spellbanisher

I don't talk to people. Maybe I should try it.

I found out recently that my icebreakers completely rely on living near a University with many international graduate students. "Are you from around here? You're not? You're from X? What's it like there? Do you like living here? What's different? I hear Y about country X, is that true?" Conversation started.
 
It fails with the local crowd. "Are you from around here? Yes? Ok."

I don't talk to people. Maybe I should try it.

Only if I could hold it over her for the rest of our lives.

SO: Honey, could you take out the trash?
ME: I gave up my dreams for you!

It would never work. She'd renege on the deal within a month.

Talking about the weather to a meteorologist, however, will get you a few solid hours of conversation in at least!

I usually bring wherever myself and the other person are into the conversation. At a party: "so where did you meet Judy?" at a conference: "so, how was the journey here?" on the first day of class: "I'm really excited for this Philosophy of Bacon course!"

Philosophy of bacon is a made-up class because I'm hungry.

Only if I could hold it over her for the rest of our lives.

SO: Honey, could you take out the trash?
ME: I gave up my dreams for you!

It would never work. She'd renege on the deal within a month.

You people need more religion in your lives. Here are some words of wisdom from the reverend Donne.

I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you, and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travail thorough you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, Alas! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to ’stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them who are false to you.

I'm guessing wifi is not provided if they are advertising that it is free in the lounge, but i've sent an email to the leasing agent for clarification.

You people need more religion in your lives. Here are some words of wisdom from the reverend Donne.

I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you, and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travail thorough you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, Alas! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to ’stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them who are false to you.

You people need more religion in your lives. Here are some words of wisdom from the reverend Donne.

I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you, and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travail thorough you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, Alas! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to ’stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them who are false to you.

As an English major, this speaks to my heart. Time to polish off my barista skills. 
 
University Of Tennessee Knoxville Poetry, MFA (F13) Rejected via E-mail on 16 Feb 2014 ♦ A 21 Feb 2014 Got a nice letter that said "due to the depressed job market for English graduates." Nice of them to remind you that not only have you been rejected, you also have no chance at jobs.

You know,maybe some are really actually over qualified. Schools accept people who have some learning to do. If you're already so successful and good at what you do, maybe you don't actually need school as much as the next guy!

I wanted to post the following to the results page but discovered that lengthy notes are moderated. Nuts!
 
Highest weighted and unweighted GPA in the history of mankind. Perfect GRE scores, including for subject GREs both inside and outside of my field (just for fun). Exceptional LORs from the most acclaimed professors in the entire universe (3 from Earth and 1 not of this planet). A bajillion published first-author papers, short stories, full-length novels, and a zillion forthcoming. Volunteer experience out the wazoo. Hardly surprised. I knew 100% I wasn’t going to be accepted but applied anyway just to have options. Had I been accepted, I wouldn’t have chosen to go here fo’ sho’ as it would have been a TERRIBLE fit. In any case, I got way better offers (six-figure guaranteed scholarships + health insurance + deluxe flex meal plan + reserved parking spot) from every top-ranked school in the galaxy, including ones I didn’t even apply to, along with very personalized congratulatory hand-written letters from all the faculty and their immediate and extended family members, plus gold-leaf-framed oil paintings of their pets to boot.

Ok, there was one (not going to try to find it) that said, after an acceptance, something like,
 
"I saw a moose today and took it as a good omen. It was."
 
And then someone afterwards who was rejected, something like:
 
"Did not see a moose."
 
LOL.

Lol that is awesome...Dear Colorado State, I'd like some information about your program...Dear Student, we regret to inform you...lol

OMG, there is and will be no third guy! I'm keeping the second one--it's hard to find guys who can dance.

Don't overthink it. Just do this during the next seminar you attend together:

I generally referred to them as "Exalted Magus".  

What a thread! The ¨fat-friendly¨ in the title caught my eye, and it made for interesting reading -- much better than watching people compare their GRE stats in other threads. And the interpersonal dynamics, with all the downvoting and the upvoting! A whole little corner of GC I knew nothing about!
 
Anyway, I want to say two things: First, no way the OP or her question are genuine. It is a trick of some sort. Second, people cannot get fat unless they are eating more calories than their bodies can burn. It really is not rocket science, and doesn´t take an advanced degree to know this. Here in Europe, the only morbidly obese people are in sections of Germany and the UK where life resembles the car-dependent parts of the US. Everywhere else, people walk more and eat differently. It is true that food deserts, ignorance, bad habits, etc are real social problems -- but again... phsyically you cannot get fat without eating more than your body requires for its work. Only certain American scholars try to blur this one basic biological fact.

I get what you're saying. I've always respected your opinion on here. I'm just wondering if being so soft on people is such a good philosophy. I was reading the grade inflation thread the other day, and the consensus among us grads and soon-to-be's was that it's a bad thing to reward people simply for just showing up to class (or not). Yet, when it comes to the real world, these same people are handing out A's and A-'s to everyone. What good is it to not say anything when someone is hurting themselves and can still turn things around? When I was a kid, if you had a weakness, the other kids would terrorize you until you did something about it. And for the most part, it worked. We birthed a lot of tough kids in that neighborhood. 
 
If a person is fat, it most likely eats away at them all the time. The only people I know who are proud to be fat are those ghetto black chicks who are like, "Girl, I'ma shake my shit!" People think that telling them they're fat does nothing but depress them even more. But they're already depressed enough as it is. Just keeping your mouth shut allows them to continue to stay stuck in the same state and never break out. The fat kids we used to tease are in better shape than all of us now. 
 
I just don't see the good in being soft on people. We see the results everywhere. Even in the classroom, I think a little competition would do people some good. There are a lot of kids who just sit in the back of the class, happy to get a C. Imagine if they got called out on a consistent basis for being stupid. They might try to prove everyone wrong and pull a few all-nighters. They might even end up getting the highest grade in the class. In sports, when I was a kid, you got teased when you sucked. You know what you did? You spent the whole summer busting your ass so you could make the team next year and tease everyone else for sucking. Nowadays, they make a team full of sucky players, make them play the other team full of sucky players, end the game in a tie, and go out for pizza, where all the parents say, "I'm so proud of you, Little Bobby." Fuck that. Let the kid get his ass whooped by the other kids a few times after practice. He just might spend his weekends in the gym instead of the basement playing Halo. 

I have also been looking for another admit to UC Davis but in the History program. I guess not everyone uses gradcafe although I secretly wished they did. I doubt I'm the only admit this year. By the way congrats on your acceptace!

If you dont mind me asking, how serious are you considering the English program at UC Davis?

I want to strongly, strongly disagree with this advice. Every single professor I have talked to both in my leiter-ranked department or at other programs has strongly insisted that I spend a good deal of time on the statement of purpose and sell why I am a good fit at a school.

Here's why: Every program has other programs that are considered its equal competitors, and almost every school has schools that are considered slightly or significantly better in a certain field. If you don't tailor your statement or don't give some indication as to why you would be a good fit there, they will just see you as the applicant that "actually just wants to get into Michigan" but is applying to this school as a backup. You don't want them to get that impression of you. You want them to see you as someone genuinely excited about their school in particular. They want to see that they are more than "the #28 ranked school that you sent an application to merely because it was on the list."

Now, I'm not saying that you can't get in if you don't personalize. Maybe personalization helps your acceptance rate a percent or two at each school, but every bit of information I have received from every person I have talked to has been 100% positive towards the idea of customizing a statement of purpose to at least demonstrate that you have done some research on the department and that there is a place and people for you there. Multiple schools that have accepted/waitlisted me have mentioned my interests and my explanation of fit/POIs as a positive factor on my app.

That said, there are ways to screw it up....like....you say you are attracted to one of the program's strengths that isn't really a strength...but all of those kinds of mistakes can be avoided by actually doing your homework.

I hate to say it but since you got 3 interviews out of 4 applications, I don't think this is about your application packet. Clearly, your application was intriguing enough for these schools to want to interview you. That would indicate (I think) that you are good enough to get your foot in the door, and that all these schools were considering admitting you despite the weaknesses that you list above. The fact that all of the rejections came post-interview make me think that perhaps you didn't handle the interviews well. It's hard to guess what the issue might have been without knowing more, though. My first guess would be that since you say you have less experience in the field you are apply to, that this was a concern for the schools; maybe you didn't do a good enough job convincing them that you know enough about the field or that you'd make a good candidate for it? Maybe they had concerns about your grades that you somehow failed to assuage? These are pure guesses, of course. 
 
Also, I would not recommend applying to schools that you don't want to go to. What's the point? Actually, this makes me wonder if the problem with your application this year was the fit, and that it became clear during the interviews. As an applicant from another field, you want to demonstrate that you understand how the new field works, that you can define a reasonable (in scope, feasibility) research question(s), and that you know what schools are good places to study that question (and why). Perhaps that didn't come through as clearly as you'd hope. The fact that you only applied to 4 schools and are already talking about applying to ill-fitting schools makes me think that perhaps you could have done a better job researching programs to find ones that really fit what you want to study. I would be willing to bet that there are more than just a handful throughout the country. So maybe the problem was in your ability to communicate why you chose the schools you did? (But, of course, this is another guess.) 
 
ETA: In addition to these guesses, it's worth noting that sometimes it's really not about you. There are more good applicants than spots in good programs, so you could have done everything right and still drawn the short stick. There is not much to do about this situation except try again, and in the meanwhile get more experience and perhaps apply more broadly next time. 

It's definitely NOT a firable offense everywhere. It's definitely OK at my school. It's OK at every other school I've been to. There is also no rule against professor-student relationships either.
 
At my school, the policy is that the TA is suggested (not required, I think) to inform the professor of the course about the potential conflict of interest due to the personal relationship. The TA and professor (and if necessary, the department) will then figure out how to preserve academic integrity. Usually, for large classes, this means that the TA will never mark an assignment of an undergrad that they are involved with. For small classes (with only 1 TA) this might mean the professor grades the undergrad-in-question's assignment, or the department will switch the TA to a different course.
 
In my opinion, I think the TA only needs to inform the professor that a personal relationship exists. The TA should not be forced to reveal which undergrad it is unless it is necessary to preserve academic integrity (as in above paragraph). 
 
I do not think the school or program has any right to prevent professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students from dating each other (also undergrad are also TAs in many places). The only right the school has is to prevent instances where a TA/prof unfairly grades a student because of a personal relationship. In the best case, the TA would never grade their SO's work, but if that is unavoidable, the school has not right to assume that because the personal relationship exists, that there will be something inappropriate happening. The school would have to prove that the TA is guilty of doing something wrong!
 
To answer the OP's questions:
 
1. Is it common? I would not say it's common in the sense that most graduate students will have a relationship with an undergrad. However, I think it is not rare at all. I think most graduate students will know of at least one graduate-undergraduate relationship. I know of at least 4 (including professor-student ones).
 
2. What kind of trouble can a grad student get into if it's not reported? Depends on the school's policy for not following their policy! But do you know for a fact that this isn't already reported privately? (Not questioning you, just clarifying). I think by default, the TA can really only get in trouble if the school can prove misconduct. I don't know what kind of penalties exist for something like not reporting a relationship (I don't think it should be high). 
 
3. Does this stuff ever get caught? I don't know how to answer this because I don't know of any of these kind of relationships that were not "kosher" (i.e. they were all reported when necessary and/or did not require reporting).
 
Finally, to everyone -- If you think it's creepy, then that's your own personal view. You don't have a right to judge them (even though as humans we tend to judge anyways). I'd advise to stay out of other people's personal lives (unless they are sharing all this with you). The only exception is if you know for a fact that academic dishonesty is occurring, then you should talk to someone!

I'm currently in my final year of an MA program at CSU Sacramento. I don't think it really has a reputation for anything. It is just a middling state school(don't get me wrong, I've loved it here and the professors are great). I don't think any of the PHD programs are considered the very elite, although they are in the top quartile of rankings. Anyways, I've been accepted at UC Davis, and last year one of the students from our program was accepted into Yale, and I don't think she was the first. One of my professors noted that a student he wrote a letter of rec for got into Cornell, and he himself went to a middling state university for an MA program and got into Cornell.