coyabean

Yeah. LOL I throw my Commodore 64 at you and your youth, Seadub.

As usual, we're in agreement. I'm old skool, granted, but I thought FB was a technical version of real life connections. So, in real life I'm gonna tell people why not on FB? Plus, call me conceited bitch all day long just call me DR. Conceited Bitch when appropriate. See if I care.

ditto. I have the same interests; they just fit across different disciplines. So, I didn't tweak much for different programs. For me it's also about the methodology -- participant-observation and ethnography. I am concerned with urban universities, race, ethnicity, and state power. So that's american studies in that I think it's imperative to understanding the american social contract and then anthro because I propose to study contemporary urban communities of color that are in close proximity to formal state-sanctioned knowledge production. Or, something like that. I liked USC alot. I got great feedback but their deadline was so early I know they didn't get my best SOP. :/

Oh brother. I wrote my first grant this past semester and I found absolutely NOTHING that was useful. I think that is because every funding organization is so specific about what they want that a good "grants for dummies" books just doesn't cover it. FYI: such a book EXISTS. The poverty of usefulness in no way prevents people from trying to sell them. I'm saying I found them totally inadequate. At the end of the day you have to begin and end with the granting agency. My experiences were with IES and NSF and both had a veritable book on their websites about how to write for their purposes. It'll cost a small fortune but I highly recommend printing it out and reading the entire thing. First, you'll probably be the only person to read the whole thing. Second, there's all kind of minutiae that can trip up a newbie: fonts, page numbers, mini deadlines before the big deadline, what direction they are heading in, etc. Next, if you working as part of a team or in connection with a Uni find THE admin. This person can appear deceptively unassuming. It's not the star grant getter in the dept. It is his or her admin that you need. I found Jackie. Bless Jackie. She knew about the online submission peculiarities, how far in advance to prepare to overcome the inevitable Uni and granting agency snafus, etc. If you're not working with a Uni call the grant coordinator listed in the CFP. They are, theoretically, supposed to answer all of your questions including what kind of proposal they are most apt to consider this year. And that changes. One year it's STEM programs, for instance, the next year its Head Start. That won't be published but they should tell you. Or, rather, once you tell them your pitch they should tell you if it stands a chance. Now, I had a hard time getting these folks to respond to me until I *cringe* dropped my mentor's name. Just an FYI. If you have a name to use you may have to. Also on the website should be .pdfs of former grants that won. Use those as templates. But, as for where to start. Like all things start at the beginning: what is your research question, your population, and most importantly how does it fit with the goal(s) of the granting agency. That last one is a biggie. You could have a leg up on making a wonder woman bracelet that actuallyd deflects bullets and the lasso of truth but they won't care if you don't tell them why spending their money on it will make them look good. Write that out in any format to begin with. Once you have a handle on that formatting and expounding and clarifying is manageable. Without that you have no guiding principle.

LOL I always find it odd when people get angry at a thing for being what it is designed to be. A discussion board, like this one, is designed for people to DISCUSS their concerns and feelings. Telling one to "suck it up and stop whining" is tantamount to negating the purpose of the board. No one is suggesting anyone storm Princeton and burn score reports in the quad, but if you cannot discuss your opinion in a space designed for that function then where can you? And more importantly why is someone diametrically opposed to the board's function participating in it?

Thanks for the info! I am anxious to hear from them. I had lots of pre-app contact. They had to be inundated with apps. The dept gets stronger every year; awesome faculty, good location and funding and then the economy. Be interesting to see what happens.

This is my philosophy. I've yet to hear of anyone being annoyed at being appreciated; being hounded by insincere sucking-up? Sure, but not gratitude. The task is to stay on this side of sucking up. If you don't recall all the names call the dept secretary. I've always been honest -- this is from jobs, not schools mind you -- with admins about wanting to say thank you but not knowing how to spell names. I've never gotten negative feedback from them. Also, perhaps a cursory look at the faculty page would jog your memory? I like to keep it brief and specific: a nice thank you, mention one specific detail and a line to reiterate my enthusiasm about the program. That's it. Can't hurt in my book.

Hey Sam. Just noticed we have similar app paths. I, too, did a combo of anth; anth of education and american studies.

I Got 99 Problems -- Philosopher Sean Carter Survivor -- Destiny's Child Stronger -- Christina Aguilera Use Somebody -- KOL Diamonds on the floor -- Rob Thomas Basically huge pop songs and uncensored hip-hop

Just my recently acquired experience: I was invited today for an interview scheduled Feb 3-4, approx. a week and a half. Also, the email was very specific about the number of people invited and that number includes about 4 more than the number I've been told by the DGS that they intend to accept. So, it appears that they've built in the waitlist buffer into the event.

I'm not in a position to source so forgive any mangling I do. But is there not a body of work about the correlation between the "big five" personality traits -- concietiousness, risk-taking, etc. -- and political affiliation? I can't be making that up; I've read it somewhere. I think that it could be as simple as that the nature of modern academia is more attractive to a personality type that is more likely to be attracted to progressive political and social ideas. I'm thinking, right now, of openess to new experiences. If, for a VERY broad example, a person who is very high on concietiousness respects rules and order over new ideas and experiences tends to be politically conservative and academia, as a career, is a good fit for people who question the status quo then it would figure that more liberal-leaning folks end up in academia. I bet we'd find the opposite in b-schools.

I am in a somewhat similar predicament but I do NOT vacillate. I sold my condo, quit a job in something that for my background could be considered a "good job" and moved back to my UG school to do this. My family thinks I'm crazy. I come from a cultural group for which a stable, salaried position with benefits is the brass ring. Leaving that for something that doesn't guarantee a job is considered insane, and I understand why they feel that way. In fact, I spent so much of my life hanging onto those "good jobs", in large part, because I'd internalized their fear. But I was miserable. That misery can be seen in my waistline and my mental health. It was not until I embraced the risk and potential reward of this move that I regained my sense of joie de vivre. I'll be drinking with the profs, too, I suppose. But there are worse things than being older, wiser and behind your age group. Namely not killing myself when the millionth person at my place of work expresses disdain at my reading material -- philosophy! -- or condescends to me because I don't keep up with pop culture as well as I do advancements in public policy. If it doesn't happen this year I will consider it a huge loss...and I"ll try again.

Yes, I did not mean that the pronoun is the devilish detail but the focus on how graduate school will impact the applicant and not how the applicant will impact the grad school and its mission. It's not therapy. If someone is paying you there is usually an understanding that you should impact them, not vice-versa. But, again, let's see how far I get with my own little SOP first.

My mentor is in econ and he's always amazed at the differences in how the disciplines approach this. In econ, he says, there's no expectation you know enough to make a coherent argument about what you want to do. They just want to see that you know how to think about their kinds of problems. For humanities and social sciences the expectation is that you are more specific because the areas are so broad and those programs take much longer for people to complete. They want reassurances that you will follow-through and finish and specificity makes them feel better about that. And not directed at you: I think the issue with the "since I was a kid" thing is that with a 1000 or so word limit if you have to go that far back to find something interesting or related to the field of inquiry that its a bad sign. Also, its an easy way to narrow the field. At this point every book, blog, community and resource on grad school admonishes you not to use it, so I think adcomms think if they don't know that then... And Ivy: Basically. Also look at that language. It's all about "I, I, I" and "me, me, me". I love to research. I love this life. I will be forever happy doing this. The goal, I think, is to at least pretend you want to do something for someone else. No one is as ever interested in you as you are. It's just not interesting. It may be hogwash but I think in academia the premise is that you want to live this life to impact others, even if its just to impact a small group of people. Getting away from the "I" is something to think about.

gee thanks, guys.

I wonder if you would feel differntly if it was your name, reputation and career this girl essentially stole by forging your signature? It's not just immoral, I am pretty sure its illegal.

Do what you would do if you found out you were being secretly taped for a Dateline "What Would YOU Do Special." If you would be ashamed of keeping quiet then, by all means, relieve yourself of the burden. While I understand everyone has different worldviews I am dismayed at the idea of not becoming involved when someone is doing something potentially criminal or dangerous. The whole "don't snitch" schema in popular culture is...not good, IMO. What happens to a civilized society if no one every gets involved in the world around them?

I got them, too. Renesslear went WAAAAYYY overboard. I think they cast a wide net based on your interests.

Awesome. I live for this kind of minutiae. The email thing is very interesting. It makes me want to go back and check all of my emails for clarity and verbiage!

I did something similar. I asked four people knowing I'd only need three. The fourth person was weak and I knew it but better to have a complete app than not, I figured. For the fourth I gave him a list of all the schools and asked him to provide the copies to me -- to make it easy on him, I said. Then I just kept them in the event that I needed one quickly. Fortunately, my folks have been BEYOND responsive. In fact I'm going to add a gift to the thank you cards I've already sent. However, there is, I think, definitely a lesson to be learned from everyone's horrible situations.

I'm with any website with "absinthe" in its tagline.

Coyabean for everyone.

That sounds incredible. Never heard of it but I can so tremendous opportunity with that degree. One of the problems life sciences' have, I think, is effectively communicating what they do and how it matters for popular audiences. Cool.

I've seriously considered doing this. I want to be able to award the first school to welcome me. I'd do it in my best Oprah voice: "You get a coyabean!"

I would strongly suggest editing out the first sentence, maybe even the first two. Why have your first impression be one that communicates, if only subconciously, something negative? And it really doesn't add anything. My suggestion: During my junior year a volunteer experience (where? with whom? doing what? that's the interesting stuff) refocused my studies in sociology and psychology (not reallly all that different from social work are they? so no need, IMO, to make them seem like negatives) on my long-standing interest in working with urban youth. My X amount of years/semesters working with disadvantaged students at XYZ, Inc. clarified my interests by providing experience in ABC. Further, a recent school site visit I conducted tiative for a research project that examines 123 honed my research interest in ABC.