Jump to content

Lantern

Members
  • Posts

    110
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by Lantern

  1. 1. Start early...and if you think you're starting early, you're probably starting late. 2. Visit schools if at all possible. Meet with professors, tour the campus, check out the town. 3. Don't use the official deadline as your deadline. Make a deadline for yourself AT LEAST one week before the actual deadline so that if their website is down, or something crazy happens you didn't blow all your prep work for nothing. I have yet to see if I get in anywhere, so I only posted advice that I think is really essential, and fits for all disciplines. If anything I actually did works, maybe I will have more suggestions later!
  2. After you finish Moby Dick, you might want to check out what I'm currently reading, called In Search of Moby Dick by Tim Severin. In it, Severin travels to the Pacific in search of fishermen who have actually seen white whales. He rags on Melville a bit, basically exposing how little experience Melville had whaling, despite his claims. But what he uncovers in the process is truly fascinating - men who jump off of boats to hook whale sharks by hand. (The whale shark being hunted at one point is 34 feet long, and I can't imagine personally trying to set a hook in that mouth!) Fascinating stuff.
  3. I'm a pretty active dreamer, so I'm surprised it took me this long to have/remember a grad school nightmare. Last night I dreamt that I was already attending one of the schools I applied to. I had been attending for five days when a bunch of students sitting around me started discussing what was going to be on the first exam. Suddenly I realized I had not even registered for any classes! So now I had already missed the first week of classes, and somehow I had not even met my advisor yet! I was mortified, and was trying to bring myself to go to see him to admit to him that I had completely forgotten to register for classes. Somehow that led to me being locked into a glass-enclosed area from which I couldn't escape!
  4. Yep, I had a few of those, too. I even got one from someone who told me flat out she couldn't help me because she's only an adjunct professor, but she wanted to "keep talking". I was genuinely interested in continuing a dialogue with her because her work interested me greatly, regardless of the fact that she couldn't help me out. When I tried to contact her again, I never heard back. It is incredibly frustrating, and one of my personal pet peeves is when people say something they don't really mean. I try to be understanding and think the professors who say these things are probably just extremely busy, but it is disheartening.
  5. I, too, have gotten these! All of them have been for molecular biology, which I have no interest in. I was actually tempted by the tuition waiver one for about 2 seconds because they said it applied to all "life sciences", but then I realized they don't have anything of interest to me!
  6. I, too, am glad to hear about the email record. I am always so hard on myself for taking an hour to write a simple email to a professor because I obsessively proofread it. I guess my sometimes-perfectionist tendencies may pay off.
  7. Funny, I just found this thread after spending the last 4 hours slowly cutting out one sentence then one word at a time to get my SOP down to 500. Ugh. I had done some research on what was acceptable. One source (online) said 10% over the limit is acceptable, and another said if the limit is 500 you shouldn't go over 520. Unfortunately ths process has made me somewhat paranoid, and I had these visions of the ad comm checking the word counts and instantly trashing anything over the limit. I know this is crazy, but I forced myself to get it down to 500.
  8. I'm a survey technician on a research vessel. I live on a ship full time, year-round.
  9. I had the same experience as rogue (also at a different school). It seemed emailing it was not a problem at all, and they were very apologetic for the system not working. Definitely give them a call.
  10. I have been waiting all day for a professor to return my call before I can finish up my personal statement for my (possibly) last school. It's crazy what this application process does to me (us). I am not one to sit by the phone, but I literally don't want to leave one area of the house I am staying in because I don't have good cell service anywhere else! (I do realize that he probably won't call back today b/c of just getting back into the office after the holiday, but he emailed me yesterday afternoon (Sunday!) asking me to call him, so I originally had high hopes.) Oops, I realized this was on the Sociology page after I posted. I saw it on the main page under new topics, sorry! So disregard, I'm clearly the outcast here!
  11. I can't comment on the Princeton Review since I didn't use it, but did want to post what was really helpful to me for the math section: Cliffs Math Review for Standardized Tests. I used Kaplan's books (including the Math Workbook), and Cliffs alone may not do you much good, but it's a great reference for when you just don't get it from the big name GRE prep books. I remember feeling incredibly frustrated by Kaplan's math explanations (or lack thereof), but then I would just reference Cliffs, and it would really help me out. (Plus Cliffs is less than $8 on Amazon.) I took the Kaplan practice tests and I also downloaded the ETS practice tests. In the end I scored 120 pts. higher on the real GRE than I did on my best practice test which to me meant that I had been practicing with harder tests than the real one! I am a science major, which means I am supposed to be great at math, but that's not really the case. I'm holding onto Cliffs for when I (hopefully) get into grad school - I think it will continue to be a big help. I think the key to GRE prep is spreading out your studying between several books, and not relying entirely on one text. Even if you just skim several different books you can get the highlights of each.
  12. Yes, coyabean! Last fall I was researching a professor who had a ton of interesting papers, and I was really interesting in contacting him and possibly working with him. Before I emailed him, I met with a different professor from the same school who just casually mentioned that this other professor had retired two years ago! But his bio was STILL on the website! After that, every time I emailed a professor who didn't email me back, I tried to convince myself that it was only because he/she retired years ago, not because they weren't interested in working with me!
  13. I share a lot of the frustration that you all have been experiencing. I wanted to add what I'm most frustrated by at the moment: how hidden the application due dates are! (I say this as someone who has recently decided that I should look for schools with a late application deadline incase I don't get into any of the schools I've already applied to!) I feel like the application due date should be clearly posted directly below the "Apply Online" link for all schools!
  14. I came across this article today and thought it may be of use. http://www.humboldt....viceArticle.pdf It is geared toward psychology students, but I think it is applicable to all. It may be too late for a lot of us, and maybe general for some of you, but I thought it couldn't hurt to post it.
  15. I had a similar question on one of my applications. I assumed they were asking for campus involvement (sports, clubs, organizations, ect.) with the "major activities" part, and I, too, think they're referring to clubs/organizations/student government with the "offices held" part. I was actually slightly annoyed by the question because I've been out of college for 11 years, and I can barely remember everything I was involved in while in college! Not to mention it's not really relevant to my life anymore. But I've done a bunch of volunteer work in various countries since college, so I briefly discussed that since it isn't on my resume. I do think if you are in college now or have graduated recently and were really involved in a lot of things at your school, it's a great opportunity to show off how well-rounded you are, because a lot of applications really don't ask about that stuff.
  16. Thanks for your opinions, everyone. Just thought I would follow up and post what I did and why incase anyone else reads this thread seeking advice. I decided to apply to only one program. I probably would have followed jacib's advice, but the deadline for the department that I didn't apply to was today, so discussing it with the department wasn't an option for me at this late date due to the holiday. About a month ago, I had mentioned it to the chair of the other department that I did apply to, and it was definitely possible. But I hadn't mentioned to her that I wanted to study two very different things, so I'm not sure how that would have gone over. I also wasn't feeling very positive about getting accepted to the department that I didn't apply to, because I had contacted several professors there and no one got back to me. In the department that I did apply to, I got very helpful and positive return emails. Hope that makes sense.
  17. Four for sure. (Three down, one to go.) But now I'm getting worried, and feel like I should be applying to more. Why do they have to be so cruel and make us submit so early, then wait until April to let us know?! I'm also wondering, is it obvious when people apply to later deadline schools after April that they have been turned down everywhere else and are only applying as a last resort?
  18. I am applying to Master's programs in marine fisheries, and if I had to choose a career in which I had to "go to school" in the traditional sense, there is nothing I would rather do. However, if I could start all over again, I would move to Argentina and (at least try to) be a professional Tango Dancer. Then I would have volunteered/done marine fisheries as a hobby. As my situation is, I will hopefully get into grad school, and then I will dance Tango on the side just for fun!
  19. The question on my assistantship/fellowship application (for the school itself, not outside funding) reads: "From what other sources (savings, trust funds, government sponsorship, etc.) will you receive aid? Please specify amount." I think they're asking how much of my savings I can commit to fund myself, and not what is really in my savings account, but how do I answer this?
  20. I don't know how low you mean when you say low (I'm not trying to pry). My GPA is not stellar, either. I am certainly above all the GPA "cut-offs" for the schools I'm applying to, but when I look at the posters on this site and lots of them have a GPA of 3.96, and are worried because it's not a 3.99 it makes me feel like I have absolutely no hope. However, I can tell you what I did: I worked really hard on studying for the GRE, and I was very satisfied with my results. I've also been out of college for 11 years, so I can say that I have matured in that time, which I believe is true. I never slacked in college, but I didn't exactly have my priorities in order or have the focus I have now. Unfortunately I don't know if any of this is going to help me yet, as it is too soon to hear back from any schools I've applied to. I just wanted to say focus on what you can change now, work hard at it, and don't dwell on mistakes you may have made in the past. Most importantly, don't give up!
  21. It can't hurt to say that you're an applicant, because if you establish any meaningful conversations, they will hopefully remember your name anyway. And from all the information I have gathered when I was struggling with the same thing, it's good to contact multiple professors in the same department. Ideally, you wouldn't apply to a program if there aren't several professors that you are interested in working with. That way you can find out which professors are accepting students, and you may be able to shorten your list of potential advisors. However, this is a very busy time for professors - the semester did just end, but with the holidays and then all the applications they will be looking over don't be surprised if you don't hear back from them or if it takes them awhile.
  22. This is not proven, just my two cents: if they say due before Jan 1, but they are closed until after the holidays, it is quite possible that as long as it has arrived at the office when they do open up again you will be fine. I can't imagine any school would be petty enough to say, "no, your application arrived at our closed door on January 2nd, so forget it!" But like I said, I don't know any of this for a fact.
  23. Lastdazeman, thanks for replying. I think my situation is a little different than yours. In your situation it definitely seems wise to apply to both departments. The problem in my situation is that I would like to focus on something different in each department. In both I would be working with marine fish, but in one I would be studying aquaculture, and in the other I would be studying migratory patterns of pelagic gamefish. I would be absolutely thrilled to do either one, and if I could personally express this to the adcom, it is possible that they would understand, but I can't exactly put in my SOP, "this is what I REALLY want to do with my life...or this!" Now I am leaning toward only applying to one department.
  24. Thanks so much for the link! I tried searching the past forums thinking I had seen something a few months ago, but couldn't find it. Sorry to re-post a similar topic.
  25. Definitely not too old! I'm 33 and applying to Master's Programs for next fall. (I don't have a family, so I can't comment on that.) I always knew I wanted to go back to school, but if I had tried to go back before now it would not have been the right time. I had to go out, try LOTS of different jobs, travel, volunteer, and figure out what I really wanted to do. So what if that took me 11 years? Now I am ready and committed! I was shocked when I told friends of mine that I wanted to go to grad school and they labeled me a "non-traditional" student! It had never occurred to me that my age might set me apart because it just feels so right to me now! Good luck!
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use