Ziz

I am working on the 'fit' component of my SOP to one of my schools. My topic falls under the politics department's purview, however I want to approach it from a perspective that was developed by somebody in the philosophy department. His theory was written to address a certain issue in philosophy, but I think that it could be applied to a question in politics as well. Now, there are a number of professors in the politics department who are interested in the general topic I would like to study, and I plan on focusing on that, but the fact that the person who developed the specific theory is teaching at that school, albeit in a different department, is obviously a major 'plus' for me and factors into why I want to go there. So although 95% of what I would do would be exclusively in the politics department, having the other professor available to discuss something with, very occasionally I think would be a bonus. Can I mention this or will it elicit a "well if you're so interested in him, why don't you apply to the philosophy department?" reaction?

I'm applying to 8 schools, 10 programs. My preferred subject sits right in the middle of two disciplines so I am applying to both at 2 schools. I asked my current supervisor if that would be frowned up on (in the UK) and she said it's not a problem there to do that, so let's hope.

Even worse...just wait til February/March comes around and the chorus becomes "have you heard anything yet?". I know they just care, but if I get rejected everywhere, I'm not sure I'm going to want to broadcast it!

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!"

Yeah that's why I'm confused too. On one hand, anyone can submit a paper so having it under review doesn't really mean anything. On the other hand, I have been out of academia for the past 2 years so I want to mention it mainly to show that I have kept an active interest and tried to remain involved in the academic world.

I know that when you have papers under review for publication you can/should mention it on your CV. However, what about when you are being considered to present at a conference? Is it still appropriate to mention it since you don't know whether or not you will be accepted?

So why is there so much emphasis put on contacting professors if they don't have any impact on the admissions decision? Is it just to determine fit?

I know this has been asked before, but if a professor responds and signs his first name only (it wasn't an automatic signature), is it ok to reply with "Dear First Name" or should you continue to call him "Dear Dr. Last Name"? I'm fairly informal and the professor is young, so my first inclination would be to just address him by what he had signed his name with, but I do realize that it may not be appropriate.

ORS is being discontinued in England. Still have a few awards in Scotland and Wales though.

Haha that's probably what I will be doing when everyon else's Harvard and Princeton acceptances start coming in .

None of my friends have ever applied to grad school and therefore can't share in my excitement right now. I had been corresponding with an old professor who was helping me with my research proposal (what we use in the UK instead of an SOP) and unbeknownst to me, she passed it along to a colleague. Well, that colleague just emailed me and said he's very interested in my proposal and would like to take me on as a PhD student next year!!! Obviously I still have to formally apply, but given the fact that HE contacted ME and said he wanted to supervise me (in conjunction with another person who he has also shown my proposal to), I find it hard to believe I wouldn't be admitted. It's not my first choice of program, but just having an almost acceptance in my backpocket gives me so much more confidence and means that I don't need to waste my money on safety schools, etc. Whee!!

I had a reply that expressed the same idea but in a much nicer way. I think your prof could have been more polite. Mine said something along hte lines of "I would certainly be interested in supervising a thesis on that topic, however whether a student is admitted has nothing to do with whether I am willing to take them on. However, you are welcome to indicate in your application that you have discussed your interests with me and I have agreed that this would be a good place to pursue them."

As a UK student, I'm unfamiliar with the expectations of an SOP. I know it will vary somewhat from school to school, but how long is the norm? 500 words or so?

No idea if this is a general rule or not, but my experience in looking at university websites as an international student has been that state schools are often not able to fund international students. Soemtimes individual departments will have funding for us, but the university as a whole can't, probably to do with government funding or something. At least one school explicitly said that they were unable to fund international students, and since their policy was to fund every student who was admitted, they were extremely unlikely to admit an international student.

I would definitely NOT choose option 3. Either take an excerpt that meets the limit and add a short paragraph at the top explaining that it is an excerpt from a longer work. Explain what the argument of the paper was, how this section fits in, etc. etc. Either that or submit the entire sample, but put a paragraph in italics at the top stating that the writing sample is from pages x to y. Then when you get to page x, put some asterisks or something saying ***writing sample begins here*** and then at the end, ***writing sample ends here***. The benefit of this approach is that you are adhering to the word limit, but at the same time giving them the opportunity to read the entire thing if they wanted to.

Princeton Review's verbal tests are definitely too easy. I always scored 800 or so and ended up getting 710. Still a score I was very ahppy about, but clearly different from the practice tests. The words are always so easy on PR's exams. For quant, however, I think Princeton Review is pretty good. I got a 730 on quant and was scoring around 710-780 on the practice tests, so they got it right on.

Just to shed some light on the "Compliment Inflation" issue...I was speaking to a former professor of mine who has 50+ years of teaching/admissions experience in the UK and Canada. He was saying that from his experience anyway, letters that go on and on about how the student is the best one they've ever had in the history of the world are often overlooked. Adcoms know that not EVERY student can be the best student in the history of the world so they actually take letters that are more nuanced and realistic more seriously. Nobody is perfect and a letter that says "this student is very shy and quiet in class but makes insightful and interesting comments one-on-one" would be taken more seriously than a letter taht says "this student makes genius comments at every opportunity" because they figure the person who shows both sides of teh student is being more honest in their assessment.

Thanks for your advice . That was kind of my intuition about it too. The GRE scores are still pretty good - I was just being a perfectionist about them and was annoyed that I didn't do as well as my practice tests (before the accident) said I should!

How long should it be? I know it probably varies by school, but as a general rule? Also (sorry, British grad here who has no experience with American applications), I'm a bit confused about how much you're supposed to know about your proposed research. For my UK apps I have had to put together a 3,000 word research proposal that basically outlines exactly what I'm going to argue and how I'm going to do it. Obviously that's not appropriate for US schools. What I don't understand is whether you should be saying something along the lines of: "I'm interested in the problem of inter-generational justice and global inequality" or "I'm interested in whether Scanlon's contractualism can provide a better response to the problems of inter-generational justice and global inequality and will show this by using government debt as a case study." I'm just wondering because it seems like the first 2 years of American PhDs are what we in the UK do as our masters degree (i.e. mostly coursework). However, for our masters degrees we were only expected to have a vague idea of what we were interested in (i.e. sentence 1) but now that we are ready for PhDs, we're supposed to have a very specific idea (sentence 2). So my question is...when applying to US PhDs, am I supposed to know exaclty what I want to study (sentence 2) or a broader idea that will be better worked out after 2 years of coursework (sentence 1). DOes that make ANY sense??

ALso related to SOPs, but not about personalization. I'd like to know how you can give an explanation of certain low grades or GRE scores without sounding like you're making excuses. My situation: I had an A average each year of undergrad except 2nd, where my average was just shy of that (so high B+). Reason being that my grandmother (who raised me) was dying of cancer and clearly that was distracting and upsetting. It's not a horrible blip, but a blip it is, and detracts from an otherwise very good record so I'd like to explain it. That on its own would be fine. However, I also was hit by a car just before the GRE and suffered a concussion. For a bunch of reasons that aren't worth explaining here, I wrote it anyway, got decent scores, but not as high as I know I probably could have gotten. But because everyone is always saying if you're over a certain threshold htey aren't going to make or break an application I decided not to write it again and spedn another $250 to do it. Is this all going to sound like excuses?? If so, I'll just leave it all out.

This question isn't actually for me, but for a friend who is getting married this summer. Her soon to be husband is a Canadian student on a study visa to the US. I saw that there are visas for spouses of students, but it doesn't specify whether the spouses can work or not. She is university educated so could probably get a regular work permit visa, but becuase they are tied to a particular job, she'd rather avoid that if possible. The reason being that he may not get a job in the same city he's currently studying in. So she would have to go through the whole process again in a year. She will do that if necessary, just wondering if there is a special visa for spouses of students that would let her work while he is still a student.

I would say yours is a First Class in that case.

I would just give your GPA.

I would just add that I found the Princeton Review's tips helpful.

Aaaah I just sent my first one. I'm so nervous. I emailed him a couple of years ago about something unrelated (he's an expert in the field) and he responded so I think he probably will this time too. Fingers crossed for a positive response!!