Loric

I personally was one of the "funding" drop people. Long story short.. applied to two schools in the region i wanted to be in and later start a career. Both accepted. I chose one. Told the other "so sorry, went to your neighbor" (long story short, the programs know each other well, and dont exactly respect each other). Got an email "funding lost - last in, first out, sorry" - so i lost my funding at A. I emailed B and was like "please please please please take me" and they said "Umm.. ok.." and did. But had also emailed A saying "omg, i just told B no because you offered better funding!" so.. wait a day.. Email from A "Funding is restored! Welcome back!" and then i just filled out all the forms from both, trusting no one. The week before, when i was packing my moving van (didnt have an apartment yet, but knew i needed to move - the schools are within an hour of each other) I sent an email to the first one, who had lost and restored my funding.. "so sorry, going to B, they offered more money" which was true. Why did i not feel bad? Cuz they told me i was in and funded then pulled it and then reinstated in. In the long run, i should have gone to the first school because they had a better established program rather than the "new" program of the other that was a hot mess. But as i've mentione dhere before, the facilities were shiny and new and the student body resembled abercrombie models.. while the other school looked like it hosted daily Dungeons and Dragons meets in equally dungeon-y looking classrooms and labs. Live and learn.. Oh yeah, the point: people will quit until the last minute. You'll miss nothing.

The meet greets, to my knowledge, happen once the semester begins. I was abroad the summer before grad school and got to the school a week early to scope things out. Advisor found me snooping in the hall and put me to work. I claimed desk space and had set up shop before anyone else showed up. All the meet/greet stuff was once school formally began. People will drop, even up until the first day.

Phone call, and if there's a secretary recruit them as your advocate.

I feel like there is this permeating mentality the people on the other side are in some sterile lab where we're not to interfere. The reality is much more mundane and any small gesture to elevate yourself from a pile of papers to being seen as an actual person - it couldn't hurt, right ? Though knowing the world - queue mass emails and harassment of adcomms. "But I just wanted to be their friend!!"

It's a choice I make daily! Unless I'm doubting the results - or rather humanity's ability to look beyond the surface.

Aren't records for minors sealed? So unless you get into new trouble, no one will know they exist. You're not going into law, so don't worry about it. Now bring on the shouting down of how this is terrible advice...

Raise the math. 290 is considered the low-ball combined for even art schools. You have a shot, but it's all uphill. If you can raise the math you'll look much better on the GRE front. Many people say 310 is the cutoff, and you did go for higher-end schools.

So.. a thought that dirfted into my head and I thought ya'll might have some thoughts on: If you're below what the typical baselines are for a program, but you think you have a shot due to "reasons" is it in your best interest to contact admissions and let them know you're applying and will likely be considered as an exception rather than the 'rule' where they throw apps in the trash if they don't meet certain minimums? Ok, that's a ridiculously long way of saying it.. but say the GRE cutoff is 290, you're like 289 - but you've got killer research and great recs, so in theory you could maybe get in and maybe even do fine. But from my understanding of admissions, sometimes if you fall below a benchmark, you're out in an early round. GRE and GPA tend to be the triggers for this. Thus knowing this, you reach out to admissions and, I dunno, ask them their policy on GPA/GRE? I know with any sort of "academic probation" you often need to write a supplemental statement. Those apps don't just get tossed out, but I don't know if it's the supplemental statement that keeps them from being tossed out for being below benchmarks. Of course not every program does that and actually considerS ALL apps in whole. It seems programs with rolling admissions do so most frequently as they have the time as they're constantly evaluating apps... whereas in a hard deadline program they're looking at a heap of apps and any way they can think up parse out applicants ("This one dots her I's with hearts! Burn it!") Do you think it benefits applicants to reach out to admissions and ask such questions if they think they're below a benchmark? "Interest" in a program also seems to be a factor, so being a little probing might help with that too, no?

Ok, so no one knows anything about post-bac. It's ok, neither do I and apparently unless i really NEED to i'm going to remain ignorant. Maybe one day someone will find this thread via google and have an answer.

What's your GRE Q? It still matters, just not a lot. You need to meet baseline benchmarks. 290-310 combined for a lot of places. Otherwise your GPA, Recs, and SOP better be darn compelling. For that matter, what's your GRE writing score...? You need to be above 3.5, more than likely a 4.0 (and that's pushing it for an english program).

Anyone else feel like these sorts of questions would be a better solution to "getting to know the applicant" than the random SOP/PS prompts..?

I think a large part of the problem is that you have people who equate the extensive use of jargon with somehow conveying intelligence. It actually does quite the opposite.

I say this as a person who was randomly recruited by Apple shortly after leaving grad school.. not sure how they found me or for what job even really, still.. to this day.. And I know how brutal it can be because I was dropped after a few rounds. Still no idea what went wrong or where either, just that I didn't get the job.. though I'm not sure what the job was.. I didn't know it was Apple until the interview itself and I sorta got all "whaaaat?" and dazed because I didn't understand the who, how what, of what was going on.. Yeah, I really still don't know what job I was interviewing for.

And back to weeding out the applicant pool one more time.. Race and gender aren't supposed to be admission criteria. Good, bad - they're not supposed to be involved or considered. Of course reality dictates that they are, in both directions, but in theory they're not supposed to be. I was thinking more along the lines of personality profiles. Heck, we have to fill out all kinds of forms and submit data, why not a GRE of personality? Many successful companies employ based on personality type rather than credentials.

Ok, so if it's not weeding out the applicants, what about working harder to retain those that they have? More competitive wages, better quality of life, etc..?

I have W's the semester before it too - so it's like "Hello! I obviously wasn't there!"

Just think of how much money they'd save if they spent 1/3 less on those glittery welcome folios!

Well, no, I disagree on the point of there not being a cost to replace someone.. There is still labor costs related to recruiting a slot at the 4 years mark instead of the intended 7 year mark. Because you do a recruitment process doesn't mean it's the same cost if you recruit 5 people versus 6 people. The 6th one costs more money than just the 5. Or am I misunderstanding and the slots just remain empty until they are cycled-in again? And any job has onboarding and training costs. The cost of running the little building that prints the photo ID, the campus police to issue keys, the payroll department to set up the account, etc.. They all have costs. Ignoring these costs when it's at the level of 1/3 of the pool is bad business.

Really? Do they require an official transcript upon acceptance...? And of course if they two don't mesh, you're out..? Right..? I have issues believing my froofy art schools were hardcore on "all official transcripts from all schools, even if you received no grades (aka: if you stopped there once while on a road trip to take a piss, we wanna know)" and the less froofy subject programs might not even care to check if it's legit.

Until today I was really rather ignorant of what a "post-bac" is or was.. Then I chose Google over Bing and came to some level of understanding outside of the context clues provided in other forum posts. So, what else do we know about Post-Bac? Is it spelled with two C's or just one..? Why do people do them? When is it a good idea to do one? Is there funding? What's the point? All these questions linger in my mind.. well outside the constraints of the wikipedia article provided by Google. So.. go.. talk.. write stuff..

When I was doing my rec letters I had issues remembering the names of courses one of my rec's taught - though I had him for something pretty much every semester of undergrad. I always wonder what they're looking for when they ask for those sorts of things? It's not like they know what the content of the course consists of, so the name can be an indicator.. vaguely.. but only vague at best. Its not like classes are named "10 intensive papers about schadenfreude with a scantron mid term and final with the occasional presentation of the prof's vacation photos." No, that's like "Advanced Comparative Analytic Analysis of High Concepts - 500 level"

You need to retake the GRE with a serious emphasis on bumping up your verbal score. You're almost below the base-line combined criteria (290) for many schools and your writing is also below many minimums - 3.5

Eh.. I picked the school that threw money at me and had the nicest facilities and everyone looked like they worked out regularly.. (the other cohort looked like they played D&D.. daily..) It was possibly the worst decision of my life. Money isn't everything. Think long and hard about the decision.

It's a predatory system that preys on people who can't be bothered to think for themselves. The drop-out-for-job folks finally woke up and the fail-outs shouldnt have been there in the first place.