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Loric

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Everything posted by Loric

  1. I have an affinity for minion pro. https://typekit.com/fonts/minion-pro
  2. It really depends on the field - in my old arena if you didn't make contact prior to applying you were often autorejected. Sort of a "Who do they think they are?!" but these were very small departments with 1-4 grad students.
  3. A polite email to make sure nothing is "stuck" in the system is not out of order or rude. Just to make sure all the materials were received, etc.. and then you can tag on a request to clarify the timeline. There's nothing wrong with sending that sort of request. I have a transcript from a hippie school that has no grades. Every time it is encountered by admissions things come to a dead stop until they contact me, or nowadays, I contact them preemptively to explain it. But for my second undergrad school, two accepted grad schools for my last attempt at an MFA, and now my current app group - all have questioned the hippie school and stopped the process because they didn't know what to do with it. Since the first change in undergrad, I've been proactive and it's been less of a hassle.
  4. Also read the thread about recommendation letters from those on an adcom's perspective... What's the point of allowing/asking for recommendations from non academic sources if they're not seen as having any merit? I feel very lucky to have a good relationship with the lone PhD in my old department and the department chair/head/whatever his formal title is. Otherwise by "their" standards my recs would have been useless.
  5. A note, poking around those other forums.. can you (Eigen) perhaps relay the thought that acting as if every student that asks for anything is a burden is a pretty unattractive trait? There are a few over there who seem like they'd be great professors.. but the others are practically asking to be eviscerated on their end of term class evaluations. I get pushy and obnoxious students, had to deal with them, but.. the complaints about the school not admitting qualified applicants and things along those lines ("At my other school we had such better prepared students..") make them look like raging a-holes. "Hi, you teach at this school which you think is beneath you.. A reminder, you teach at THIS school, not that other one you keep lamenting was so much better. You're here, we're here.. you're not better than this."
  6. I dunno, knowing why they didn't want you - or in my case just a few weeks ago what they were "questioning" - can just cause stress that may not be necessary. If it is a simple oversight, hooray, it can be fixed. But if it's a fundamental issue between styles, beliefs, etc.. there's not much you can do. I guess you know, but you can't really fix it. The stress of trying in vain is pretty brutal, because you know you're going to at least try.
  7. I think the "not being angry" and more importantly, not coming off as angry is one of the harder parts. When I was first asked during the process by the adcom if I had written my own book, or rather "There's a question from a member of the adcom as to if the book is all your own work..." I was livid. I managed to take myself down a few notches and have an intelligent conversation about it with the right people, and in that process I learned that a surprising number of applicants try to take credit for other people's work. Something that never even really occurred to me as a "thing" prior to this. So it wasn't about me, it was about the adcom questioning things based on their past experience... and hopefully I made it clear it was my own work and I replied appropriately. Time will tell, but it's hard not to get immediately angry and upset when it seems you're being judged unfairly.
  8. I think it depends on what you're asking and when and how.. This student apparently is asking about thesis stuff and who would be their advisor.. that's pre-app stuff. And you generally don't "ask" but rather come to some conclusions after a bit of discussion. I just mentioned over in the visual art thread that I've got something like 50-something email threads (threads, not individual emails - there's many more of those) between myself and one school. Many are just automated emails and reminders to submit this or that.. but a good chunk are between myself and admissions over the trainwreck that is my application. I didn't apply for fall, because I'm an idiot - I turned in the app just before Christmas, because I'm an idiot, and that's lead to delays in the usual processing cycle. Then because I got curious, I emailed and asked about the timeline - finding out that someone on the adcomm had "questions" about me and my portfolio. I submitted more materials at their request and clarified that I did in fact write my own book, thank you very much. (Note: I was told point blank that many applicants try to take credit for other people's work, or coauthors work, etc..) And before all this nonsense, I had issues getting a transcript wrangled out of my old grad school because they decided I attended a semester - which I hadn't - and still wanted to be paid the tuition. There were emails back and forth about "Do you really need that transcript..?" "Yes." "Ok, here's why it's awful and wonky and not true, but you're getting it anyways, give me a few weeks to come up with a semester's worth of tuition to get it to you." Oh, and admissions sent me a birthday card and I sent an email saying "Thanks for the card! Let me know if there's anything else you need from me, hope to hear form you soon!" which is actually what triggered the whole fiasco about someone on the adcomm having questions about my portfolio. At a school that usually accepts/rejects people within 2.5 weeks, I'm going on 2.5 months since my app was completed, not to mention I started the process and emails back in September. So on a purely quantitative standpoint, I've got way too many emails to the school. But when you look at it for content, none of them were just nonsense queries or nerves or whatever - there were valid reasons. Otherwise they'd have never written back and they'd certainly never have bothered with all the "oh, submit this too.." and also telling me they were hashing out the specifics of the program (it's new) and there were some bumps in the road and miscommunications on what the department wanted versus what the application was asking for (hence my additional portfolio bits.) TLDR? If you have a good reason, email them. Wait a reasonable amount of time to hear back (several days to a week), then follow up again if you've not heard anything. But only if it's a good reason (like a stated timeline has passed) and always phrase things as inquisitive and checking in, no making demands or anything.
  9. It does sound like a good program, but.. it's in Virginia and I'm not sure I could handle that.
  10. I think a lot if schools in our fields do. Administrative staff doesn't presume to know a good candidate and leaves it mostly to dept who takes as long or short of a time as they feel like.
  11. And if it's a physical letter it can show up any day you have mail service. My admissions guy has emailed me on Saturday night. In theory - no, but in practice it's possible.
  12. Well their lives are paperwork, so it'd make sense that they get through it faster than someone whose filing system is "where the muse takes me" (and possibly color coded.)
  13. Well the problem is the mentality among current students, who later become professors and people on the adcom, that anyone who quits is a "quitter" in the couldn't-cut-it sense. So if you leave, often there's no way to go back and try again. That really shouldnt be the case, but sadly it is.
  14. I just checked my email box and if you remove the mentions of the school name in emails to friends/family, I have 50 emails threads back and forth between them and myself. That's just one school. Some are automated messages about this or that, some are marketing "come to this info session" deals, but a good number are between myself and the admissions person. I wish my file wasn't such a fiasco.
  15. With pretty much everyone on this forum wanting to get into grad school.. it is inevitable that there's some misunderstanding as to why people quit graduate programs. Well, I dragged this out of the Philosophy forum for your reading pleasure: http://www.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/attached-files/APA%20Report%20document.pdf Things got so bad that the department stopped admissions for this year while they try to hash things out. But what about the appearance on the outside and before the report was made public? People were fighting to get in. It was seen - and is still seen, per the report - as providing a great level of education. It's just, ya know, an environment that's hostile and harassment filled. That's just one of the many reasons people quit. I quit my first grad school because there was shouting and screaming and unprofessional behavior and expectations to attend events in my free non-business time and socialize with professors whether I wanted to or not.. alcohol.. throwing things.. shouting.. etc.. and I had no idea how RA/TA-ships were allocated and had no idea how teaching positions were distributed despite having one either. I know a lot of people on this forum are going to look at what happened in Colorado at the Philosophy department and think "gee.. that's a bad situation, but a one off, and I'm sure my school will be fine... because of XYZ.. rationalize.. rationalize.." etc.. There's a lot of little Colorados out there that are ticking timebombs of ruined careers. Get to know the schools you're applying to and really do your best to feel them out. You can't avoid these things entirely, but you also need to remain empowered if they do occur. Speak up, report things that aren't right, and don't cater to a culture that is unprofessional in your workplace and place of education. There's a thread on the forum where a person asked if they should seek out a formal means to report a professor who dropped them mid-thesis with little excuse and little help to even find a new advisor. The reply from these forums? "oh, consider your future and career before you go and report anyone for any wrongdoing." That's not the right approach. That's retaliation and should be completely unacceptable under any good University's policies. If the professor really did something wrong (which is up to the people assigned to making such decisions, not you) and there's a way and a venue to report a claim - it should be reported. Not swept under the rug. In my case I had a "meeting" with the professor who was causing the problem, thinking I was being a mature adult and handling the issue - where my advisor was asking (demanding) me to do things that were blatantly against the University policies. I brought a copy of the handbook and cited how what was going on was wrong and needed to be corrected. I was told "It's grad school, suck it up, everyone has to do this sort of thing." I quit within 48 hours of that failed meeting due to a series of stressful event (even a car accident for good measure!) and a complete lack of faith in the school and it's systems. I see people dreaming of getting in and posting rampantly on here about their hopes and aspirations and how it's their top pick. Yikes, if only they knew. I've done my best to PM a few people and gently/rationally voice my concerns, but I can't catch them all, you know? And not everyone will listen. Often it's seen as the bitter rambling of a "failed student" - no, seriously, I quit. I was called by the department chair and dean and begged to come back. They didn't want to lose me. And on top of all that, I've had it said to myself and seen it implied to others on this forum that people are somehow 'lesser' for quitting a program that is so screwed up. That's wrong too. Stop doing it, stop posting those things. I know you want to get into graduate school and you've built it up as some grand dream.. but the reality is that some programs - even reportedly "good" ones (see: Colorado) - can be absolute awful situations for a graduate and should really be avoided until they correct their ways.
  16. Magical Thinking: One of the first things they look for when weeding out applicants.
  17. I get the feeling early notices are rejections..
  18. I dont understand why people's parents are that stupid/obnoxious/etc... either.
  19. That's another thing I don't get.. getting all the way through a bachelors but still having your parents do everything for you.
  20. I wrote a whole book about the subject at hand (and which I thought I applied for) and was asked to be a speaker on the topic/field by a local library association when they were hosting an event chronicling the history of the area and it's arts/entertainment.. but hey.. focus on my crappy charcoal scribbles..
  21. Gah.. Just.. gah... I went back and reread the little update email from earlier this week from my admissions guy - for whatever reason (possibly a survival device) my brain filtered out the bit about "I know several people were looking at your additional portfolio materials last week" from his reply to "What sort of timeline are we looking at now?" I had mentally blocked the whole "several people" looking at my shitty pencil drawings from boom-boom drawing classes since it was requested that i show more drawing work. I guess if they were going to just up and reject me over that, it'd have happened already. But jeeze.. Ugh!!! Of all the things I really didn't want to be judged on and now people are staring at a crappy study of the reflective surface of an inflatable gym balance ball (to my credit, I did find some interesting reflections of light in that thing).
  22. The whole FAFSA-avoidance thing just baffles me. It takes maybe 5mins or so to fill out the forms online and hit submit.. you just need to have your last set of taxes handy. And yet people still avoid it. I don't get it.
  23. That's.. weird.. I come from a theatrical design background, my original MFA was "Theater - Design" so seeing a weird hybrid listed as another subject is.. confusing. Reminds me of the old joke - what's the difference between performance art and theater? The color of the walls. (Theater has black walls, "art" is often in a gallery with white walls.)
  24. I don't typically go to bars, but I appreciate it when on a date a guy buys dinner, drinks, etc.. A real date, not a hookup. With a hookup I'm very happy if they pay for the hotel room! (I'm only sort of kidding..) Oh lord, I wish there wasn't a time in my life where priceline was a commonly used app on my phone. Bleh. But I digress, when a guy holds the door, opens a car door, etc.. for me on a date it's sweet. General homo rule of thumbs is the older or more established person plays the chivalrous role (and older often means more established.. and being in "arts" I rarely end up being the more established person regardless of age.)
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