Yanaka

I am a woman and a vegan, what do I have left?

I'm SO glad you mentioned this.

Exactly!!

I agree, and while studying for the GRE I would find a bunch of words in the book I was reading! However, since I'm bad at memorizing stuff as well, a few of them never stuck even when read in context.

I won't be hearing anything from "my" programs before two weeks or more I'd say, and I'm still lurking at the result board several times a day! I'm also just fascinated with seeing what's going on in people's lives and with comparing their results vs. GRE scores when given. Honestly it's been giving me hope so far.

Happy new year and the warmest and best wishes to all of you and your projects!

I think it's more than okay to have only ideas and directions when you're an undergrad and are applying for a PhD, because I don't think faculties are really comfortable with someone who doesn't seem open and flexible. But maybe my ideas are like baby carrots and might be relevant but completely miss the point of actual carrots, which is that they be eaten even if only to try stuff and choose better carrots, instead of being just nibbled at.

Er- honestly it would be much smarter to buy a new charger and submit your app. What if your flight back is late? It will cost you less to buy a charger and submit your app now, than coping with a possible problem and not being able to send in your application...

It didn't appear on the SOP for Princeton, because I used a 2.0 interlignage for it, whereas I'm trying to smoosh it all in a 1.5 or less for Cornell's limit of 2 pages! Hahaha

I was only trying to understand you guys' own words, but I think there's some kind of mental blockage that prevents me from understanding the detail of this particular topic

Thank you @kayrabbit for your detailed answer! You understood my interrogations correctly, and gave me a little more hope with regard to my applying with a BA. It still seems strange that undergrads were more prepared than MA holders for their PhD!

I really don't think they will keep the spot for you next year :/

It's not cliché when it's sincere. When you feel bad you can pm me! Whenever you want, actually! I try to be a good listener

@Kilos I know I'm not in your shoes, but the very little you write breaks my heart. I'm really anxious about that time of life, even though my mom is still perfectly fine. (Although that doesn't necessarily mean she's "safe"!) You and I don't know each other, but I can assuredly say that you're being extremely strong!

I've been told some of the footnotes are surprising by a member of this forum who's been reviewing my SOP's! Not a professor. I was too afraid to ask a prof. about reviewing my material... Thanks a lot for the advice. You are right about the footnotes that you were able to see, as they simply refer to their editor's website (so the committee has all the info that I did not give in the SOP, like date, all co-authors etc.). Those are the ones I've been told are a little weird but that, for some reason, I've been clinging to (probably because I thought they made my SOP look more professional... should I re-write them instead? Or do they not need all that info, maybe?). However, the Loi Travail one I think is useful because it gives a short summary of what it is and what happened, but without burdening the flow of the paragraph. Does that make sense? Very interesting that you have experience with French academics. I truly hope, since I am applying to Comparative Literature departments and since they have French-speaking and French thought-familiar profs, that the committee will take into account some cultural differences there may be with the US. Even my LOR's will demand that the cultural differences be acknowledged. Anyway, I've already sent out my apps to all my favorite schools So I'll take your advice into account for the very last one (Cornell) but the damage is already done...

Okay thanks. I was only under the impression that you thought BA > PHD applicants did better in their PhD, but I guess I misunderstood!

Wow! Thank you for being my grad school dictionary and encyclopedia So when you say this: There's a distinction between MA to PhD and BA to PhD that you have observed, and that I'd like you to expand on as well

I think the issue is not your sense of humor, but the fact that people (yes, me included) look for "the little bug", la petite bête, and forget that we can also actually mean to use the first definition of a word Now that we've made it clear that some French person did not teach you the wrong word for their own amusement, I think your joke is very sweet and funny!

Oh good then, that works! Because my perverted mind thought you were asking for some butt crack

I've been told that my footnotes were surprising. But I have a few of them because there are some French stuff that either need explanations (like this Loi Travail thing), or because I want to give the original, pre-translation quotes I use in my SOP. Thanks for the insight @fuzzylogician!

Thanks @angel_kaye13, my native language is an ambiguous subject even for me, but I'm much more fluent in French than in English despite my origins, for sure. Hum so, no, I know about the differences when it comes to admissions etc.! My interrogations were actually on how courses and the cohort were different, between people entering with a previous MA or entering directly after their BA. Ha, language--we'll get there, angel_kaye13! lol I'm asking because you said that direct-to-PhD people were generally badasser? If I understood correctly!

Yay! But--oh my! La raie?

Got it. I did forget to mention that there is a 2-page limit and that my SOP is already too long as it is... Thank you @TakeruK

naïveté. Man, I love it when French words creep into other languages.

Hey there, I did not receive notifications and did not see your answers, my apologies! Well I'm worried about it @fuzzylogician because it messes with the hierarchy of my document. The paragraph about my "political inclination" seems detached from the preceding paragraph, which would not be justified. So I don't want to seem like a bad writer. I'm already done typing all of those parts and, on top of that, Cornell asks for the name and proposed area of study to be repeated on each page, which will emphasize the separation even more Do you think it doesn't matter? Thanks for the info about the footnote @TakeruK. And you are totally right, I just tried deleting the 4th footnote. So bless you (even if you didn't just sneeze).