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I thought that even law schools know the difference between their training and PhD training and that is why they confer SJD degrees which involves a lot of research and probably teaching as well. I am wondering SOG25 why you seem to be the only person that just cannot get it .

I agree with C d M that you have to be honest and that you have to talk to your prof in person. Most people do stupid things during their lifetime especially when we are young(er) so if you are humble enough you may be able to clear your reputation.However, I would just accept the failing mark on this one because clearly it would not be fair with your classmates that you took all that time to finish your paper, and also you were dishonest.

Try to talk to a psychologist. I did it last year and it helped with my procrastination issue a lot. If you are depressed or you have mental disabilities that you do not know about he may be able to help too.

If I remember correctly last year my last deadline (to a US school) was on the 15th of January . It was a well respected department. I know that you have already paid a lot but probably you could still add a few (good! ) programs in the name of not to waste sunk costs if you really want to start this year. (and I agree with everyone suggesting that you may want to do everything to get "a" recommendation in.).. Good Luck!

If it is a US school and you get a fellowship normally they will pay for your visit.

I guess it depends where the department is at in the recruiting process. If you got in touch with a PI, advisor, grad coordinator already who is trying to convince you to go there I would ask this question directly.

Division of Continuing Education? No it is not. But every adcom would know that IMHO.

if you are already in the middle can you finish very fast? Just take all the required classes in one semester, throw a thesis together and leave. That will end the boredom too if you say : I will finish in a semester period. Even if officially you cannot do that grad advisors can be very helpful in finding shortcuts! In that way you will have something tangibe and maybe you will be able to use that degree somewhere down the line.(you do not have to work in that area) if not then just leave, if you hate you will not be good in it and you are just wasting your time.

If you have the minimum don't worry. I had 21 or 22 (?) on speaking (haha) but no one even asked about it. But GRE will probably count in the decisions (as they can compare all applicants based on that number) so I would focus on that.

the toefl score is not important but you have a low verbal gre and a low toef which may convey the impression that your English is not god enough. Try to get your verbal GRE above 550 or better above 600 adn no one will take another look at your toefl.

I would get the recommendation from the prof. The grad student may be excellent but probably he does not have the academic accountability that a prof has ( he is not playing with his reputation when giving out glowing recommendations so they will take his word probably with a pinch of salt). Also he has not seen enough to be able to be taken seriously if he writes that this is the best student I have seen in my career. If I someone asked me for such a recommendation I would refuse to do it because I would not want to do any student a disservice. your advisor has probably been an adcom a lot of times and knows which LORs give applicants an edge.

good good. I still recommend the psychologist. they have seen a lot (of grad students ) and can put your struggles in perspective. (it is probably not very unusual)

Find the school psychologist. Most grad students end up there sooner or later, this is a stressful business. S/he will be able to advise you better. And have some rest over the holidays.

I guess the eventual deadline is when they start to review the files, and when the grad division or something forwards the file to the dept. . I had an application where one professor never submitted his recommendation. I got rejected, no wonder there. No one bothered to notify me , I could have seen it on the app.checker. That is said I would not panic because they do accept late reccomendations as I had a prof who just mass sent his ones late dec (my deadlines ranged fro early dec till mid jan.) and I there was no problem with any of those schools.

I found that good letters were on the long side and they were personal, you could really feel that the professor took the time to write the letter and really endorses the person. I would doubt that any professor would spend his valuable time to write a long personal and meaningless/ bad letter. I do not mean personal in the sense that the prof was talking about non research related issues only, but you could feel that they actually have a clue of the student and his/her work. Some of the LORs were shorter and still to the point (this research is vital for the future of humanity) mostly from the hard sciences, but some had only cliches. I was giving out points with deans and there was a general consensus about the rank of applications. Sometimes it was really the LOR which changed the game. So I think it can be actually a good thing if your prof takes some time to really write a good and detailed letter!

Well financial issues aside, here are some things that people do not really advertise about permanent masters courses. In most cases MA students are considered second class citizens. You will have hard time finding guidance and help. (PhDs are ther real deal). You have to rebuild all of your professional relationships very fast and then lose them. You will have to stress about your grades while PhD students may have less to do, but for you one bad grade can mean losing everything. You have to go through one more application cycle and there are no guarantees that you will do better. I think you should really think about applyig widely and if MA is really your best option chosing that but I am not sure how good this option is as a strategy.

I think you should wait with this worry until you have your offers: not that I want to be pessimistic- a lot of schools for instance are willing to pay international travel for you, esp. if you can connect several schools in a round trip they are willing to share costs. I am sure you will be able to read your email and that is enough to arrange a lot.

Cold weather warm weather, they both have their charms. Now I am at hot weather and the sunshine is nice, but well New England and other Northern places have their winter charm with the warmness that only snow can provide. Snowfights, snowmen, molded wine, brandy, fireplaces, hot chocolate, hot tea, ice skating are all those things I am missing. Do not decide until you have some offers, visited the places and saw them for yourself!

just write them a letter saying that you are very sorry that this and this happened (keeping details minimal) and here is the link for another ap.. they have most probably a general letter that they can modify and send if needed. Of course if you do this earlier than later they will have more time to modify it. I had the same doubts once, asking hesitantly for one more LOR and one of my profs was telling me that if he wrote a letter to me once I could and should just ask him for any number of recommendations at any time bc he has the basic letter in his computer. Now of course I did not get overconfident with using profs like that, but certainly I can see that if they have invested the energy to write you a letter already the inconvenience of sending it to one more place is minimal.

The more important questions are: How long was the letter? How personal was it (personal details,like I met this student ... blablabla) ? Who wrote it? I had to read through a bunch of LORs for some funding distribution (I was the student rep) and it was very easy to spot the real thing.

you will be fine. just make a note to yourself and do not forget to check again at the begining of January. I would be worried then. I had late recommendations and there was no problem at all.

I would say it is reasonable to freak out in January. No one will read your file before Jan. and they will not throw it out because a missing LOR. Try to remind your prof but definitely do not freak out.

Honestly I think it is much better if you do sign the waiver. I would not even want to look at my recommendations- what is done is done . I would worry though that this recommender does not know you well enough if they resorted copyig part of your SOP and characterize you as modest. Or maybe they are not a native speaker? I had a prof who asked me to write my own reccomendation letter than he tweaked it (he did not show it to me any more) the problem was that he was not a native speaker and I guess he wanted to get a template from me. Anyway there is nothing you could do about the situation. In some places they let you to submit 4 recommendations if you want to maybe you can ask another person. Otherwise just relax and change that part of your SOP.

? How did you see your letter of recommendation?

So what I meant was thar she might have to demonstrate something to the grad division. Like they want to eliminate the subfield, cut all grad students, cut research money etc. And she can say: look just in my class Blabla 240 there are 50 people interested in applying and they are serious. Proof : your letters... If the department misses out on something because you did not send her a letter when you are actually applying, she may get very furious. Well, I guess it is better not to talk to her if you estimate that she will blow you off, in stressful times that can be terrible. But often profs do not care enough about students to seriously to plot evil deeds against them, and one-on- one she may turn out to be a human. (and if not than there is a god chance that other "human" profs will also know the situation)