anxiousapplicant

I googled my name and it came up first on facebook, but it wasn't me, it was this really filthy picture on facebook. But it was someone with the same name as me, and now if any prospective professors google me, they're going to think I'm this major skank who has no sense of decency about what types of pictures to post on the internet. I wish they could see the town to make sure it doesn't match mine, because I don't have a facebook account so I can't see it myself. I'm rambling I know but this makes me positively miserable.

I really don't know anything about the rank thing. I would imagine that a full professor carries more weight than an associate. That being said, pick the ones who know you the best, because they're the ones who can make you come alive in their letters. My recommenders, two full profs and one associate, know me extremely well. Hell, one even knows my cat's name. I'm not saying that's a qualification, but you take my point--they know me. I have taken over six classes each with two of them. They've read my work and critiqued me and they know my career goals. So if anything of this sounds familiar to you in your own situation, try to go with professors like that.

I alternate between playing video games and exercising. I am trying to get in shape so that I have a routine that I can maintain when classes start. Sitting at a desk all day really takes its toll on the body.

That's exactly what I am feeling. I am getting all nervous reading about people sitting out on their front porches with prospective professors, watching the sun go down and sharing life stories, but I haven't contacted any, because it would be so transparent what I am trying to do. I mean, can anyone really say that these professors don't have a clue that you're trying to get a leg up in the admissions process? That's why I can't contact any until I'm accepted. Then I'll ask about research and classes and so on.

at this point I swear I don't even have any research plans. i feel like I don't know enough to even have questions, let alone have a way of going about answering them. But I am into political theory and philosophy. I would like to study Kant or Nietzsche or Heidegger. I am interested in the way people talk about politics. But like I said, i feel so ignorant that all I can do is read and learn, not come up with stuff. Hopefully I can remedy this soon.

I thought too that the LOR could attest to the research skills. So I picked two letter writers who could do that--one for whom I wrote several research papers, and one for whom I have written research papers and worked for as a research assistant. So for my writing sample, I used a paper for philosophy that wasn't a research paper but that required me to make a thesis, defend it, and answer objections. I thought that style would be better because although the schools want you to be able to research, this type of paper just deals with plain old ability to think/write, and my LORs could deal with the research aspect. My SOP frankly sucks. I just don't know how to sell myself, how to talk myself up. I guess the two positions quoted above are not opposite positions at all; the LOR can attest to research ability, whereas the writing sample can demonstrate academic writing better than the SOP.

I guess the "helpful exercise" struck a nerve with me because it reminded me of when my b/f was having problems in his education program. He isn't a mindless drone and dared to question the "professors," and they retaliated against him in many different ways. He was told he had a 50/50 chance of graduating. All because he had a different opinion than someone. Now he's teaching and he's doing great with the kids (well, except for some of the bad apples, but he isn't the only one who has problems with them). So I guess it just reminded me of what it felt like when it looked like he was going to have to drop out, the whole reconsidering ways to make your dream happen and so on.. It didn't seem fair to have to find another way just because some jerk who doesn't know him from a hole in the wall told him he couldn't do it. It really wasn't a good feeling and I guess that's why I flipped out.

I feel the same thing. i imagine all my profs two-timing me. I keep thinking they told me to apply to all those reach schools and then privately they agree I'll never make it. Or i imagine they sold me down the river in the rec letters.

Do you suppose they add them together and then do the cut off, or look at the verbal and quant separately and then do it? Because I think it would eliminate a lot of potential talent just to add the two numbers together and take the whole score together without seeing if one is really high or not.

Isn't it nauseating what some registrars charge? They charge 8 bucks per transcript at my school and then take over two weeks to send it out. Plus, if you have a balance in your tuition account, they won't send your transcripts at all. So for someone with financial dififculties this could be terrible. I almost didn't get to send my transcripts to any schools because of a balance we couldn't pay, but by some miracle I won a scholarship and it was taken care of. But to think that some people might not be able to apply to grad school because of stupid issues like this makes my blood boil.

My family says I am snotty and don't take criticism well. But what you say makes perfect sense. I keep imagining everyone else sending in essays of their glorious, exotic lives filled with transformative experiences. Maybe it will be a constructive exercise in self-reflection to write this, in any event. But so unpleasant.

I am applying to the New School for Social Research, and on top of the SOP, they want an autobiographical essay talking about basically anything. Is anyone applying there? What approach are you taking? This is freaking me out. My life is boring and nothing has ever happened to me, so I don't know how to write anything that isn't SOP-type stuff.

CT

That's kind of what I figured, since I have seen his classmates and suffice it say it scares me they're going to be certified teachers, but I digress... I am just worried about the economics section since he never studied it in college (luckily he minored in psych, so the behavioral stuff is a breeze).

I am sorry if this is a bad question to ask here, but I am asking for my boyfriend. (I'm applying to poli sci stuff so I have no clue how the education stuff works.) He is in a master's program, and has to take the Praxis II social studies content test. How hard is this exam? He is flipping out imagining all types of arcane questions and is studying like mad. Since I am the one who must comfort him if things don't work out on the test, how concerned should I be? Thanks for any advice, and sorry if it was idiotic to ask this, I just am not familiar with this process at all.

Well, my SOP stinks, but I am still not whining about my lack of money. I never used that as an excuse and I am not going to now. If they see where I'm from and draw their own conclusions, fine, but I'm not pointing it out. I'm sure they get enough sob stories about how students overcome tremendous adversities, but that's not my style. I'm also not applying to all Ph.D, programs either; there are a mix of MA's in there, so my chances may be better. Or hopeless, given my university.

I really don't know about that. I took logic and got an A, when most of my class floundered in the C range, so it wasn't a cake class. But I bombed the quant section. I can see how reasoning skills may be employed if you recall the rules of geometry, for example, but if you haven't studied math in years, like me and many philosophy majors, and you simply don't use math at all, I don't see how any amount of logic is going to help you arrive at a mathematical rule you don't remember, at least not in forty-five minutes. Ninety percent of the quant section is just memorizing rules, in my opinion.

That's just the problem. My stats are good, but they will be laughed at because of my school. We're not "lesser known," we are simply despised. It's unfortunate that I had to go to the worst school in the world, but I didn't have any financial means to go anywhere else. I can't make that clear on my application mainly because they don't ask, and because I don't want to seem like a whiner for pointing it out.

Yes, that's just how my boyfriend is, drives me everywhere and has to wait for me... He doesn't remotely mind somehow. You and I truly are lucky people.

I refuse to go long distance. While grad school is my number one goal in life, my boyfriend's my number one priority. Maybe that's idiotic or womanish or childish, but I don't care. If there is life after death, then my Ph.D. or what I went to school for won't matter, but he will. If there is nothing, then it doesn't matter what I did anyway. I am limiting my apps roughly to the greater metropolitan area I live in. He is willing to go anywhere and do anything, but I can't make him move. He is earning a teacher's degree/certification this year and I can't make him have to transfer all that to another state. He would do it without hesitation, which is why I won't ask. Don't know what's going to happen when I need to find a job, but I know we'll work it out somehow.

I'm in almost the exact same boat. I am graduating with political science and philosophy as well. I am applying to poli sci programs, but I really don't fit into either. When I do too much political science--all that crap with numbers and voting behavior and blah blah blah--I drift back to philosophy; but then I get tired of talking about things that bear no resemblance to lived reality so I drift back to poli sci. I'm really in the middle of the two fields.... I guess I have nothing useful to contribute here, except that I feel your pain. Maybe enroll in the program closest to your interests and conduct independent studies to allow yourself latitude to explore the gray area between the fields.

I have been reading these forums for some time and can't help making my own post now. The application process quite frankly freaks me out. Here are my stats: School: I don't want to say the name, b/c I would be recognized immediately by anyone who knows me, but suffice it to say it is a very low-ranked school in southwestern CT that is viewed extremely unfavorably by anyone who has heard of it. GPA: 3.98 cumulative, 4.0 in both of my majors, poli sci and philosophy Recs: one from the chair of one of the departments, another by an associate, another by a full professor, all extremely strong recommendations, probably the best part of my app GRE: 730V, 600Q, 5.0AW I am a research assistant to a chair (for two years now). Honors Studies I realize my quant score is abysmal but I had to either forget the math and shoot for a high verbal, or study the math and break 700 and risk a crappy verbal score, rendering my overall score very average. So I aimed for a high verbal so admissions committees would only think I personally suck at math and not that my entire transcript sucks because my grades were inflated and did not correlate with my score. For the record, I am applying to political theory programs, so I don't plan to do much math beyond required courses. I am applying to Yale, NYU, Fordham, CUNY, Columbia, NSSR, Brown. I know there are a lot of reaches there, but my professors encouraged me. Is my quantative score going to sink me, do you think, along with my crappy undergrad institution? I took very tough professors and classes, which may not initially be obvious when they see the school, so I am so worried they're going to toss my app before they even read it.