UsernamesAreTricky

Me again. Two of my professors submitted their recommendation letters before the deadline (which was Thursday Dec 15 at 5 PM). On my application, it still shows that the letter of the third is not submitted. After freaking out about the third possibly forgetting or postponing submission of my letter till after the deadline, I emailed him this morning and sent him another reminder from the school's application portal, pretty much begging him to send the letter ASAP, so that my application would still be considered. He replied that he had already sent it last night. However, my application still says it's not submitted, or even started! Obviously, I know he's telling the truth, but I'm very worried about the fact that it doesn't seem to be officially submitted with my application! Could it be that the system stops accepting any letters after 5 PM sharp?! If so, what do you think I should do next?

If I do end up being a professor, this is a public promise to myself that I will never, ever leave a student freaking out the night before her application is due because I haven't submitted my letter yet. 2/3 of my letter writers haven't submitted their letters yet, and my application is due tomorrow! I already sent them a reminder last week (which they both confirmed seeing), so I'm worried sending them another reminder, less than 24 hours before my deadline, would be overkill @EvelynD I would say it depends on how you feel about your four other applications. I'm pretty sure a typo won't be a big deal, but if there are other reasons you don't feel very confident about the other universities you applied to, then it might be worth applying to this one as well I'm only applying to one place which is why I'm so anxious about my referees submitting their letters on time!

@EvelynD @suavesana If it makes you feel any better, I'm only applying to two schools, including one where the DGS (who also happens to be my PoI there) told me that though my proposed research topic is "wonderfully compatible" with the department, my lack of background in Anthropology is a major disadvantage. So I might end up just applying to one school. Yay! Oh and I retook the GRE hoping to increase my quant score, but ended up getting a lower score (158 to 154, 70th percentile to 55th); however, my verbal and AWA scores increased, but they were both >= 93% in the first exam anyways. So now I don't know whether to send the scores of my second GRE test because of the improvement in the V and AWA sections (I've already sent those of the first), or to refrain from doing so since my Q score dropped. As I've mentioned before, I NEED good GRE scores to try to make up for my lack of anthro background, publications, research assistantships, etc. PhD applications have NOT been fun/easy for me so far

@knp The samples on Duke freaked me out too. I have no formal background in Anthropology, so seeing all these SoP's where people had BOTH field experience and a BA and MA in Anthro was a bit unnerving. I'm glad that's not the case for most departments! @Quickmick I share the same concern about possibly erring in leaving out a big name or including an unpopular one. So I think I'll forgo including previous work altogether in the SoP. There's only so much I can say in <1,000 words, I'd rather be the one saying it @bioarch_fan I'll probably end up writing a writing sample from scratch, since I don't have any anthro papers, and then show how much I know about the field by citing people there instead of in my SoP. Thanks for the advice!

Sure, go ahead and send it to me This is the first (and hopefully last) time I apply to a PhD myself, so I'm not quite sure what one should/shouldn't ask a PoI! Maybe someone who has applied in the past can help you with that

Speaking of SoP's... I just checked out the samples on Duke's website and it made me wonder if a bibliography would be needed for the SoP? The samples (which are intimidatingly detailed) have in-text citation, stating the author's name & year, but I'm not sure if the applicants had included a bibliography that is not shown in the samples posted on the website. Thoughts? @EvelynD I would be happy to read your SoP, but I can't pretend to know what it's supposed to be like...

That's why I'm worried, because I don't have those other qualifications (publications, solid anthro background/research...), so I feel like I need to "make up" for that in some way. (And congrats!) That makes me feel better, thanks! I guess I should just e-mail my professors for a letter of recommendation now. I keep postponing that because I'm STILL looking for somewhere to apply to besides my top choice (which is definitely a reach). This is why it was probably not a great idea to fixate on a specific college since I was a child! If I were an admissions officer, I would be so impressed by all of this, I probably wouldn't really care about your GRE scores... Alas, I don't have your background, so I would care about my score

Thanks vonham. My research topic lies in Social Anthropology, which is why I'm hesitant about submitting a Sociolinguistics paper as my writing sample. I'm not sure how relevant to Anthro/my research topic the writing sample should be. I wish schools were clearer about what they're looking for (academic background, minimum GRE's, work experience, etc.)

Hi everyone! I'm new to both Grad Cafe and Anthropology I've been procrastinating so much with my applications; I haven't written my statement of purpose, chosen a writing sample, or even contacted my professors for a letter of recommendation yet because I'm quite anxious about this whole process, and have been postponing it for the past three years! My "dream school" is a top 5 department, and I've contacted a professor there who is interested in my research. However, I'm so worried about actually applying because, with the exception of one undergraduate course (A-), I have no formal background in anthropology whatsoever, i.e. whatever I know is through personal effort/reading. On the bright side, I'm from the country I plan to do my fieldwork in, so I won't need any language training as the language is my mother tongue. I have never written a paper relevant to Social Anthropology, so I don't know if it would be prudent to send a paper that is not related to my proposed research topic, or even anthropology in general (my MA was in Linguistics). Should I write a paper relevant to my proposed research topic, or at least to anthropology more generally? Also, I've heard that top 5 schools usually expect 330 on GRE V + Q and >=5.5 on the AW, especially if you have no research experience or publications. Does anyone know if this is true? I sat for the GRE and got 158 on the quantitative section (70th percentile), and I'm worried this will hurt my application. I'm not exactly excited to sit for another four hour exam, but would consider taking the GRE again if my quant score puts me at a disadvantage. Thoughts? Any advice would be highly appreciated! (Apologies for the lengthy post)