Loric

I'm still sitting here looking over your posts trying to figure out your point.. What "all" are you talking about? I've mentioned this once, possibly twice. And what poor performance? I was given a B in a class I dropped out of 3/4 of the way through and didn't complete.. how is that poor? And i dont think i've really mentioned that.. Unless you think quitting is performing poorly..? How does that figure? I wasn't driven out. I didnt like the school or the people and was unwilling to continue. How is that poor performance..? You seem quite firmly rooted in thinking anyone who doesn't prefer academia is somehow less-than-thou. Meanwhile you try to claim "thou dost protest too much!" but in reality the only time I've ever brought it up was to correct your erronous assumptions about things.

Jeeze, there really is no reasoning with you. So you're saying young instructors are fustrated by students who quit..? Because it really seems like you've yet to make a cohesive point other than your distaste for me and being subsequently contrary.

Oh and.. "We'll get back to you with a decision as to if we're willing to consider your petition and look into the matter and change your transcript within 6 months, at which time we will notify you of our decision and then, if we accept your petition, we will begin an investigation."

I didn't fail out, thanks.. I do have failing grades because i was registered for the next semester and for god know's what reason wasn't dropped from the classes. I had quit 3/4 of the way through the prior semester though, and no one at the school can explain why the grades even exist or what to do about them. "You need to submit this petition form, it's $3 to do so." "What?" "$3." "Seriosuly? To fix your mistake..? That's messing up my transcript..?" "Well, possibly. This is the petition for us to consider modifying your transcript. You also need proof you withdrew." "How do I prove I was withdrawn when I wasnt there? Get people to sign off saying they didn't see me?!? Who? I wasnt there to know who was there!" And that's the fiasco in a nutshell. It certainly does cement my opinion of the business of academia as a joke.

MIT is not that hard to get into.. Can you tell him that for me...?

Actually.. if you look at those PHD Comics you'll notice it's the grade-mongering and the "will this be on the test?!?!" over achievers who make the newer instructors want to quit academia completely. "It's in the syllabus!" Seriously, do I come off as someone who would ask those sorts of question? I dont debate my grades or ask for extra credit because I specifically don't care about grades or think they matter. Guess who does?

Is it real letterhead..? Or something using a template froma wordprocessor..? Did they order the paper from a printer, or did they print it on the paper themselves..? I'm not trying to just be snarky, I honestly havent seen official real letterhead in years and printing/paper is one of my hobbies.

I thought with a rolling admission process I was getting out of the 2-month-or-more wait.. I was wrong. Confirmed by an email to my admissions advisor (we're on speaking terms!) prior to "the holidays" they're looking at last minute apps for the next semester that begins after the break. Then there's no one there, so my app will be reviewed once they get back from the holidays. This conversation was prompted because I got an automated email about an event at the school and was curious about it and my app, etc..

(meh. - delete!)

Very few places use "official letterhead" anymore. That was actual gold embossed, calligraphy, and dye-sub pieces of paper that they'd stick into a printer and print the letter onto. That rarely happens anymore and an "official letterhead" from anywhere might legitimately be a simple default template from a word processing application. It's an antiquated hurdle to keep people from blatantly making their own letters up. I wouldn't worry about it in the least.

I still think it's too long - ANYONE can apply to Havard - yet only the most skilled writers (aka: not most people) will be able to make it a pleasent reading experience. I suppose that's the point of the challenge and all.. but really, most people allowed that many words are going to tell you their life story and possibly the life story of their goldfish and how they've wanted this degree since they were in the womb. Long word limits allow phrases like "Ever since I was a child.." (6 useless words in any SOP) to linger under even the most lax editing standards. A concise 500-1000 will have those words quickly thrown upon the digital scrap heap where they belong.

Are you submitting a certain document type..? Like a DOC, DOCX, etc..? If so, just use the tool that counts words. They'll do the same. Whatever it counts, they'll count.

It depends.. If you're putting it into a text box via copy-pasta, the answer is "no." If you're submitting a PDF or a word document (word documents highlight grammar and spelling that might be "askew" so I recommend PDF which wont POINT IT OUT) then you need to title the document, have your name on it, a date is nice, and of course page numbers if there are in fact multiple pages. You want it to look like a professional document because they will likely be printing it out. The page numbers are there so when they print it out, if they drop your file or colliate copies they dont mess up the order - one of those practical things with making any document. Think of how you'd want to see a dossier of an applicent handed to you. You have score, short essays, etc.. and then the CV/resume and SOP. The well formatted professional looking SOP/resume/CV is going to be appreciate over text-vomit on a page.

I think when you ask these sorts of questions you're getting the right sort of feedback, despite it varying from person to person.. you just have to know how to interpret it. No single person really decides if you're in/out. Adcomm rmeans "admissions committee" refering to a group. The number of people in the group varies and who they are varies (from vested interests in a department to random admissions people). However, it's likely going to have a few of each flavor you'll find here. Taking the advice of any single person or that of a particular mindset isn't going to neccessarily do you much good. Yes, you pleased the stiff upper lip but you annoyed the hippie on the adcom. Knowing you likely cant please all these people (much in the same way you cant get people on these forums to agree) is going to help you hedge your bets. At the same time, if you are admitted to a program by changing who you are to fit their desires you're likely going to be unhappy. If you want to make the joke, make the joke. If you get rejected because of the joke, did you really want to go and work with those people? Imagine daily life where you crack a joke - as you're apt to do - and they respond with grimmaces. Is that where you want to be working? Disguising your personality to gain admission is some of the worst advice you can get in this game. Yeah, someone gets in by presenting everything an adcomm wants to see.. but then what? They're miserable because they aren't that person and end up quitting. It happens all too frequently.

Can I take a moment and be honest with you Eigen? While I feel that leaving my response to you with just a snide remark - fitting of the offensively smug superiority you use to address others - I want something to be perfectly clear. Lest you continue to have even the remotest inclination otherwise. I think exceptionally little of you, your clique, and your ways. I think you'll amount to nothing, but worst of all think you've accomplished something. I think you'll make no mark on the world and die unknown, uninteresting, and as unappealing as a human being as ever. You've constructed this entire little world where butt-kissing and doing as your told is the right and righteous way of being and you tell other people to do so to stay within the good graces of your chosen peer set. I'm just waiting for the day the real world gets ahold of you and does what it always does. I don't doubt you can eat data and crap out conclusions so you're "good" at academia - but I seriously doubt you've ever learned anything and I would never believe any of your research work is going to amount to anything other than a gold star from your superior... which sadly is all you live for. My attitude toward you and your equally rotten little cohorts is contempt - and it is "justified."

I make money writing on the internet, yes.

And yet ironically here's your long explanation of why you're "justified." Again.

At first I was going to say i didn't pay anywhere near that much.. having really cheap application and transcript fees. Then I remembered my former grad school and having to pay $1500 for a refunded scholarship for credit hours from the semester I dropped out of. That sucked.

Ask the school you're applying to. They likely have some sort of solution - it's rare (as in i've never heard of it) that your rec's have to be academic.

I got into my major-U (just go north and a little "left" and you'll find it, it's hard to miss.. go bulls!) because my hippie school had an agreement with them that anyone who dropped out of hippie school was guaranteed a slot to "transfer" (really, start over). Hippie school only took 500 incoming students each year, only like 2 dozen finish the program. Most are gone by the end of the first semester. It was like Battle Royale up in there..I had to wait in line to get the withdrawal done by the dean. Looking back, i think the most terrifying aspect was that because the school was so small, the dean actually knew who I was and mentioned reasons he suspected I was going to be one of the next wave to drop out. Lord, I'm recalling the convo now and he was like "I have friends in the Ivy League if you're interested.." Long story short he saw it coming and it wasnt academics based. I wore Nike's at a hippie school - one that had a seminar on how to chain yourself to a tree properly during the orientation week (you put your arms through a metal pipe and then handcruff yourself - that way they cant just cut the handcuff off by snipping the chain.) To say that I didn't fit into the student body was an understatement. One of my gradeless classes had a seminar on the historic trees on the campus, at one point in which I remarked, lloudly "Oo, the grain of that wood is lovely - it'd made a beaitiful desk!" In retrospect it's hilarious and I was oblvious to how it was all really working... from the lesbian "tribal leader" insisting i come to her dorm and be interrogated after class one day ("Why ARE you here Mr. Loric..?") but at the time it really wasn't much fun. And I went and applied to the school because an obnoxious hippie PETA girl in high school wouldnt shut up about it and then got rejected.. and that was hilarious so I applied and wrote a nonsense essay about clouds.. and got in.. with a poor GPA, good SAT scores, and not much else. Oh, so many memories coming back - my "pal" there was a former french model who someone threw paint on the first week because they thought she was wearing leather/fur. I think she quit a week or two after me. Other girls at the school would say to her, randomly as we were walking to class, "Why do you try to be so pretty?!? You're ruining it for other women!" It was insane. Lol.

I think the whole women and STEM thing is fascinating, though a bit crappy in and of itself. I do believe that if a man and a woman are equal in stats in a STEM field then they're more apt to take the female applicant. I dont think that's right. However, no one said life was fair. I come from theater where people are constantly denied work based on traits that have nothing to do with ability. I do generally think of STEM as a "postive action" or "up with people" type buzzword that it's a bit funny people regard it so seriously. Like positive action and up with people, it'll be outdated in a few years and the people with te STEM t-shirts are going to feel a bit silly.. Why do you need an acronym that basically means "not arts/humanities" anyways?

I went to a grades-free major-free hippie liberal arts college for a whopping single semester! I had to explain the transcript to the adcomm.. and every adcomm i've ever encountered since then. No one ever knows what to make of it.

For the record, Facebook was created for college students - so yes, it's an academic site. You couldn't use it originally without a school affiliation.

And yet despite all your proclamations there's hundred of posts about letters not being written on time or at all. Because a chance your prof would question the deadline you gave them is a bigger issue than not getting it at all....? Because 2 weeks after the deadline when a prof "feels" they can submit is the time to be panicked and trying to find a new rec? Telling someone you want something before an actual deadline because they notoriously are late is not unethical. Not everyone has the relationship you do with your prof and your type of person is not the only type worthy of education. If you'd like to actually help people i'd love to hear it. Right now all I hear is your constant "maybe you shouldn't go at all" passive aggressive nonsense.

Isn't sayin you'll get something done by a deadline of which you have no itentions of doing just as much screwing? Except on tthat end the consequences aren't pride and ego, but rather actually school rejections because they didnt get the letter in time?