Boba felt

Ugh, fafsa. I'm independent filer, now unemployed. My fafsa said my EFC was $10,000 and I want to punch something. I only qualify for tons of loans and less than $1500 in work study. Hope that phd funding comes thru!!!

I got into Yale but rejected from Harvard for undergrad, so it happens. They're not interchangeable just because both are highly ranked, and are actually sensitive to those types of comparisons. I think you will come off in a really negative light if you go out of your way to email Harvard at this point about your acceptance into Yale. At best, they'll tell you what I just did above. At worst you'll annoy someone in the decision making process and actually hurt your chances because they'll think you're a braggart with an ego. Just my two cents.

business attire

First line of my Resume.....I put 2013 instead of 2014 as my graduation date for my Masters (applying for PhD). All my apps were due in Jan 2014 or later, so it's an obvious typo. I felt like a MORON, oh god. Of course I only noticed after submitting my last application. Doh.

I would treat it as a decision making tool, but only in broad terms and just 1 resource to help you get organized. In general, their top 10 programs are better than the next 10, etc but with much overlap. A #56 school is far down, but may be better in specialized sub-areas, so if you discount it off the bat you're missing out. One of the schools I applied to was below the #50 rank, but had tons of funding and special resources for my niche area of study. But I don't think name-brand or ivy recognition is super valuable in my specific field, for what I want out of my degree. For some it could be very important. For me, it gave a place to start to develop a list of schools with engineering programs. So I took the top 60 schools from the US News list. I did a quick 3 minutes on each schools webpage to see if they even had my specialization area, and only about 20 did. From there I took the time to research those top 20 schools to narrow down the list. This was based on my sense of how well the academic program matched my interests, professor's research, city school was located in, other resources, student awards while studying there, etc. That got me down to only 8 schools. Due to budget and time constraints I only applied to my favorite 2 out of those.

Brutal. It's like a "it's not you, it's me" breakup letter. Sorry you didn't get in, keep your head up.

Inverse relationship

brussel sprouts

Congrats on the acceptance! I had the same issue....how to respond to sound very interested without sounding crazy excited (which I WAS). They kept mentioning how serious I was about funding in a couple emails too, which made me optimistic and nervous all at once. I had to be clear that I wanted/needed funding without sounding too desperate. Hopefully that means funding is available? agghhh! It's so exciting to get accepted, but all these minutia are killing me.

anybody know yet if they're moving to Boulder for Fall 2014? It's mostly crickets on the results search for CU so far....

one way to deal with a low undergrad GPA is to sign up for a professional course. I took a 1 year certificate course at a nearby university while i was working right after undergrad. It was basically open to anyone and was about $3k out of pocket, maybe 15 credits of evening courses. However I made sure to study like crazy and get a very high GPA in the program. It gave me something to put on the top of my resume, with a high GPA and showed commitment to learning. Yes it took me longer to get going on the Masters, but I was surprised how many doors success in this program opened for me. Plus the teachers were in the industry and able to write me better LORs.

care bears

i dreamed that the committee flipped through my app, saw my low GRE Q score, and threw the folder in the compost bin. Then a big sandwich got thrown on top of it, and my resume was covered in mustard. Damn my subconscious. booooo!

Neither of my schools had any rules about length of SOP, just that I needed to submit it. So I wrote a full 2 pages. Could have trimmed down if needed, but felt I got more of a narrative about my life done in 2 pages.

lets say they put 20 people on the official wait list. they might notify the bottom 15 right away and keep the top 5 wait listed in Silence, hoping for a quick response from their top picks to see if spots open up. Just what I've observed at one school, could be way off base somewhere else. Don't know for sure.

1.) I have a terrible feeling about "X City" - my mother What? Why? - me I don't know, just a feeling that you'll be miserable and not do well there. No reason. -my mother Thanks Mom! How helpful. 2.) I'm applying for a Phd program - me Do you need money? You can just ask you know. - my dad 3.) we updated our will - my dad why? - me well, we're only going to ever have one grandchild so we wanted to tie things down - my dad. I guess my Dad thinks hitting 30 and applying for phd programs made my ovaries shrivel up and die?

I'd take any non-rejection as a good thing. They probably contacted their top picks and their easy rejections first. The middle group of wait list people are then notified they are solidly wait list. Sometimes people at the very top of the wait list don't find out until a bit later because the school is waiting to confirm a few of their top picks. Meaning that if even a couple of their first round of top picks choose somewhere else, they can quickly send an offer to the top unofficially wait listed people.

I would absolutely list them, as they show something that might not be obvious in your transcript, and you can't just list items like that in your SOP. This shows mainly that others have seen potential in you in the past, and awarded you accordingly. It illustrates a history of excellence within your field that an admissions committee can see very easily. I added a section to my Resume simply titled "Awards". I listed all outside scholarships, school scholarships, and even Deans List items chronologically from most recent to further back. I listed the Name of Award with a little blurb to describe. If a big dollar amount, i put that in the description. Otherwise I didn't list money amounts, just the date (some spanning multiple years). That way it was clean and easy to read, but showed my success throughout my academic career. Don't be afraid to show yourself in the best light. Your Resume or CV is no place to be humble. I used this approach in my Masters resume 4 years out from undergrad and got accepted into a great school. I just applied and was accepted into a PhD program, and still listed the same undergrad awards on my resume. I think it helped establish my academic credentials for the admissions committee.

I did this a lot in undergrad, but grad school has been different. I forced myself to have better time management, even though I had more work and responsibility…I think being older helped. Plus my major changed, so it was a different culture regarding all nighters. The worst was once in undergrad a group of us were so behind in our architecture studio that we all stayed up 72 hours straight. No naps, no sleep. We became "studio drunk" because we were so tired we were laughing like morons and losing motor skills like drunk people. But we had an insane deadline to make, so all the A students pulled the non-stop all nighters and the other students just gave up and took a lower grade. When I finally went home, I slept 17 hours straight. I had to ask my roommate what day it was when I woke up. My school really encouraged us to do all nighters, like that was the sign of a truly dedicated architect. Then a girl in the department drove home one night after submitting her project at the end of an all nighter. She drove into the median and died in a car crash. Suddenly our entire College became very proactive in enforcing sleep among students. No more all nighters, and I think it was a good thing. Your undergrad degree shouldn't kill you or make you lose bodily function because of insane deadlines. A good sleeping bag was key for studio though. The fire marshal won't consider it a bed, but you can crash on it to take naps when needed in studio.

I'm in engineering. I love drinking, watching trashy tv shows, reading trashy novels, historical novels like Austen or Bronte, painting with watercolors, WWII history, and pet rabbits. I'm a renaissance woman in my own mind, and pretty much a crazy person to everyone else.

I only applied to 2 schools that I thought fit with my weird blend of research topics. And I just got an acceptance email yesterday, so feeling wonderful! I had been questioning my decision and worried when I saw people here applying to at least 8 schools, but everyone's situation is somewhat unique. In the end, I had the time to tailor my SOP to really show why i wanted into those 2 particular schools and think that helped push me to the front of the pack with the admissions team. Good luck to everyone else!

ugh, i only applied to 2 and am now nervous that was a mistake. The more I researched schools, the more I loved 2 programs and kept losing interest in any others, based on a mix of the programs themselves and the cities where the school is located. I don't want to spend years getting a phd somewhere I imagine will be a bad overall fit. But still….freaking out like everyone else on this website