EvelynD

I figured it out! I don't even know how I did it but at one point I noticed there are two different portals. My bad... I'm working on my third application and yesterday I realized that I also should have applied at anthropology faculties with a strong Latin American focus. UT Austin seemed perfect but their deadline was december first. Does anyone has some tips about faculties with a Latin American / Mexican focus?

Hey guys, I'm applying to MSU but I'm having some trouble with their application portal. I have to add certain information to my application but its almost like I can't figure out where to click, or that certain buttons are missing. Can I send anyone a private message? I feel silly emailing the department all the time.

Hahaha Quickmick, very funny! Is anyone else applying at MSU? I'm having trouble with their application system and I can't figure out hwere to upload vertain things, almost like some buttons are missing.

Already? Pff,..I'm going to send them weekend! I'm pretty bummed I wasn't able to find more than 4 schools.

Pff, with the GRE, Toefl, travel expences etc, I can afford about half of that!

Damn, how many apps do you have in total? I have found 4 schools (I'm working in such a niche thats its like looking for a needle in a haystack to find people working on my subject) and I'm shifting between feeling happy with these 4 schools, and lots of doubt that maybe four isnt enough. Well, we still have some time to find more! I only wish I could find one or two more schools in the States, instead of Canada. I will send you a PM too, i'm just about to finish this draft!

I read about the examples on Duke's website too! I'll check it out in a sec. I would love to send you my SoP, I'm not a native speaker and I sometimes make mistakes in the way I build my scentences. And Dutch people can be really direct, so I might be breaking all sorts of etiquette rules. Can I send it to your inbox? I was wondering about the bibliography too... Another question, it is weird to aks your Poi for some advice regarding the SoP? Every faculty want something else, I'm not going to ask them to write the thing for me but maybe they could give me some pointers. Anyway, weird or ok?

Congrats! Are you satisfied with everything?

I have exactly the same scores, and people on this forum told me they got in their top-choices with scores like this! Would anyone be interested in reading my SoP, or exchanging them? I'm drafting mine but I have no one to proof read it, or well no one that knows what a SoP must look like.

I will! Can you send me a PM?

Congrats! And thanks for sharing your experience. I know the committees look at all your materials, but I'm not from the States and this whole proces is new to me. Its good to hear that someone with a similar score still got what they aimed for!

Hey guys! Another day, another problem, this time in the form of a missing LoR. I did my BA and MA at the same university and our faculty is small. My specialization only consists of a couple of people, two of which I have worked closely with. They taught our classes and were also my thesis advisors. However, like most of you I need three letters for most of my schools. And this is problematic. I have emailed a couple of people who's class I've taken or who I've worked with otherwise but they all admit they didn't work close enough with me to be able to comment on my research skills. Ergo, they all decline. So what do I do? Contact all the faculties and explain? Keep on trying to find that 3rd letter even though I've practically run out of people to aks? Help!

I got my GRE scores today, 147 for math and 157 for the other part. My goal was not to f*ck it up too badly, so Im not happy with these results buuut it would still be worse!

Thanks!!! I know I might be overreacting (hence the dramatic posts from time to time ), but since I'm not from the States and nobody is helping me in this proces (exept you guys of course!!) I have no idea what I'm doing. My new stragety is to study the ETS math review and watch only the most important Magoosh video's. I've finished all the icecream I brought so I feel particularly fat today, so I went shopping and got some muffin-top covering stuff That always does the trick. Btw, I'm also going to apply at Notre Dame! Seems like we're gonna be competitors

Can you guys give me some advice? I've been practicing for the math section of the GRE for about 1,5 month now, with little to no results. I've run out of time and still have to do about half of all the video's, and even if I use other sources I get super confused (always been bad at math and because no one here knows the GRE my tutor cant help me very effectively). I'm at a point where it has become too much, i'm stuck, and a good score for the math section is out of the question. It seems to me like my options are: 1. Drop studying for the math and focus all of my energy on the language 2. continue studying for the math, feel worse and worse, and have worse scores for the laguage section because I has less time to prep. It has come to a point where I am even concidering not applying for grad school because why bother, no one is gonna hire me with low GRE scores. If only I had known about this test 6 months ago, didn't work two jobs, and was not totally retarded in math :/

Wow! Good for you!! edit: when you applied to Notre Dame, did you apply to the anthropology department?

@knp, thanks for your advice! I didn't realise I should look for people this way but it sounds smart! I'm going to take a couple of days to approach things this way (like going through the conference lists of whatever I can find on 'animals and society', or on conference lists of the American geographers society. And I'm going to email the archaeologists I found, I mean, why not? @Peanut, we actually send each other some messages a while back, which gave me some good leads and idea's! Did you actually move to China? On another note, I booked my GRE test last night! After about a month of being denied access to the site I was finally able to log in. Of course my preffered date (October 25) wasn't available anymore, but I was able to book it on the 19th. This means I have one week less to prep (goodbye weekends) but at least I have a date now!

I'm struggeling with the same problem; I found two potential (great) schools but the POI's aren't replying to my emails. I've waited two or three weeks and just send a gentle reminder. Struggle no. two is that I still haven't found enough schools to apply to, and that for some reason I can't find more. I've talked about this in another topic too and I think I might be searching to wrong way. I'm going to expand my search from anthro/socio to human/animal geography and,..well, whichever other department I can find that in some forn has someone there working on animal studies. Like animal science. But my main struggle is how bad my GRE practice is going. I practice using the Magoosh videos every day for three hours after work, but I keep failing at the practice questions. But the English part is also going quite badly because I encounter so many words I've never ever seen before. Lets just say I've been stuffing a lot of stuff in my face tonight.

Thank you! I dont know why I haven't been able to locate more researchers, probably because I have been looking to anthro/socio faculties only? I've searched academia and journals but I've only come up with UCSB, MSU, and U of Toronto. Maybe I haven't search enough because there is so much to look through, its like finding needles in a haystack? Or there are so many trees you can't see the forest anymore? Through various facebook groups I discovered that human geography is also a way into animal studies so I've added that on the search list. I'm surely not done looking for schools! I feel like there isn't anything too loose anymore so in the next week or so I'm going to email everybody that could be even remotely of interest (like people working in other departments but that could adise me their anthro dep for example, as long as I can colaborate with them). I've also found one school on your list Knp, but I've emaild my POI two times but he hasn't returned my mail so I'm not sure if I should apply there. Do you need to have established some form of a relationshop / contact with your POI? As we speak I'm eating chocolate sprinkles out of a bowl with a desert spoon, because I'm 'depressed' about my GRE math progress. No matter how much I study I keep failing at the math, and I'm afraid I'm gonna blow the test so bad no one is going to even concider me. That makes me think I don't have enough school options, which makes me think its all not going to work out, which makes me eat more sprinkels. I don't want to work in customer care for ever ánd be fat!!

Good for you! I still can't even log in!

Most of them are December first. The thing is that I only have two options: either the 22nd of September, or at the end of October (because of the training I have to take at my new job, I can't take time off in between these dates). Do you think I should try it in two weeks, just to be sure? I took a practice test a couple of days ago and my scores were véry low, so I need all the time I can get.

Yeah it is my first round (if it wasn't for this forum I'd be so lost..). At this moment I'm considering only applying to the schools I really like, and not look for reasons to like school X (eventhough the environment there is pretty cool). But I also just learned about something called animal geography, and it has close resemblance with the animal studies I want to do. So,..I might have to start all over again and research this subject. It doesn't matter, I still have 2 weeks left before my new job starts. I want to share my personal accomplishment of today; I've watched a sh*tload of Magoosh video's on math, and then I did a test and I had 3/5 questions right! That might seem like nothing, but a week ago I couldn't even get one right. I'm thinking of going for the GRE at the end of October, so I have some extra time to practice!

I know what you mean! In the morning I will be like,..'I will keep school X', but then a couple of hours later I'm like 'I better drop it, there is no match between us and it will only cost me money if I apply for no reason'. But in the evening I see mountains on TV and I feel like I should apply there, because its such a nice place to live and what if I make a mistake by dropping that uni.

I think its smart you apply this early, it gives you the chance to let it all sink in and perhaps find that one university that you initially missed, and it saves you soo much stress later on! I'm still deciding where I want to apply. My favorite university takes the longest to obtain a PhD degree. Two uni's I'm going to apply at for sure, one I'm still waiting on a response from my poi, and one is probably gonna be taken of the list because I don't get a feeling the have prof's and research that fits me. And I came across a job ad for PhD projects from a uni in Canada today, so I'm concidering adding that one as well.

I wasn't even able to log in, but i'm going to try again on Wednesday!