joro

I'll say this much...don't let your friends discourage you from applying to ivy leagues. I have friends who come from an unranked school, I don't even know if it's even a tier 3 school, that now go to Harvard, Cornell, CMU, etc. You should apply if you have time. Do you really want to think, "What if I applied and they accepted me?".

For me, I always put my parents before myself so I would make my decision based off that.

I'm not exactly sure what to write. Last year, I wrote how my parents influenced me, being the first-generation of my family to receive a Bachelor's and how I will be the first-generation (even among my relatives) to pursue a graduate degree, and how my dad's misfortune has given me an opportunity to pursue graduate school in California for an affordable price (tuition waiver for California public schools). All this only made up 2 paragraphs and I think it may be too short for the personal history statement. What else should I try to write about? The high school I came from was a bit dangerous: gang fights just about every week, students burning down buildings, there were also shootings, and stabbings. My area was the "bad" part of the city. Everyone also assumes that if you're attending a good University that you came from the rich / good part of my city. And here is the question given on all applications for UC schools: In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

That sounds really stressful. Sounds like she likes the content, but just not the way you wrote it. I hope everything works out for you.

Instead of making a completely new thread, I thought I'd just bring back my old thread. This question has probably been asked a ton of times already, but based on my given information. Do I have a chance at these schools? (new list below) Would mentioning how my grades have been on an incline help my application? I ended my last semester with a 3.65 taking the maximum number of classes possible (without petition for extra units), working as an intern part-time, and also as a grader. Would it be too much of a stretch to apply to Cornell (M.S. in Computer Graphics)? Here's the updated list of schools I will be applying to: M.S. in Visualization Sciences Texas A&M M.S. in Computer Graphics Technology & M.S. in Computer Science (undecided) Purdue University M.S. in Computing, Graphics Track University of Utah M.S. in Computer Science Arizona State University UC San Diego UC Santa Barbara University of Maryland, Baltimore County UC Riverside SUNY Stony Brook WashU UC Irvine Georgia Tech University of Alberta University of British Columbia McGill University University of Toronto

After writing that response yesterday, I've been thinking about including it in my essay. I'm a bit confused now too.

I got in contact with the school and after a few email exchanges they told me to put the total number of units I took.

I say that if you talk about your GPA, talk about it in a positive light. My GPA is a 3.11, but I would probably discuss how each semester my GPA had been dramatically improving especially in my last semester where I earned a 3.6X while taking 6 full time classes, held an internship, and also was a student grader. I may also speak about how I've always done exceptionally well in classes that are related to my general research interest (computer graphics) and was towards the top for each class. I have not written anything about my grades in my essay, but showed that I am passionate and very goal driven. I have a friend who wrote about his grades as the last paragraph stating that even his Professors were surprised at his mediocre grades and that he'd like admissions to look beyond his grade average. To see a student who's more interested in the projects / subjects than an abstract measure of proficiency in them. Hopefully this helps you a bit. This time, I do suggest applying to more than 4 schools...possibly 9 schools: 4 you have a good chance at, 3 safety, and 2 beyond reach. I'm also reapplying and will be using the same recommenders. I've talked to them during the summer after getting the last of my rejection notices and the realization that I've overlooked a lot of great programs. All agreed to help me with graduate school again. I really had no problems approaching them, they were pretty happy to help out again.

I'm just confused with it because on my unofficial transcript, it shows the hour and credit hour multiplied together to create the grade point. Like 4 hours * A (4.0) = 16.0 grade points.

I'm finishing up the Texas A&M application and on the school listing section it asks for hours earned. Do I just list the total hours as indicated (e.g. 4.0 hour classes, 3.0 hour classes) or is there something more to this? Does hours earned mean points per credit hour? (e.g. A- would be 3.7, a B would be 3.0.)

Do whatever works for you. I started mine by coming up with a general outline and writing down ideas. Keep a pencil/pen and a notepad handy wherever you go because you never know what might pop into your head.

Starting early is a definite thing. I started about 2 months ago and I'm on my 5th revision. Then I may have to do another revision after sending it to my LoR for further review.

I finally finished writing my conclusion . And it's being sent to a bunch of people to proofread, then to my LoR for further review. I hope this will be the last revision I make so that I can I start writing other essays some schools require. I also need to finish my artistic and technical portfolio for my first choice school :cry:

Business casual for women is normally dark slacks and a type of dress shirt. You can wear or not wear a jacket.

Understood, but easier said than done.

Yup, I'm at the conclusion. I still have no definite conclusion after 4 rewrites. But at least now I have somewhat of an outline for my conclusion. I have the first and last sentences written out, just need to work on the insides.

I'm practically on my 4th revision of my SOP (working on this since July) and I can't write a decent conclusion. Does anyone have advice about the conclusion? I've read that I should basically sum up the main points of my SOP and state what I have to contribute to the program. Is there anything more to this?

I'm going to agree with the above poster's earlier post. You can't do anything now to change where you graduated from. Now go do something that would help you out. I've probably said this a bunch of times in different threads already, but here is a slightly different version. I graduated from a lesser known school in my major with a 3.11 gpa and I've been told directly from a Professor (who also happens to be my LOR and says he's going to write me a really good one) that it is difficult for someone from my school to get into a good graduate program. I also did not have any published research and no research experience upon graduating. If I were to apply with just this, my chances of getting into a decent school would be really tough. So here's what I did after graduating. I applied for a research assistant position at Stanford and was hired. Now I had some kind of research experience to put on my CV/Resume and the Stanford Professor / Director of the Research Center agreed to write me a LOR. I don't think it will offset my gpa, but I hope it raises some eyebrows with admissions seeing a student from a lesser known school with a poor gpa working at Stanford as a RA. What I'm trying to say is that you need to just forget about the past and try to do something now.

I know we've given you a bunch of advice, but I really do suggest that you contact advisors from those schools. Tell them who you are, what you want, and ask if their program would make a good fit to achieve your goals.

Good for you! That's how I feel regardless of the competition in my area with other students and new grads from Berkeley and Stanford. My last job was actually at Stanford University as a research assistant working with just Stanford grad students (M.S. and PhD) and me only having graduated with a B.S. My interviews were with Google (got to the last interview), NASA, and Image Movers Digital. I think the only other company I applied to was LucasFilm, but no interviews were done. I don't really apply to many jobs because I'm very picky and want to work in the film industry doing visual effects work or research. The choice of companies for me here fails in comparison to companies a typical computer science major would work for (Silicon Valley).

The majority of the time, you'll be sending an email notification to your writers from the application site. Then they will just upload their letter to the site and you'll see status updates on your application whether or not a LOR has been received. I have encountered only one school where I had to mail the letters myself. There's also instructions from the school regarding application procedures, so read that to find out what you will need to do.

You should try this since you're in psychology, "Accept me into your program or die!!!". Then come up with a witty response about how people would psychologically react to that. My intro isn't too special, just an intro briefly covering my fascination with the field, what I've done in preparation, conferences, and research interest. Not sure if this is a good approach, but I will find out once I send it to my LoR for advice.

Yes they are, I'm currently on my 3rd revision.

Ever since I discovered this site, I've been posting just about every day. I also tried the job hunting thing and had interviews but no job offers as well. At least I got some interview experience and one company says that they only invite people of a certain caliber for on-site interviews which gave me a bit of a confidence boost. But I think it's a good thing I couldn't get a job because of the strict requirements (cannot make more than ~$11k in a year) for my tuition fee waiver for California public schools. I think I'm also about done looking up grad schools. I've listed the ones I'm considering in my signature, but may be adding or removing more later depending on what my LOR advise. I'm currently working on my SOP (on revision 3) and hope to be done with it in the next few days to send off to my LOR for some feedback. If you're thinking about a Kaplan course, there are some actually free preview courses that you can take and even a practice test. I also say that you shouldn't count yourself out of applying to schools because you don't meet their gpa requirements. I have a friend who received below a 3.0 for his undergrad in computer science and now is in the PhD Computational Biology program at CMU.

Then what would you recommend as study material along with the algorithms book?