Loric

Couple of notes..
 
Most applications are BAD.
 
Absolutely awful bad bad bad BAD. There's a reason we joke about the overused and cliched SOP phrases. If you're able to express yourself halfway decently in written words you're ahead of a lot of people. Second, being marginally good at your chosen subject.. that helps too. There are a lot of applicants who are just hopeless. I'm saying this as someone from a test score and grades standpoint who - if i was anyone else - would have about zero chance.
 
Because I'm me, I'm special and I know an adcom is actually considering me seriously. I wasn't just "cut" and my last semester at my old grad school is all F's (admittedly from classes i didnt take, but didnt drop/withdraw from formally, and the adcom knows this.)
 
But everyone thinks they're special. If everyone was actually special, no one would be.
 
So it's a matter of being objective. You're not a number, not an unknown value who will be randomly sorted into slot A or B at the flip of a coin. You are a thing that will be judged, and even the person who said they were "shut out" admitted that with some polish they turned their poor application into a good one. It is not chance it is not magic it is not voodoo. You are being judged and all the alchemy of that process is in play. Yes, it may be because you like XYZ and someone on the adcom hates XYZ so you're out. You can't really account for their opinions in that manner.. but it is a judgement, not chance.

Actually in English you talk about Shakespeare in the present tense because you're discussing an active analysis of the text and the relationship between the reader and the attempt to convey meaning. Which really is a bit silly because Shakespeare wrote plays.. or rather, his plays weren't even written down at first. They were simply performed. Later they were scribbled down.. so the manner of conveyance (which dictates the meaning) is often entirely left out of literary analysis of his work. Bad lit major, bad bad lit majors! *newspaper across nose* Stop trying to make theater into literature!
 
And it was said by a character in a play.. it's not Shakespeare's voice, his opinion, etc.. Just so we're clear.
 
But why bring this trivial difference of opinion up? Because it illustrates that different fields, departments, etc.. have different ways of seeing things. A lit department would probably be fine with such statements, but anyone who has studied Shakespeare as theater academically is not going to let that slide. The stripping down of scripts into mere words on a page is a sore point for most theater practitioners. It's generally seen as the murder of an artform and a contributing factor in the decline of public performance.
 
So be careful of even your most innocuous statements.. though the OP would likely not be happy in a theater program who believed such things. Thus a rejection would be a favor, despite the desire for acceptance.

I'm going to hastily generalize that whatever involvement you thought you had in theatre was trivial, laughable, and at best superficial.
 
And in contrast if you'd like to go check out the books I've written from your school's library I can PM you the ISBN's.

You aren't accepted anywhere - so neither are you "qualified."
 
I have been admitted to a graduate program - multiple in fact. You have not. So you have no right to sit there and say I have no clue about academia while you claim to know everything, as someone who has not been admitted anywhere ever.

So what you're saying is that you're upset you were possibly given bad advice on how to get into a program that you readily admit serves no purpose..?

If the 300 people applying were, even a majority thereof, actually qualified to do higher level meaningful work wouldn't there be positions and programs to support them?

I'm going to hastily generalize that whatever involvement you thought you had in theatre was trivial, laughable, and at best superficial.
 
And in contrast if you'd like to go check out the books I've written from your school's library I can PM you the ISBN's.

I'll hand you tubes of paint.
 
Now go on, tell me how you know ALL ABOUT Picasso and Monet and Manet.
 
C'mon, from the tubes of paint. Or better yet, an account of seeing their paintings in a museum from several centuries ago that tries to explain the experience to you. C'mon, tell me how you're an expert.

The Kings Men wrote/published the first folio. Otherwise all there was were the foul papers which were used to produce the cue scripting.
 
What you read today as "Shakespeare" in literature is a complete fabrication. No such written thing existed when the plays were performed.. and they were created to be performed. Acting as if the literary analysis divorced from the performance has any validity is just academic masturbation.

Actually in English you talk about Shakespeare in the present tense because you're discussing an active analysis of the text and the relationship between the reader and the attempt to convey meaning. Which really is a bit silly because Shakespeare wrote plays.. or rather, his plays weren't even written down at first. They were simply performed. Later they were scribbled down.. so the manner of conveyance (which dictates the meaning) is often entirely left out of literary analysis of his work. Bad lit major, bad bad lit majors! *newspaper across nose* Stop trying to make theater into literature!
 
And it was said by a character in a play.. it's not Shakespeare's voice, his opinion, etc.. Just so we're clear.
 
But why bring this trivial difference of opinion up? Because it illustrates that different fields, departments, etc.. have different ways of seeing things. A lit department would probably be fine with such statements, but anyone who has studied Shakespeare as theater academically is not going to let that slide. The stripping down of scripts into mere words on a page is a sore point for most theater practitioners. It's generally seen as the murder of an artform and a contributing factor in the decline of public performance.
 
So be careful of even your most innocuous statements.. though the OP would likely not be happy in a theater program who believed such things. Thus a rejection would be a favor, despite the desire for acceptance.

Actually in English you talk about Shakespeare in the present tense because you're discussing an active analysis of the text and the relationship between the reader and the attempt to convey meaning. Which really is a bit silly because Shakespeare wrote plays.. or rather, his plays weren't even written down at first. They were simply performed. Later they were scribbled down.. so the manner of conveyance (which dictates the meaning) is often entirely left out of literary analysis of his work. Bad lit major, bad bad lit majors! *newspaper across nose* Stop trying to make theater into literature!
 
And it was said by a character in a play.. it's not Shakespeare's voice, his opinion, etc.. Just so we're clear.
 
But why bring this trivial difference of opinion up? Because it illustrates that different fields, departments, etc.. have different ways of seeing things. A lit department would probably be fine with such statements, but anyone who has studied Shakespeare as theater academically is not going to let that slide. The stripping down of scripts into mere words on a page is a sore point for most theater practitioners. It's generally seen as the murder of an artform and a contributing factor in the decline of public performance.
 
So be careful of even your most innocuous statements.. though the OP would likely not be happy in a theater program who believed such things. Thus a rejection would be a favor, despite the desire for acceptance.

Just a note about SOP - it only helps if they read it. It can be one of the last things they do, if at all, at some programs.

The Kings Men wrote/published the first folio. Otherwise all there was were the foul papers which were used to produce the cue scripting.
 
What you read today as "Shakespeare" in literature is a complete fabrication. No such written thing existed when the plays were performed.. and they were created to be performed. Acting as if the literary analysis divorced from the performance has any validity is just academic masturbation.

Anywhere that puts me up with someone else without telling me explicitly first gets me walking out the door, them paying for it, and me talking shit about them to every person I can find.

I just find it fascinating that people are so "hardcore" emotional and involve themselves so deeply in something they have a roughly 50/50 shot of not finishing.
 
Think of all the people who post as if getting into a graduate program is "the most vital" step in their lives. Half those people are either making a mistake, or the school made a mistake in choosing them.
 
I certainly think they should modify the admissions processes to cultivate completion. Survey those who complete and use those as the "standard" for admission. Also survey those who don't complete.. and use that profile as a "red flag" when doing admissions.
 
I'm assuming there's norms in background, experience, gpa, etc.. between the two groups. You'd have to actually study it to know for sure. I have this suspicion that a lot of the higher-end of the GPA/scores people are the ones more likely to drop out.

Photoshop uses DPI and PPI interchangeably. If you use photoshop's image settings to change the DPI to 72 from 300 it will shrink your image canvas size.

And Jaques I'm sooooo sorry you might need to read a caption to understand an image when judging media that is not 2d. Your life must be so hard. I'm so sorry people expect you to do all functions of your job with diligence rather than skimping over the parts you don't like or find unpleasant. I mean, it's not like someone's future is at stake if you gloss over things and make incorrect assumptions.

Funnily enough I suspect glossing over things, coming to erroneous conclusions, and yet still being treated like you deserve a cookie for the "good" you've done is not at all a foreign concept to you.

Anywhere that puts me up with someone else without telling me explicitly first gets me walking out the door, them paying for it, and me talking shit about them to every person I can find.

I'm starting to think no one actually knows why everyone wants to get into Berkeley other than "it's the thing to do."
 
Just a thought.. if you cant easily articulate why you want to attend.. you dont stand much of a chance writing it out in your PS/SOP/etc.

I think a dog is a bad idea - I remember days where I didn't remember to eat or didn't go home from 5am to 2am the next morning. You can't leave a dog alone for that long, or at least it's not exactly kosher. A cat would be fine as long as you feed them or, better yet, get one of those autofeeders.
 
The pet I really reccomend for grad students is a Marimo.
 
See how long it takes you to kill it. Then consider if you really can take care of a cat or dog while attending to your studies.
 
I would request that if anything you not get a pet in your first semester. Wait.

Ugh.. Just stop talking until you take a theater history class or at least google it.

Ugh.. Just stop talking until you take a theater history class or at least google it.

Well, if it's going to be a bag of nails, might as well bludgeon those who are against me with it, no?

Are most people really under 130?

I could be way off - I barely remember my GRE scores and only know vague details of my old SAT and such... But I'm fairly certain my IQ is " officially" in the 140's. That can't be the top 5% can it? I dunno. I thought it went up to like 160 or 180, no?

I keep seeing this topic and my mind is just a bit baffled..
 
What is it about Berkeley that's so compelling?
 
My primary letter-of-rec writer got his PhD from Berkeley. I mean, he's brilliant and really was a great professor.. but people seem to be very enamoured with the school. What's up with that?
 
(Edit: There appears to be more e's in Burh-kel-lee than I had originally assumed.)

I'm starting to think no one actually knows why everyone wants to get into Berkeley other than "it's the thing to do."
 
Just a thought.. if you cant easily articulate why you want to attend.. you dont stand much of a chance writing it out in your PS/SOP/etc.