Tam

I put algebraic geometry, algebra, or combinatorics on most of my statements of purpose. I'll need to know more about those areas (and others) to decide, though. I feel like I just barely have a glimpse of the overall landscape of math.

I put my first and last names in the wrong slots on my University of Florida application. So I feel your pain.

Is this the department-specific application or just the general Cornell one? If it's the general Cornell one then it's probably optional depending on what department you're applying to, so that candidates applying to English or History have somewhere to upload a writing sample. I wouldn't think an engineering department would want to see one, necessarily, but if you do submit one, it should be engineering-related. They definitely wouldn't want to see a literature essay.

All three letter writers asked you to write your own? That sounds pretty suspicious.

Why would you need a 750 Q for Germanic studies? Aside from making your overall score high enough, why would they care about your Q at all?

None of my (eight) applications asked that. Interesting.

I think you should definitely retake it. That's almost a freakishly low quant score. What a pain. :-\

Don't be an idiot. Just let the guy send the letter as-is. And I don't think anyone puts their SOP on resume paper either.

Joro, did your situation ever get sorted out?

You outscored 86% of people taking the GRE Biology exam. I would send the scores unless you think your application in general makes you look better than the 86th percentile. If there might be any doubt that you know your stuff, send the scores for sure.

I don't think that what this person can say about you is likely to help your application. If you're going to have a non-academic recommender, wouldn't it be better to have one who can talk about your amazing creativity, energy, spark, zaniness, or...whatever it is that your program might be looking for? It doesn't sound like "persistent" or "athletic" or "collegial" are necessarily the things.

My recommenders aren't late yet, but they've had my info for a few weeks and I don't think any of them have done anything with it at all. I'm mostly posting here to express some of my stress about it, not because it's dire yet. I almost wish the idea that they wouldn't actually do them had never crossed my mind.

I seriously doubt anyone will care, as long as all of the application materials are present when they actually sit down to go through them.

Right, I was hoping the LOR writers would put a return address themselves, or have the department secretary do it. Otherwise I'm sure it will be included in the letter itself somewhere.

Will you need quantitative skills in graduate school? If so, what will change to make you have them, since you've done poorly in past math classes, including just this semester? And what will change to make you able to work hard for a purpose? I realize I'm seeing what you wrote and not looking at your application, but I'm concerned about your ability to perform in graduate school. How much more concerned will the admissions committees be?

I just gave them envelopes with the correct address on them - no return address - that were stamped. I assume they won't be putting in more than 2 or at most 3 sheets of paper, so a stamp should suffice.

To me, you sound really unserious. The combination of medieval + Tolkien makes it sound like you're more of a ren faire person than a scholar. I think saying, "Through a doctoral program, I plan to further explore the areas most interesting to me as an undergraduate," is a mistake. Just say what you want to do/study instead. This whole thing sounds very me-me-me to me. I'm not getting a sense what you would have to offer the department. What I learned from your SOP: 1. You love all things medieval, and include Tolkien in that category. 2. You think adaptations of literature should be judged/analyzed separately from the works they adapt. 3. You haven't finished your honors thesis; I'm not sure you even have a really good start on it, since you only "hope" to gain a better understanding. 4. You don't know any languages (French, Old/Middle English) very well that might help you. 5. You really don't know what you want to do in grad school. Maybe something about Chaucer. Learn some languages. Manuscript studies. I'm also not sure what "interactive experience" means in your last paragraph. Is this something special the university in question offers, or are you just talking about interacting with professors/others in your field? I'm in math, not English, so discount appropriately. But I think instead of a muddled tour of your way of thinking about popular cultural entertainments, it would be better to present a mature research goal or interest and back it up with the skills and knowledge you have that will allow you to pursue it. This came out really mean, and I don't actually intend to be so harsh, but I think you should totally rewrite this.

I would send them. Since my earliest deadlines aren't until Jan 1, I am holding off on sending my current school's transcripts until the semester ends.

I thought that was pretty typical - it seems similar to the numbers I've seen. But perhaps in "number of credits" they are also counting dissertation hours?

If I get in and get my PhD as quickly as I think it can be done, I'll be 40.

As modernity suggested, I think the first paragraph can completely go. You could replace it with a rewrite of this sentence: There are a lot of extra words here. "Truly" and "imperative" and "in aggregate" strike me as unnecessary and generally redundant. There are other places like that in the SOP, like the one modernity noted with "directly" and "personally." A pithy opening sentence might say something like "Three experiences have led me to want to do research in [X] - my honors thesis in XYZ, the year I spent in Costa Rica, and my professional experiences as manager of international government relations at a global corporation." That's a little awkward, but you can probably unawkwardize it. About your thesis, you write The way this sentence starts with "researching and writing" makes it a bit dead, to me. Every thesis involves researching and writing, so the sentence starts off boring. "Concepts and issues at play" is generic as well -- almost any topic in your field would involve concepts and issues. You don't get to the bit about developing countries trying to get private investment until the very end. I would be more interested if the sentence said something more like, "For my honors thesis, I studied developing countries' efforts to attract private corporate investments." This paragraph: Try to make it more vivid, punchier, less wordy. Maybe something like My year [...] sharpened not only my Spanish language skills, but my interest in developing countries' engagement with private corporate investment. I taught students advanced English language skills for high-tech jobs at major multi-national corporations. These students told me how they hoped these classes, which they were paying for out of their own pockets, would lead to jobs at companies like [ACME, inc and Widgets-R-Us], and eventually allow them to start their own companies. Watching the private and public sector work together to bring positive economic changes to [...] inspired me to pursue a job working at the intersection of industry and government, and I now work for a corporation that invests in emerging markets. I'm just a math person, so take what I write with a grain of salt if you want. (I certainly don't know anything about your field.) But what I see when I skim this SOP is a lot of kind of generic words, and not enough content words that catch my eye and make me want to delve in. The good thing is that you really have a lot of excellent content here, so you should be able to cut it down to a reasonable length and have it be much more impactful. Good luck! (Writing my SOP was very scary and even the bad rewriting I did of parts of yours was kind of stressful, so don't feel like I'm picking on you. This stuff is hard!)

I did the exact same thing. I don't feel like I'm claiming something that isn't true even putting my degree date as 05/2010. I mean, they can see that that's in the future and conclude that it's not 100% certain.

I ran into that too. Fortunately it was back up Monday. I have had a couple of applications want my high school info (or some of it) - probably just because they didn't vary that between the undergraduate and graduate versions. But they didn't want my high school GPA or SAT scores or anything silly, and no middle school or elementary either.

Yes, you can definitely pay and submit before your recommenders send their letters.

LateAntique, congrats! I'm hoping to deliver stamped, addressed envelopes for LORs to my recommenders later this afternoon. Fortunately, there aren't really too many of them, since most of the LORs can be sent online.