Loric

I think everyone vastly over estimates the WS.

I packed up and moved clear across the country for my first grad school tango. I got a lovely 2 story loft apartment with a killer view and a gas fireplace for no apparent reason (it never got below 40). I paid more in rent than everyone else in my cohort. Due to sheer willpower, I hosted a few dinner parties and game nights. In general, most people dont have the time for the typical college stuff at the grad level. I hated the locals. I hated the location. I disliked going out into the town/city and dealing with the people. Driving anywhere was a nightmare. With time, the color of the flowers began to annoy me. This is how you know you've made a mistake in your choice of location and program. Flowers. So my apartment was really my respite from everything I wanted nothing to do with. I had a blue microwave that played a song when it was done instead of beeping. I had an orange couch and a turquoise leather chaise lounge. I had a ridiculous dining table that seated 8 for no apparent reason that I'd randomly decorate as if I was Martha Stewart reincarnated. I had a drafting table I never used setup with impressive sketches and selected literature for if anyone did happen to come over. I had wall art - big gigantic wouldn't fit in my car and had to be strapped to the roof and driven home slowly wall art. And there in my little womb I occasionally saw guests and plotted my revenge. My glorious glorious revenge on that awful state and it's awful people.. and their flowers. I sat on my bedroom balcony, peering out through the floor to ceiling window that was my rear apartment wall, and contemplated the many ways to exterminate those flowers. Ah, those were the days.

And generic vaguely broadly interested people get rejected in droves.. I dont trust your order of importance at all.

Then, logically, wouldn't you be able to send the email AFTER you've been accepted..? And just clear things up..?

Genetically-retained predisposition to dislike Microsoft.

Just checked - yahoo is still there. Remember when Yahoo had online multiplayer games? I miss Cosmic Consensus and Acrophobia (an acronym game, "the fear of acronyms") Both had users vote on content and voting or winning the majority resulted in points. Cosmic Consensus asked all sorts of random questions and picking the most popular answer among like 50 people who were all playing live netted you the most points.. and Acrophobia gave a random acronym, you defined it, and then all the players voted for the "best" definition. Le sigh.. I miss those days. Can I get a bang buddy who will rig up the internet so i can still play those games?!?

I was threatened with expulsion, but when the VP tried to do it the principal said "No, we need his test scores... and everyone thinks Mr. XYZ is a #%@!" and then I was excused and sent home.

I feel like this needs a "Meanwhile.. In the Philosophy Forum.." meme... I had no idea this was all going on.. *munches popcorn*

Well, the good news is that no one is ever going to check or ask.. and if you give yourself a week you'll forget again and it wont be an issue.

Now, having said "google" - i'm tempted to go out and use publishing routes that are higher in the metrics of Bing and Yahoo to write horrible things about myself to see if they get any hits from some random adcom who happens to use those lesser search engines.

Well, thousands aren't so much the right figure.. from my understanding.. more like a decent draw program sees around 600 or so. I dont know why my brain is saying 600, but I swear I read that number somewhere. If you're really worried you can google yourself. It's free and easy. I checked myself, i'm fine. For a long time - most of undergrad - my job was data research. I have no fear of a random prof or adcomm being able to search more diligently around the net than I am able to do.

I have about as much faith in your cooking abilities as I do in the wittiness of the average margin scrawling.

No, not vanity published kiddo, but thanks for trying. And if you knew anything about the industry you'd know there aren't "industry standard margins."

I'm amazed a school asks for that.. Screw them. That's my gut reaction. That is literally something that is more than 4 years ago in your life at minimum and also while you were a teenager. Teenagers do dumb things, it's a requirement.

Well, leave it to someone in art history to over think it.. I don't think i've ever been framed as "perpetrator" before. Fascinating.

You can email yourself from your own account I suppose. Maybe encouraging words.. or maybe something about the classes you're taking.. IN THE FUTURE!!! My friend who thinks crystals cleanse her soul told me once to do something like that.. will it into being.. she somehow gets through life pretty well so I'm not sure her advice is entirely without merit.

The school you have the best chance with is the one for which you are the best fit.. and the best fit takes careful planning and proper presentation. This cannot be accomplished with a high number of applications. So every time you add an app, you're taking away from the pool of existing apps in time, effort, creativity, mental fortitude, etc... Once you start copying-pasting or considering programs interchangeable that's when you've gone too far. If you can't speak to it as if it were actually unique then you're just phoning it in and shooting yourself in the foot.

Lol - you're not the only one who has tried such tactics. It came up in a discussion a little while ago.. But i dont think it means anything. They likely assign the ID# for processing and it just happens to mesh with the email system. I can log into my "student" account using the same info and i know for a fact that my file hasn't been reviewed for any sort of decision yet.

Oh.. the funny part really is that you don't realize your statement about it being beyond your ability to count.. just assured me of your inability to count very high.

Well.. that was unintentionally condescending (i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt). I spent christmas morning getting tweets from people who got my books, the ones I wrote, as gifts. I find your defacing of the work annoying and couldn't give two craps about your relationship to the text. Go wank that out in fan fiction, not in my carefully designed margins, thanks.

I know, right? Why don't the "don't be hating on sex workers" and the "god forbid two consenting adults have sex" people duke it out and let the rest of us discuss the topic at hand. They can have a hand-wring-off. First one to reach bone wins!

What about your situational awareness? Everything that you've put out on here is just.. tiring. It's long, it's drawn out, it's contrite, and it's got a stick so firmly wedged up it's butt that any sense of joy is long since drained away. Even your signature, it's like. "Ugh.. I can't.." I may be cranky and tear into people, but I at least have moments of joy. Where is your joy? I'm starting to think you've none.

Oh.. the presumption.. the pretense.. it's stifling. And the comment about "hateful things said about sex workers.." - wow, just wow... I'm not going into any program that would touch these forums with a 10ft pole and nothing one would google about me would lead here. So your method of keeping me quiet is a failure.

To which I retort.. and exactly how many museums in how many countries have you actually been to? I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

But should entire swaths of academia be dedicated to a tiny market of jobs? There's far more of those programs than there are jobs, positions.. heck, probably more than there is reasonable to study (labor hours dedicated to the data, etc..) I'm speaking from the perspective of wanting into a large industry that, only as of 2012, has exactly 1 program at 1 school. Are the dearth of programs for these sorts of things overkill? Yeah, I get him wanting to go to the Cluny.. but he likely wont. We don't put everyone who wants to be an astronaut - or has even shown the aptitude or ability to be an astronaut - into astronaut training.