brown_eyed_girl

You might find this breakdown helpful: http://magoosh.com/gre/2013/gre-scores-for-business-schools/ It sounds from this post like your scores would be in the right range for accepted students at top 11-25 schools, but it's confusing since it's unclear whether Quant or Verbal is more highly weighed. In any case, this suggests that your scores won't hold you back from getting into a very good program. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of business school admissions can be more helpful, though. Have you already looked at the websites for schools you're interested in to see if they list suggested scores?

At my program you are not required to be on-site during breaks, and many people spend the summer doing language intensives like Middlebury, researching, traveling, etc. In fact, my adviser specifically recommended that I do a summer language intensive instead of taking language courses during the school year. Each program is different but generally I think your plan to do language in the summers would be fine.

I think you'll want to expand a bit -- what, aside from the fact that they have a program in your field, makes it appealing to you? Is there a particular professor whose work you really admire? Is the overall structure of the program or the resources the school offers attractive? If the school has incredible state of the art lab facilities or a well-known internship program, mention why you think that would be perfect for you. If they have strong links with industry and that is your goal, mention that, while if they have a particularly strong teaching program and you want to be a professor eventually that's another plus to mention. You want to show the admissions committee that you are serious about their program and demonstrate why it is a good fit for you -- some people apply indiscriminately without paying attention to specifics, so you want to show that you've done the research and that you are not only a good fit for the school but that the school is a good fit for you. Personally, I mentioned the adviser I was applying for, as well as 1-2 other professors who I wanted to work with and whose work was relevant to my subfield, what I liked about the structure of each program (methodological emphasis? opportunities for practical experience?), resources (an incredible university archive? nearby to another institution where I might do research or part of a consortium of schools I could cross-register in? Interdiscplinary opportunities?), etc.

I don't think you have to rule out curation without a PhD - it's definitely feasible to be a curator with a terminal MA, you're just more likely to be an assistant curator or work in a smaller institution. You could also work in a curatorial department as a curatorial assistant, curatorial fellow or research assistant with an MA. I know some people who worked their way up from these types of positions into assistant curator positions, too. The pay will be lower than full curator jobs, but a lot of the work is the same and you still get to work on exhibitions and have close access to collections. I'd just recommend doing the MA in the speicific field you'd want to work in rather than Museum Studies for curatorial jobs, because the people hiring will be curators and department heads with PhDs, and they tend to value knowledge in their specialty much more than they value knowledge of museum operation protocol or databases. It think history or anthropology MAs would make a lot of sense and keep your options open. Good luck! PS If your main impetus to working in curation is about working with objects, you might also look into collection management or related museum work - they tend to work much more with actual objects than do curators in my experience.

First off, you might get more replies in the Art History forum than here (Museum Studies degrees are often discussed there, even if you're not interested in the art side of it). I agree 100% with verycunning - curation and education are totally different paths. I come from the art museum side of things, but there as well curator jobs usually require PhDs in their field; there are still assisant curator jobs at some large museums and full curator jobs at smaller museums for those with research-based MAs. Museum education people have a wide range of MAs, and it's also possible to get entry-level education jobs with just a BA (I know several people in higher-up ed positions who worked their way up with only the BA). In general, I would think very carefully before pursuing a Museum Studies MA. At least at the large art museums I worked at, these degrees were not well-respected, as they are often considered more like vocational degrees. There were certainly people with Museum Studies degrees working there, but they were all in Administration jobs. I think you'd do better to find an MA program in the field you're interested in (Anthro, Ed, etc) and then focus on museums in your thesis project or continue building your experience in museums in your free time. There is a ton of great work on museums in Anthropology, for instance, as I'm sure you know. Another thing to consider is cost -- I'm not aware of any funded museum studies degrees, so unless you have the cash on hand you could be looking at a lot of debt. This is especially risky when you're preparing for generally low-paying work at nonprofit museums. Research-based MAs are much more likley to be funded or partially funded, and I think your job prospects would be better as well.

"UCLA" is what the institution has referred to itself as since the 60s, so I think it is fine to refer to it as only UCLA. I would not say the same of other UC campuses or other schools with long names, but UCLA is somewhat unique in that the abbreviation has become the most common name for the school. That said, there's also nothing wrong with taking the route Fuzzylogician suggested. Either way, I think you're fine! By the way, if you do spell it out, note that "Los Angeles" should be separated from "University of California" by a comma rather than a dash.

You should be fine, but you can always call the school and/or the department to make sure your scores were received.

You've left out info about how much you studied before taking the test, which makes a big difference in terms of whether you can improve significantly in a short amount of time. If you didn't study much or at all, then retaking makes a lot more sense than if these are your results after you studied seriously for 3 months. As for not wanting to invest a lot of money, there are a lot of inexpensive or free GRE materials out there - personally I had a Princeton Review book (I think around $15) and used free Magoosh materials (free vocab app, free trial of website) and took free practice tests on the ETS powerprep software. Do you mean that you already used the free resources and you think you'd need to turn to alternatives to improve? As for whether to apply with these scores, I can't advise other than to say you should first check whether the departments you're interested in have minimum cutoff scores. You don't want to apply only to learn your app was discarded based on a low quant score. Beyond that, you can also ask the depts how heavily the GRE is weighed.

It sounds like she's being honest that a letter from her won't mean much since she's not a professor. The status and name recognition of letter writers is important and she's acknowledging that she won't be able to contribute much. Can you ask for a letter from the professor associated with the class she tutored?

I don't think the Red Cross people would be very useful if you've only been volunteering a few months and have never met them in person. Even if they agreed to write letters, I'm not sure what they could say that would be useful to you. Also, do the schools you're applying to have requirements on what your relationship is to the writer (for example, in my field it was recommended that all my recommendations be from professors, tho 1 was allowed to be from a professional supervisor)? If so, you might need to reach out to more professors anyway. Do you live near any of the schools you attended, or could you arrange a visit soon? If so, I'd make a face-to-face appointment with your former professors to ask for your letters. I think this would probably get you better results, since they could at least get a read on who you are and what your interests are - very necessary for anyone writing you a letter. It would be pretty hard to write a praise-filled letter for someone you don't remember, but at least if you go into office hours and have a discussion about grad school and your goals, they will feel like they know you a bit and will be more invested in your success. You don't want a letter from someone who is unfamiliar with your skills and goals. As for who to reach out to since you said you didn't take multiple classes with any professors, think about ones whose classes you did particularly well in and professors who are well-respected in your field.

Generally, I think this fluidly written and to the point, and it sounds like you've had some great experience. I would suggest, however, rewriting the opening paragraph. I think it could make sense to discuss your nontraditional educational path somewhere in the statement, but I wouldn't spend your first paragraph on it, and the opening hook about wanting to be a rockstar doesn't really jive with the rest of your statement. I want to hear about the student you are now, not the failed musician you were in your early 20s. You are also writing about how you've overcome your earlier academic challenges in the other statement you shared here, so I wouldn't spend valuable time and space on it in your SOP. I would instead jump right in with explaining your research focus and professional goals. I'd also cut the line about how you were an audio engineer and thus felt comfortable with software -- in a short SOP, every line counts, and while this is interesting for small talk I don't think it's relevant enough to your field to spend time on in a statement of purpose.

I would leave off the parts about your character (esp describing yourself as immature, etc). I'd keep it simple and leave it at: you failed courses due to poor attendance and were placed on academic probation; this was due to personal circumstances that you overcame; your recent academic record demonstrates your commitment to education and the level of dedication you will bring with you to graduate studies.

If the programs you're interested in have a required minimum GPA cutoff and you don't meet it, it's unlikely that they will evaluate your application at all. If they have a suggested GPA minimum, then a stellar record otherwise has the potential to be a game changer. Call the departments and find out which is the case. If it's a hard minimum, I would not bother applying to those places since they will probably not read beyond the GPA. The exception would be if you think you can do very well next semester and bring your GPA up enough to meet the requirement. I'm not sure what "barely fall short" means, but if getting a 4.0 in your last semester would bring you over the edge then it might be worth it to apply and expect your GPA to rise just enough to meet the minimum. This is risky, though, in that if you were admitted it might be continent on that expected GPA rise.

I would guess that this just reflects a standard application format that your department didn't (or wasn't able to) modify. I definitely would include your relevant languages in that section. As for the speaking level, the most straightforward thing would be to call the admin person in the departments in question and see what they recommend. If in doubt, putting beginner or matching to your level of reading skill would probably be fine.

If they don't request scores and don't want additional materials, it seems like submitting them on your CV would at best do nothing and at worst be seen as irritating or unprofessional. I don't see what you have to gain by doing so. Further, if you're just writing in self-reported scores on the CV, who is to say that they're the real scores? (If you absolutely hate the thought of not submitting them, I'd submit official reports, with the knowledge that they'd probably be tossed by the admission committee.) I'd let this program make your admission decision based on the criteria they value - after all, if you did this well on the GRE, hopefully those skills & effort will come across on the rest of your app. And the scores will presumably be submitted to other programs where they will be weighed with the rest of the app.

Download the Powerprep software from ETS (free) and do a practice test first of all -- that will help you assess where you need to work and what kinds of problems trip you up. Then you can compare your practice scores to the avg scores of admitted students in the programs you're applying for and figure out where you need to improve. I'd do that before you start studying so that you can focus your attention accordingly.

I have to say an iPad + keyboard-case has been an invaluable grad school supply for me so far, both as an e-reader for managing all my PDFs (I use the Goodreader app) and for the functionality of a full keyboard for writing notes and papers. Soooo much lighter/smaller than my MacBook Pro = I don't think twice about bringing it out with me. Highly recommend to anyone on the fence (as I was before this semester, never having owned an iPad before).

The sexist comments you guys have mentioned sound really upsetting. Have you considered going to school officials? Especially if this I someone in your cohort who you will have to be around a decent amount, I don't think it's reasonable to put up with that. Plus, the thought of someone in a PhD program openly saying women should serve men rather than be in higher education is even more upsetting given that they could be teaching young women soon. If he is saying things like this unchecked, perhaps he needs a good reminder of university policy on gender discrimination. It may not solve his obvious issues, but perhaps he'd at least see how truly inappropriate his comments are and realize that there is no place for that.

Thanks for the info - I knew they had visual studies but not what the highest degree was (as with several of the other programs I listed).

Not sure of the specifics of these programs, but some that come to mind or pop up on the first page of Google are: Rochester, Art institute of Chicago, Duke, Harvard, UC Santa Cruz, Buffalo, NYU ("media, culture, communication" Dept). And as artman says, most AH programs also allow for overlap.

I would contact the programs individually and ask their policies. It should theoretically be fine as long as they are open to papers from other disciplines, but it may be harder for programs to get a sense of your art historical style and writing. If you have time, you could also consider expanding the AH paper into a longer sample. I think the main thing is to submit a sample/samples that are your best work and that have a lot of research behind them.

I agree with all that TakeruK said, and I want to clarify that I don't mean not to include your personality - just also stay focused on what they are asking for and try to imbue your personality while staying on message. Personally, I structured my SOP rather uncreatively, but I think it's an effective organization for clarity and concision: Intro: My opening paragraph outlined the subfield I was applying for, described my research interests, and proposed a potential dissertation topic, while making it clear that this was just an example of the type of project I was interested in to allow room for flexibility. This is where I stated excitement for my research and discussed its potential impact. Body: I outlined my qualifications and experience chronologically. I mentioned relevant coursework, language prep, grants/scholarships, honors programs, research experience during undergrad (senior thesis); then I discussed my work after graduation; I named professors who were particularly influential and who I worked with closely; I explained how each of these unique experiences shaped my approach to things. This is also where you can put a positive spin on anything that might look odd on your CV. My argument here was "I'm prepared to succeed in a doctoral program." Close: I discussed why each school was a great fit for me and my research (I.e. Access to amazing university resources, methodological fit, location close to outside research material, etc), who I hoped to work with in the dept specifically, and why X was the best school for my needs. This is admittedly not the most exciting format, but it did get me into a top program in my field, and I think is quite flexible for various fields. Good luck!

I can't speak to all fields so feel free to correct me if I'm off base here, but in the humanities this would not be an appropriate SOP because it's all about you and how much you like the field (as well as random personal info like your excitement about your wedding) that is basically irrelevant to whether or not you'll succeed in the program. It's assumed that everyone applying is excited about the field and has personal reasons for that, so you don't really need to go into them or the moment you realized grad school was right for you, etc. What you've written is not bad, but it's a personal, narrative essay intro that would be appropriate for a college admittance essay rather than a grad school research statement. In other words, your writing abilities are good, you're just misdirecting them. Further, I've read a whole paragraph without getting any idea of what specifically you're interested in researching or why you are qualified. You have a short amount of space to convince an adcom that you are worth investing in, so make it count by keeping your SOP focused on need-to-know info. Keep it straightforward and professional. What do you hope to contribute to the field? Why are you qualified? Why is this school and this POI the right fit for you, and what do you bring to the table that others don't? Admissions committees are busy, so front-load the most relevant information and make it easy for them to see why you are a great applicant. And don't forget to have some of your former professors look over the SOP before you finalize your draft - they are the best resource since they know your field and can tell you what they look for when they review candidates. Good luck!

Do you have the time/resources to work with a tutor? In your case it sounds like that might be helpful since what you're dealing with isn't covered by the materials you've worked with so far. Side note: I know you didn't ask about this, but I noticed that your LORs all come from industry rather than academics. In my field that's a no-no and a lot of apps specifically stated that letters from professors are strongly preferred and 1/3 letters could be from a supervisory if necessary. Perhaps your field is different in this regard, but I'd think about that and ask around before you apply to make sure, since if you need to ask professors to write letters you'll want to give them ample notice. Good luck!!

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but one thing I don't think anyone here suggested yet is to look at average scores for people applying in your field vs. average scores of admitted students: http://magoosh.com/gre/2013/gre-scores-for-social-science-programs/ The scores given here seem to indicate that verbal is more important than quant, so I wouldn't totally give up on studying that quite yet, especially since you seem naturally better at verbal and studying could put you over the edge into an excellent score there whereas it seems like you won't become a math expert over night. Getting the quant score up a few more points (say a target of 150-154) would still put you in the right average range for admitted students at top 10 programs, as would raising your verbal just a point or two (maybe a target of 161-163). I'd also ask yourself where you think you can improve easily. I personally am terrible at retaining math, so I focused my attention on studying verbal since I'm much stronger in that and it's much more meaningful to my field (I got 166V). I know most people will tell you it's easier to improve math than verbal, but that's also quite dependent on your individual strengths. My studying for verbal consisted only of Magoosh vocab flash cards (the free app), since reading comprehension is not something you can improve much in a short time but words can be drilled easily, and knowing definitions off the top of my head was really helpful even when I already knew how to use a word in a sentence. I accepted that I'd never have a great Q score (or that it wasn't worth the effort/stress for me personally to try for that) but that a very good verbal score was within my abilities and would mean more to adcoms than a marginally better quant score. Good luck!