working with. from what they say, they are waayyy impressed by the community around that university. i was thinking of applying to eco/evo when i started my school search this summer, but the idea of 'saving the world' obliged me to go for crop science
  8. indeed, go for a masters if you can. i very strongly suggest it. not only you'll accumulate more knowledge and experience and thereby strengthening your app the next year, you'll also have plenty of downtime to think about what exactly you want to do with your life. as for importance of things, i'd put the right advisor/lab/project first than anything else. maybe this doesn't apply to other fields. it all depends on how you want to sort things out in the future.
  9. for test scores, it seems like schools have different system setups to acquire them (electronic, paper, next day, once a month, twice a month, etc). 2 of my schools haven't received my gre scores which i ordered about a month ago! but some got it the very next day.
  10. you can be specific, but don't outline what exactly you will be doing for your entire phd tenure. mentioning advisors' names and projects you are interested in shows that you actually know what you are getting yourself into, and is usually considered a good thing. at least that's how it is in my field
  11. damn!! if i had scored that much in verbal, i'd have seriously passed out. good job ps: you sure you read the scores right?
  12. hehe... you english/arts/humanities/law people crack me up! my verbal was around the line of 400s, but excelled in quantitative, and was fortunate to cross the 1200 barrier. in my field, if i had scored 720, the admission committee would go crazy, and think i prolly faked it. in yours though, it might have a whole another interpretation. and seems like it does, otherwise why this post! anyway, my suggestion is that you need to weigh out the pros and cons of verbal vs quant, and stop worrying. do you think lesser quant but ~800 verbal will be rejoiced by the committee? or would they want a student with higher verbal and not-so-bad quant? perhaps they don't give rat's a$$ about the gre? trust me, there are plenty of these types... i mean, a stupid 3 hr test, by no means, should be compared to 4 yrs of work !! as you indicated, since you absolutely can't take another test, stick with your scores and impress them with your other credentials.
  13. now that it's finally started to snow around here, am gonna go cartman style and freeze myself till february
  14. damn!! you missed the 1200 barrier by friggin 10 points! and being an engineering student, the math score is somewhat low, but don't worry about verbal section. i think you have decent shots to these schools if your other application credentials are strong. GRE is merely a filter, a lowly one. if you want, you can explain why you got low GRE scores in your SoP, but i don't think this is an essential thing to do. for science people like us, research experience, SoP and LoRs carry more weight in the admission process than anything else. maybe, also apply to backup schools, if you are that worried?
  15. some profs have this attitude... not necessarily a bad thing, but can hurt students' application/admission process. if i were you, i'd print the forms and show them to the prof. then he'd see that the forms are actually different from each other. also, each form should have the school/dept's name printed on the top... i don't see how any grad program would accept a generic form that lacks their letterhead. tell him that. or maybe he's despises filling out the forms online. provide him the form printouts, and stamped + pre-addressed envelopes, and ask him to snail-mail the letters.
  16. good luck! let us know how it went
  17. i think both are needed.. in case you lost your registration #, they can look you up on the system using your name and dob. if you are an int'l student, passport is a must.
  18. Hey all, By this time of the year, most of us are done with our applications. Or, almost there. I am hoping that we can share our profiles, hurdles and experiences along the application/admission process, and everything that follows. This would be very helpful for us, and folks who will be applying in the near future. This thread is specific for those who are planning on working with plants (eco/evo, molecuar genetics/genomics, agronomy, bioinformatics & all other plant sciences). Wildlife people can crash in too!! Lets keep the format somewhat as follows: GPA GRE TOEFL (if applicable) country (if USA, tier/rank of your school) research/publications schools applying to application/admission progress & anything else you want to mention GO!!
  19. not UCSD, and not biomed, but too i had to do this pre-app stuff for another school. they replied around 5 weeks after and said i could now apply. but no explanation as to why the pre-app was required. i think it completely bull. all nothing but for their stupid surveys and data collection.
  20. i was asked by a PI whom i interned for. he is super busy, and therefore asked me to do it. having never written such a thing before, i googled sample letters and extracted ideas from them. by the end of the day, i wrote a pretty good letter. i think. then i sent that to him, which he edited slightly (perhaps) and turned in. it was about a page long, and i don't think he might have extended it. for all my stuff (SoP, LoR, resume), i set the golden bar at 1 page because.. well, dudes in admission committee have hundreds of these shoved at em, and they might not take kindly to those which are long and boring. for the negative points, i could think of none. i mean, i do suck at o-chem, but that's trivial compared to my work, research and publications. so i didn't mention anything along that line. if you did horrible in a class directly related to your field, make sure you explain it like 'he was sick that semester' or 'he doesn't excel in certain type of test procedures, that class being the one' or.. you get the idea. and they'll think that the prof is vouching for you. good luck!
  21. as long as your employer can talk about your enthusiasm, preparation and vision regarding your choice of grad school/program, his recommendation will work. him writing a strong letter also shows your work ethics and your behavior around people. i'd however get other two from people in academia.
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