legob

Hi everyone So obviously UCLA is not using the Hubson application portal anymore. Instead, there is a new portal. Under the former one, we ad to write the Diversity Statement for fellowship application, which was only applicable to US citizens. This year, there is no required document as "Diversity Statement". But they ask for Personal History Statement which I think is the same as Diversity Statement. Do you guys feel the same? or am I missing something?

I'd have to agree with people who mentioned that it is not a good idea to state a faculty member's name on the SoP. I have worked three hard years in my field to get into a top 2 PhD program. I was working remotely with a professor in a prestigious program and then decided to apply for that program. I even had campus visit before filing my application. On my SoP which I believe was very effective and tailored about my research interest, I mentioned the name of the same professor. The guy had no grant at the time. Although the program's director liked my application, there were some other professors who obviously had some negative idea with prospective PI and YES, they persuaded the director to push me way back on the waiting list and at the end I got rejected!!! After six month (by having a lot of conversations with other people on campus) I realized that they professor I was going to work with was not popular at all and many wanted him out of the program. This is how I screwed up! So DO NOT specifically mention any names.