ExponentialDecay

@TakeruK Eh, to be honest, the office thing, it's situational. Occasionally having conversations, private or otherwise, with people in your native language who work in the same office is unavoidable. It becomes problematic when people switch to another language permanently, thereby excluding the person who doesn't speak the language like 99% of the time. I'm sure most people don't even do it intentionally, and certainly don't mean anything malicious by it, it's just a lack of self-awareness. To my mind, if you're colleagues sharing an office space, that's a situation where most conversations should be inclusive of one another, on a politeness level, because otherwise it becomes hostile. While I'm getting out my smallest violin, let me tell you about how I'm living in a big city where nobody understands my language, my culture, my visa issues, and how I avoid telling people where I'm from because they immediately make gross assumptions about my character and beliefs and are confused that I can speak English. I literally dread showing my ID when I go to bars. It's really fucking gross of you to group internationals together like that. People outside America aren't all the same. As somebody from a country that doesn't send commanding numbers of students abroad, I am in your exact situation, except I'm also a foreigner and my family lives an ocean away. Outside of bitching about border patrol, I have nothing in common with other internationals per se. At least you can be American with the 300 million Americans who live in America. You should try it sometime.

Actually, it is rude to speak a language that a person participating in your conversation cannot understand, for the same reason that it is rude to whisper in such instances. OP, it's hard not to switch to speaking your native language with another native speaker, even if you're fluent in the working language of the community you're in. Unless you've been "a stranger in a strange land", it's hard to understand how profound a connection a shared language can forge between two people who have approximately just met. For many people, their native language is associated with home, so speaking it can make one feel less homesick. Many people simply do it automatically. I think you do need to be understanding that, whilst you may be alone in lab or wherever, you have friends and family here and your country/area is familiar to you, whereas your colleagues most likely just have each other and the internet. For most people, the culture shock and adjusting to a new place is quite stressful, so of course they reach out to familiar things. You probably won't become part of the in group, but as you spend more time around each other, the rough edges will soften and your communication will improve. As for practical advice, it's unclear whether this is happening when you're participating in the conversation/working together, or if people prefer to speak in their own language socially. If the latter, too bad, but it's hardly hurting you so you should take advantage of being a wise local and make some extra-cohort friends. If the former and it's affecting your ability to do your work, it's okay to ask the people to stop and remind them if it happens again. I wouldn't escalate to involving any outside forces unless things get really out of hand.

Is Harvard really a top Slavic program though? Do they have anyone who's done any relevant work in the past 20 years?

I don't understand why people are surprised that professors are people. Like all people, they make snap judgments, they have prejudices, they can be petty, cruel, arrogant, magnanimous, kind, empathetic. They have different intelligences and value different types of intelligence. They are not a priori any better than us lesser mortals by virtue of being permanently employed at a university. "Liberals always confuse character with education" - E.L. Doctorow, Book of Daniel.

Cool story, bro. 10/10 would plot twist again.

I'm confused. You expect to not be accepted to any of the schools you applied to, yet you expect to be accepted with funding to the three mentioned schools, and you're wondering whether you should bother going there because... the Yale PhD program is banging down your door begging you to attend on a school-wide fellowship? If you are uncompetitive for a competitive PhD program now, how will attending any MA program make you less competitive? One way or another, you're coming out pareto-neutral or better.

@my_muse Yeah, I regretted putting that down after the fact. I even almost put Bumfuck, CT, but then realized that that would be one of the Havens. I think most professionals, lawyers included, would shudder at the prospect of CT or NJ. Just shows how different the academic world is. Why is this unfair? I don't care if my lawyer is a good husband and father or if he won the gold in biathlon in the '86 Olympics or how well he did in his undergrad major. I care that he gives accurate legal advice and doesn't broadcast my shit to third parties, aka that he is good at his job. Why should grad school be any different?

I mean, do you know why you got a bad grade? Was it your understanding of the material? Was it silly errors? Was it your language comprehension? What field is this, even?

Hi YoungQ, I'm very ignorant when it comes to history (History?) - in fact, I've never even taken a history class. However, my impression of it as a mathematically trained shitlord was, seeing as it contains neither mathematical or otherwise formal models nor can its alleged findings be replicated, that it upheld roughly the same standard of evidence as, say, literary studies or anthropology. Basically, my question is, what makes history superior to the other humanities?

This is all jumbled so I'm gonna ask a few questions. 1. Are you moving because you have permanent residency/citizenship in the US? Or do you need a visa? 2. Is the 3.0 on the Turkish system, or converted to the American one? 3. Do you already have the degree? Is it a medical degree or a normal bachelors? 4. What kind of final degree/job are you planning to get? It's not necessarily true that Ivy schools wouldn't even look at your file if they saw a sub-3.0 GPA (although it's highly likely), but it also seems that the only kind of dietician/nutrition programs these school offer are under the PhD program in Public Health, which is neither necessary nor sufficient to qualify you as a practicing dietician in the United States. It also does not seem that "anybody with a basic knowledge of nutrition" can apply for a DI - rather, you have to have completed an ACEND-accredited program in dietetics (see here) with a GPA >3.0 in that program, and have employment authorization in the US. If you do a program at an extension school, unless that program is an ACEND-accredited nutrition program, that will add nothing to your ability to work as a registered dietician in the US. I think you need to do more research and apply, if you choose to do so, directly to nutrition BS or MS in the US (and check that they're accredited by the appropriate bodies, so that you're actually eligible to work). You could also try to apostillate and confirm your Turkish diploma and see if it can be considered an equivalent to the education needed to get a DI, but that's only a reasonable course of action if you already have work clearance in the US.

Somebody didn't listen in their methods seminar. Somebody's gonna have a hard time getting into grad school.

Well, you assumed they admit more students, which is not the same thing. UCSD may admit twice as many international students as UCB, but if few of those students may choose to attend, UCB may end up with the bigger proportion of internationals.

If you don't fuck this up, you should be fine. Out of interest, does "more than a few classes" translate to "everything but the intro class"?

What is your philosophy GPA?

Well, they matriculate more international students, which is hardly surprising: UCB is way more prestigious than UCSD in practically all disciplines. In connection with that, I suspect that UCB has more funding in general.

Contact the admissions offices of all the schools you applied to, describe your situation (briefly), and ask what you should do. It's not a 100% chance of success, but emails don't cost you any money. Schools accept late LORs and late writing samples. Perhaps at some of them, a late GRE isn't a big deal either.

Without a doubt, I'm probably misreading you. I can only get so much out of a vague forum post. If you know what's up already, of course you should do as you see fit - after all, this whole board comes with an extra helping of caveat emptor.

I believe in vibes and personal learning styles as much as the next person, and I'm sure OP will take a course of action that is best for them. At the same time, I have to echo the sentiment of the two preceding comments: as a prospective applicant, expecting to be any kind of priority for a professor is somewhat unrealistic. If this is a top institution, these people get dozens upon dozens of such emails. The real assholes don't respond unless provided a letter of introduction from a colleague.

I have never understood the prevalence of this attitude amongst people who are supposed to have a professional knowledge of Marx. The market is a natural phenomenon. It has all the moral relevance of gravity or the fact that you need food to survive. Anyway, you got it the wrong way round: 99% of full-time writers can't support themselves on their royalty checks, so they go into academia hoping to find a day gig.

I don't understand why everyone is being so categorical. OP is complaining that the professor has been unresponsive during finals season. Like, duh. In general, yes, nobody should put up with asshole advisors because they are no different from asshole people of any profession, and also because having an advisor who takes an active interest in your success is imperative to said success. When it comes to particular cases, I think it's important to keep in mind that individual cases are individual, and one never knows the full story. Everyone is jumping on Joan Calamezzo here because she's cool with her advisor not returning emails (a common sin if ever there was one), but as long as her advisor does the important stuff like advocate for her, introduce her to the right people, provide adequate guidance for her work, that he's a socially awkward weirdo or has a big ego starts to matter a lot less. The thing with big-name advisors isn't even so much the ego (though that's often also true) as that they're constantly giving invited talks or closing a conference or being fabulous for money. It's equally unproductive to expect the full package. As for OP's situation, I don't know how she expected their conversation to go, but I would concur that the fact that he even responded back is a good sign.

I think you have to stop thinking about competitiveness in terms of language background, because it's a red herring. The English students have an urban legend that comp lit is easier to get into than English because they screen you harder for languages (they do) whereas English programs only go by your "real" achievements. You can make up all sorts of stuff like that. The fact is, any reputable program will be difficult to get into, especially now. The more niche programs that get fewer applicants just take net fewer students. There is no program out there that will be begging to admit you except for the University of Phoenix. The complications of Comp Lit have more to do with the job search, but you're not interested in that. It's also the likeliest scenario. Anyway, Yiddish Studies isn't really a thing - it will be a field within Jewish Studies. You choose depending on what you would like to teach (keeping in mind that, most likely, if you go Slavic, you will be teaching Russian, and if you go Jewish, you will be teaching Hebrew and Philip Roth). What is your research, out of interest?

So when OP says presenting his research at grad student seminars, he means taking graduate seminar classes and talking in them? Why would he do that as a final-year graduate student?

I'm confused. Is OP talking about becoming an exchange student at another department, or getting a tourist visa to hit up Times Square and roll into MIT along the way, all casual, like what's up people want to see my research?

Yes and no. To be fair, there is a lot more going on in your story than you writing an honest eval in a one-student class. I'm writing this with your recent advisor/speaking up problem in mind because I'm a creep who creeps people's profiles and sometimes strikes gold. First things first, your MA advisor/professor was highly unprofessional (and maybe is an asshole in general). It was definitely not okay to accuse you of jeopardizing his career, even if you had done that, because a person who is going up for tenure should be able to put his big-boy pants on and deal with the problem instead of uselessly flailing at his underlings. The fact that you hadn't, and he had to have known that, suggests that the guy was just using you to blow off steam, and we don't need to go into how not cool that is. It was not cool of him to act like you weren't welcome in his office and like he didn't want to see you. It was not cool of him to get pissy on your graduation day. At the same time, you seem to have a problem with your communication skills which will ensure that you find yourself in this situation again and again. You seem to bottle up your feelings until they boil over. Nothing in that paragraph displays good conflict resolution skills, but that is what hit it home for me. Okay, you apologized because you were presumably late with your work, which is appropriate - but why profuse? But more importantly, why did you not mention your concerns to your advisor at any point during the entire semester? The email with your final paper, which he asked for out of the blue and gave you 6 hours to produce, would have been a perfect opportunity to mention that you were startled by his request because the requirements for the course had never been discussed and you were confused about what you were supposed to be doing the whole semester (along with apologies for being late, profuse or not). Would that have fixed anything? No. Would your email have irritated him? Yes. But it would have done a very important thing that you failed to do throughout this ordeal: it would have let your advisor know that you are unhappy with the situation, and it would have given you documented proof that he was aware of your status. From this story, it looks like you expect people to read your mind. Not once in your story do you mention having discussed your concerns with your advisor. Then how do you expect him to know that you have concerns? I understand it was policy at your university for the instructor to have a syllabus, but policy is a guideline that's there in the event that the interested sides can't come to an agreement between themselves - such as your own situation, if you had tried to discuss it with your advisor. To add to your advisor's foot-long list of bad behavior, not asking you for input on how you want to be advised was an obvious mistake. However, the responsibility to tell him that you are unhappy with the arrangement lies with you. Yeah, it puts you into an uncomfortable position, but that position would have been miles better than the one you finally found yourself in. Being okay with feeling uncomfortable is an important life skill, but women especially need to be okay with making other people feel uncomfortable when it interferes with work. You'd want your advisor to tell you if you're doing something wrong, right, not least because you probably don't know that you're wrong? Your advisor deserves the same courtesy. From your advisor's perspective, you betrayed him. First (I assume - it's not clear at what point), you went behind his back and complained about him to another professor. We only do that when we can't resolve the issue between us; however, in your situation, he didn't even know there was an issue. Then you wrote him a scathing review full of serious stuff that has never come up in conversation between you! All the while, you seemed perfectly pleasant and content, but apparently dealing with issues so serious that you had to go to his superiors about them. From his perspective, you lied to him for 4 months. On top of that, you apparently knew him and his family outside of class (as friends?). I think he felt pretty vulnerable. Once again, I am not defending your advisor. He fucked up. Teenagers have better coping skills (which is why I'm writing this). But here's the rub. Even if he were maliciously trying to give you a nervous disorder to tickle his own sick sense of humor, he could play the situation like you were in the wrong. That's something you want to avoid like the plague. This is why it is important to address your concerns early and often. If you need to involve the higher powers, you need documented evidence that you tried something and this guy thwarted it. If you come to them and say, my feeling are hurt but I've been keeping a stiff upper lip about it, they're going to congratulate you on your stiff upper lip and tell you that they can't do anything unless there is evidence of misconduct. I've been there before and sure, people make a big show of indignation etc, but nobody does anything until you give them due cause. Sometimes you have to be the bigger person in front of people who are bigger than you. Back to the original topic, I originally assumed that ratings were different from comments. I write thorough comments, but I don't pummel somebody's ratings unless they're really getting on my nerves.