victorydance

Major incongruity here: "I basically have no one to ask for an LOR because none of my profs are accessible - if you went to office hours you were either there to ask a specific question or you were wasting your professors time." > "when I asked for the LOR last year he made a HUGE deal about me not ever coming to office hours." Sorry, but that just does not compute. On one hand you say that going to office hours isn't kosher at your university, then on the other your prof behaved in a way that was completely counter to that statement. The simple fact of the matter is that office hours are held for students to be able to access their professors irregardless of how big your university is. Whether it is to ask about course material, ask them about their research, ask about the field they do research in, or inquire for research opportunities: office hours are always kosher. Now, going to office hours can be daunting, but you will never get good LORs if you don't go to them. Full. Stop. The way to get good letters is to be involved in some capacity one-on-one with them, whether that is research or taking some kind of independent study with them. Even just getting to know them on a more personal level is better than nothing. I suggest you forget about applying to grad schools at this moment and focus on getting research experience and cultivating good letters during your senior year. I actually didn't nail down the letters I have in my arsenal now until senior year. I mean I had some leads, but I really solidified three letters all from research avenues in my final year. Also do an honours thesis, that is a full-proof way of getting at least one letter. I frequently read a blog that has a really good post on this subject. I highly recommend reading it and applying the tips it offers: How to Acquire Strong Letters of Recommendation

Just so you know, if you apply to a school with required GRE scores and you don't submit them, your application will be thrown in the trash.

No possible undergrad letter writers?

http://chrisblattman.com/about/contact/gradschool/ I would tread lightly. Everything I have read and heard from political science professors has commented in the same way.

" Girls typically never ask out guys." Nope, no binary. You guys are hilarious. I am so done with this thread. You guys are quick to accusations and exclamations that things are wrong, yet bring no evidence to the table whatsoever or don't even reply to my rebuttals. Hell, I even brought some quantitative and objective evidence conducted by a psychology professor and this was ignored. You would think a forum predominated by grad students would be a little more transparent; guess not.

I would be more civil if I wasn't getting berated and getting called 'sexist' 'condescending' and 'paternalistic' for stating a very obvious and true statement. And BTW, to themasses, if you had bothered to go to the link I provided you would have seen where it came from.

Bullshit. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201104/why-dont-women-ask-men-out-first-dates

Your questions are way too broad.

No, it is not advisable. I have never seen an academic CV with an objective.

You mean the way that is convenient for them? I fail to see how in any way whatsoever that pointing out the reason this girl isn't prospectively dating this guy or knows where she stands is because she never simply asked him is paternalistic (this one in particular makes no sense whatsoever) or condescending.

The longer the time frame you stretch out the magoosh score predictor, the less reliable it is. A bunch of questions you did at the beginning some months ago probably shouldn't be included in the analysis but they are.

Why not exactly? Girls typically never ask out guys, even when they are interested and this story was a perfect example of that. I did not suggest what he was doing, I suggested possible things he could have been doing. Who knows what was actually going through his head.

You are asking for a service that delivers food right to your door. I really don't see the big deal of paying a premium for that service.

Yeah I think I am going to have something like 10 Ph.D. + 4 MA applications. I have been studying for the GRE for over 6 months now and I feel ready. It's been a pretty arduous journey but I am just doing a lot of practice tests and focusing solely on my weaknesses now. The hardest part for me is definitely the SOP. 70% of it is pretty straightforward, but the research interests and potential line of inquiry section has been tough. The problem is I already have very defined interests for a undergrad, so I am really going into detail on this section and it has to be good. On the other hand, having well defined interests makes picking which schools to apply to really easy. I already know who the top scholars are in my area and I know where they all are. It also allows me to submit a really strong writing sample that is directly pertinent to my research interests, which I think is a nice advantage.

Duolingo won't do crap for getting a language to researchable levels. That program is meant for supplemental learning for basic skills.

This is a typical girl approach to dating, and a good example of why it is foolish to always play the "let him ask me" card. You seem to spend a lot of time wondering if he likes you (i.e. making a thread on a message board) and playing games (i.e. hint things rather than ask them). It would save a lot of lost effort and time just asking if he wanted to do something rather than waiting for him to ask you. He could have been shit testing you. Maybe he did think you were too young and wanted to see if you were mature enough to straight up ask him out. You failed. Maybe he does like you but is too much of a pansy to ask you out, maybe he doesn't like you at all. The point of what I am trying to say is that none of this really matters because you liked the dude and didn't strongly pursue something and not surprisingly, nothing happened.

I don't know what the minimum amount should be. But I would say a general rule to follow is this: apply to any top ranked program where you can demonstrate a solid fit. I am applying to ~14 for my first cycle.

I'll just hit on number 1 for now: "1) How Do you Make Your CV stand out (and how much does that matter)? If I want to end up at an upper-middle tier university, is it a fact that I'll have to do 5 years of related work experience to add to my CV?" No, not even close. In fact, "work experience" means practically nothing in the academic world. What really matters is research experience. The only way to truly beef up your CV is to get a long-term, or multiple positions, as a research assistant. It's not too late. I landed my first RA position in my senior year. Any professors who you have a relationship with or have similar interests to you should be approaching them to try and get involved in their research in some capacity. The only problem here is theory can be a little more difficult to get RA positions for but I have seen students get them. Ask if you get do lit reviews or something at the least, paid or not. Research experience is really important not only for your applications but it will give you a better idea if you want to pursue research or not and also help you further define your interests.

If it says the application deadline is November 1st, then that usually means that everything is due by that date.

Probably started mine in March/April. Really started working on it significantly over the summer. Still revising it now. My deadlines are for December-January.

Come on man, this question was asked last week in the same sub-forum.

Yes, you will have to pay for each one now.

Yeah I don't know. My discipline places a great deal of emphasis on the SOP. Particularly your ability to craft researchable questions and lay out a framework to solve them. My discipline expects you to spend up to one half of your SOP due to this endeavour alone. And my letter writers have been really drilling this part of my SOP drafts. I don't know what the norm is in biostats.

Personally, I would advise you to throw your name in the lot at a big number of schools. At the end of the day, admissions are pretty random and Canadian masters programs aren't exactly crazy competitive. Your GPA isn't horrible so you might as well apply to the big ones (UBC, UofT, McGill) as well as more mid tier schools that are good fits. As long as you can afford it, you should be applying to multiple universities regardless of "average admission GPA" as long as they are good fits. I wouldn't really worry about the IR thing. Unless you are planning on writing your thesis on IR/Theory mix, it doesn't really matter because all schools will have a number of IR classes available to you to take.

^ I would advise to start by nailing down your algebra first. Many questions on the GRE can be solved in part, or fully, by basic algebraic skills (geometry for example is virtually all algebra). Study especially things like operations with roots, exponents, and fractions because these are things that people often forget the little rules. Then move on to number properties, which make up a ridiculous amount of the GRE math section. Things like prime factorization, prime numbers, consecutive integer sets, and divisibility. Counting questions are also a prevalent theme in the quant section, learn and master the fundamental counting principle, as well as combinations and factorials. Then brush up on the more rare things like statistics, probability, weighted averages, and word problems. Two months isn't a lot of time, so study strategically. There are things that are rare or may never show up on the GRE that you take. Spend more time nailing down the fundamentals and learning how to approach the different kinds of questions.