her_black_tights

Has anyone heard anything from Princeton?? They historically usually send out notifications on the 2nd/3rd/4th and I'm kind of losing my mind a little bit. Also, thank you to everyone for their input/advice!! This is my first cycle and I'm applying right after getting my BA so I don't have high hopes but all of the advice in this thread has made me feel better about the possibility of not getting into a program this year!

Thank you for responding and your comforting advice! It turned out that that my letter writer's mother had died and that's why I hadn't heard from her in over a month. Once I had that information, I ended up just asking my backup professor and he thankfully came through in the 11th hour. I'm hoping that it doesn't affect my candidacy at the only school affected by this slip-up because my rec letter was like thirteen days late but the department said it was okay??? I don't know. I hope everything worked out with your late rec letter writer as well!

Hi! I posted here a couple weeks ago about a rec letter issue and now I'm posting again because I have another issue, albeit with the same professor. For some background, she's notoriously late/does things last minute but I asked her to write me a letter in September, thinking that would mean she would have it done in time. She's a very well respected scholar in my field and the only person I could possibly switch her out with (though, even that's up in the air because I would have to ask him to write the letter) is an English professor while I'm applying for Anthropology (I was a double major). She submitted all of my Dec. 15 letters either at midnight on the 15th or kind of late but they all got in. I've been emailing her every week informing her of my deadlines at her request; however, she hasn't responded to any of my emails since December 22nd. I had applications due on Jan 1, Jan 5, and Jan 15, emailed her like the day before the due date for each one, and didn't hear anything back and she still hasn't uploaded any of those letters. I figure that for the Jan 1 due date, I've already been rejected (which sucks but I wasn't the most into that program anyway). However, both my Jan 5 and my Jan 15 applications are programs that I'm both very interested in and that I have a decent shot at (as a decent shot as one could have when applying to PhD programs). I emailed the Jan 5 program asking when is the absolute latest the letter can be submitted for consideration and the admissions director said next Monday. I emailed this professor on the 16th with a reminder and a polite request to upload everything ASAP but she hasn't gotten back to me yet. I called her office today and left a voice mail informing her about this Jan 23rd hard deadline but I don't have high hopes for her listening to it. What should my next steps be?? I still live in the same town as my college so I could show up there and ask but she doesn't post her office hours online and I work full-time so I don't have the time to hang out there, waiting for her to show up. Would it be okay to email her again? Is there a way to make my email subject line urgent without seeming super obnoxious? I really like this professor and do not want to offend her but it's hard to keep my head on straight when her letter can literally determine my future. Thanks for reading this rant and for any advice you may have!

Thank you so much for all of your help. I ended up using a bit of all of your approaches and it worked out! She uploaded the letter today. It's 13 days past the deadline but I'm just hoping that what everyone says about no one looking at applications until January is true.

I have known that one of my rec letter writers was going to be a problem when I asked her (she is known for doing things last minute and being unreliable). However, she's really well known in my field and is an alumna of one of the programs I'm applying to so I decided it was worth the headache. Come Dec 15, she was late on submitting most of my letters and still hasn't submitted one. I emailed her yesterday saying I still hadn't received that letter and a heads-up about the rest of my deadlines in January and she emailed me back saying "I did that letter and the other ones. Will check again." I checked again this morning and all of those letters are still not in. I don't want to piss her off but I'm also getting frustrated because I feel like she's either lying to me or that she just isn't really paying attention. Is there a respectful way for me to say "I still don't have those letters???" Like I said, she's very respected in the field and, other than this whole letter debacle, she's been very supportive of my grad school aspirations. I really do not want to burn this bridge but she's also 8 days late on one of my letters at a program I really want to go to and I do not want to deal with this bullshit again when my next round of apps are due.

Hi! I'm a recent college graduate who's applying to sociocultural anthropology PhD programs for the first time and is kind of scared shitless/would love some advice about the best way to go about this process! I graduated from a mid-tier liberal arts college and I double majored in both Anthropology and English. I know at least two out of my three rec letters are going to be really solid (they're both from my academic advisors who I spent a lot of time with) and am still trying to figure out who my third is going to be. I graduated with a 3.52 which isn't like the best but I ended up getting honors on my senior thesis (which was a qualitative, ethnographic research project of my own design). I guess my main problem/anxiety is that most of the programs I've been looking at/that my anthro academic advisor has been telling me to look at are all like pretty intense/prestigious universities (my main picks right now are John Hopkins, Princeton, Cornell, U-Wash Seattle, and UPenn), because those are the places where my research interests are (mostly medical anthropology, Israel/Palestine, and postcolonialism). Whenever I tell people where I'm applying, they're always like "oh wow, that's a really good school" which kind of really freaks me out and makes me doubt everything b/c I wasn't like THE MOST AMAZING student in school or anything like that. So, I guess, I have these questions: 1) Am I aiming too high by applying to places like John Hopkins, Princeton, etc? I know the whole safety school thing doesn't really exist b/c it's all about finding someplace where your interests are but I'm worried that w/my GPA, I might not make the first cut. Basically, how big of a deal is GPA? 2) Should I be looking into MA programs due to to the fact I'm fresh out of college? I'm positive that anthropology is what I want to do with my life but I have also read things that say that anthro programs sometimes are hesitant about accepting 22 and 23 year olds. 3) Is not having been to the area that I'm interested in doing research in a big problem/no-no? I have chosen Israel/Palestine because I have a lot of experience with Israelis, grew up speaking Hebrew, and have a lot of interest in the political/cultural situation there. Can doing enough research make up for practical experience? Thanks for any help/insight that you may be able to provide! I would also love to meet more people who're applying this year because I don't know anyone in my immediate social circle who's making the jump!