aquiles

If you don't mind my asking, could you please elaborate as to why?

My field is Early Modern Europe, particularly the Enlightenment and intellectual history (vive la France!) I also got an admit from Wisconsin Madison and Berkeley. I have others I'm waiting on, but already I'm afraid to make a choice between UChicago and Berkeley. Chicago's fellowship is better, though I don't know if it makes that much of a difference. If I go to Berkeley, I'd get a better angle on cultural and religious history within my concentration 'cause of advisor(s) there, while if I go to Chicago, I'd get a better angle on political economy, 'cause of my potential advisor there. I've heard stories though of Berkeley having a very fun and warm collegial environment and Chicago being a land of everyone-versus-everyone competition (and that it feels like interacting with characters from an Ayn Rand novel, which I mean in the worst possible way), so I'm leaning towards Berkeley, but will definitely allow my decision to be heavily influenced by the campus visits they've offered to fund. I realize you didn't ask for all of that but I'm hoping to elicit horror stories and good stories from people to help give me a handle on where would be a happier place to spend my future...

What do you mean? I didn't see anywhere that he mentioned there being over 500 applications this year. If the number of applicants (to all history departments generally, not just UNC) is significantly greater than 2009, and the number of spots available even fewer, I might jump out a window long before mid-March comes around... Just kidding...maybe... :0

To all, Hello. I've submitted all of my applications at this point, ten in total. However, I didn't notice until a while afterwards that the version I sent in of my CV on the applications had several typos in it. They were all in French, the primary foreign language I'd be using for graduate studies - French Enlightenment (I said "la côtê" twice, spelled institute with a final e like in English, and added an s to something that wasn't plural). They related to the names of places where I've worked and taken French classes in France, so that's the reason why there was French on my CV to begin with. Everything else in my applications (writing sample, SoP, etc.) is typo-free, but in my CV I just didn't check the version I uploaded online to make sure it was error-proof. I've already contacted all of my departments to see if they'll let me send the corrected version. One has told me that there can be no changes made, but not to worry about "a" typo (I had several), but another school told me they'd scan it and upload it. I haven't heard back from the others yet. Is having typos in a CV something that could make me look bad in my application and get it thrown out or have another's application given preference or is it no big deal at all? I don't really know what to think of it, but I'm quite worried. Best regards, Aquiles

jrpk - Language, particularly the English language, doesn't have a mathematically comparable logic to it, as it's a hodgepodge of several languages mixed together. Maybe my experience with the GRE is biased, as I also know latin, spanish, and french, which would cover the roots you name, but my point is that there are loads of words in the english language and on the GRE that are not from the roots of the latin tradition that entered the English language from 1066 onward. You can't know those without memorization. The analogy, antonym, and sentence completion (ESPECIALLY that one) have what you might call "answer molds" or a given set of patterns the GRE loves to repeat and there's a reason the GRE says to select the "best" answer and not the "correct answer." Even the reading comprehension questions basically have six types where the wording is a little different in various tests, but that's about it. I'd agree with your example that it'd be a waste of time to memorize times tables that high, but that analogy doesn't come close to being relevant to the memorization tricks that work on the quant sections (such as how useful it'd be to just ignore the .002 unless what you get the first calculation doesn't fit an answer choice or the choices are too close) and is even more irrelevent with reference to how language is learned or represented on the GRE verbal. You don't have to memorize EVERYTHING in the english language or that could be potential asked to be calculated - My point is that you just have to memorize the words/question types the GRE loves to use (tiny subset of english language) and the "tricks" (not real math skills) the quant section loves to use.

ticklemepink - That's what I'm hoping. Thanks for the reassurance! I just worry sometimes that the adcommittees are so overwhelmed with applications that they'd throw aside some of them for arbitrary reasons but I'm probably giving them too little credit.

You absolutely must edit and improve it! Professors have told me to never stop editing until you turn it in with your application. They're not looking to see a paper in the exact same form as when it was turned in during the class for which you wrote it. Hell, if you can get the professor to whom you turned it in to give it back to you after grading it, with editing done and suggestions made as to how it could have been even better, well, that's one of the best forms of copyediting known to man. No offense personally, but the question made me snicker a little - the image of a graduate school admissions committee asking for a copy of the same writing sample from the professor at your undergraduate institution, and then comparing the two to make sure you didn't pick better adjectives or change comma placement is really quite comical. They're not that hard-working. *In the case that kahlan_amnell specifies, everything I said above doesn't apply, but I have never seen that before and I'm applying to a dozen schools.

Whoever tells you that the GRE is not a memorization game is dead wrong, particularly on the verbal section. There's a software program called GRE Bible that you might wanna check out. (It doesn't have to be purchased - bittorrent websites can be very helpful). I got a 770 Verbal and I don't think that reading skills or experience mattered nearly as much as memorizing the patterns ETS likes to use, which you can find in Princeton Review or some other such company's study materials, and memorizing huge lists of commonly recurring words. Don't make the mistaken assumption that the GRE tests anything other than your ability to familiarize yourself with a particular format and memorize huge amounts of information. Any standardized test (which by definition doesn't ask just ANY questions but only particular kinds that generate results that can be statistically compared with other test-takers' results because of the questions' formulaic nature) can be studied via rote memorization as long as you can find past questions and study materials for that test, even IQ tests. Seriously.

Thanks for all the replies! Oh, and for the record: I did marvelously and my worries were completely unfounded, just as Minnesotan said. Just studying lists of Vocab from a few test prep companies is indeed all that's really necessary.

Thanks for the advice Kent Shakespeare! (And sorry for the delay in response - I've been away from gradcafe for a good while) I'm going to do everything I can to highlight the experience in France in my CV/r

Student Profile: Graduated from 1st tier university in 2009 GPA 3.7 cumulative, 3.75 history Phi Beta Kappa Very strong LORS, Writing Sample, and Personal Statement GRE - 770 Verbal, 700 Math, 6 AWA Languages - Spanish (8 years & was my second major as undergrad), Latin (four courses/semesters worth on transcript), French (three courses/semesters worth on transcript) 2 Research Projects using primary and secondary sources already completed - one for McNair Scholars Baccalaureate Program and another for a graduate research seminar on the topic for which I'm applying, which I'm using as my writing sample. ...Applying to a slew of 1st tier graduate schools for fall of 2010... But there's one problem, and I'm worrying that it might be a biggie... I only have three semesters of French, and French is going to be the primary language for research purposes (17-18th century Enlightenment Studies & Intellectual History). In my personal statement, I list the fact that for the coming year I'm going to be living and working in France in order to improve my French. Basically, what I want to know is: Will the admissions committee take into account the fact that romance languages build on top of each other (I've studied latin and am fluent in Spanish, making French come much more quickly and easier) and that I'll end up being fluent just via immersion by the time I enroll, or would they really throw out my application in one of the early round cuts just because I technically only have three semesters of formal study on my transcript at the time of application? Is there anything more I can do for the admissions committees than let them know I'm gonna be living and working in France for the coming year, such as getting a recommendation letter from an employer in France during the fall application season or something like that?

Hello. I've been studying for the GRE for literally months on end (every day for hours since the beginning of March) and was feeling pretty confident about it until I did some more reading online about ETS's choice of words for the verbal section. I've been an avid reader all my life, I studied Barron's List of words, Kaplan's List, Princeton Review's, etc. I'm not looking for an easy way out. To put it simply, I have no respect for ETS and have read that what they choose to put on the GRE verbal section are words so intentionally esoteric that they don't think you would have stumbled across them no matter how much you read in general. I've read horror stories stating that it's entirely possible to take the GRE and encounter words that didn't appear on any of the lists compiled by test-prep companies and I wouldn't put it past ETS to do this on purpose (it sounds like a sound business plan, though that makes it more of a "jump-through-these-arbitrary-hoops-whilst-I-laugh-maniacally" game than a test of one's verbal abilities) However, I remember reading somewhere on this forum about a website where students talk about what words have appeared on the GRE in a given month and some people have stated that the GRE loves to recycle its list of words along the course of that month - trouble is, I cannot find that post again using the forum's search function and I didn't save it when I first read it. I'm taking the GRE in the second half of August and was wondering if anyone could point me towards whatever website or forum it is where students talk about what words and patterns of words have appeared most recently on the GRE verbal section. Thanks for any help - I'd love to know what pool of words I could study that the GRE would actually test me on and where I could find that. I reiterate that I have no desire to be lazy, but I don't like the idea that I might flub the GRE simply because ETS arbitrarily decide to throw a lot of words on my test that only a 4th year aeronautical engineer would know.

Thanks for the reply! Making contact via email would be no problem at all. Sorry to ask even more questions, but, in that case, would it suffice for me to express an interest in applying to that department and working with that potential advisor, or should I be as upfront as asking whether or not that advisor is looking for potential students during the coming academic year?

Hello all, After searching the forum, I haven't found any threads specifically addressing this question (there's a lot on getting in contact with faculty but this is kinda different) so here goes: Should I get in contact with the faculty at the schools to which I'm applying to set up a phone interview or, because it's just a phone interview or just introduce myself via email? Or should I just turn in my application and the faculty will want to set up such a kind of interview if I'm found to be interesting enough a candidate? The problem is that, while I want to do an in-person interview and visit the schools to which I'm applying, I have NO money to travel around the country to do so, and don't want to create an awkward situation where I ask to get in contact with a faculty member but tell them that I can't have an interview in person but just a phone interview. I ask because I'm leaving the country in September to go work as an English teacher abroad for a year and many people have told me that it's best to visit the schools during the summer. For me, that would just mean calling to set up a phone interview during the summer because going out to visit the schools to which I'm applying is, for financial reasons, just seriously not an option.