mrs12

Haha, that's a great warning, though! You will know what to expect. And yay! So what schools are you considering then? Do you have a clear favorite? You're on a roll so far!

I probably could have worded the question better, but I was kind of stressed when I wrote it. I WILL take a medical leave if I need to, what I'm curious about is what sort of repercussions it will have if I do end up taking one. I know when I need to take time for myself, and that overall it will make things better in the long run, I'm just worried that it'd be a huge red flag for grad school and none of the schools let alone the competitive ones would want to consider my application.

Hi guys, I'm trying to determine whether or not it makes sense to take a medical withdrawal this semester at school. I'm having an issue with my medicine that I would need to go home to deal with, for a few months at least, and it's becoming difficult to stay in school without addressing it. The issue is, if I take a medical withdrawal, my transcript will show four w's for the courses I'm enrolled in right now. I have one more year of college, and presuming I get better quickly and return for a great Fall/Spring, which is expected, what is the effect of having this sort of thing on my transcript? When applying to grad school is there even space to explain something like this? Do you have to go out of your way to do so? Do schools not care and just think you flunked out for a semester? Will this horribly scar my future chances? I am intent on being a competitive candidate and applying to top schools. This issue shouldn't have lingering effects if I fix my medicine now, and it won't stop me from doing amazing when I come back next year. But I don't want to take the chance if it means no top grad schools will want to consider me. Does anyone have experience with this? Have any of you gotten into a school despite a medical withdrawal or something similar?

I'm so happy! I'll be spending 8 weeks in Turkey this summer! Hopefully, I'll be able to move from my Intermediate-High plateau to an Advanced speaker. I'm really so excited! :3

That would be great, actually! It would be nice just to freak out together too. :333

@emb I did make it! And thanks so much for the reassurance. I need to improve my Turkish and finally break through to advanced, but no matter what I do at home I never get good enough. I'm hoping immersion and intense studies will help. I'm so happy for all of you! And alternates, don't lose hope. There's always several alternates who get taken off the list each year.

@snp, from past years information it sounds like you could know up to a week or so before the actual program starts. I have no idea how many people are told earlier versus later, finalists don't have to confirm until March 21st so you can assume you won't know until at least a bit beyond that.

@pdh12, the CLS is a good program to be an alternate for. There are usually a lot of people taken off that list, and I'd expect this year to be even better than normal because of how many people had to commit to other programs who were semi-finalists and might have been chosen finalists or alternates. I wouldn't lose hope yet, I'd say this is a good sign!

Guys! Results! Results are out!

Hehehe, make a map of all the cool places you want to go and rub it in everyone's face. "See this, yeah, I'MMA GO THERE AS A DIPLOMAT!" :333 It's more that I feel like I'm on sort of a timeline. I applied for the undergraduate Pickering, so they only choose 20 people to interview and 10 recipients. And this was my first year applying, obviously, but I had an amazing letter of recommendation from the embassy that I interned at and yet I am afraid that next year everyone in the office I was with will be at another post so I'm not sure I could ask them for another letter if I didn't pass this time around and had to apply again. I'm probably just coming up with things to worry about, but there's a lot hinging on these results. Still, I feel really proud to have gotten this far. To have cemented my hopes and dreams for the future and to have made a strong application and to continue to prepare for this sort of career. Life always works out, as your story attests to, one way or another.

@ZebraFinch I'm not sure, I think you are pretty amazing no matter what you say... XP Seriously though, take some time to be absurdly proud of yourself and your accomplishments! Go brag if you want to! You've achieved a dream! You deserve some time in the limelight after all of your hard work. Thank you for the tips on the interview process. I'm so nervous I won't be invited to the interview, because I think that's my strongest suit, just being authentic in an interview process. The wait is so hard, but it's great to get to hear about all of your journeys and ups and downs. <3

@emb Ohh, thank you so much! I really want to be in Ankara because I have friends there, if I were to get the CLS. Were you a beginner Turkish student? Even if the program was tiring, do you think it helped you improve? Were you at one of the TOMER schools for classes? I've heard of people successfully switching languages if they can explain their conviction and a real use for the new language, so good luck!

@emb Which site were you at last summer for Turkish? Ankara or Bursa? Also, did you end up not liking it? Or did you just change languages because of something totally unrelated?

@ZebraFinch, oh my goshhh! How late is this in the game though? That's kind of an amazing story... A year later and you're in. CONGRATULATIONS! Will you get to go to school in the Fall then and start the whole Pickering process then? I'm so happy for you! Perseverance really does pay off. Yay! You're amazing.

@pdh12, we will get news! It could even be today! We shouldn't let this get us down. We're all wonderful applicants, we've come so far to even have such a passionate interest in these languages and cultures. Even if we don't get accepted, we've shown how dedicated we are. We can learn all of these languages if we put out minds to it, CLS or no CLS! But I have a good feeling about today! I'm really hopeful we get news today.

@Ellabella, I would email CLS back and ask for clarification with your situation.

But you still have double the chances! Because if for some crazy reason you don't win the Payne, you could be called in to interview for the Pickering still! I'm so nervous, I want these four weeks to pass by so quickly. But I bet for you, you're trying to prepare for your interview, huh? Is it the same sort of interview, do you know? A written and oral test? Looking at the dates for when the Pickering announces who goes on to the interviews I see now that there's very little time to prepare between then and the actual interview. Good luck! Good luck! Good luck! I have a really good feeling about your application.

Yes, some of those facebook comments are really strongly worded!

@natrem, as far as I can tell no one from the Turkish group got an email about visas. And anecdotally it looks like the people who got the email were either applying for Chinese, Urdu, Hindu, or Punjabi, and maybe a few others. So I think you're right.

@kristinochka, I agree, it's a really rough position. But good luck on securing the other program! Is there a reason you like the CLS so much more than that one? It sounds like the funding is comparative. I know there are a lot of applicants in your position, with other looming deadlines. I wish they could just tell us a bit more concretely if it would be a week or two weeks or what.

@phd123 What visa email? Ahh, I don't have any email from CLS today. I hate how they send things out in batches and you never know what's going on.

Oh wowwww, you got actual dates out of them! Only four more weeks then! So with the Payne timeline, you're still going to wait and see what the Pickering says right? Is there a chance you could get both and would have to choose between them? They are a bit different. Do you know which one you'd prefer? Considering your background are you more into USAID? And how's your grad school search going? Thank you for your confidence in me! I think that I will end up doing something enjoyable either way, but I sincerely want to be in the Foreign Service. I feel like I could contribute to my country, like I have something to offer there. And I just love the comradery and the environment. Even if I'm not invited to interview for the Pickering though, I'll apply again next year, and even if that doesn't work out I'm so happy to have experienced all of this because it really is helping me to clarify my life goals and to improve myself in various important ways.

@kbui, I just can't stop thinking about your success! It's made me so happy. Seriously, I can't explain it. But knowing that it's someone like you who gets accepted at these things makes this process so much more tangible to me. I just feel really positive. And I'm so excited for you! The thing I won isn't related to any of this. I participated over the weekend at a interdisciplinary hackathon and my group made a really cool product and won for best in Brain and Cognition. It was a super fun two days and I was really excited to win because we put a lot of work in but I hadn't imagined our project was good enough to even get mentioned!

Soooo frustrating! I really really expected it to be today. If they seriously make us wait another TWO weeks I'll be so frazzled. I guess this just means checking our email every day at around 5 PM, because we don't know if it'll be sooner or later. My nerves are shot, haha. @doremi , in your case I'm not sure what I would do. I guess talk to the internship and see if they can wait a few more days?

Oh my gosh! @kbui!!!!! Wowwww, woowww! Congratulations! You're amazing! I'm so happy for you! This also means your chances at getting asked to interview for the Pickering are really high too, I'd imagine!!! When do you interview? Ahhh!!! I'm seriously so happy for you right now! I knew you were going to do well, but the Payne is crazy competitive!