drownsoda

I hate to complain about this, but I've recently been voicing my anxieties about the entire application process to both of my parents, which I've determinately found out is a bad idea. Why? Because the only thing my mom (bless her heart) has to say is, "Oh, don't worry. I KNOW you'll get in," which gives me a knee-jerk impulse to duct tape her mouth shut and run away screaming. I get that she's my parent and that she believes in me and all of that, but at the same time, I'm like "MOM, your education ended at a high school in Wyoming, no offense, but I don't think you're really getting the scope of this situation." Nobody in my immediate family has a four-year degree (my dad went to college for two years studying computer science but dropped out), so I feel like talking to them about any of this is almost pointless, especially with my mom— academia is just way too foreign to her. No matter what, she's always going to be like, "Oh, you'll get in. I know it," which is going to drive me mad, unless it turns out I do get in, by which I will no longer be apprehensive about her faith in me. But right now I can't handle that kind of faith because I feel like it sets me up for even more hurt if I get rejected across the board. I dunno. I think I have to stop talking about all of this to the people in my day-to-day life. Talking about it on here is different, because you guys get it. None of my close friends are college people either— no academics, postgrads, nothing. I'm a lone wolf, so all the people around me either have a romanticized and/or warped perception about the grit of this graduate school business.

Just want to reiterate the fact that it's not black and white. It ultimately depends on what you're willing to deal with in terms of debt down the road. I lived with family during my undergrad because I attended a university downtown not too far from where my dad lived, and I saved a LOT of money doing so. I am graduating with my B.A. with about $11k in loans, total. The rest of my education was paid for with grants and out of my pocket (I've worked waiting tables for the past five years). Not to say $11k isn't a lot of money, but compared to what some of my friends have spent on Bachelor's degrees, it's dirt. I know people who went to private schools for undergrad and took out $50k+ each YEAR in loans. Fast forward to now, I'm currently applying to graduate programs, all of which are out of state, so I won't have the opportunity to be with family. Supposing I get in, I'll probably opt to live on campus, or at least close by, but I don't have major qualms about going into debt since my undergrad didn't cost me that much. My whole thing is, I don't want to even THINK about money while I'm in graduate school. I don't care if I have to drown myself in student debt (hopefully I'll get some sort of funding, but if worst comes to worst...), I cannot let myself stress over cash because I know I'll be consumed enough with my studies. If I were you, I'd give living with family a shot and see how compatible it is with your graduate school experience. If it's not working, move.

This is totally late to the game and probably pointless, but I am graduating from Portland State this winter, so I just wanted to drop in here. How has the publishing program been? I was always intrigued by it, but it's not something I'd ever pursue, professionally or otherwise. PSU is a good school overall, I think. Their reputation used to be absolute garbage, but it seems that they're growing in recognition as of late, little by little. They've had a killer MBA program for a long time I believe.

I applied to their M.A. program; sent in my application December 31st. I thought the deadline was January 3rd, but it turns out it was January 7th, so either I misread, or they pushed the deadline back by a couple of days. Anyhow, do they send out acceptances/rejections via email? It's my dream school and I'm extremely nervous about getting a response from them. Anyone have experience with their admissions, in terms of a timeline and method of delivering their decisions? It's barely been a week since I submitted my application there, and each time I see that there's new mail in my inbox, I'm like:

I don't know if I'd necessarily think it's a bad thing though. Theoretically, if the number of applicants was lower than they expected, that may actually increase your shot of getting in because you'd have less people to go up against, so to speak. I still have no clue why my program pushed theirs back a couple days, but I didn't really consider the possibility of it being anything bad. I'm actually beginning to question whether or not I even read the deadline right in the first place. With all of the psychic stress I've experienced over the past two months, it's entirely possible that I thought the deadline was earlier than it actually was, or got dates confused. Either way, the Jan. 7th deadline has now passed, so it's just the waiting game on that application at this point.

The GRE is just a formality and I think it's inherently problematic within the higher education system, but I also can understand the use of it in terms of "filtering," especially in large-volume programs that get huge numbers of applicants. At the end of the day, the answer, I think, as 1Q84 said, is that it depends. The thing about writing is that no matter what you're studying, you're ALWAYS going to have to have good writing skills in grad school. Clearly, humanities programs will expect more of your writing than math or engineering perhaps, but it's still important that you have a solid foundation for academic writing in virtually every field. This is just me inferring, but I'd think that if someone scored under a 3.0 on the writing, then it may hurt an application. That said, I was reading the GRE averages for one of the schools I applied to, and was surprised by the fact that the average writing score in the English department was a 4.0 for M.A. students, and a 4.5 for PhD students. It made me feel slightly better because, although my verbal score was a couple points under their average, I scored a 5.0 on the writing, which means I did better than the bulk of their PhD students (and I'm applying to the M.A. program).

I was classmates with a transgendered woman as an undergrad. She was in several of my classes my senior year, and there was never an issue whatsoever, between her, the class, or the professors, at least that I saw. I never had a chance to talk to her, but she was one of the more outspoken students and always had a lot to say during class. Universities are typically safe havens for minorities, I think— even many religious schools— so I can't see discrimination being a major concern at most places. I went to an extremely liberal public university though, so that may give me some bias.

Ick, my final deadline is January 13th, so I'm not quite done like many of you. My other deadlines were all before January 8th, so I'm sort of flipping out right now myself over those (my dream school's deadline was on Wednesday... *shudders*). I've made it a point NOT to look at anything on my applications after I've submitted them because I know I will go into a hysterical spiral if I do. That said, my email is enough torture for me at the moment. It's only been a week and a half since I submitted my first application, and every time I see I have something in my inbox, I'm like

I can't speak from a nutrition standpoint since I was a humanities major, but first things first, you'll have to take the GRE to start applying (most all schools require it as part of the applications process). Your GPA is admittedly low, but I can't say I'd ever discourage anyone from at least trying to apply. I have no clue how competitive or selective nutrition/food science programs are, so that would make a difference in your chances at a given university. Where were you thinking of applying?

Why do you think it's a bad sign?

This is exactly what I assumed, but I was kind of second guessing myself because I've heard of people highlighting their bad GRE scores or GPA or whatever in these sections, as an opportunity to sort of "explain themselves," which seems weird to me. It made me question what they were for and what exactly was appropriate. I'll just leave it blank on this application. Like I said, I used the opportunity on one of my applications so that I could acknowledge why there was a year long gap in my transcript, but that was only because I didn't have enough word space to touch on it in my SOP for that particular application. I hope having done that won't hurt me in the long run(?), especially since it was for my dream school. I just wanted to make sure they knew that there was a valid reason for my postponing my education for a year, and that it wasn't because I was indecisive or uncommitted or something. I had cancer at the time, although I didn't use the "c" word in my applications; just said I had "serious illness" that "required surgeries and hospital treatments."

I am really divided on what to include here, if anything at all. I am applying to Master's programs in English and have come across these "additional info" sections in my applications and cannot decide if I should take advantage of them. Is it a place to acknowledge possible weaknesses in your application, or should you avoid discussing any and all weaknesses? I have a 3.75 GPA and a 3.9 major GPA. My GRE scores were alright in writing and verbal (5.0 on writing, 159 on verbal), although my quantitative score was horrendous (143). Should I use this additional form to explain my awful math skills, or no? I've heard most humanities programs don't weigh your quantitative scores very heavily, if it all, but I'm torn about it. I also don't have any publications under my belt, but I don't want to bring that up in the additional information section because it seems pointless. One thing that I did include in an "additional information" section on one of my applications was an acknowledgment of a year-long gap in my transcript, but I only did so on that specific application because I didn't have enough room in my SOP to address it (word limit was 500). On my other applications, I had less word limitations on my SOPs, so I was able to briefly address the gap on my transcript there. Would bringing any of this up be pointless and/or ineffective or potentially hurtful toward my overall application?

If it's a humanities paper, I'd say absolutely not. I have a B.A. in English and have never once indexed a paper the entire time I've been in college. If it's a science piece though, it may be appropriate.

That totally makes sense as far as the connections go. My professor is a Columbia and Northwestern graduate, has publications and is pretty active in the field, although I don't believe he has any connections to any of the schools to which I applied. It makes sense if your letter writer has a direct connection to the university, in which case the committee members may know of him/her.

We all know that Ivy Leagues filter hardcore with standardized tests, but that doesn't mean that all people with low scores have zero chances. It does happen. It's rare, but it does happen, though I think it hinges on what other the strengths are present in the application. That said, I have a cousin who goes to Harvard, and he got in with a 4.8 high school GPA— hahahaha.

Yeah, no worries! I think it takes them a maximum of two weeks to get them processed if I remember correctly, but they'll probably be a done a little earlier than that even. I had to manually enter in my GRE scores on all of my applications along with my test ID number so that the schools could confirm with ETS and match them with my official scores, and it all went through just fine.

I think it just takes time for it to filter through their system. The score recipients should show up once your official scores are posted, which won't be for at least a week (they told me 10-14 days when I took the test, but in reality it took about 7 days for my verbal and quantitative scores to show up, and an additional few days before they had my writing section scored). I sent my scores to three schools on the test day, and then sent them to two additional schools later on, which cost I believe $15 per school. I took my test on November 24th, and it says my three initial schools received my scores on December 3rd. Although the proctors will provide your verbal and quantitative scores to you immediately after you've taken the test, none of the scores are actually considered valid until they've been processed by ETS. Just give it a week or so. Your verbal and quant scores will probably show up first, and once your writing score is posted, they should go out to the schools you selected to receive them.

I second pasteltomato on the Magoosh flash cards. They have an app that you can download on your phone that is basically a virtual deck of cards, and I found that really helpful. I would review with it when I was taking the bus or train to pass the time, and it was definitely worth it. I learned several new words with it that showed up on the test.

Since you're applying to neuroscience programs, I wouldn't freak over this. It's doubtful that most programs would hold your writing score against you, especially since your other scores were solid. Obviously a 3 is not the best score you can get, but it shows that you're capable of academic writing, and that's probably enough. I scored a 159 on the verbal and a 5 on the analytical writing, but I tanked the quantitative with a 143— that said, I'm an English major, so it's not likely that most English programs will hold my bad math skills against me. If you were applying to English or humanities programs, then a 3 on the writing would be rather low, but for a science major, I think they will be looking more at your mathematical capability over your writing. That's not to say that writing doesn't matter, as you're obviously going to have to have writing skills in any graduate program, but in neuroscience my presumption would be that quantitative reigns; which, you got a near perfect score on it, so good job! Seriously, thank God there are math-literate people in this world. I'm not one of them.

This is the story of my life. If I'm feeling good on a particular day for whatever reason, I will think about it and be like, "Yeah, I'm good enough... I will get into at least one school. No reason to worry about this," and then a few hours later I'll be wallowing in anxiety over the fact that I could get rejected by all of them. I don't know how to make that stop, but all I'm saying is that I feel ya.

For a diversity essay, I'd say a big fat "yes" on this. As far as prejudice from the committee goes, I feel like that most likely wouldn't be an issue just judging by the fact that they asked you to write a diversity essay in the first place. I never had the option of writing anything like that, but I did have to figure out how to acknowledge a year-long gap in my transcript that was the result of a cancer diagnosis— it's tricky trying to figure out how to approach personal stuff in an application like this. Some of my applications provided "additional information" forms, and on those I acknowledged the transcript gap, but just said it was due to an "extended and serious illness that required surgery and other treatments." End. In other applications, I had to figure out a way to work it into my SOP because they didn't provide any forms like that. I think in a diversity essay though, it's mostly free game. If there's a place to bring up anything personal that sets you apart from the pack, that's it.

I think it would be weird and kind of ungrateful if you didn't thank them. I basically thanked them twenty times over in email correspondence. I got each of my recommenders a Moleskine notebook as a gift. I also wrote them personal thank you letters, and tied them to the notebooks with ribbon. I haven't been on campus over Christmas break, but I'm going to drop them by their offices this next week.

I would just contact one of the organizers there who is in charge of the visitations and interviews and inquire about the meals, explaining your restrictions. We vegetarians are a rare breed, but we're not THAT rare. As an undergrad I went to a really liberal university and remember them having vegetarian lunch options during my orientation day. We actually had a cafe on campus that served 100% vegan food as well, so I was always taken care of in that regard. Since vegetarianism is fairly common (and since colleges tend to be fairly liberal places overall), I think most universities would accommodate this. I've been a vegetarian for eleven years and have seen the prevalence of vegetarian dishes in social settings grow significantly. It really wouldn't be that strange of a request anyway.

Wow, congrats! I had no idea that schools did this. I submitted two of my applications early (one by a few days, the other a week and a half before the deadline). I know one of the schools said they usually start sending out responses in February, but it'd be cool if they got back to me sooner. I'm kind of mortified about it, especially since I've been told that it's a good thing if a school takes a long time to respond to you, but I think it varies from program to program. I'm sure there are some who weed out applications early on before sending out their acceptances, but others probably take the route of what happened in your case, where they dive into them straight away and respond that promptly. Were you contacted by email about your acceptance? On both of the applications I submitted early, I recall it saying that I would be contacted by mail and/or email, so I have no clue which to expect.

Thanks for this— this is one of the reasons I applied to Fordham. You have to make sure you apply for the early deadline though, which is on the 7th of this month. I believe the later deadline is in April, but you don't get considered for funding or any sort of fellowships if you apply at that time.