surprisecake

K, i'm going to be brutal! (It's the only way I know how) Do you mean credibility? This introduction to an SOP is totally superfluous. You should save words and dive write into the meaty part of your SOP. I'd subtract "world" Talk more about your presentations here? Maybe take out some of the software name-dropping. There's nothign wrong with this paragraph but it seems non-essential.

I don't think there's any tangible advantage to establishing relationships with professors for the MEM program at Yale. From what I can tell from their eclectic student body from the last couple of years, they care more about diversity than "fit". (I haven't mailed anyone at FES or Bren) The relationship you're supposed to establish is giving them more detail than your official application about why you fit into their lab... sending them copies of papers, and posters, for example. I've had one successful exchange of emails with a professor and after I gave her extra background, it ended with "I look forward to reading your application", and I left it at that. It's also helpful to hear from them about what their current research areas actually are. Faculty bios tend to be misleading. As for the PhDs, it looks like faculty relationships are a lot more important at USCB Bren as opposed to Yale. I'm feeling the heat for not establishing contact with any Bren professors even though I'm applying at the masters level. A lot of the faculty bios at Bren said that you should send them your background and CV, then a dialogue can be established and THEN you can *consider* sending in an official application. At schools where faculty contact isn't mandatory, I guess the yearly intake is the indicator for how important it is. If there are a only few spots available in your sub-field, a professor would obviously prefer to admit someone they know in detail via a series of emails. If its a large program and there's a pool of applicants competing for spots on the basis of their official applications, then faculty contact should be less important. But... I was always under the impression that faculty contact is essential when it comes to PhD programs at high ranked schools. What does everyone think about Bren? They seemed to be missing any faculty for a lot of big sub-fields, and by WOM i've heard that its "cut off" from the rest of the environmental schools on the east coast. I'm still drawn to it though, and I just had to apply. But i'm not sure why I did!

Also: are you applying to the School of Sustainability at ASU?

why do you choose to be so uncley about everything.

No sir. I had an issue with my first TOEFL because they had a technical problem while scoring my speaking section. I had to take the damn test again on Dec 12, and schools would have got my scores barely a few days ago. I'm guessing everything was frozen post Dec 23, so I'm going to wait til Jan 3 to see if my application packet is FINALLY complete! What about you?! Did you hear back from anyone else?

hahahaHHAhahaa. That is so sweet.

A site that I signed up for 2-3 weeks ago (Planbig.com) is showing up on my first page of results already! I didn't sign up to clear up my results but its nice to have a time-frame now...

How did you manage to weave 7 names into your SOP?

ok lets do this thing! (instead of studying for finals) + 1420 GRE, (740 verbal, international student), 116 TOEFL + 2 posters at huge internationally recognised conferences, 2 papers in tiny, unrecognised national journals as an undergrad - as the sole author. + Positive e-mail contact with 2 professors at schools that don't even require it + What i've been promised are four smashing LORs + The most convincing SOP a career-switcher like me could possibly have written + A fancy summer research internship related to my field + My undergraduate degree is actually a great fit for the graduate degree I am applying for, but I'm sure I can count the number of people in my profession applying for the same degree on the fingers of one hand. + I'm 23 and I think some of the schools I've applied to are trying to skew younger Meh: Universities have converted my GPA to anything from a 3.1 to a 3.9 on a 4.0 scale. - 680 quant GRE score - No contact at the 2 schools that require faculty contact (but I only care about one of them) - I sent in all my applications just hours before their respective deadlines. I'm sure it won't hurt me in some schools, but in one particular school, an early applicant got an admit just 4 days after i submitted mine! - I think the universe hates me

OOOoooh. That's good stuff, natsteel. I've been wondering precisely about what sites to sign up at. That's good, constructive, yet mentally non-taxing stuff I can do while i'm waiting to hear back from schools. Thank you

I'm thinking of it as my rebirth. There will be mucous, fluids, genitalia, a panicky crying woman (er, i'm not fond of performing rectal exams) ... and voila, a grad student in waiting will be born

This year is so strange. I have finals starting tomorrow. (Practical veterinary gyanaecology... which means cattle butts early in the morning), I have absolutely no new years eve plans and I have a WEEK of finals coming up... but I have never been so excited on NYE before! I CANNOT wait for 2011!!

Another peripheral issue that bugs me: Incase someone decides to google me, here are the first page results 1) My Facebook page 2) Other peoples' facebook pages with me on them 3) Angry heavy metal reviews on a website I used to write for when I was 15-16 (lots of cursing) 4) List of Rejected applicants for a Conference Travel grant by the Goverment of India 5) Another list of Rejected applicants for another Conference Travel grant by the Goverment of India 6) 9/11 tribute page, because one person with my first name and another person with my last name died that day. I can pretend to be a scientist everywhere but on google

Added to the list of bizarre reasons my applications are keeping me up at night: The pictures of me that the adcomms will see. Since applications don't require photos of yourself, the only pictures of me they see are the horrible black and white ones on TOEFL and GRE marksheets. I used to think my passport/ drivers licence pics were bad, but wow, these are something else. My test ID pictures look exactly like how I felt those mornings: frazzled and about to cry. Not to mention I spent absolutely no time on my appearance before showing up for the tests. The end result is, I pretty much look like a disturbed serial killer/ mental patient. It bugs me so much that they will be picturing that insane woman in their heads when they read my applications!! Incase you were wondering.... No, there is no point to this post. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

MoJingly, I love yours! efferent / musicians... awesome

sign me up!

Seconded.

Thanks, now I hate mine

bhikhaari- where are you from?

No, I didn't mean we picked our top schools so they'd appear in the wordle...

your avatar/username makes me smile everytime, waddle!

I don't think you should be debating about the worth of your LORs... an irrelevant one is better than none at all. People have gone through an entire year of the application cycle, paid all the money, spent all the time and had ALL their applications tossed out because *ONE* of the three letters was missing. I hate to be alarmist but you should really try and get the minimum number of letters, in whatever way you can. I think 2 out of 3 letters is as good as no letters for some schools. Good luck and sorry if I just stressed you out!

is everyone instinctively wordling the SOP version intended for their top choice school? I notice alyanumbers' wordle has "yale" in it!

1) Prepare ingredients 2) Take rohypnol 3) Bake cake 4) Fall asleep 5) ?????? 6) Wake up 7) CAKE?! CAKE! Where did this come from?! ..... SURPRISE CAKE!!!!!!