lj123

Anyone go the the admit day? I wasn't able to make it, but I would love to hear observations and impressions!

Wow, I was about to go write something along these on Duke's page. What's going on? They ask for a writing sample, don't contact me for an interview, yet don't reject me in the first round, either. Argh! I know I'm probably going to be rejected, but dragging it out like this allows me to retain a little bit of hope, and it's killing me!

What's going on with Duke? Two people report interviews (which seems to be a new development) but no one else? Are not many people on this board applying there this year? Nervous...

Congrats and good luck! You've got me nervous, though...does anyone know if they do interviews with all of their finalists?

Yes, congratulations! I'm really starting to get jittery now...UNC is the first school I applied to that is sending out notifications...even though I'm not the best match and am not likely to get in, it still brings on the stress attacks!

Ouch. I feel like I should start bracing myself for across-the-board rejections.

Thanks, guys. I more or less knew the answer before I posted, but at times I'm not the most confident about my writing sample and just want to hide it away...

Six out of eight done. I have had the strange urge to sit on complete or nearly complete applications (especially for my top schools) until the deadline is nearly on top of me--I think I keep hoping brilliant inspiration will strike if I hold off. It didn't. Oh, well.

Yeah, that's what I figured. Thanks!

I'm finishing up my last applications (yes, I'm slow), and one of the schools says that a writing sample is not required but is accepted. In that case is it better to submit one or not? I think I have a reasonably strong writing sample, but it's rather long, so I'm not sure they'd appreciate me including it. I feel like there's a hidden message behind that statement that I just don't follow...

I'm just applying to sociology, so I'm not sure if it applies to social policy/sociology...

No worries, I emailed the department, and they said to combine everything but to not worry about the 20 pg limit--it just has to be under 1 mg.

Hey, all. I've been working on finishing up my Harvard application, and I've gotten to the last section "Additional Academic Information" where we're apparently supposed to upload our CV, GRE scores, and writing sample...but it only allows us to upload one document, and the application says it's a 20 pg limit to the document. Does the sociology dept really want us to combine this all into one document? And in 20 pgs? My writing sample alone is longer than that... I was wondering if anyone had contacted the sociology dept about their preferences? Thanks!

Thanks all. I was having a nice little panic attack that night, but now I've calmed down and am ready to work through the other half of my applications. Best of luck to everyone who hasn't finished yet!

No, good point. One had a page length limit, but that's it. I'm still not sure what to do about the rest of my applications, but thank you for calming me down a bit. I just got it caught in my head that there's a certain accepted way of doing it and that I killed (am killing) my chances by not following it.

Hi, I'm new here, and I apologize for not going to introduce myself in the intro thread, but I'm freaking out here and would love some advice! So, I'm applying for 8 schools this round, have turned in half of the applications, and have been taking a few days break before I finish them up...and it just occurred to me that I may have made an awful mistake with my writing sample. I sent in a selection (the analysis part) of my undergraduate thesis, but the formatting was a mess, and I was so concerned about my PS that I didn't think about it. I wasn't a sociology major, so my thesis is formatted in MLA style...and I single-spaced it (long story, but that's what my current--also not sociology--MA program likes). It came out to 25 pages including references and tables but without an abstract. I can't do anything about the 4 schools I've already applied to, but does anybody have recommendations for the final 4? Should I go through and reformat it in ASA style? Add a title page and abstract back in? Double space it and cut out parts of it so it's not so long? I can't believe I didn't think about this earlier... Speaking of which, I've been sending in my PS single-spaced, too... Am I completely screwed, or am I worrying over nothing? Thanks in advance for any advice!