day_manderly
-
Posts
110 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by day_manderly
-
-
2 hours ago, kinseyd said:
I'm applying for several Microbiology programs that have deadlines on November 30th or December 1st - all of which require 3 letters of recommendation. I've gotten two in already, but the most important one from my Honors senior research faculty advisor has not been submitted. I asked him well in advance (in September-October, and he knew I'd be applying to grad programs anyway) and my college is very small so there is no way he would forget who I am. I also am one of the two people doing honors research with him. He has always been hard to contact through email, and I sent him a reminder three days ago, but he has not replied to any of my emails asking for confirmation that my LOR is complete. While he assured me before winter break that he would write the letter, I am starting to really panic. There's only one day before the first deadlines begin, and my dream is to continue my education. Not to mention all the money and time I spent on this application process. Would it be too forward of me to call him? He gave me his cell number when I started doing lab work with him, and I figure it is my last resort. I know that some programs may offer leeway when it comes to the deadline for LORs, but he is the most important recommender because he can testify to my lab experience/capabilities. Hopefully I don't explode from all this stress.
As this is his responsibility now (for he has agreed to do this for you), you can and should call.
-
5 hours ago, glitterunicorn said:
@day_manderly nice!
i'm making some last tweaks to my statements. i'm a bit worried about my professors not being able to send in the letters of rec on time though. :<
I think most schools are ok with letters coming after you've submitted - like, 2 weeks after. You should check though. I made my profs send theirs like a week ago, just in case (all schools I'm applying to have the option of inviting recommenders prior to submission - I think if you apps don't have that option, then the letters can come later).
-
Have just submitted my 2nd app! So excited, even though still have 2 to go for the December 1 deadline! How are you guys doing?
-
19 hours ago, Yanaka said:
Sorry for re-posting. Does anybody know if I can use an image in my SOP? An illustration (a painting, to be more specific) right at the beginning, as to "set the mood". Thanks!
I saw a thread somewhere about this. A short answer is no, don't risk it, keep it professional.
-
Boy, did I procrastinate with this. My SoPs are perfect (thanks to the fine forlks of grad cafe, my friends, and me editing them 100 times!), but my so-called Personal Statement.... (about how has my background influenced my decision to apply to the Wonderful Grad School) Well, all I've got is the first draft. PM me your e-mail address, and I'll be happy to send it to you and to have a look at yours.
-
16 hours ago, DBear said:
I'd go with writing a new paper. There are schools that will specifically tell you NOT to submit anything that's co authored but even if that's not the case, I see too much risk of running into an ethical issue. Even if the main idea originated with you, developing the idea, deciding what direction you are going to take it and how to actually write it wasn't all you. This is different from when you're writing something and you incorporate feedback. So best be on the safe side and go with a different paper
That's the avenue I've ended up taking.
-
Are there any guidelines anywhere?.. Headers, title, anything?..
-
27 minutes ago, Rigenate said:
Really thank you for your reply! day_manderly! I did proofread my statement several times. I only found errors in that sentence. The rest parts of my statement are OK.
Sometimes, we just need to move on. I still have several applications needed to be submitted. Thank you again! Have a good day!
Yes, moving on is really important. Otherwise we would all go crazy (I personally am almost there
)
Same here. Btw, I will be happy to look over your other SoPs if you look over mine. :/ I already have one application submitted, and I put too much work into it and too little into other schools.
-
Of course, it's impossible to give a proper feedback on someone's writing sample, especially if they are in a different field. However, little things - like formatting, referencing, or whatnot, can be noticed. I can have a look at your WS if you have a look at mine.
Background - I'm in Education, so I can say something about WS in Social Sciences or Humanities. If you are in, PM me.
-
2 hours ago, Rigenate said:
I just found out that there are pretty stupid grammatical errors in one of my sentence in my SOP after I submitted it. That sentence misses a verb after "to" and has a duplicate "with.... with" at the end of the sentence. I just could not believe I did not spot the error after proofreading my SOP several times. Will this error strike me out ? Oh my God!
It will definitely not strike you out (according to everything I've read on this website). It's just a tiny thing, probably won't even be noticed. You are just panicking out of geeky perfectionism.
Moreover, your panic might be a sign of your application being successful - you h a v e proofread it, right? Probably polished the content to perfection? Who cares about Grammar? (as long as it's not in e v e r y sentence and not too dreadful)))
-
On 19/11/2016 at 8:53 AM, MAC2809 said:
5% chance.
Why?
-
Ohhhh... I'll share my experience and vent along the way if that's ok with you.
I thought the last sentence is the worst. The 2nd is bad, too. And the 10th. Like, really. SoPs are a pain in the ass.
At first I went with 'Applying to This Great School is an informed decision'. I wanted to show straight away that I meant business. Then somebody pointed out that was self-evident (that the decision was informed). I had a blank there for a while, waiting for the insight to strike me. Now it goes like this 'My interests are...' (a bit more elegant in terms of prose, but same meaning). That's it. The structure of my 1st paragraph:
My interests are at the crossroads of sultry goodness, smoldering nerdiness, and comparative hotness*. The profs at This Great School (especially at the Awesome Division) explore the same stuff, and also the School is so very international (in the case of my field that's ultrarelevant), so it's the shit for me.
And then I go on to describe my background, PhD research ideas, and plans for the future.
*closely related fields
-
12 hours ago, plantguy said:
Hey everybody,
I am very new to this website and I am currently applying some grad schools around US and you know some schools want the transcripts to be send directly from the universities. However, the university I graduated in Germany refuses to send the transcripts by mail to US universities and they say it is forbidden by law. I am abroad, so I can't go and take personally from them. They won't even send them to me by post. I only have one original copy of my transcripts and that's it. Only one school agreed to accept a scanned copy but still 2-3 schools want them by post and they don't understand. Neither my german coordinator nor the officers in US. Can anybody update me? Are there any german students that can help me?
Ah, I've had this problem. Write to your intended grad school and asked. I ended up with them agreeing to be ok with a scan for the time of application. However, they might ask you to make a photocopy of your trans-s, and then get it notarized or w/e.
-
9 hours ago, TwoTimesTolstoy said:
EASY! ...I was using Calibri lol.
I don't have word, I use libreoffice so I'm tinkering now to see if I can't find a more suitable font.
Try Liberation Serif, it's perfectly Times-New-Roman/like.
-
So within my field I am interested in many different topics. Now I have something like:
I do not wish to limit myself to one theme only. [Short sentence about another interest I have, apart from the one I want to explore in ]. I would like to keep advancing my knowledge of the subject, and build upon [a bit on the concrete conceptualization].
Will this make me seem unfocused?
-
Question: one of the professors I am interested in does not work at the department where I will be studying. He will still be available for conversations, I guess, but I am not sure whether I should mention him at all. By 'mention' I don't mean saying I want him to advise me, just that I'm excited he works at the same university, and I've enjoyed his work in my field. Do you know anyone who mentioned profs outside their grad school/department?
-
16 hours ago, DBear said:
Specifics about what you gained/did would be helpful especially if tied directly to the program's goals/ your goals. I think you want to be careful that what you say can't be boiled down to: you told me to do x so I went and did x.
If someone were to paraphrase that section it should be closer to: I did x, as suggested, and now I'm better at y and z.
Thank you!
-
17 hours ago, TakeruK said:
This wording you suggest is really awkward. As someone said, I wouldn't phrase it that way. Here's a sample of something one could write in a SOP. Let's assume that in earlier paragraphs, you already established your interest in the study of apple pie making:
I am excited for the opportunity to study Apple Pieology at University of Pielandia. I would be interested in working with Prof. Cool to study Crust Layering. I also anticipate collaborations with Prof. Great on the sugar-to-apple ratio. The research facilities at the University of Pielandia, particularly the Pie Recipe Library and the Automatic Filling Injector, would also be helpful.
---
Basically, I think you should mention professors in a way to achieve two goals: 1) you want to show that you have done some homework on the department and know who studies what and 2) you want to give the committee an easy way to "classify" you and basically suggest an answer to the question they are all thinking "Where would this applicant fit into our department?".
In the above example, I show a way to distinguish between who you want your advisor to be and who you will just collaborate with. But, you don't have to always distinguish this, you could just say that you are interested in Prof. Cool's Crust Layering work and Prof. Great's sugar-to-apple ratio work, without specifying that you want to work with one or the other.
Thank you so much for valuable advice!
-
1 minute ago, DBear said:
I think I would phrase it just a tad differently. I'm assuming there is a line or two about how great you think the program is, I'd link it to that:
As a leader in the Coolness discipline, I feel like blah blah this and that excellence in research, especially with faculty like Prof Renowned who has helped shape discourse in Coolness.
Or
I trust that with my work with Prof PotentialAdvisor will be further "good adjective" with discussions and interaction with renowned faculty like Prof Renowned who has helped shape both the discipline and my past research.
Just my two cents
and thanks for the great question
Thank you, that sounds great!
-
If a professor doesn't respond, and there's 'administrative support' (some schools have one assigned to every professor), I very gently write to them. Usually they reply very quickly, with questions like 'what e-mail did you send your letter to?', and then I get a reply to my initial letter after a while. That said, the professors I truly have rapport with in terms of our interests reply quickly enough, but that might be my field thing - I'm in Education, and people there cannot afford to be all Ivory Tower-y.
-
I have several publications in the academic journals of my country, and those journals are not prestigious at all. I also have participated in several conferences. By no means this is the heart of my CV, but I still mention them. Question: is it better to concentrate one's CV on important stuff (i.e. I have impressive experience with impact-intensive research), and omit my non-prestigious publications altogether, thus painting a picture of someone who only goes for top notch, or is it better to mention whatever research I've done over the years? I am pretty sure one of my LoRs will mention my national publications (I was a research-active undergrad).
-
I asked one of the professors I spoke with at my target school, and he told me to mention everything in a CV. I think it all boils down to organization of CV - mine has the section 'Skils and Interests' in the very end where I put my language skills, and my interests, which are competitive running (because it shows that I can be determined enough to run a half-marathon, and to train for a marathon), and creative writing (I stated the number of stories I've written, and the published ones, because it shows I have diverse interests). That being said, my CV starts with education, research experience, research interests, etc.
SoP - I would say definitely no, as it has nothing to do with you being a good researcher (even if writing poetry helps you relax after those long sessions of reading academic stuff, because so does shower
).
-
I think I'm not the only one struggling with this. So I know that:
- you shouldn't mention professors you haven't contacted as your potential advisors;
- you shouldn't mention anyone if you haven't checked whether they are alive, still there, available for interaction (courses, talks, etc.);
- it's good to talk about potential advisors in SoP, because otherwise the adcomm will not know what to do with you and which faculty should have a look at your application.
Now, the question. If you know that a professor cannot advise you (not being a standing faculty, etc.), but will still be available for discussions, and you admire them - how should you talk about them?
My SoP has it like this now: 'Regarding the faculty I would like to work with, I must mention Professors Cool and Great'.
Now, Professor Great cannot be any PhD student's advisor, but I'm still looking forward to discussing various problems in my field with them.
Professor Cool is my intended advisor.
I don't want to appear badly informed about the internal politics of the school. Meanwhile, I still want to mention Professor Great.
Background: advisors do not direct your whole trajectory in my field, it's all rather loose, not like in Biology or smth, where funding is linked to project leaders.
-
10 minutes ago, TakeruK said:
I'll start with a standard disclaimer that different fields may have different norms.
My advice is to not mention this at all, unless this previous experience has direct effect on what you did for the previous year**. Otherwise, they know that they didn't accept you last time so there's no need to remind them (and give them more reason to not accept you again). Instead, just focus on what you actually did. Write the application as if you are applying for the very first time, don't mention your previous application and don't be afraid to repeat some things from last time. You don't know that every person reading the application this year is the same as the people from last year. And even if there is overlap, you can't assume they remember anything about you.
As Triangular said, academia is full of denials, so you want to show that you are able to have unsuccessful experiences and move on. You do this by showing, not telling. Writing a strong application with new stuff from your last year is how you show that you have moved on and will persevere. Spending time and space discussing the past attempt is just telling. Also, since many other people will have denials and try again, telling a story of how you didn't get in the first time but will try again this year isn't an original story and would be kind of cliché. Just show that you are moving past this by focussing on your strengths.
The personal statement is meant to be an essay on why you are a good fit for this school, on why you want to attend this graduate program, and why this department will help you meet your career goals. So, writing about how you didn't get into this program last year does not further these goals.
** Note: An example of this would be if you applied last year and did not make it into their graduate program, however, a professor at the school recommended you do X first and reapply. X might be something like attending a 1 year Masters program, joining a specific research project, or maybe working part-time or volunteering in their lab, or maybe they help connect you with something to work on etc. In cases like this, I think it is a good idea to discuss your past application cycle!
Thank you; this is all extremely useful.
I'm almost certain they will remember me, and the application will be read by the same person. That professor did explain that usually they look for candidates with more working experience, so my pitch will be something along the lines of working for one more year in my field, and though that's not too long, but the nature of my work is intense.
SOP mistakes: what to avoid
in Statement of Purpose, Personal History, Diversity
Posted
Haven't seen it... I've included everything relevant (like, really everything, including my competitive running hobby
)