[Toronto online app]

All of my schools are Canadian and none of them have asked.

["List the other programs you're applying to"]

So some of the online applications want you to fill in the names of the other programs to which you're sending applications.

Is this just for statistical purposes? I mean, there is no way that, say, Yale (I'm not applying there) would say, "Oh, she's not applying anywhere else, so we better accept her." Or is it a sort of check-up on "is this person serious about this subject, or is he just applying to our program in Comic Book Collecting for the heckuvit?"

What are you all doing for this?

(Admittedly, this is a problem for me mostly because I'm still not sure where all I'm applying...)

People ask this all the time, and the consensus seems to be that the school wants the info more for statistical purposes. That way, Yale gets an idea of which programmes you consider essentially in the same league as theirs, which ones are offering similar programmes, and that way they can market themselves better.

That said, your adcomm is also going to get a copy of your application form. And we do hear a lot of horror stories from excellent applicants who were rejected by all of their schools because the mid and bottom tier schools were certain that they would get in somewhere else, and thus didn't offer them a place. So bearing that in mind, it might be safer to just leave the space blank.

[What happens when a school refuses to send transcripts?]

I've already contacted most of the places and they've all said they would take an unofficial copy until I can get this resolved. The issue is not that I'm worried I won't get it resolved, but rather that I won't get it resolved in time for applications. I know this is a mistake (there's no way I left the school with a 0 balance and have somehow mysteriously charged up over 1000 dollars in rent and tuition...). For one, they sent my transcripts to this school in Fall 2008 when I came here and there was no charge then. One guy at an admissions today said, "Oh yeah, I've worked for a seminary.....I'm so sorry." I don't really have any friends there anymore - it was a small campus and becoming Catholic in Southern Baptist circles is just about the worst thing you can do.

Gotcha. Well, they're absolutely in the wrong, and if they released your transcripts when you transferred, I don't see how they could possibly maintain that you owe them money. There's got to be a statute of limitations on these kinds of things.

[the "Submit" button is calling to me...]

LOL that happens to me all the time with my friends. "Have you heard anything yet?" I want to say "no, still won't know until March, just like I told you yesterday when you asked!"

I know. I hate being asked "So where are you going for grad school?" As if that's my decision! I usually answer, "Well, I'm applying to seven different places across the country, so... ummm... hopefully one of those."

[Acceptance chances at different deadline dates]

You're probably not doomed if you apply by the final date, but bear in mind that it'll be a lot tougher to get in, because at that point some (or possibly even all) of the seats that they have may have been given away.

Let's say the programme can take 10 students next year. Those who apply now will obviously get first consideration. When they go through those applications, they'll pick out the ones that they definitely want to accept. By applying later, you're betting on the fact that they either a) haven't found 10 people they definitely want to accept, or b: most of the people they wanted didn't end up accepting their offer. For top programmes, these are both hedgy bets.

[What happens when a school refuses to send transcripts?]

I think you really need to make a desperate attempt at getting the confessional school to absolve you (heh) of the fees. Try every tactic you can on them. Raise a huge stink. Do you have any friends who are lawyers (or friends who are good at pretending to be lawyers)? Maybe they can find some way of arguing on your behalf. To that end, any friend that you have at the confessional school is someone I'd approach to see if they can ask the right people to get rid of the owing balance. Maybe you could draw up a contract that states you will pay them in full by such and such a date, conditional to their release of the transcripts now?

If all of this doesn't work (and soon, because I imagine time is of the essence) then you do need to contact the appropriate people at your schools and find out if they will consider your application without these transcripts. Maybe they'll accept an unofficial copy conditional to your presenting the official copy at a later date (once you magically come up with $1000)?

[SoP - appropriate to tell your top choice school that they are your top choice??]

I think it's better to sort of maintain the illusion that it's your only choice. When you write the fit, write it as if you've identified it as the ideal place for you to go. If you say it's a top choice, it's basically reminding them that there are other contenders, making the fit seem relative.

[Proper timing]

So when *should* one apply?

Well, I've read in a lot of places and been told by my profs that it's pretty standard to apply a month ahead of the earliest deadline the school specifies. So if the earliest deadline they give is December 15, you should attempt to have everything in by November 15.

That said, that's what you should do, not what you have to do. Obviously, anything that's in before the deadline will get consideration.

[Introductory, "What are my chances?!" Post]

I, too, was surprised by the 60 hour per week assessment, but I guess it depends on what you consider work. I held four to five jobs concurrently while I did my undergraduate degree but many of them were paid by honorarium and are thus difficult to quantify in terms of time commitment.

For instance, I worked as a residence don for two years, which means that I either worked at it all the time or just held a title, depending on how you look at it. Really, it was more like being a parent to over a hundred stressed-out teenagers, which could be every bit as hectic as it sounds. I also worked for various departments and offices as assistant and secretary so many days a week, TA'd, tutored, worked for Campus Health, worked as a program advisor, worked for the student union, interned at a museum, organised conferences, sometimes all at the same time. In terms of take home, I paid for my whole education that way. But if anyone were to ask me how many hours a week I worked, I'd say none. I went to a small LAC, so I guess that was the culture - that the university became your whole life.

[Write your own LoR]

Hi all.

I'm new here and could use some help. I recently hit up my mentor for an LoR, and he - unexpectedly - asked me to send him a rough draft of the letter. In other words, he told me to write my own recommendation.

Personally, I'd like to just write myself a John Forbes Nash-type letter (which in case you don't know, is one line long: "This man is a genius"). Of course, this is the real world, and I'm afraid I can't get off the hook quite so easily.

So what do I write? I've absolutely no idea.

I hear this isn't all that unusual. Luckily, there are a lot more resources for writing letters of recommendation than there are for other stages of the application process.

The first thing you need to do is ask yourself why you asked this guy to be a recommender. What can he talk about? Your research? Your character? Your presentations? Your writing? Make a list of all of the things that you were hoping he'd talk about when you asked him.

Then, Google academic letters of recommendation. Get an idea of the usual format, and the tropes of the trade. If you have the Donald Asher book, there's a whole section back there on how to write letters of rec. Then write a basic version of it, including all of the things you listed. Then, you're done.

[HELP! Just got the meanest answer back from a prof!!]

I got a few similar replies at first, though they weren't worded that curtly. Some of the profs I wrote to initially basically said, "Thanks for the e-mail, but I don't make the decision on who gets admitted, so if you get admitted, then we can talk." Which is fair.

And remember every application/grad school has its own procedure and admissions culture, so something that's perfectly acceptable, even necessary - like finding an advisor before applying - at one school can be completely taboo at another.

After I got a couple answers like that, I rephrased my exploratory e-mails so that it sounded less like I was angling for a commitment, and more like I was curious about their research and hoped we might have the chance to talk/work together if I am admitted. That angle seemed to go over better.

[Who's submitted their grad apps already?]

Definitely not me. I'm struggling to finish them before the deadline, and every single program description screams "We do rolling apps! We start filling spots immediately!", which makes me worry how many people have already submitted their apps, and how many spots there are left.

Stop pressuring me!

I have two in so far. The one I submitted last week was for a January 7 deadline. I have three applications due on January 15 and I'm hoping to have those all in by November 15 at the latest.

[Who's submitted their grad apps already?]

I've never heard of rolling app for grad school. Isn't it an undergrad thing?

No, it's actually fairly common. 3 of my 9 applications are rolling admissions officially. A lot of other schools have a sort of informal rolling admissions process, in that they'll evaluate the applications as they come in, and make a Definitely pile. So even if it's not rolling apps, you still need to get stuff there in advance of the deadline unless you want all the spots to be given away by the time you apply.

[Order of Sending in Materials?]

Just to be safe, I haven't had any transcripts or LOR's submitted until I completed the online application, and got an application/student ID #. I'm sure nothing goes wrong otherwise, but I didn't want to take a chance.

[CV - necessary?]

Actually, the descriptiveness of course titles varies from one university to the next. In my MA program, all the courses are "Seminar in X Subfield", "Seminar in Y Subfield", etc. so they don't say much about the course content. For example, the seminars on social justice, critical race theory, and political ecology all use the same course number and basic name. In such a case, sending a list of relevant coursework is useful since the label "Seminar in X" is wholly undescriptive of what was actually studied in the course. That said, course titles on the transcript from my undergrad are all very descriptive of the course content. Even so, I still pulled out the most significant of those and listed them under relevant coursework (I'm in an interdisciplinary field and I wanted to make it clear to them that I've taken courses in related areas, which gave me insight into the literatures and methodologies used in my own subfield).

I agree. Also, I don't know where this fear of redundancy comes from. I mean, in your SOP, where there's limited space to discuss things you don't want to waste time discussing something that's detailed elsewhere in your application. But does it really matter if your relevant coursework (not all of your coursework, just courses which have helped prepare you for your research interest) are neatly listed on your CV? I highly doubt that that's the sort of information you wouldn't want the committee to be seeing twice, since level of preparation and breadth of knowledge of the discipline is certainly going to be among their concerns.

[Which Writing Sample?]

Upon reading both of them over and over and over again, I think I'm going to go with Option A. Option C is a superior paper and showcases my interpretive abilities a bit better, but Option A discusses a lot of ideas that I want to pursue in the MA programme.

Thanks for your input, folks!

[CV - necessary?]

Thanks again for the replies. I'm not sure whether I'll include my coursework, as my transcript is actually very clear. In my honours years I am only supposed to take 6 classes, and I think the titles of my modules are fairly straightforward. Do you think it will be weird if I don't add a section about the classes I have taken, or is that more of an optional thing to include? I don't want my CV to be completely redundant, mostly just want to use it to mention my awards, language, and work experience.

Relevant Coursework is definitely optional on a CV.

[Which Writing Sample?]

So I'm applying for early Christianity programmes (and by early Christianity programmes, I mean 1st and 2nd century CE). And I can't decide which writing sample:

Option A:

A 14-page review of a prominent historical Jesus/early Christianity scholar, in light of criticism of his work and the what's ultimately useful about it as a point of departure for new research. A+ paper with lots of comments that give me a bit of guidance in improving it.

Benefits: directly related to my field

Drawbacks: Since it's so short, it isn't very deep, and it does meander a bit.

Option B:

A 45-page thesis on a topic in contemporary Christianity and secularism, but fairly unrelated to my field. But it's the product of a longer period of research than options A or C.

Benefits: It's a good, focused analysis of a point of tension. And it may illustrate that I'm not just a Classicist...

Drawbacks: Not related to my field of study and doesn't accomplish all it originally set out to do. Also, long.

Option C:

A 16-page A+ paper on the role revisiting the history of early Christianity plays in Nietzsche's and Kierkegaard's thought.

Benefits: It's a much more sophisticated piece of work than the first two.

Drawbacks: It's only tangentially related to my field and might come off as theological.

All of the papers are from 4th year seminars in Religious Studies so they're all at the right level, but I'm not sure which one to go with.

[CV - necessary?]

Just another question, what do you mean by "Relevant Coursework?" What would you include in that section, essay titles, the name of your courses, or something else?

I recommend picking up a book on CV writing with some example CV's in it, since it's sort of hard to explain until you see it. As far as essay titles, under your Education you should include the name of your Honours thesis (if there was one) as well as your advisor's name.

Under Relevant Coursework, however, what you want to do is illustrate how you have the academic background required to support your specific research interests, as well as illustrate that you have studied the important key areas in your field. What you should do is:

1. Make a list somewhere of the courses relevant to your research interests and your field of study. Don't be shy about going outside your chosen discipline for these courses. If you've studied a relevant language for instance or if your specialty is Women in Islam and you've done some courses in Gender Theory, definitely include that on the list.

2. Once you have your list, categorise them according to topic or theme. So, for instance, I could have categories like Comparative Religion, History of Religion, Ancient Languages, Ancient History and Archaeology, Theoretical Approaches, etc.

3. Go to your CV, and under Relevant Coursework, put the Categories in, and list the titles of the courses you've taken in each. This will help illustrate to your reader where your strengths lie in a way that's more sensible (and, frankly, more easily controlled) than your transcript.

Optional 4. Some books on writing CV's recommend that you include your grades from these classes and the course description. I think these just clutter up the page. Also, if you have a class that's very vaguely titled, it may be worthwhile to call it something descriptive for the purposes of the CV.

[CV - necessary?]

In case it helps, my headings are:

Research Interests

Education

Relevant Coursework

Academic Prizes and Honours

Teaching Experience

Archaeological Excavations

Conference Presentations

Invited Lectures

Related Work Experience

Languages

Affiliations

I'm only an undergraduate and I still managed to fill up six pages, so I'm sure you can find ways of getting it up to more than half a page once you consider these and other headings.

[reading your own letter of rec]

most rec letters paint a pretty rosy picture.

Yup, I second this. It's sort of a Letter of Recommendation Compliment Inflation kind of thing. So many applicants will have letters of recommendation that basically say that they're the next incarnation of (insert your favourite deity here) on earth, and as a result a letter which is basically just honest, says lots of good things but is also straightforward about the stuff you have to work on actually becomes a bad letter in comparison. So as a result every letter written for an applicant that a LOR writer actually wants to get in to a graduate programme has to be way over the top in its assessment of the applicant.

[When will you have all your applications in (POLL)?]

My deadlines range from December 1 to March 1. My December 1 application has been in for a while and I hope to get my first January app in by the end of this week. I'm pretty much working on each application in order according to deadline but I imagine that they'll all go faster once I have the first few out of the way. The very latest I'd plan to have everything in everywhere would be January 31 for the March 1 deadlines.

[Already Freaking Out?]

Man, where the heck are you guys applying with all these late deadlines?! My first one is due Nov 1! Granted that's something they are calling "preferential deadline" but I have enough homespun folk sense to know that "preferred" means "your a** better."

I think that's pretty early even for a preferred deadline though I suppose it depends on field. Mine range from December 1 to March 1. Like you, I've always gone for the earliest date mentioned anywhere and besides that I've been told to submit every app at least a month in advance of whatever they specify. So I suppose unofficially my first deadline is Nov 1, too.

[Question about Preferred Deadline]

I'd say December 15 is the deadline to get considered for financial aid. With absolutely no guarantees, they'll keep accepting applications after that deadline but only until April 1.

In other words, you should apply by December 15 if you're at all keen on getting in.

[Humour in Research Proposal]

But in fact, I don't necessarily think the adcomms will find it humorous; they may just consider it a poorly-suited quote for a professional statement.

I absolutely agree with this.