Beck

YES. I'm in Australia and it's exactly like that. I had today off work, so I stayed up late in the hope that something might arrive before I went to bed (1am my time = 9am at the school I'm hoping to hear back from soon). At least the fact that 9am my time is 5pm their time means that I can check my email when I get to work in the hope that something might have arrived while I was on the bus. Really my iPhone rationale is dead in the water when you consider the time differences. "I need an iPhone so I can, um, check my email all the time to find out if I got into grad school! That's really important!" Of course, I didn't do the maths on timezones before I got the thing ... just as well I like it anyhow.

Thanks! You too!

I changed from Astronomy (and a B.Sc) to Gender and Cultural Studies (and a B.A, plus an Honours year) very late in my undergraduate career. Worked my arse off to finish in six months longer than it would have taken had I gone straight into the B.A from high school. I'm now applying mostly to Ph.D programs in English, which is still a bit of a jump from my undergraduate degree. Nothing like the science-to-humanities leap, though.

I apparently signed up for Columbia's arts faculty mailing list - but didn't apply there. This morning, I had an email and the 'from' field read 'admission-arts'. I freaked out. Seriously, using that for your general info mailing list - and not noting the school name alongside - is just slightly cruel.

No, don't scuba-dive. Once upon a time I swam competitively - primarily backstroke, cos to this day, I can't dive, but also butterfly. But the extra energy that went into not sinking rather than propelling me forward counted against me in the long-run. Now I cycle and skate. And wow, piccgeek, that is REALLY bouyant. My mum, in salt-water, can get into a position like you'd assume in a beanbag and bob up and down all day, high enough in the water to read a book. I'm pretty sure this is what saved me from my dad's four-pool-noodle fate.

I'm unusually non-buoyant. I need two pool noodles to hold myself up - if I just use one, I slowly vanish downwards in a stream of bubbles. My dad is even denser than I am. He constructed a super-pool-noodle for himself out of four normal-sized ones and cable ties. I can create clothing from scratch - like, starting with a sheep. I did most of a degree in astronomy before deciding what I really wanted to do was gender and cultural studies. I once dislocated my knee in my sleep and to this day, my doctor doesn't believe me that "sleeping" wasn't a euphemism.

UT-Austin did the same thing to me. Unfortunately, 13 years of primary and secondary education, plus a year when I was enrolled in two different schools, plus a four year university degree, plus an extra year of Honours does not fit into 18 boxes. In the end, I cut off a year of primary school to free up a box so that I could point out that yes, I do in fact have a degree. (What are the international students with postgrad qualifications longer than mine meant to do?!).

The schools I applied to have been pretty cool about this (both getting paper letters instead of electronic, and vice versa). I had one which specified 'online only' but my writers gave me paper letters (sealed and stuff - but because I'm overseas, it was much easier and cheaper for the letters to go in sealed envelopes at the recommenders', then get sent to me to go in with the rest of my materials). The school took these with no problems, just a note that it slows down the process a little as they would need to scan the letters to make them available to other departments. And right now I'm dealing with a bunch of letters that have been caught up in a mail strike here - should have arrived before Christmas and still aren't here! One of my school's deadlines was Jan 1, and I emailed them a few days ahead to explain the situation and say that the letters were on their way. This particular school was adamant about paper letters ONLY (and, weirdly, required cover sheets on those recommendations only for international students), but sent me back an email while the office was closed saying, "If the letters still haven't arrived by the time the school reopens, your writers can just email their letters in to complete your application". So, I'm pretty sure that getting letters in a different format is no big drama.

By this time next week, I'll have spent right on AU$300 just in postage. Sum total will be just shy of AU$2000 for eight apps, including GRE, transcripts, application fees, postage. There is no way in the world that I could have afforded to apply to grad school when I was an undergrad working two or three days a week in retail. Even now it's a struggle.

Reading this is really interesting ... I'm doing plenty of internal fretting over scores and stuff, but haven't been game to post due to fear of sounding obnoxious (since I have one of 'those' GRE scores - and god alone knows how, since I haven't done maths without counting on my fingers since 2003 - but everything else is international and I can't translate it into US expectations ... hence the fretting). But my sense of the posts here has overwhelmingly been that they're rooted in genuine uncertainty. This whole process just seems saturated in anxiety for everyone.