Jae B.

(LOL.) stadium love

I definitely understand the need for a non-native English speaker to get help editing their work; to help with grammar, word choice, etc. I have spent a lot of time editing such papers, and I've actually had a lot of fun doing so. However, I would probably resist helping this particular person, if I were you, because it sounds like they might pressure you to do more than your fair share of the work. It sounds like they'd be happy to have too much help! Helping someone who is actively learning better English is one task, but assisting a potential moocher is another. They have to work through creating their writing sample the hard way! Sure, it's going to be more difficult for them, but they need to be behaving as if they are prepared for the challenge, not as if they're hoping for an easy way out.

Start now so you have plenty of time for drafts! I definitely started in July. My apps were due in Dec. At least in my case, the more I worked on my SOPs, the better they got, so starting early was essential.1,500 words sounds good. The more material, the better for when you're closer to your deadlines and need good stuff to polish. Just separate your ideas so they're easy to sort through later -- you don't want a daunting, complicated web of material to edit, and that wouldn't be easy for anyone to read anyway.Revise revise revise! And if you decide you want to write a whole 'nother SOP a month or two from now, do it! No fear.

robot chicken

burning rubber

Yay, not as horrible this time. It was the internship + losing my usual internet access.

Corte Madera is awesome. I used to live in Larkspur, the neighboring town. Cool parks and two outdoor malls. I don't have any experience commuting via bicycle. I've never taken mine out of Marin, because dealing with it on public transit just seemed like too much of a hassle. The farthest I've heard of people commuting via bike is SF to Oakland, so SF to Berkeley wouldn't be that much farther. El Cerrito to Berkeley would be fine, but El Cerrito to Tiburon would probably be arduous. To be honest, Tiburon's a pretty out-of-the-way place in general. Marin is a pretty bike-friendly place, except some drivers adamantly hate cyclists (on racing bikes in spandex outfits) because we have so many of them. Watch out for those guys! I haven't seen buses run out of room and have to leave someone behind in the Bay Area, but I've seen maybe two close ones in Marin where all the bike spaces (on the front and in the back of the bus) got taken. BART has certain times outlined in their schedule when bikes aren't allowed, but I don't know how strictly that's enforced. I see bikes on BART all the time. I really wish there was ferry service from Marin to Berkeley! I don't believe there is a ferry from Tiburon to Berkeley, although there may have been one in the past -- I've read Berkeley ferry service ended in 1989. As far as I know, Berkeley is debating adding a ferry service, at least to SF. You can take a ferry between Tiburon and SF, but I believe there's only the Blue & Gold Fleet service, which is more expensive than Golden Gate Transit's ferry service, and even they are expensive. Blue & Gold is $10 one way, $20 round-trip. Golden Gate ferries operate out of Larkspur and Sausalito to SF, and they cost $8.25 one way if you pay with cash, but it's only $4.40 from Sausalito to SF (and 5-something from Larkspur) if you use a Clipper transit card (used to be called TransLink) that can also be used on GGT and AC Transit buses (though you won't need to pay for AC) and BART. So with Clipper, the GGT ferry costs about the same as their out-of-county bus rides. But I'm not sure how to get there from Tiburon. I generally just take the bus since getting to the ferry seems kind of slow. I could be wrong about that, though.

Do you really 100% use that site, or do you copy your text? I'd be too scared.

While your GPA from the last two years should be most heavily considered, your overall GPA will be seen as an average of your work at both schools you attended. (You should also calculate your major GPA, and see how that looks.) In any writing you do, you may want to emphasize your personal improvements at your new school, and how they'll help you in grad school. I hope your lower division institution is not more prestigious than the school you transferred to? That would not bode well. I believe schools can be understanding if you have a lower 3.x GPA from a particularly challenging school, but they won't like it if it looks like you left to earn a better GPA elsewhere instead of trying to improve where you were. If I were you, I'd write some other reason for transferring -- did you have any extenuating circumstances to work through, special opportunities at your new school, or better major options? If I were you, I'd work on those test scores. If you did really well on the GRE, that would give you a stronger chance. Also, if there's any way you can start learning some of those CS fundamentals you're missing now, so you can mention your effort in your applications, that could help show your dedication and potential for admissions, too.

underwire bra

dish washer

Ooh, you're lucky to get to work in Tiburon! Very nice area, and ritzy. I currently live in Marin County (which Tiburon is part of) and commute to Berkeley via public transportation. It's not a bad public transit commute; cheapest way is BART to El Cerrito Del Norte and Golden Gate Transit to San Rafael, but you can also take BART to SF and then GGT across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin. (Taking GGT buses -- when you don't have a free AC Transit option -- is nice because you basically pay the price of bridge toll alone without the care and keeping of a vehicle.) Traffic gets VERY heavy in Marin County during peak hours -- not enough lanes for recent population growth, causes short distances to take a ridiculous amount of time -- so I advise you to always be an early bird! 6 - 7 a.m. the traffic is light, and again after 6 - 6:30 p.m. traffic lightens. 3 - 4 p.m. traffic is terrible, often bumper-to-bumper in downtown areas. However, Marin and SF are generally more expensive than Berkeley and El Cerrito. Everyone I know who lives in El Cerrito loves it, and as I indicate above it is a good commute spot (BART from El Cerrito to Berkeley is pretty cheap, and you'll have free bus access to Berkeley via the 7 going through the hills or 72 line on San Pablo Ave. for when you're pinching pennies), though perhaps it's not the best for Tiburon, which is much closer to SF. I'm not sure about deals in SF (I can tell you that the price of BART between SF and Berkeley is annoyingly expensive, but the trip saves a lot of time and the effort of difficult and costly parking in Berkeley), but I can talk about Marin. Generally speaking: high rent, low crime, nicely kept, not for people who want to party all the time but there's a decent music and arts scene that's attracted some great musicians and creative people to areas like Mill Valley, great public transportation, designed for commuting -- that's why we got the Golden Gate Bridge! The only places you can really get a deal are certain parts of San Rafael (like near the Canal district and the Terra Linda area -- though you'd want to stick as close to downtown SR as possible for ease of commute) and Marin City (which is closer to where you'll be working, and has a nice newish shopping center with great transit and freeway access). Terra Linda is a tame place, but a little out of your way unless you lived close to the hill to downtown SR, near Northgate Mall (which is newly remodeled and very nice), where there's great freeway access to the East Bay and Tiburon (though I'd rate the public transit access as okay). The other two areas -- the Canal district (with limited shopping without going to downtown SR, but it's close enough and they are improving the area) and Marin City -- are not what most would call desirable for Marin, but frankly compared to other places in SF, Richmond and Oakland, they are pretty tame and actually nice! Do some research and get to know the relevant areas where you think a commute is manageable. I live in a small Marin town further inland than you'd want to live and have lousy freeway access, but I still have a manageable commute to both the East Bay and SF as long as I set out early enough to beat traffic. I'm not sure Marin or SF would be that much more expensive than Albany unless you get a deal on a really small place there, or maybe a granny unit on someone's private property plus yard chores or dog or kid sitting. I've seen lots of funky little opportunities like that, but maybe that's not what you're looking for since it sounds like you'll be pretty busy! I hope that helps, and good luck!

I've read that as well, and it makes sense to give yourself a chance. I could see someone really running out of time, though, and not selecting anything for the last few. *college course placement exam flashback*

Not able to register for classes until the end of July...not that it matters, because my first semester is all required courses.

I sometimes offer to update their website for them, as a hint.

Are you referring to "signing across the seal"? That's what I've seen instructions say before, I think as a security measure to verify that the "letter writer" actually wrote the letter. An open envelope would be an implication it was okay to read a letter, but I don't think a missing signature necessarily implies that. If I saw a missing signature, I'd ask them to sign it.

I, too, was informed that the first questions determine how high a score you can achieve by ascertaining what bar you're at: when you get questions wrong the test will give you easier and easier questions until you start getting them right, but the easier questions are, the less they're worth. So you want to correctly answer as many of the harder questions you get in the beginning as possible, so you're offered more valuable questions! I would try thinking of it as a slippery slope.... Good luck!

You're welcome, and good luck!

One of my LORs (that I was allowed to read) had a small typo in it. I only worried about it for a second -- it was so minuscule I had to think about whether it was a typo or not for that sec! So if there's a major chance readers won't even notice, I wouldn't make an issue of an otherwise great letter. I'm sure the letter only had a positive reflection on me. I think the GRE vs. GPA mistake is more serious, however, if it could potentially give your readers a negative impression of both your GPA and GRE scores, accurate or not. You might try to seek a correction for that error. I know it can be hard to ask for fixes to LORs -- it can be hard to ask for them in the first place -- because of the time investment you're asking someone to make for you, but think of the investments you've made in this particular relationship, and also remember that the quality of the letter reflects on your writer as well as you. I wouldn't want one of my writers to look absentminded to their graduate-level peers because of me, so I'd try to clarify my information. That said, many people don't look at their LORs. I have no idea what one of mine said! If those LORs have mistakes in them, none of us would be the wiser.

You still have time. Make office hours visits a priority -- another transfer student here, did this the semester I applied to grad school and managed to get a strong recommendation in my field I wasn't sure I'd be able to get! Office hours visits, while not a guarantee, are one of the best ways to get to know a professor -- especially if you don't have much time to do so and can't risk them not noticing your contributions in class. If the professor doesn't have high-traffic office hours, stopping by to show them someone's interested in talking to them gives you big points! But if the professor does field a lot of students, make an appointment so you can talk without being too rushed. Honestly, this is something I didn't do enough of! Making a list of every professor I'd ever taken a class from or consulted for any reason (major department, major advisor, specialized in topic I researched, etc.) really helped me. I highlighted every professor I'd 1) taken or would take more than one class with, 2) I thought knew me well enough, 3) that I really appreciated regardless of how well I thought they knew me. Then I decided who would be relevant to my applications, and I used the summer and semester I was applying to graduate school to re-connect with those people. If you can get two recommendations in or close to your field / interests, then I think a third could be less directly related. For that less-related letter, you could give that recommender some important talking points that would convey you have excellent graduate-level potential for your programs; your maturity, you are personable and easy to work with, have excellent writing, go the extra mile, clearly express critical thinking, have strong research skills, etc. Some other relevant information that demonstrates your preparation and would count towards your admission. Try to figure out what student-skills are most important to your programs, and have that third person emphasize your success in those areas. If your major interests have ever snuck into your outside-major classes (mine did ALL the time -- no matter how unrelated the course actually was!), perhaps you could ask one of those professors to talk about a project you did or essay you wrote that is related to your grad school field. So try to think about the work you're most proud of, how it relates to your interests, and then think about the people connected to it -- and you still have time to reach out to them! Do you have any work experience in your field? Maybe you can get one strong non-academic letter.

I'm not sure why, but suddenly I'm getting loads of junk mail, too. Could be the schools I was interested in and/or other education websites I signed up for....

No no, thanks, it's fine -- I know most of you are going for academic careers. I may do so later in life, so the distinctions are of interest to me even though my current outlook is different.

I think lack of confidence was my greatest pitfall. Like abacus123, I would send out at least one more application if I went back in time and did this all over again. Not because I think it'd change things (I'm very happy with my school -- it's definitely my #1 choice now), but because there was one school I didn't apply to purely due to lack of confidence. I read the current student profiles and went, nope, nuh uh, they wouldn't pick me. But I thought the same about the school I'm going to (again due to those pesky student profiles), however in that case I just couldn't not apply because I was right there to drop off my application in-person! So maybe I wasn't so off-base for the other school, either. Knowing that I discounted myself sucks. Honestly, lack of confidence almost made me give up on my application to the school I'll be attending in the fall, because when my life got busy, I thought to myself, why am I wasting my time applying someplace I'm not going to get in? But I hung in there with it because it's my alma mater, and as I said it was just too close to home to skip out on. Gee, I'm glad I applied! I guess the moral of the story is, worry about being over-confident and having applied where you don't think you'll get in, rather than being unconfident and applying fewer places because of it. You may think you're wasting your time, but that's better than discounting yourself and your potential opportunities. Don't limit yourself -- only let your acceptances limit you after you've done the work. And don't let student profiles intimidate you! Just because no one seems "like" you doesn't mean there's no place for you in that program. In fact, it could mean you're just what that program needs.

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