Loric

Not to mention EVERYONE thinks their coworkers are ruining their day at any given moment. Familiarity breeds contempt.

How about you just procrastinate a bit less..?

So, I had a thought and I figured i'd just info-dump it here and see what you fellow artsy-fartsy folks thought. Notion: Graduate school admissions processes are awful. People with the best of intentions can try and get nowhere, while someone with the same stats can excel, and often the decisions are based on "luck" or confluence of events, etc.. rather than on true evaluation of ability or interest. It's a game and some people win and some people lose. Proposal: An illustration of the arbitrary nature of the decision making process and the consequences of such decisions by committees. General Method: Asking potential applicants for copies of their rejection/admissions letters, submitted materials, etc.. to create a personalized sort of collage. Add in perhaps a good portrait and make a representation of "applicant" to express and humanize the concept the bit. Further, begin pairing the applicants by acceptance/rejection by program. Allow the audience to directly compare A and B themselves and come to their own conclusions. The point would not be to compare "this is obviously a good candidate" to "this is obviously a poor candidate" but rather try to find pairs who are not particularly discernible. More alike than different. Emphasize the seemingly arbitrary nature of the process. Evolution: Track the applicants and get updated portraits over time. Follow their resumes, job offerings, and general life paths. See just how far things begin to diverge based on the whim of a committee. So.. That's what's in my head at 4am. Your thoughts?

Eww, private ridiculous art schools don't even ask for that much of a deposit. Are they offering any sort of funding?

I find that, in general, those worried about if their eggs will go rotten have unfortunately allowed their incubator to become something other than a proper rearing instrument and environment. Such questioning of their egg status being a key indicator. The take away being: before you question if your eggs are rotten you should probably ask if you're already rotten yourself.

I find the responses pretty interesting.. not knowing much of anything about anyone else here, I will say that my experience (and discussion with people on adcomms) is that while GPA and test scores can fluctuate a good amount, it's usually the SOP and writing samples that sink potential applicants. Or rather, a middling or poor SOP/PS/etc will make the adcomm unwilling to overlook any of these deficiencies. And "pedigree" is usually only the concern of that one guy on the committee - most couldn't care less.

You get to write it in his evaluation. Remember that.

I wonder what they would say if i listed "Wirehair" or "Maine Coon" as my ethnicity..

Domestic...? Like a cat breed..?

It depends on who you're asking

For people who care about language ability that's terrible abuse of the native tongue. I feel compelled to write them a letter saying so..

Yeah.. we need to get you some more modern literature.. but you're in Classics so that's a bit of a contradiction.. *thinkthinkthinks* Lysistrata. It's a comedy. It'll cheer you up. If anything just think of the comical phallus the actors have to wear in order to do the show (seriously, doing it without it just isn't right.)

The other schools may not come through - and you'd be left with nothing. The chances of it hurting your career are slim. Someone would have to be very bitter to hold that sort thing against you for more than a few months, at which point they'd forget it ever happened. Why apply to this school if you're not willing to go there..? You are, so accept on the basis that you dont have other options yet. I would wait until the end of their deadline to see if a better offer appears before then - but since you asked nicely and they wont play nicely you have zero that you owe to them if another school offers full funding and whatever else that may be better for you. Do what is good for you, as I said - the school is doing what is best for them. There's no GOOD reason to not allow you an extension. It's just selfishly about them and making their lives easier - you need to be selfish and do what is best for you. Ignore anyone who is telling you not to do what is best for you. They are jealous and somehow think you're holding a spot that "belongs" to someone else. If someone else was as good as you or better and had gotten their materials submitted they'd be holding the spot and not you - they didn't and they don't. The failings of others are not your responsibility.

One of my recs confused the authors of a play I designed (same title, vastly different content) so it was important to catch it.

Say hi to Nermal for me if you get the job.

Omg!! Noooo! Don't be tempted by Satan! Every time you read a rec letter you waived the right to see a baby bunny cries! Seriously though - you waived the right, you never said you'd never look at them given the opportunity.

Essentially asking for a LOR and then expecting it to happen on time is just magical thinking in action. Yet to find anyone who that worked for. Lots of people freaking on the forms over not having a letter they were promised months later though... Think of it as a test. This is the cheat sheet.

Set firm deadlines - your deadlines. Not the programs. Those are when it's already too late. Check in at intervals and hound them as you approach your deadline. Then two weeks before the real deadline it will be finished, though a week after your deadline.

You learn quickly grasshopper.

I'm fairly sure some social dictate justifies us believing him implicitly as he represents "our struggle" and she represents the elite looking down on us and metting out little letters of reccomendation that could save or sink our careers.... No no.. no blood lines of social strata forming there,,

Yup, totally happens. Had a friend apply for a program that only needed 2 recs and his second rec never got there. He was enrolled in classes before he found out the second letter had never arrived.

Oh.. dropping out of my last MFA program and setting the bridge on fire shortly thereafter.

Eh, two out of three aint bad. It's not like a school expects you to control how well other people are capable of writing these sorts of things either. Some people are just terrible at it, even those with PhDs.

I dunno - in the end I feel it's justified to think someone who knows you on any level personally outside of class (and knows you can accomplish the task at hand) then turning around and refusing to reccomend you is being a jerk. It's not like a B- is a terrible grade. If i could even remember my undergrad GPA i think it might be a B-.

I suppose what i'm trying to say is that as an instructor you can give someone the grade they earned - and yet still respect them as a person and for their academic abilities or potential. As a TA/GA and "co-instructor" I've straight up failed kids for not reaching the requirements as laid out in the syllabus. They may have done great work for what they did though, and I'd have no problem reccomending them if their work was good enough and they showed the right sort of potential. Failing (ok honestly moreso just a "poor" grade, i'm rarely mean enough to fail someone - you have to earn failure) in that sense was often a matter of circumstance and sitatuation. You miss the mandatory lab periods I can't exactly pass you. And i may not have written anyone's letter of rec, I have been the person the "kinda lazy" professor had assign the underclassmen their stipends, scholarships, and lab/project assignments for the next year. I have given the "actual good" student wih a poor grade the position and money before the "letter grade good" student who was actually very lackluster in skill.