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semling got a reaction from Moccalove in is anyone here that's REALLY good at labelling/naming/classifying specific notes/documents in a memorable & effective way?
Unusually way of asking the question (as others have pointed out), but to actually answer what I think you're asking:
I use RefWorks to organize my all academic reading and notes. I have a source for everything I I read (which I usually do by dragging the PDF of the article into it, or I have a "Save to Refworks" link in Chrome), and I take limited notes on the reading within the Notes section of the reference. For things that are really relevant, I'll mark up the PDF with highlighting, notes, etc. and save the annotated version there as well.
Each source is tagged with the subjects (for example, "arabic_syntax", "tunisian_arabic", "negation", etc.), and then I use the folders for projects. So I'll have a folder for the paper I'm working on now, and all the sources will be in that folder. (Sources can be in multiple folders.)
My actually papers and research data is on Google Drive. I write my papers in Google Docs, and I have the Cite with Refworks plugin, so I can just insert the citations and create the bibliographies directly from Refworks.
It's a really great system and I wish I'd come up with it years ago ....
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semling got a reaction from An95 in How to Deal with Rejection
Also not my field, but I'm got some experience with very selective admission committees and wanted to add an important point to all the great ones mentioned above:
Don't take it personally
Seriously. You would not believe how, at a certain point, this process is largely arbitrary. Because, really, it's not like the departments are looking carefully at each application and saying "this person meets our standards, this person doesn't" and all the former get in. No. They do that, then look at the still large pile of people who meet their standards and they'd like to accept, and then somehow figure a way to whittle it down to the number of slots they actually have available.
It bothers me when I see people on results page say "oh, I knew my GPA [or GRE] wasn't good enough" or "I bet it was because I didn't have any publications." If your GRE/GPA is way below the average for your program, that might be the case. But for people at or above the average, it is literally impossible to guess why you weren't accepted and someone else was. (It's not impossible to know, you could ask them and they might tell you. But it's impossible to guess.) Once you meet a certain standard on the basics and you're on the shortlist, you can bet that what gets you accepted or rejected after that point is entirely out of your control. Departmental politics, a particular faculty member's ability to take on another student, the profiles of the students accepted last year, the profiles of the other students who will probably be accepted this year, unconscious biases (or affinities), funding issues ... Or a billion other things that could affect the decision — all of which are out of your hands, and none of which are even really about you.
So if you get rejected, even if you get rejected by all of them, don't take it personally. Take a good look and if you have obvious deficiencies make a plan to correct them, but if you don't, don't drive yourself crazy trying to find what small flaw caused them to reject you. Because, a lot of times, it's not you; it's them.
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semling got a reaction from displayname343q in Near Eastern Studies/NELC Fall 2018
Yeah, I really wish the programs were more transparent in their decision timing. Although I'm not too stressed out about it, since I already have one acceptance I would be very happy with (Georgetown), whatever happens with NYU. But I also can't start making definitive plans until I know if it's definitely going to be Georgetown or if I have a decision to make.
I hope your wife hears back soon!
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semling got a reaction from Anthrolologist in Near Eastern Studies/NELC Fall 2018
Just got an email from the department that I got in!
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semling got a reaction from KA.DINGER.RA in Near Eastern Studies/NELC Fall 2018
Just got an email from the department that I got in!
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semling got a reaction from Dark Chocolate Mocha in How to Deal with Rejection
Also not my field, but I'm got some experience with very selective admission committees and wanted to add an important point to all the great ones mentioned above:
Don't take it personally
Seriously. You would not believe how, at a certain point, this process is largely arbitrary. Because, really, it's not like the departments are looking carefully at each application and saying "this person meets our standards, this person doesn't" and all the former get in. No. They do that, then look at the still large pile of people who meet their standards and they'd like to accept, and then somehow figure a way to whittle it down to the number of slots they actually have available.
It bothers me when I see people on results page say "oh, I knew my GPA [or GRE] wasn't good enough" or "I bet it was because I didn't have any publications." If your GRE/GPA is way below the average for your program, that might be the case. But for people at or above the average, it is literally impossible to guess why you weren't accepted and someone else was. (It's not impossible to know, you could ask them and they might tell you. But it's impossible to guess.) Once you meet a certain standard on the basics and you're on the shortlist, you can bet that what gets you accepted or rejected after that point is entirely out of your control. Departmental politics, a particular faculty member's ability to take on another student, the profiles of the students accepted last year, the profiles of the other students who will probably be accepted this year, unconscious biases (or affinities), funding issues ... Or a billion other things that could affect the decision — all of which are out of your hands, and none of which are even really about you.
So if you get rejected, even if you get rejected by all of them, don't take it personally. Take a good look and if you have obvious deficiencies make a plan to correct them, but if you don't, don't drive yourself crazy trying to find what small flaw caused them to reject you. Because, a lot of times, it's not you; it's them.
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semling got a reaction from laekkauai in Will mislabeling my resume affect my chances of admission?
I seriously doubt that would affect your application at all. First of all, the application materials will be compiled by the graduate school into a single electronic record (depending on their system), and it's possible the filenames won't even appear. Secondly, even if it did appear it's likely the readers wouldn't notice something like that. And, lastly, even if they did notice they probably wouldn't care. In my experience (inside Ivy League undergrad admissions), they're decent people who give applicants the benefit of the doubt on things like that. They're not going to nix you just because you made a very understandable human error. (Of course, if there are many errors, to the point that it looks like you didn't put much work into your application or can't follow instructions, that's something different.) But they're not going out of their way to look for reasons to throw you out.
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semling reacted to SocialPsycNerd in How to Deal with Rejection
I'm currently on my second round of applications. While it hasn't been perfect, I have an in-person interview scheduled... so it's not off to a bad start! During my first round, I applied to four schools and had the belief (which was encouraged by faculty at the school I went to undergrad at) that I would definitely get in. Needless to say, I did not.
I... did not take it well. When I found out that I was not being invited for an in-person interview with the only program that I had gotten any contact from, I cried a bit. Fortunately, I work in an understanding lab, and I was able to take the day off. The PI in my lab helped me by providing just the right amount of work to do while I refocused.
My first step was to reach out to one of the researchers I applied to work with. Since we established a positive relationship, she was willing to offer me advice that strengthened my application. I strongly suggest this if it is possible. Rejection sucks, but it offers an opportunity to improve and strengthen your application. I followed these steps to strengthen my application:
Spent even more time working in labs Sought out opportunities to work on manuscripts (it's fine if they are listed as "in prep"!) and conference submissions Studied and retook the GREs. My scores weren't bad, but they needed improvement Rewrote my SOP. The SOP that I submitted last cycle wasn't bad, but it definitely needed some work Submitted an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application. Even if I don't get funding, going through the process is super useful! Refined my research interests
I'm honestly glad that I didn't get accepted last cycle. If I had, I would have missed a lot of opportunities to make myself a better researcher as well as a lot of life-based opportunities.
The best method of self-care for me was to allow myself to grieve the loss of the possibilities I saw and then refocus my efforts to be a better candidate next go around (all while allowing myself to live my life). I hope this helps!
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semling got a reaction from Cassatrass in Paper got Accepted after Submitting Application for Ph.D. Admission
I think this is by far the best answer. You don't want to send an updated version of your CV ("there's something new here: find it!"), and in my experience admission committees are always happy to have the updated information to base their decision on. In no way is it unprofessional to let them know about a major update like that.
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semling got a reaction from FacelessMage in How to Deal with Rejection
Also not my field, but I'm got some experience with very selective admission committees and wanted to add an important point to all the great ones mentioned above:
Don't take it personally
Seriously. You would not believe how, at a certain point, this process is largely arbitrary. Because, really, it's not like the departments are looking carefully at each application and saying "this person meets our standards, this person doesn't" and all the former get in. No. They do that, then look at the still large pile of people who meet their standards and they'd like to accept, and then somehow figure a way to whittle it down to the number of slots they actually have available.
It bothers me when I see people on results page say "oh, I knew my GPA [or GRE] wasn't good enough" or "I bet it was because I didn't have any publications." If your GRE/GPA is way below the average for your program, that might be the case. But for people at or above the average, it is literally impossible to guess why you weren't accepted and someone else was. (It's not impossible to know, you could ask them and they might tell you. But it's impossible to guess.) Once you meet a certain standard on the basics and you're on the shortlist, you can bet that what gets you accepted or rejected after that point is entirely out of your control. Departmental politics, a particular faculty member's ability to take on another student, the profiles of the students accepted last year, the profiles of the other students who will probably be accepted this year, unconscious biases (or affinities), funding issues ... Or a billion other things that could affect the decision — all of which are out of your hands, and none of which are even really about you.
So if you get rejected, even if you get rejected by all of them, don't take it personally. Take a good look and if you have obvious deficiencies make a plan to correct them, but if you don't, don't drive yourself crazy trying to find what small flaw caused them to reject you. Because, a lot of times, it's not you; it's them.
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semling got a reaction from madhumi in Applying for Fall 2018!
"Fewer than 7" seems like a really weird way to say "6", but whatevs, it's their letter ... Sorry to all the Berkeley applicants who didn't make it.
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semling got a reaction from PlsAdmitMePls in Fall 2018 Admission
Congrats. We need more women in CS (and especially WOC), so I'm rootin' for you!
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semling reacted to madhumi in Applying for Fall 2018!
I also only applied to four thinking that that was normal! Today marks the end of my involvement in the application process, though - by which I mean no more interviews or writing or really anything else I can do. Just waiting for results now!
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semling reacted to capslock in Fall 2018 Acceptances/Interviews/Rejections Thread
This this this SO MUCH THIS! Yes yes YES! SelfControl is a great app, as is this Freedom app that kindly reminds you that you are free from the anxieties that certain habits can exacerbate. @Goldie's words are wise. The fact of the matter is that the process is now out of our hands and beyond our control. It's like when you hand in an exam and spend the next three days perseverating over what your grade is going to be. You submitted what you submitted and no amount of worrying is going to change what is already submitted.
Also, here's some real talk. I have been accepted into a program and yet I still feel the crushing weight of anxiety when I think about my future. The day after I received my acceptance I found myself once again stalking the results page and refreshing these forums mindlessly, simply because I had been doing so for so long that it had become an ingrained habit. And I found that just the act of being on this page made me feel anxious, inadequate, and foolish for even thinking that I could have a chance of getting into grad school. It's as if I had forgotten that I had received an acceptance; the habits of anxiety and worry that I had created had grown so strong as to overpower that fact. Getting that acceptance email will not be a silver bullet in curing feelings of inadequacy, nor will getting a PhD, nor achieving tenure, nor any number of external markers of success.
Y'all are beautiful and brilliant and strong and good, and your worth is not tied to an acceptance or rejection. I can promise you that.
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semling reacted to seems_fair in Decision timelines for particular universities and programs derived from the gradcafe data + GRE/GPA distributions
Hi all.
Tired of waiting for graduate committees’ decisions I estimated decision timelines myself based on gradcafe data. For each university and program in albums below you will find three graphs:
Decision timeline as a cumulative sum of decisions (accept, reject, interview, waitlist) as a function of time between Jan 1 and May 1 for the last five years combined. Boxplots of GRE Q and GRE V for people who reported both scores. Histogram of GPAs (from 2.5 to 4.0 with 0.1 step).
Here is the list of programs I analyzed (some important notes below):
Computer science PhD https://imgur.com/a/cXaEs
Computer Science MS https://imgur.com/a/u3joC
Electrical Engineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/ra3Eh
Electrical Engineering MS https://imgur.com/a/KUGrD
Economics PhD https://imgur.com/a/NzlYm
Economics MS https://imgur.com/a/JfgSk
Statistics PhD https://imgur.com/a/mB5UC
Statistics MS https://imgur.com/a/tXowL
Mathematics (applied and pure) PhDhttps://imgur.com/a/d0821
Chemistry PhD https://imgur.com/a/U5x91
Physics (applied and pure) PhD https://imgur.com/a/35tTy
Chemical Engineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/Tng2r
Literature PhD https://imgur.com/a/LDKpT
Anthropology PhD https://imgur.com/a/d5ub4
Bioengineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/RpTSD
Philosophy PhD https://imgur.com/a/ihoGS
Biology PhD https://imgur.com/a/FWhoD
How to use the graphs?
I used this data to decrease my own misery. Now that I know decision timelines of universities and programs I applied to, I can refresh gradcafe less and concentrate on more useful stuff more. Also, it is interesting to explore differences between different universities/programs. For example, some universities do gradual accepts rejects/accepts and others do it in waves. Some programs start early (chemistry) and some — later (CS). Keep in mind, that there may be errors in my analysis so use this data at your own risk.
How reliable are timelines?
I personally trust them (but I am biased). In general, it depends on curve shapes and available data. If there are more than 100 observations overall — I would consider that data to be pretty reliable. If there are characteristic ‘steps’ — it is a good sign because may indicate internal deadlines for waves of accepts/rejects. But the number of admissions/rejections records in the data is definitely inflated by question records (i.e. ‘to poster below: what program?”). I filtered some, but definitely not all of them. Also, bear in mind that department policies can change.
How reliable are GRE/GPA?
Somewhat reliable. There is noise, mistakes (i.e. switched Q/V) and self-report bias. For example, salty people with good scores may more likely report rejections and lucky people with low GPAs may less likely report accepts. But for some universities which publish admission statistics (for example, Duke), calculated GRE/GPA medians are pretty close to reported averages (I didn’t calculate means, sorry). Also, we can’t affect GPA/GRE right now, so it is mostly for entertainment.
How did you do it?
Scraped and parsed all gradcafe results. Selected all records from Jan 1 2013 to May 1 2017 and combined data for all years together, so all data is based on five year period. For each university and program in question I built a cumulative sum of decisions as a function of days since beginning of the year. For analysis of GRE I only chose records which included both Q and V scores. For analysis of GPA I used only 4-point scale grades and didn’t convert other scales to it (i.e. 10-point). Selection of universities/programs was done by regular expressions so there can be some noise added by incorrect parsing. For example, “University of Washington” may both mean Seattle and St. Louis. I tried to avoid it the best I could but there can be mistakes nonetheless. How did you choose universities/programs?
Voluntarily, so there are a lot of omissions. Sorry, if your university/program is not there. Also, bear in mind that programs may overlap (for example ‘Computer Science’ and ‘Electrical Engineering’). Finally, I excluded uni/program from analysis if there were less than 30 observations.
Will you share your code/data?
I am thinking about it, but undecided yet.
Hope it helps and good luck with the admissions!
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semling got a reaction from B_A_Q in Typo in Writing Sample
It will be fine. They probably won't even notice it, and if they do they probably won't hold it against you. The committees are made up of real people (who have made plenty of their own typos in their lives), and who are also going through lots of applications pretty quickly. So I can almost guarantee you that that little typo is not going to affect your application either way.
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semling got a reaction from motherofdragons23 in How to Deal with Rejection
Also not my field, but I'm got some experience with very selective admission committees and wanted to add an important point to all the great ones mentioned above:
Don't take it personally
Seriously. You would not believe how, at a certain point, this process is largely arbitrary. Because, really, it's not like the departments are looking carefully at each application and saying "this person meets our standards, this person doesn't" and all the former get in. No. They do that, then look at the still large pile of people who meet their standards and they'd like to accept, and then somehow figure a way to whittle it down to the number of slots they actually have available.
It bothers me when I see people on results page say "oh, I knew my GPA [or GRE] wasn't good enough" or "I bet it was because I didn't have any publications." If your GRE/GPA is way below the average for your program, that might be the case. But for people at or above the average, it is literally impossible to guess why you weren't accepted and someone else was. (It's not impossible to know, you could ask them and they might tell you. But it's impossible to guess.) Once you meet a certain standard on the basics and you're on the shortlist, you can bet that what gets you accepted or rejected after that point is entirely out of your control. Departmental politics, a particular faculty member's ability to take on another student, the profiles of the students accepted last year, the profiles of the other students who will probably be accepted this year, unconscious biases (or affinities), funding issues ... Or a billion other things that could affect the decision — all of which are out of your hands, and none of which are even really about you.
So if you get rejected, even if you get rejected by all of them, don't take it personally. Take a good look and if you have obvious deficiencies make a plan to correct them, but if you don't, don't drive yourself crazy trying to find what small flaw caused them to reject you. Because, a lot of times, it's not you; it's them.
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semling got a reaction from Piagetsky in How to Deal with Rejection
Also not my field, but I'm got some experience with very selective admission committees and wanted to add an important point to all the great ones mentioned above:
Don't take it personally
Seriously. You would not believe how, at a certain point, this process is largely arbitrary. Because, really, it's not like the departments are looking carefully at each application and saying "this person meets our standards, this person doesn't" and all the former get in. No. They do that, then look at the still large pile of people who meet their standards and they'd like to accept, and then somehow figure a way to whittle it down to the number of slots they actually have available.
It bothers me when I see people on results page say "oh, I knew my GPA [or GRE] wasn't good enough" or "I bet it was because I didn't have any publications." If your GRE/GPA is way below the average for your program, that might be the case. But for people at or above the average, it is literally impossible to guess why you weren't accepted and someone else was. (It's not impossible to know, you could ask them and they might tell you. But it's impossible to guess.) Once you meet a certain standard on the basics and you're on the shortlist, you can bet that what gets you accepted or rejected after that point is entirely out of your control. Departmental politics, a particular faculty member's ability to take on another student, the profiles of the students accepted last year, the profiles of the other students who will probably be accepted this year, unconscious biases (or affinities), funding issues ... Or a billion other things that could affect the decision — all of which are out of your hands, and none of which are even really about you.
So if you get rejected, even if you get rejected by all of them, don't take it personally. Take a good look and if you have obvious deficiencies make a plan to correct them, but if you don't, don't drive yourself crazy trying to find what small flaw caused them to reject you. Because, a lot of times, it's not you; it's them.
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semling got a reaction from JoePianist in How to Deal with Rejection
Also not my field, but I'm got some experience with very selective admission committees and wanted to add an important point to all the great ones mentioned above:
Don't take it personally
Seriously. You would not believe how, at a certain point, this process is largely arbitrary. Because, really, it's not like the departments are looking carefully at each application and saying "this person meets our standards, this person doesn't" and all the former get in. No. They do that, then look at the still large pile of people who meet their standards and they'd like to accept, and then somehow figure a way to whittle it down to the number of slots they actually have available.
It bothers me when I see people on results page say "oh, I knew my GPA [or GRE] wasn't good enough" or "I bet it was because I didn't have any publications." If your GRE/GPA is way below the average for your program, that might be the case. But for people at or above the average, it is literally impossible to guess why you weren't accepted and someone else was. (It's not impossible to know, you could ask them and they might tell you. But it's impossible to guess.) Once you meet a certain standard on the basics and you're on the shortlist, you can bet that what gets you accepted or rejected after that point is entirely out of your control. Departmental politics, a particular faculty member's ability to take on another student, the profiles of the students accepted last year, the profiles of the other students who will probably be accepted this year, unconscious biases (or affinities), funding issues ... Or a billion other things that could affect the decision — all of which are out of your hands, and none of which are even really about you.
So if you get rejected, even if you get rejected by all of them, don't take it personally. Take a good look and if you have obvious deficiencies make a plan to correct them, but if you don't, don't drive yourself crazy trying to find what small flaw caused them to reject you. Because, a lot of times, it's not you; it's them.
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semling reacted to seems_fair in Decision timelines for particular universities and programs derived from the gradcafe data + GRE/GPA distributions
Also here is data on Psychology PhDs (don't know how to edit posts here)
https://imgur.com/a/CGVa9
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semling reacted to seems_fair in Decision timelines for particular universities and programs derived from the gradcafe data + GRE/GPA distributions
Also here are graphs for Sociology and Management
Sociology PhD https://imgur.com/a/tj08u
Management PhD https://imgur.com/a/asJSz
Management MS https://imgur.com/a/dTQHs
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semling reacted to WildeThing in 2018 Acceptances
Totally true, but don't you come over here with your logic unless your logic comes with honey-mustard sauce so I can stress-eat it.
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semling got a reaction from nghiduong90 in Will mislabeling my resume affect my chances of admission?
I seriously doubt that would affect your application at all. First of all, the application materials will be compiled by the graduate school into a single electronic record (depending on their system), and it's possible the filenames won't even appear. Secondly, even if it did appear it's likely the readers wouldn't notice something like that. And, lastly, even if they did notice they probably wouldn't care. In my experience (inside Ivy League undergrad admissions), they're decent people who give applicants the benefit of the doubt on things like that. They're not going to nix you just because you made a very understandable human error. (Of course, if there are many errors, to the point that it looks like you didn't put much work into your application or can't follow instructions, that's something different.) But they're not going out of their way to look for reasons to throw you out.