coyabean

Wow you know some impressive people. I suppose I do not. However, my point remains that formal education does not equal worth and neither does the inverse. Producing something that makes a positive impact is actually my point, as is that people along the spectrum of education can and do produce. It is NOT the domain of the highly educated.

Yo, seriously! I thought it was just me!!! I did 15 pounds in, like, 72 hours or something. LOL I just went and reconnected with my kickboxing trainer and doctor TODAY. This is ridiculous. I can only fit one pair of jeans. After some thinking I realized that for me the lethal equation has been: Coffee drinks + late nights with subsequent late night eating + drowning fear of rejection in carbs + wine, lots and lots of wine = FAT AZZ.

As we say in the south: Bless your heart.

I may want to kiss you for this response. I am reminded of how many "well-educated" people I have known over the years: The VP that didn't know that canned vegetables were already cooked. The copywriter that couldn't sew a button on a shirt. The law professor that could not get a verb and subject to agree with the laws of gravity much less each other. The tv producer that thought money coming out of an ATM machine was magic. The HR VP that could not change a flat tire. All this pretense makes me itch. Useful people make things grow and work.

LOL And, basically.

Better than NSync's "Bye Bye Bye" that is now playing in mine!

FYI re: Duke. In response to my "hey! i got a competitive offer so whatchu gonna do" email I got a "you are not on our short list so bite it" response. So there is a finalist list of the 149 applicants. No word on notification however. Good luck.

Emory is my only purely Ed program and their results are in. I have a friend at USC (Carolina not Cali) and she's had an informal offer as well.

My stats are even lower - though slightly -- than those above and I'm moving on along. Your best bet is to prove you can do the work by doing the work. That means taking every research project and opportunity you can. However, for the schools you have listed it is important to hear the truth: numbers matter. Your app won't even be read if you don't clear the cut-off. So, if its feasible pour yourself into your GRE prep and get it up a bit then try that. However, I would strongly suggest buffering that reality with applications across the spectrum. There have to be solid non-top 10 programs that you would be happy to attend? Beyond that I suggest networking if you are good at that kind of thing. If not, then DON'T. This is important because I've seen people talk themselves out of consideration.

I am in favor of some grassroots organizing against ETS. My issue is the financial threshold for obtaining higher education. Their waiver is bull crap -- at my school I couldn't get it because I was one credit hour shy of some arbitrary minimum -- and even if the test is free or reduced the score reports add up AND you have very little opportunity to have consumer grievances addressed. And if it would make the guy above feel any better I'm also prepared to join ranks against cable company monopolies, too!

I got responses to almost every thank you email I sent -- and a pretty quick admit, I might add! -- to the folks I interviewed with. So I think it does matter. I would suggest not sending a blanket form letter type note. I tried to reference something I discussed or observed specific to the person I was emailing. But, yeah, gratitude is never a bad idea.

I agree that: 1. wine vs. liquor by gender is...disconcerting 2. liquor, at all, is a bit much -- how do you know the person isn't in recovery? devout? will think you are trying to poison them to take their spot? 3. A CD is wayyyy too John Hughes for me. People still have CDs even? I think a nice, sincere thank you note or email is sufficient BUT if I were to give a gift I love the bookmark idea. Also maybe a small bag of coffee or tea or something so milquetoast as to be impossible to offend. Or, while you are there pay attention to them and see if there is a small thing they seem to like. If it's not sincere -- whether a note or a gift -- and doesn't show some thoughtfulness I say you are safer not saying or giving it.

what has been seen cannot be unseen.

I have to agree although I think this may be an age thing (in my case; not yours!) or, at the very least, a consideration more important to people in mature stages of life. If you are in a relationship or hope to have a social or civic life while in school -- which I don't think is ridiculous, btw -- then your location could matter. I think you just might want to be as flexible as you can with location while balancing your emotional needs. That line is defined entirely by you. On the original question fit for me is a hippie-dippy concept of "feeling". It's like finding the right house, the right car or the right mate -- you know it when you know it.

The ILA interviews were scheduled for this past week.

xxx

Well, I think it's this amazing phenomenon I've witnessed wherein profs immediately forget what it is like to be a student. If they had not forgotten they would not demand perfection while displaying such imperfection.

I'll second all of the above and suggest this is one of the questions you should ask of current grad students when it comes to decision time. They will tell you the real deal about cost, access and quality. Everyone offers something called health insurance but the plans vary widely. You may also want to ask about dental and vision. Some schools I've talked to so far have it and others don't.

I'm sorry but I think you should be a bit forgiving of students if you are a prof and you write this: -- I find as a prof that runs a medium size lab at a R! university, I don't even glance at any application unless the student has 1)contacted me by email to set up a phone call (also included should be transcripts attached) and 2)called me and peaked my interest in them. Also included should be transcripts attached? And, it's PIQUED!!! I think this should be cross posted in forums just to make some of us feel better about minor issues in the statement and/or app. They are far from perfect, too.

Also keep in mind that public schools usually have kind of charter or legal mandate to serve the state's student body. For some schools its a set percentage of how many can be out of state -- well, for UG anyway. I know for a fact though that the UNC system has some guidelines at the grad level too.

I applaud your stamina and patience. I just want to say that people always talk about AA as a response to (long ago) slavery like there aren't still people alive who were the victims of state sanctioned apartheid from just 40 years ago. And I'm being conservative with that time frame. Jim Crow anyone?

Yep. No good can come of this.

I swear this will be my only foray into this. I do not have any visceral reaction to your beliefs. Let's start there. But I do feel it necessary to clarify a few things. Affirmative Action is not about reducing racism. The fact that racism persists cannot be attributed to AA. There is, for example, no way of knowing or even measuring the causation of racists beliefs. So, to suggest that one is more inclined to be racist due to AA is faulty. How can you determine that they would be less racist without it? History certainly does not bear that. Also, racism is not considered an A to B proposition. There is no once incident that activates the racism. More likely is that there will be racists even if there is no AA -- again, see: history and human nature. So why scrap a program with proven benefits when racism will exist either way? To extend your example: do you really think that by you earning a lesser a grade that the boys in your class would instantly become less sexist? The trick is to thrive despite the -ism, not to cater to it.

Just thought I'd mention that our area is snowed in. Duke is on a limited schedule today and probably a late start tomorrow. Expect delays.

It's a sign, I tell ya.