Bumblebee

People call me B (bee) because for them it's easier than pronouncing my name the way it's pronounced in my language. But I prefer BumbleBEE because I like that word better in English. My picture is because this is The Grad Cafe (duh!) and because I love coffee (actually, I like cappuccino, which is the coffee in my picture).

Does the school set minimum scores for each of the TOEFL sections? Sometimes they do, especially for the speaking part. If they don't, I would worry more about improving the GRE score. Some schools still ask you to pass their own English exam when you arrive on campus. Mine did. I had to take two tests: a written one (similar to TOEFL but without the speaking part) that was mandatory for all international students (although, since I'm a grad student my department was able to give me a waiver); and an oral exam that was mandatory for all TAs. In other schools, if you score less than X they can still offer you admission, but they make you take an English course before you can start teaching.

Good! See? You really didn't have to worry that much about it :-)

My case was quite similar. Some schools didn't ask for a financial statement, others asked for one but offered you the possibility to check the box that said "I depend on the school's financial aid to attend" and one asked for the actual amount of money available. I gave an approximate amount, which wasn't enough even to support me for 3 months. I wouldn't worry too much about it, anyway. As fuzzylogician said, as long as you can proof that you have funds when you're applying for the visa, you're fine. And by then you should already know whether you're getting financial aid from the school.

You're welcome :-)

With an F-1 visa you're allowed to work on campus up to 40h/week during the recess periods (breaks, holidays, etc.). However, I don't know whether you have to fill in some additional paperwork or whether it's automatically done. Ask the international student services office of your institution, they will be able to advise you better than me.

Yes, they receive an e-mail immediately giving them instructions on how to submit the letters. Once they submit their LORs, you will most probably receive an e-mail letting you know that Prof. X has submitted it. When I applied I told my LORs writers to expect an e-mail from X institution so that they didn't delete it accidentally. It was really convenient and fast.

I had the same problems, because Powerprep only works with Windows. What I did was install Parallels and Windows, so every time I wanted to use Powerprep I switched to Windows. I don't know whether there are other options.

Well, all I can say is so far, so good. I had two weeks of orientation (one for international students, which was useless since I've already been living in the country for 3 years) and my department's orientation that was intense and, as we say in Spain, longer than a day without bread. However, I got to know my cohort and they're all great. We get along very well and we have been going out together since day 1. We even went to a drive in movie on Saturday (my first ever!!!). We also got to meet people in other years of MA and PhD and they're really nice and helpful. They all offered themselves to help and they even passed on the material for the courses we're teaching. As far as courses are concerned, today was my first day of class (yes!!! I'm officially a grad student) and I'm already stressing out with things. Ok, I must confess I'm a perfectionist and want to have everything well done, organized and done ahead of time. Let's see how I survive the week!

Mine were too.

I chose "Envy Inducer"

I brought my cell phone with me when I took the GRE since I also had to travel to take it and left it off in the locker. However, I cannot tell you for sure whether the rules said something about cell phones in the test center. I took the test less than a year ago, so I don't think the rules have changed. But we never know... They're extremely strict with what you can take to the exam with you, though.

Thanks for the link! I found it really useful.

Great video!!!

When I was 9 or 10 I caught my little brother scribbling in one of my books (I didn't even especially like it). He was 3 or 4 and the poor thing had to listen to my several-minute talk about how sacred books are, that they were little treasures that had to be cherished and that he had to treat them like living things. He didn't dare put a finger on one of my books for several years.

I loooooooveeee my books and I love keeping them. For me they're sacred to the point that no one (not even me) is allowed to write on them. I know, it's going to be tough surviving grad school without writing down notes in the books. I'll have to find a way. The good thing is that in Spain in undergrad you barely don't have to buy books (I think I only bought 5 during my 4 years in undergrad), since most of the classes involve note taking. I did accumulate books that I bought for pleasure, though, but most of them are in Spain, so they're not taking any space in my shelf here. I guess I'll worry about space issues in a year or two (hopefully two). The only books that I tossed away (that is, sold for less than $20 after spending almost $200 on them) were the ones I bought for the American Society course I had to take when I came to the US as a Teaching Fellow. I didn't like the course or the readings that much and only kept one of the books, which was about rampage shootings (I thought it was an interesting reading).