Sandmaster

In my experience that was the case. I didn't get told anything about the hotel (just that there would be one provided) until like a week before.

Just to throw this one out there, I know University of Minnesota has a Literacy Education program within their Curriculum and Instruction department. I applied with lower stats than you and got admitted (different concentration though). Priority funding is given to full time PhD students, so more than likely it is fully funded too.

Not tuition usually, but the course fees and university fees are typically not covered. Those typically come out of your stipend.

Is that a university wide minimum? I also got into UMN but haven't received a funded offer yet. I was told it comes next month if I am funded, or not. I was hoping the offer would be over 20k.

Remember that many times the course fees are not waived, so that comes out of your stipend, then you have to take taxes and books out of that stipend as well. It is nice they are covering 100% of your healthcare, but you may need to pay for extra coverage (such as vision, or dental) so keep that in mind. Assuming you have enough left over after all of that, then yes it is an okay amount. It is good they are offering you summer funding because as @psstein stated, that is somewhat rare depending on the field.

Opinion from a non-linguistics applicant. My undergrad GPA was just over a 3.0 (I think it was a 3.082 or something) and I took the route of a funded master's (they are difficult to find, but do exist) and was able to get accepted into some PhD programs for next fall due to my "upward trajectory" in my GPA. I think the same holds true for you based on your current success in your last half of your undergrad. You may still need to look at a master's if you get denied everywhere, but I think you have the chance without it. While the ending GPA is quite low, it is above a 3.0 and the adcomms do look at the trends of GPA and focus a lot on the last 60 hours for undergraduate applicants. The GRE is also another great opportunity to shine if you can take the time and study for it. Lastly, letters of rec and your personal statement are very important as well. I think the most solid advice I got when I looked at applying to PhD programs was the fit of the program means everything. Now that I have gone through an admission season, I can say it really does. I got into some extremely competitive programs and got interviewed at others with the hope of getting admitted, simply because I fit their research interests and carefully selected the programs I applied to based on the research that program was doing. Then, I tailored my statement of purpose and asked my letters of rec writers to focus on specific elements of my skill set that would fit best with that program. I think the hard work and planning really paid off for me. Don't limit yourself due to your GPA. It is just one element of the application and they are really more interested in you and why you want to pursue the PhD in the first place.

Yeah, same. Mine has been in status "being reviewed" for a few weeks now. I think that just means the department is reviewing the apps and deciding on interviews, etc.

Congrats on your acceptance! I haven't heard anything back yet either. It is the last school I have yet to hear anything from. Others have already been admits, or interviews for me. I shall keep on waiting!

I took an interesting route that could interest you. So in my undergrad I studied to be a STEM teacher in secondary ed. I got all the way to student teaching before I realized it was not what I really ultimately wanted to do. When I went into my master's program, I looked at higher education administration (Student Affairs) programs and found one that allowed me to work in a higher education institution as an academic advisor, financial aid, admissions, student conduct, housing, student involvement, greek life admin, etc. There are so many different avenues for that type of field within education and you may find one that fits for you. Ultimately, for me, I decided to apply for my PhD in learning technologies/sciences and become an education researcher and hopefully professor. I find studying and developing educational technology to be fascinating, but I would not have found that passion had I not gone to graduate school. The point is, you can do a lot with an education degree and you should not limit yourself to just being a teacher. Teaching is a wonderful profession and if it is your calling you should at least try your hand at it. Probably one of the most rewarding experiences of mine was going through the teaching clinical courses in my undergraduate program. But, I was like you and wanted to see what else there was in education and luckily I found something that I am really passionate about and can see doing for the rest of my life. If you need anything, feel free to reach out.

I do not have any experience with this exactly, but they are going to base your admissions decision on the information they have at that point in time (on your unofficial transcript) and I believe it would only be a big issue if you were to change a course that was absolutely required (like a required course for the program) and did not complete their requirements for entry. This is obviously not too common, but as long as you suffice the requirements of the program and actually earn the bachelor's degree, they will hold true to any admissions offer they make you. Typically, graduate programs will offer a conditional admissions offer contingent on you earning your undergraduate degree and show them an official, degree-bearing, transcript. I have heard of graduate schools revoking admissions decisions if someone were to completely bomb their last term and had an abysmal GPA, but never for changing courses like I said.

While I am not an international applicant, I can completely feel you on the fact that I had to order official transcripts from my three institutions (two undergrad and one grad). While it is somewhat burdensome for me, I could imagine it was costly and annoying for you. I am very sorry that there is that added struggle for international applicants that I had never really considered before. I know that getting all of those transcripts costed me like an extra $70 which could have been used to apply to one-two other schools, or just saved that money in general. I applied to seven programs and two of them were fee waived. So the five programs, between the GRE scores, app fees, and transcripts for two of them, costed me around $650. It was not an easy pill to swallow, but all in all it paid off as I have been getting some good news and I am at least getting interviewed and already an acceptance at some of my top choices. But, I would have felt devastated if I had been flat out rejected after spending that money

From what I have read, you should treat it like a job interview. Most guys I know will have a nice button-down dress shirt and a tie with nice pants and usually a jacket/blazer of some kind.

Good luck! I just got into UMN a few days ago myself. You will make it! Many congrats to you as well! I am so happy for you!!! To OP, if it means anything, I was able to get into a decently selective programs with an absolutely horrid UG GPA. Luckily I did not completely bomb my GRE and my grad GPA was much much higher and related to my PhD program field. Strong letters of Recommendation and statement of purpose really help too. I honestly think it was a combination of these that allowed me to get into my one program so far and get interviews at an even more competitive (and prestigious) program. Hang in there, you can make it!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their support and guidance. I have gotten two interview offers so far and my first acceptance at a third institution! I will keep you all updated as I hear more.

t_ruth, I am so sorry to hear that this happened! I just got an interview offer from a female professor and I made sure to explicitly show her the same level of respect I show any professor regardless of their sex. I am extremely thrilled and excited to have gotten this opportunity and I think it would be absolutely crazy to not show a professor respect. Maybe that was just my upbringing, but I am always extremely cordial when talking with professors. Even if we are partner scholars, they are still to be respected. There are professors at my undergraduate institution that I became very close friends with and I still call them Dr. Name.

Completely different field from you, so it could be different from my understanding. From how I was told, every institution is vastly different in terms of who they let supervise PhD students. Most have the requirement that as long as the faculty member has "graduate teaching clearance" meaning they teach at the graduate level, they can be your supervisor. Some require that the supervisor at least hold a tenure-track position (assistant professor, etc). One of my institutions, I wanted to work with a lecturer and the graduate coordinator told me that was fine as long as I had a co-advisor who was tenure-track, but every institution is different on who is available to work with PhD students and at what capacity. Then there is the whole idea of who can be a member on your committee too. Again, gotta ask the institution once you get in and decide that is where you are going. I hope this helps!

Typically for a school to recognize that the transcripts are "official" they need to arrive either electronically directly from the school, or in a sealed envelope from the school. Just check with your potential school how they determine what they want when they say "official". I have seen some take a scanned copy of an official transcript (meaning it is printed with the fancy paper and school letterhead), but each school is different. My applications wanted either unofficial transcripts uploaded in a .pdf version to their application, or they wanted official transcripts sent directly in the mail to them in a sealed envelope (which costed me quite a bit in money as I had two UG transcripts and one Grad transcript and I had more than one school who wanted these official transcripts).

My GRE Scores were at the universities by a few days. The way I understand it is that ETS sends the scores electronically to most institutions. I sent mine on Sunday and by Thursday of that week the schools had received them and input them into my application. Obviously time may vary as deadlines are quickly approaching.

I just finished mine for my applications about a week ago. I had Education, Research Interest, Research Experience, Professional Experience, University Service, Professional Associations, Awards/Honors, and Community Involvement (I would have another section for conference work and another for publication if I had any, but unfortunately not yet). Also, I made sure to tailor my CV to only include things that were relevant to what I was applying to (so I did not list all of my work experience, etc). I made sure it was all relevant and decently current (oldest mention was August 2013) even if I had other experiences from way back in undergraduate and before.

For what it is worth, I got a 5 on my writing, but here is what I thought given your writing sample. "A great leader is that a person who can help his the people they lead in their times of distress not by showing superiority to them, but by... (finish the sentence, currently seems fragmented). A person learns leadership from his events in their (or early on in their) childhood. Childhood is the period which will determine what he they will do next in his next their life (awkward sentence and I am not really sure what you are trying to prove). So whatever he they learns in that time their childhood is very important for his their life. That's why he they should learn to help others from childhood not neglecting them and thinks to go forward." I wont go through the rest of the writing, but basically there are a few things you need to keep in mind when writing on these prompts. Try your best to avoid spelling mistakes, there are a few of them in there. Sentence structure should be done so that the reader can clearly understand what your argument is and what you are trying to prove. The whole idea of these prompts are to force you to either poke holes in other's logic, or write what your opinion is and provide support for that opinion. You can do neither of them if you do not structure your sentences well. I know that 30 minutes is not a lot of time to really think about the prompt and still get a lot written down, but you need to really think about the prompt for about a minute and perhaps type out a quick outline of what your end goal of the essay is. When I took the GRE writing portion, I thought about what belief I wanted the reader to end with and how I was going to prove my opinion to them. So I knew that every paragraph needed to build on each other and further my point to the conclusion. As an example, I would have an outline similar to this one for this prompt: Intro: talk about what it means to be a leader What qualities does a leader have? Does cooperation belong in those traits? What does competition do? Do I agree with the prompt? 1st body: Pick the first trait and talk about how it fits in with my opinion 2nd body: Next trait that supports the first one and flows to the end point. 3rd....etc body: Continue the flow Conclusion: Sum up why all of those things make a great leader and supports my vision of what a leader really is. End the essay with some powerful statement that shows I am confident in my stance. I hope this helps. I really can not evaluate a grade of what you would probably get as I have never really evaluated essays before, but it would maybe be around a 3-3.5 currently?

All 5 applications are officially complete! I am so relieved! Now comes the process of checking all of the applications 10 times a day to make sure they eventually get marked as complete. Waiting for GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and transcripts to arrive is nerve wrecking as they all need to be submitted by Dec 1 so I can be considered.

Your Quant is really good for education programs. Verbal is quite a bit low and writing is a little low. It really does depend on which "tier" of school you apply to, but most usually want around 155-157 verbal, 153-155 quant, and a 4 in writing. Most schools for my education program used a holistic evaluation of the fit of the applicant to their program. Because you UGRAD and GRAD GPA is pretty good, they may overlook less than average GRE scores. Just depends on the school.

Personally, I think you stand a very good chance. Not trying to get your hopes up of course. I am also applying to some C&I departments (different ones than you have stated) and my stats are not as high. So, I think you could make a strong candidate. It should come down to your writing sample and statements and your letters of recommendation. You really want to make sure you know why you want to do the Ph.D. versus an Ed.D. cause they will more than likely ask, or want to see why you chose the research doctorate over the administrative one.

I am pretty sure attachments posted in public will not open on the forums. You need to directly message the person and attach it that way.

I am running into this exact thing, but my programs want something even smaller! My M.S. does not require a thesis, so I am using a graduate term paper from a course that is closely related to what I want to focus my Ph.D. studies on. The original paper was about 21 or so pages of content and with the revisions to turn it into a far more focused and direct writing sample, I ended with about 15 pages of pure content. Some programs will let me turn the entire thing in, but some are extra restrictive to "no more than 5 pages". I haven't fully edited the paper into a second copy that is 5 pages, but I am planning to leave the abstract, introduction, theoretical framework, and at least one of the major theories I delve into as well as references of course. I am not sure if I should include the discussion portion or not, but I plan to explain in my statement of purpose to this school that I am more than happy to provide the entire writing sample if they wish it. I am curious if I should include the entire reference page, or just the references that the portion they receive talk about? I know it is proper to only reference sources that you actually talk about in the paper. I hope this works out well for me.