actuallyatree

"What the shit!? Double major in EE and Physics, 3.99 U-GPA, Masters in EE, 4.0 GPA. 1 Patent, 1 publication in high impact journal, 1 other submitted, 2.5 years of professional experience at fortune 500 company, 4 strong LOR, several professional certifications, bunch of awards...WTF does this school want!?!?!? The corrupt nature of American universities...All about connections and money...typical"
 
Another person listing all the qualifications they can think of. Always amusing.

My sister is angry at me for deciding to attend a school that she claims she has always dreamed about going to (the first I've heard of this dream). Apparently she thinks I only applied so I could spite her, and my having attended there will forever taint the place, and make it impossible for her to go in the future.

Automatic transmissions.
Sculpture.
Lorde.
The British Museum.
 
Automatic transmissions are for people too lazy to learn to drive properly. Sculpture just really annoys me. It isn't interesting or exciting or capable of producing an emotional response. Lorde is a cartoon hedonist. The British Museum is way too crowded, with tourists taking selfies in front of the Rosetta Stone preventing you from getting more any more than a brief glimpse at the thing, and the rest of the museum is simply loads of stuff looted by British noblemen from the four corners of the globe.

Not to be insensitive, but you're using applying to grad school and being gay as being reasons why you couldn't pass this class? Will you still be gay in grad school?

cwasson,
 
Sorry to say it, but I have to agree with others that your best bet is to work with your professor to try and get a better grade.  The letter you wrote does not reflect well on your ability to handle life stressors, and you will surely have more of those while in grad school.  Do whatever you can to get your grade up, and in the meantime, clarify the conditional requirement with your potential grad school.
 
Good luck!

That's not the case everywhere. At some universities in Ontario, honours refers to all four year degrees, regardless of your academic achievement. That's why I suggested that the OP contact the university to find out exactly what they mean by honours. If it's just a four year degree, then the OP is fine.

Not a Canadian here, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I have a hard time seeing academics looking at such a letter favorably. If you want the 60% mark, do the work to earn it.

Personally, no I don't think they will take it into consideration.  Less than 60% is incredibly low.  In my program anything less than a 75% is a fail.  You are asking them to take a D and make it a B or higher.  As for the stressors in your life - everyone has stressors.  My father is dying and I spent the last semester travelling back and forth to see him and help take care of my mother, I have been diagnosed with a severe chronic health condition and have been in and out of treatment, I have a special needs son who needs constant care, and two other children. I of course also had all the stress of applying to graduate programs and the costs associated with it.  I feel my amount of stressors this semester has been far beyond what most people have to deal with but I still maintained an 87% average this past semester with my lowest mark being an 83%.  I am not trying to be harsh but everyone has problems and asking for a grade you didn't earn is IMO not right.

Absolutely this. ADHD is really hard to recognize, and can also be mis-diagnosed pretty easily. I was diagnosed after multiple doctors, therapists and even a psychiatrist thought I had Bipolar Disorder or some sort of personality disorder.
 
It's also pretty common for more high achieving people to be diagnosed later in life, one of the more notable ADHD researchers around today wasn't diagnosed until partway through medical school, for example. Plus, it is pretty easy to think that everyone struggles to read more then a page at a time, and doesn't start writing papers until the night before they are due.

vitayz, it's a nice idea but the OP's field isn't one where funded master's are abundant. The master's in international affairs is basically a professional program, unfortunately. But, people do get tuition scholarships and it's worth holding out for one, OP.

I find this claim to be highly dubious. NBA players, for example, tend to come from two parent households with slightly above average income. At the 2012 Olympics, 37% of British medalists attended private schools (the bastions of the upper and upper-middle classes), compared to 7% of the general population. Elite athletics is, and always has been, dominated by people from middle or high income backgrounds.

Many of the University of London schools do rolling admissions, and will be open until June, though there will probably be very few spots available by then.

Err, one of the cornerstones of scientific research is to question and test the kinds of assumptions we make on a day-to-day basis (as opposed to relying on anecdotal knowledge). Sometimes our assumptions are confirmed, and sometimes they are overturned.  In this case, it seems that the narratives we tell about athletes represent a minority of professional sports players today.
 
Anyway, if you're interested, this ESPN article references the NBA research: http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6777581/importance-athlete-background-making-nba There was an NYT article on this too, but I can't seem to find it. If I recall correctly, the authors found that pro athletes were much less likely to come from poorer backgrounds because of nutrition/height issues. I don't know if there are similar studies for NFL athletes, but I'd assume the commonalities remain. If you live in a neighborhood where 50% of the kids don't graduate high school and the extra-curricular funding is trashed, your path to pro will be more difficult.
 
This isn't pseudo-science or anyone trying to play gotcha! tricks. It's just that narratives of the inner city kid rising to great heights is much sexier (and therefore overplayed in the media), while the kid raised in suburban California in a stable home who wins a basketball scholarship to Duke is decidedly not.

I find this claim to be highly dubious. NBA players, for example, tend to come from two parent households with slightly above average income. At the 2012 Olympics, 37% of British medalists attended private schools (the bastions of the upper and upper-middle classes), compared to 7% of the general population. Elite athletics is, and always has been, dominated by people from middle or high income backgrounds.

I find this claim to be highly dubious. NBA players, for example, tend to come from two parent households with slightly above average income. At the 2012 Olympics, 37% of British medalists attended private schools (the bastions of the upper and upper-middle classes), compared to 7% of the general population. Elite athletics is, and always has been, dominated by people from middle or high income backgrounds.

I find this claim to be highly dubious. NBA players, for example, tend to come from two parent households with slightly above average income. At the 2012 Olympics, 37% of British medalists attended private schools (the bastions of the upper and upper-middle classes), compared to 7% of the general population. Elite athletics is, and always has been, dominated by people from middle or high income backgrounds.

I find this claim to be highly dubious. NBA players, for example, tend to come from two parent households with slightly above average income. At the 2012 Olympics, 37% of British medalists attended private schools (the bastions of the upper and upper-middle classes), compared to 7% of the general population. Elite athletics is, and always has been, dominated by people from middle or high income backgrounds.

Absolutely this. ADHD is really hard to recognize, and can also be mis-diagnosed pretty easily. I was diagnosed after multiple doctors, therapists and even a psychiatrist thought I had Bipolar Disorder or some sort of personality disorder.
 
It's also pretty common for more high achieving people to be diagnosed later in life, one of the more notable ADHD researchers around today wasn't diagnosed until partway through medical school, for example. Plus, it is pretty easy to think that everyone struggles to read more then a page at a time, and doesn't start writing papers until the night before they are due.

Absolutely this. ADHD is really hard to recognize, and can also be mis-diagnosed pretty easily. I was diagnosed after multiple doctors, therapists and even a psychiatrist thought I had Bipolar Disorder or some sort of personality disorder.
 
It's also pretty common for more high achieving people to be diagnosed later in life, one of the more notable ADHD researchers around today wasn't diagnosed until partway through medical school, for example. Plus, it is pretty easy to think that everyone struggles to read more then a page at a time, and doesn't start writing papers until the night before they are due.

I have ADHD. I made it through two BAs with honors before I was diagnosed. I was not diagnosed until I was an adult and my kid got the diagnosis.

Your undergrad counselor was sticking to the letter of the DSM methodology of diagnosing disorders. According the DSM, having the traits/symptoms of a disorder is not enough. The traits/symptoms must impair daily life. A person with a high GPA is not obviously impaired by ADHD, or so your counselor thought. Your counselor is quite obviously not an ADHD specialist.

Get re-evaluated by someone that specializes in ADHD, or barring that, learning disorders. The problem with adults that weren't diagnosed as children is that with maturity comes coping strategies that mask the problem. For a lot of people, that's actually all they need in order to deal with ADHD in their lives. For people in grad school, where second chances aren't easily obtained, coping strategies may not evolve enough on their own. To compound all of this, most people who have ADHD without knowing that this is the thing causing their problems, won't know what to tell the doctor/counselor about how it impairs their daily lives.

An ADHD diagnosis is problematic in more ways than just figuring out if it's ADHD or some other problem, such as stress, lack of sleep, or proper nutrition. ADHD has been over-diagnosed to the point where "everyone knows" that if a kid doesn't sit perfectly still, teachers and parents want to shove pills down their throat to control them, rather than let a kid be a kid. Adults, particularly younger ones, have the added problem that "everyone knows" that they're just looking to score legal methamphetamines. Undiagnosed adults with ADHD are usually confronted with the things that your counselor told you, simply because ADHD is our cultural bad guy.

So. Find someone that specializes in learning disorders and get evaluated. If you are evaluated with ADHD, medication is the least part of the treatment. Behavior modification is the important part. ADHD coaches/counselors teach people coping strategies, and more importantly, how to modify their behavior to use those coping strategies daily.

If you aren't diagnosed with ADHD, or the evaluator thinks your ADHD is too mild for much in terms of treatment, you can still find the tips and tricks ADHD people use. It's pretty much about organizing, routines, habits, and creating an environment. For example, a person with ADHD would set aside a space that is used solely for study. No other activities allowed in that space. This helps to eliminate distractions that are internal, as well as external. ADHD has a strong impulse control problem, not just an inattentive and restless problem. If there's a space that a person, by habit and routine, has ingrained into a single-use place, it's easier to control the impulse. I don't write papers in the same place I surf the web, because otherwise, I'll find myself surfing the web when I should be writing, even when I don't have writer's block problems. The strategies that help a person get a handle on their ADHD can help anyone.

You can google ADHD tips or ADHD tricks and get a ton of tips on how to manage daily life. University libraries will have books aimed at people who want to enter the learning disabilities field in some fashion, so they'll also have books on how ADHD counselors/doctors/coaches can help people with ADHD manage their lives.

Too many people think that all they need is an ADHD diagnoses and a prescription, then magically, the ADHD goes away. As if. The meds make it possible for me to read all of the words in a text in one sitting, from front to finish. They don't make it possible for me to understand it any easier, or to not be distracted when I'm reading, or to get my work done when I'd rather be doing something else, or to sit still completely when I'm doing it, or any number of things. Meds don't make me add stuff to my calendar so I don't forget to do it. They do make it possible for me to hit a golf ball consistently, or to drive with the radio on (when I get to drive). They make a huge difference, but they aren't a cure. That's where behavior modification comes in. And that's where, even if you never get diagnosed with it, you can do something for yourself anyway.

How I met your mother and ice cream. 
 
I have to dodge rude comments when I say that out loud.

On a very superficial level, having only looked into his bio & scanned the article: all this is very easy to for a very young & charismatic professor who appears to be tenured himself. I'll revisit this thread when I've given it a thorough read & more thought!
 
But, in general, this reminds me of a trend that I have a particular distaste for in anthropology: as far as I can tell, everyone — especially seasoned researchers — loves to run their jaw about how we need to stop writing & speaking in "Academese," make our work relevant to & digestible for the public, stay deeply involved with & committed to the places & people we study, & so on... yet, so far, it's mostly been a case of "do as I say, not as I do," & in turn, that perpetuates our ridiculous system of expectations for anthropologists. I mean, really, you expect me to listen to your complaints about the "opaqueness" of anthropology when you used "somniforous" more than once in your article? Yeah, no. Go away. :|
 
Anyway, to bring that full circle, there seems to be a good deal of "do as I say"-type academia related pieces floating around; lots of hypocrisy on the part of people whose careers are very secure, but that's not to say they haven't truly earned the ability to say these sorts of things. I just wish there were more progressive academic leadership by action.

What concerns me is why you did not have the balls to tell your family that you did not want to go to that particular school. It makes you look childish. You are an adult now, and should be able to make your own decisions about what you want to do with your life. If you did not want to go to that school, then you never should have applied in the first place. These schools have enough applications to go through and are wasting their time looking at an applicant who doesn't even want to go there.

Frankly, I think you should just wait and see what the university does. If they accept you, just decline it. The faculty from this school will likely never want to collaborate with you if you ask the school to reject you because you only applied to pacify your family. You have to begin to think about your networks.

University Of Oxdord Archaeology (DPhil), PhD (F14) Accepted via E-mail on 20 Mar 2014
 
 
 
Gets in to Oxford.....
 
 
 
misspells Oxford.

You're assuming everyone pukes when they're drunk.