Lauren the Librarian

Well, it is what it is. Good for you. You like social informatics, iPhones and Facebook and the like? I've learned last week that there are proffs that study that sort of thing. I got turned down Fall 2009, but got accepted for Spring 2010 and am starting class tomorrow! It's pretty surreal that I'm actually in grad school! Cheers!

A little over a week ago? Really? I'm not doubting your qualifications, but I've been wondering if because last year was so tight, no one applied this year and they'll take anyone... It sounds really fast, like University of Pheonix fast...

I had a 3.5 GPA from an top state school and had an 1190 when I applied. I got turned down because "my GRE was a little low". I reapplied with a 1270 and they took me then. I later got a 1410 and they knew, but my student file shows a 1270 as my admissions GRE score.

I'm not (never even heard of it), but the info on the website looks awesome. Good luck!

The master's program I've applied to "likes to keep the program small" with 10-13 students. They usually receive anywhere from 50-85 applicants, Fall of 2009 was on the higher end of that. There is some funding available, as in they show you links to places you can apply for funding, but the program itself is fee-based. I'm sweating bullets and hoping that I'm one of the best applicants.

Possibly because women don't tend to succeed in grad school when babies come into the picture. There are women who do it, but they are not the researchers they would be without kids; their lives tend to be frazzeled and their research is lesser-quality. The grad student mothers that are comparatively successful 1) are EXTREMELY bright, focused and dedicated; 2) have strong support systems, including a husband (or life-long committed partner-I know me some lesbians wid kidz) who has finished his education and has a full-time job; 3) have access to high quality day care -Nationally accredited- ON campus; and 4) have extended family resources in which a mother in law watches the kid all day on Saturday so mom can go to a local conference or to take the kids for the weekend so mom and dad can have some adult time to recharge their "batteries". Children absolutely suck the life out of you, your energy, your hope, your intelligence. Children also change a women's brain chemistry - some studies suggest even an adoptive mother's brain chemistry can change in the process of taking care of a highly dependent infant. Mothers either go to a lower tier program, take longer to finish, don't do the field research they'd like (inner city hierarchies instead of tribal rivalries in the African jungle, etc), or "postpone" for years while they wait for their kids to grow up and find themselves at 42 with a Masters teaching at a community college telling their students about who they almost were. Top female minds who don't take this into consideration will be hit with the stark reality when they realize they are no longer the top student they developed their identities around. I agree it's annoying to have to listen to older family members say, "More school? When are you gonna start a family?" But that's what nosey but well meaning relatives have been doing for at least 200,000 years, I'd wager... I know a great neuroscientist, Phd from UCLA, doing post-doc work at NYU, previous post-doc at WashU. She's funny, awesome, beautiful, and comes from a South Asian family. I don't know the particulars of her extended family or how often she has to listen to family ask her when she's getting married, but I do know that she doesn't have any children. Women are smart and capable of brilliant research. Some interesting statistical research being done by a mathematician at the University of California suggests gender differences in motivations in top-tier researchers but not in ability. What it comes down to is in order for a parent to succeed while being a researcher, he or she will need to pawn off (or "share"-more PC sounding) child rearing activities on others. Men have been doing precisely this for centuries, partially because their biology allows them. The mother-infant bond is the strongest physical and social relationship for the human species and should not be ignored or pooh-pooh'ed away because of inertial exhuberance from feminist ideology. The onus is on women to think ahead and plan accordingly, because she will have to answer this biological and social question at some point in her life.

I have a dear aunt who enjoys offering job advice: "You could go work for Sprint/AT&T! They're looking for translators for their customer service department!"

I have no idea about grad school but when I got called in for an interview at a small, liberal arts university for undergrad, I was put in to a room and told to write a paper in 60 minutes with no warning of the topic before hand. The invitational letter has a similar statement of "writing sample will be requested during the interview".

Now that is a beautiful statement. Very grad schoolish -- I can feel the latent passion -- and not boring at all. So, what you need to do now is do some research and narrow your interest to a few sub fields. Find professors and classes that seem even the least bit interesting. Maybe drop in to a colloquim or two. Mull over your potential research prospects and read publications (abstracts will probably suffice at this point). The fact that you actually want to understand economic theory is one of your greatest assets. Don't devalue your passion and interests. As for those guys from Ivy b-schools, they sound like boring turds who will probably cheat on their wives because they never found their true passion and stuck to boring, template-driven careers. Cheers!

I don't mean that students who use those services are lazy. Heck, I looked into a pay service myself because I tried everything else and hoped for another good professional opinion. I researched threads on this forum about consultants and the concensus was that pay services tend to offer general advice that is not worth the money (you'd have to spend $1000 to get any sort miraculous overhaul to your paper). What I picked up from his post was, and I could be way off base, despite describing himself as successful and exciting--wanting a cut throat coach--he presented himself as a fraud, though not intentionally. I think the OP is aware of his strengths intellectually, but I would argue his choice of words when describing what he's looking for as "will make [him]... seem unique and interesting," belies his confidence. He doesn't see himself as worth noticing (standing out of the crowd). He doesn't value his own life story and is asking for an imaginary life story (put in quotation marks, no less). I didn't analyze his post to this degree when I first read it; that came after reading jacib's posts. What I saw in his words the first time around was me in SoPs past: capable, interesting, and passionless. I tried to steer him away from the services because it undermines the exploratory process of the SoP. The more weight you put on outside sources, especially ones with a high cost/benefit ratio, the less you get from the experience. He must be doing something right to be so successful, but his lack of confidence was a red flag that the pay services would not be helpful for him specifically. The flip side to this is that a professional opinion is usually good stuff and I should stop looking so deeply into it. Yeah, okay. Got it. I sincerely wish the OP an a-ha moment and sense of pride when he finds that spark of passion and writes an SoP he can be proud of. ps. The "I'll pay you well if I trust you" part still sounds spoiled to me.

If I don't get in to the program I want because my research interests don't match the department's, then I will find some research interest of mine that does match and reapply next year with an SoP with my "new" interests. The program is great, and I know I'd be great. But if the committee isn't so sure, then I'll sure as heck can find a commonality to convince them otherwise.

Ha! I took it 4 times! The first two scores were about the same. The third I improved my math, the fourth I got the Verbal score I needed. I taking the MA route because I'm not totally competetive now for a PhD, but I will be once I have my masters. Also, I plan on waiting 4.5 years to apply to a PhD program so my other low scores get dropped from my GRE record. heehee...

After a failed round of grad school applications (terrible SOP among other issues) I looked on the internet for ideas. There are so many websites out there with helpful advice and plenty of example essays. There are also lots of books out there. I went to Barnes and Noble and read through a number of essay books on the shelves. Your library might have books you can even take home (but many are reference only). Even with all that, it was difficult for me to formulate who I was and how to communicate that in an essay. I found reading the departmental websites really helped, especially the course listings and I pretended I was a current student and evaluated which classes I would like to take, also which professors were interesting. I kept slogging along and put in hours and hours of work, revising and often spewing out completely idiotic rubbish that would be deleted. I let a friend of mine read it, and got one good idea. I had another friend read it and I got another good idea. I took my SoP to the writing center at my school and had it looked critiqued by the writing tutor. I also took mine to the Career Counsling office, because helping you with grad school is one of their services. On my 3rd round of grad school application, I finally got an SoP that was decent, not a home run, but good enough. Every one around me was sick and tired of me talking and writing and working on my SoP. I kept going because the program I'm applying to means something to me. I want to go to grad school and I'll do what it takes to get me there. I spoke with my grad advisor the other day and I was soooooo embarrassed to listen to him read my SoP that I wrote only 4 months ago (for round 2). I've grown a lot since then and the process of figuring out how to write my SoP was the primary factor in that growth. I think the negative reaction to your request is that you don't sound like a self-starter, someone that would be able to succeed in grad school. This forum is all about sharing tips and helping each other out with the process, but you MUST do your part and research programs, contemplate your goals in life, and work on your own deficiencies. I'm sure there's a pay service out there, but it probably won't do you any good in the long run. You'll still be stuck with all the other curve balls that will come your way in grad school and beyond. My best advice for you, in addition to "just doing it" is to see a therapist. Talk about your feelings, talk about your inadequecies, talk about your dreams. You'll probably get more bang for your buck ($60-90/hour instead of $150/hour in pay services). There might even be a free service on your campus. And if you don't think that you need therapy (cause you have a great job and all that) then you should realize that to the outside world, you look like a whiner and a spoiled kid. That in itself will probably keep you out of grad school. Good luck, and don't be afraid to work at your SoP until you start pulling your hair out.

Multiplier? Hrm... Very interesting. On your scale I got a 79%, and the difference in our stats are similar to the difference in stats when using my scale (283 for reference). I actually like your scale better than mine because it gives a number and concept we're all familiar with. I tried recalculating my score with the GPA I should have gotten (if I hadn't had so many external family issues during my undergrad) and came up with an 86% - which sounds about where I belong among my fellow collegic minds. Whee! I could play this game all night!

I'm totally intrigued by weighting systems. I'd be a 10.62 in that set up. I started fiddling and came up with my own equation: GRE score divided by 10, added to 40 times your GPA. Less than 200 is very weak, greater than 300 is very strong and you have 100 points in the middle for everyone to be spread out it (so they wouldn't get clumped in the 10s). I'd be a 283! Sounds about where I think of myself in the real applicant pool.

I see the region studies programs (eg Middle Eastern, East Asian) are now being grouped in the Inderdisciplinary Studies subforum. Is that just because thegradcafe is organizing them that way or is it because the academic community at large considers them interdisciplinary? I can see how studying a region is mixed, ecomonics, geography, political science, history, women's studies... but they still seem rather humanities-like (or social sciency) to me. Anyone got an opinion? ps. I did see the thread in the comments section about this, but I'm wondering more about how region studies is perceived by the academics.

I really identified with this and a lot of the stuff you said in your post. +1 But I am glad I had gradcafe.

Ha! That is another concern of mine. My SoP screamed of "This is my research question and I'm gonna use your faculty and resources to get the answers I need. Then I'm gonna take my degree and get a PhD from a different school. Then I'll work on the moon." I'm really hoping I wasn't too honest...

I had a weird mixture of these problems. Almost 2/3 of my sentences had "I" as the subject, and more than one person found it distracting. On the other hand, I spent nearly 400 words talking about "contributing to the academic dialogue" and some such nonsense, but it didn't make the final cut. In the end, I tried to show, not tell and I think it came out all right. I did mention high school. But instead of saying what I've always wanted to do, I talked about how completely opposite my understanding of the subject matter was. I buffed it up with some fancy, region-specific terms to show my theoretical knowledge of the area. The final product got postive nods, but we'll have to wait and see what the adcom thinks. My SoP is the strongest part of my application, so if I don't get in, I'll know it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

I wasn't trying to scare anyone. I should clarify that the times I remember sending emails were because the department wanted info from me or because I was seeking clarification on the application process. The emails in my folder had highlighted information on them-specific pieces of information that someone deemed significant. I really don't believe they were being used as a mini-writing sample because I can't imagine them wanting even more stuff to go over. Of course, it's a good reminder to always have good grammar and content, but I wouldn't let it worry you.

Good point. I hope I didn't confuse anyone by my statement about Berkeley for MLIS. I assumed people interested in Library Science would know that Berkeley lost its accreditation over 10 years ago. I was trying to show how outside of the field people don't always know how good a given program is. This can be trickly because SJSU is a 2nd tier backwater online school with a really good program, while world-class top-tier UC Berkeley isn't even accredited. And when I say 'backwater', I mean not prestigious and will take anyone and has very little application requirements. But I'm only referring to how it appears from an outsider's perspective, not how good the program actually is.

Some standards are by length of college study, "equivalent to 4 semesters". "Advanced" proficiency is usually linked to 3 or more years of college level study. Some go by ACTFL standards: http://www.sil.org/l...es/contents.htm Others use FSI standards: http://www.sil.org/l...ciencyScale.htm There are other scales for military or general use such as the DLPT and the JLPT(only for Japanese). Ask your department what scale or test they use. It can be tricky with descriptions like Mid-High Intermediate Proficiency (what does that really mean, anyway?). You can also take a placement exam at your university to see what class level you'd qualify for.

That's the message I took out of it.

The ones I saw and could identify were to/from the grad coordinator. I never contacted potential advisors. But there were 5-7 emails that I couldn't identify. (Maybe they were from advisor to advisor?) Whether I wanted to go full-time or half-time was highlighted. At least two other items were highlighted but I don't know what they were.

Yesterday, I got to see my application packet to a program I was accepted to. I wasn't allowed to read the whole thing, but I was glancing at it while my advisor and I were meeting and "getting to know each other." I wanted to share with the forum what my packet looked like (one data point is better than none). It was a plain, manila folder with a label on the tab with my name on it. In my opinion, it was really thick, at least 75 pages or more filled with papers, some stapled together. Every stapled section of the pile had a cover page (for each LoR, for example). Throughout the folder I could see highlighted spots on some pages such as my GRE score, my program or speciality and GPA. It looked like a typical "file" but it was much thicker than I would have thought. Everything I sent them or they sent to me was in that file, including every email exchange printed out and highlighted for key elements. "Received on" dates were stamped on the upper corners of most of the pages. My SoP-submitted with the online uploader-was printed out in a Courier-type font, size 8-10. Looking at it, my main thought was, "Omg, the adcom has to look through how many of these?" I have no idea how the adcoms do it. And I totally sympathize with the notion of having GRE and GPA cuttoffs in the first round. A "holistic" review for every applicant seems like it would be a total nightmare.