curufinwe

I don't understand why I have to write in full proper form in a forum called "grad" cafe. but then again, everyone is free to take whatever they want seriously.

i was serious about the "grading the whole thing in 2 mins" tip on kaplan's book. i wonder why it is hard for u to take that seriously.

guys, unfortunately, ALL is important, some are more than the others. i agree that SOP is really critical, not coz of the "i've been into politics since i was 5" arguments, but your own description of what you academically can be and what field u r interested in. (more things can be added). BUT, right now we're talking about a very competitive process. small things like gre score or that evaluation reports ur undergrad students filled when u were a TA will help them decide when its a tie and u r almost the same with some other candidate. so, lets just make ALL aspects of our application perfect and if, given the time, we cant, lets hope for the best. then again, as of now, the die is cast...

if u r a native speaker, i don't think little grammatical errors would be a problem. but typos like "taht" instead of "that" would sort of indicate that u dont really care about the application process and if it came down to so little things in order to determine who gets in, that would be an issue. but personally, i'd say "ah i'll look like an idiot" and move on. i dont think such small stuff will be what defines whether i get accepted or rejected.

i look at the number of people applying and number of people getting in... and i get really pessimistic. i mean, to gwu, around 400 people apply and around 10-15 people get in. what are all those 385 people gonna do?? then i imagine that there are many people from different countries that are as good as i am, and if by chance they apply to the same schools i applied to, theres not much that'll make me look like a better candidate. then, i check out the current grad students of the schools i applied to and feel that my chaces are pretty good. i mean, i dont have work experience or didnt publish anything as of now, but those people dont really have "-initiated french revolution" sorta items on their CVs as well. the fact that i dont have ANY plans as to what i'd do if i got rejected by all, i am freaking out as well. so i'm really closer to the pessimistic end of the continuum.

as far as i've seen it, "fromark17" got accepted by unc-ch.

if thats a definite no, i'd rather have it immediately so that i can plan ahead. but if there is a good chance i'd get in with the march results, then i'd wait (duh!)

for phd in polisci, northwestern uni. asked for a diversity statement as well. how much of an impact do u guys think diversity statements have on our chances of being accepted?

yeah but turkish doesnt really count as a foreign language, since its my native language. plus, english DEFINITELY doesnt count as a foreing language when doing a phd in the US.i wish i could at least speak spanish or arabic or something like that. and even though there are few turks out there, i'm pretty sure they were in a better position than me. u know, with the current financial crisis and all. plus, my 'guarantee' schools are, turns out, really competitive. (brown, cuny etc.)

-graduated from universities in Turkey (schools adcomm wouldnt care about) -crappy grad gpa (3.61) -no publications or conferences -no work experience -no foreign languages -no LORs from super duper awesome professors -"I wanna study this, but I'm pretty much available for a lot of stuff" sorta vague statement in SOP and i applied to rly good schools conclusion: i'm an idiot

first of all, holy cow! its scary to see they only accept 7! and yeah, it does seem a bit weird. the fact that no one has come forward to claim that they have been accepted by brown is also suspicious. but then again, i cant deny i'm extremely anxious to see those acceptances on the results page and nothing in my inbox

I sort of studied middle east as well. but when I asked my advisor whether I should learn arabic or not, he said "how many times are you going to go to syria and do field work?? instead of spending all that time learning arabic, spend it on reading journals and articles. that'll make u a better political scientist". plus, as cpaige said, being versatile is really good. so never focus on one region, let alone one country.

yeah it is monthly and exculed summer. when they also pay you for summer as well, they inform you for that separately. those who fund students for summer months often pay around $4500-5000 for summer.

subfield: comparative research interests: democratization, authoritarian regimes, regime changes regional focus: middle east. but will start comparing it to latin america i guess -also: turkish foreign policy, political islam etc.

"another" brown acceptance?? feeling the heat!

I wouldnt be surprised if they started the message "we're glad to inform you that... your application has been submitted" cold blooded

how's the funding though? I heard schools in the UK are terrible at awarding funding to their students that was one of the major reasons I didnt apply for any schools in the UK

i've never heard that happen, not in polisci at least. its really straight forward for us i guess, no interviews, no tips before hand... u apply, u get accepted or rejected. i like it ^^ and hey, if u start worrying, then we'll freak out as well. so relax

yeah I have been grading the whole grade of 2 classes every semester for 3 semesters now. I didnt see any programs that didnt require a writing sample. and I did not say they completely disregard the AW. i said they would most probably trust the writing sample. besides, what other criteria can show their overall academic quality other than GPA? sometimes people have bad GPA's due to various reasons and if they have other indicators of academic success, they can probably change the adcomm's mind. thats exactly what I am saying. just coz ur AW is low doesnt mean they'll think u suck at writing (provided that its over 4.5 or something like that). they always have the writing sample to check and decide for themselves. but then again, if u guys still wanna think that its only the AW that they take into consideration when deciding whether u r a good writer or not, be my guest p.s.: I think it was on kaplan's gre practice book but I remember them claiming that they approximately spend 1-2 minutes to grade ur essays. lol, scary

undergrad in business administration. but 24 credits before graduation, i realized i wanna go all academia and that i like politics. so i finished my degree and am currently doing an MA in polisci. imagine how my parents are disappointed that they'll have a child in academia that could've earned A LOT of money

it all comes down to this: i took the GRE for my masters program. and now applying for the phd's, i was curious if my score was enough or if i was supposed to take it again. ( 440V and 800Q ) Being an int'l student, i tried to hear the positive stuff said as to how they tolerate int'l students a bit more on the verbal part. but then i thought, 500 is better than 440. so why not take it again in a month and try to pull it as high as i can. coz to say "they tolerate low verbal scores for int'l students" is comforting. but my main motivator was, "what if another int'l student applies with the same profile but higher verbal score?" anything u do will improve ur chances. so, as the saying goes, i sucked it up and crammed for a month and raised my score. did i whine during the study period? oh yeah! "who uses the verb -bowdlerize!" but the gre score IS something they use to judge people. and hey, I know for a fact that luck is also a factor. I mean, i memorized 1500 words and luckily (we all know how the first 10-15 questions are really important) the first questions had the words I memorized and very few words that i didnt know. A friend of mine from the MA program i also attend took it as well. even though he memorized 2000 words, (and I have seen his papers and his class performance, i can say that the guy is verbally better than I am) he failed to even get close to my verbal score. so try to get ur lucky friends to wish luck for u hehe

yeah u have a point. but those are two different issues. for one, u grade a bunch of students that do not create a lot of implications for the university (and seriously, how wrong could a TA be? ) and for a professor to grade every paper of a 300-students class is really time consuming. and for the other case, you separate a chunk of university's funding for a handful of students and to read the writing samples of a limited number of students is feasible. so when the stakes are higher, the adcomm would not simply trust that AW grade. besides, why would they be asking for a thorough writing sample if a student's writing skills are sufficiently demonstrated by the AW grade? All I'm saying is, they'd rather judge ur writing skills by reading ur writing sample than the AW grade. one last thing, its not like a student is gonna have 2.0 AW whereas he has an awesome writing sample (or vice versa). I was talking about cases where the student would have an AW of 4.5 and would also have a better writing sample.

all u need to know is that (i think) these are not impossible schools for u. other than that, it is simply a matter of how lucky you are you could get accepted by all of those schools, or get rejected by all of'em. and i realized that hanging out on this site is not a way to forget about this applications business

I strongly believe that the AW part is not a big deal for the professors. Adcomm can experience your writing skills at first hand with ur writing sample. Between "a writing sample on a relevant topic" vs "GRE's -are people more valuable after their death- topics", I would probably care about the writing sample. besides, the people who grade your AW's are TA's working part time for ETS. If I was a professor at the adcomm, I wouldn't really wanna trust some TA's judgement

damn, i have read how awesome many of u guys are and now its time to freak out, seeing how little safety schools i have undergrad in business: 3.93 (valedictorian) MA in polisci: 3.61 (both from the best schools in Turkey) GRE: 690V (even THIS was hard to get for a foreign student ), 800Q, AW: 5.0 Toefl iBT: 117 SOP: i have no idea if it was strong or not, how can it be strong with a 500-words limit LORs: 1 from a great professor, the others "will do". Area of Interest: Comparative. Regime changes and democratization. Been focusing on Middle East so far. Also interested in Foreign Policy. But then again, instead of being evil and competitive and wishing that u all fail to get in to the schools I also applied to, I will wish that u get into the even better schools, so that you will turn down the ones I applied to hehe p.s.: I hope Brandeis, my ultimate safety school, wouldn't reject me after the Turkish-Israeli diplomatic spats lol