ridgey

It's funny how you can "recognise" people from different forums. Between here, applyingtograd at livejournal, and the Chronicle forums there seems to be a significant overlap.

Yup, the possibility of not getting in anywhere is freaking me out. What's worse for me is that here on the other side of the world, no-one gets how crazy the process is, and how freakin' competitive it is to apply to US programmes. So people may ACTUALLY be thinking how lame I am if I don't get in, rather than me imagining it. I know it's not the end of the world if I don't get in. Tough competition, apply again next year, etc etc etc. That may be the rational approach, but emotion seems to be trumping reason for me these days. I think I remember there may have been a thread here in years past about not getting in anywhere. I didn't want to read it at the time, but now...

Yes, GPA*200*0.4 is the same as GPA*80. But doing the mulitplication twice makes it obvious WHY it is done, where *80 would look arbitrary. *200 is to convert a GPA on a 4.0 scalt to the same scale as the components of the GRE, and *0.4 is to weight it. I get 680 with one GPA and 720 with another.

I'd do it myself, but I have the attention span of a goldfish. Someone should collate the results page from previous years so we have acceptance rates. Obviously, these rates won't reflect the entire applicant population, but they should be reflective of rates in thegradcafe.com population. For two of my programmes, I'm 100% (2/2 in both cases). One 75%. One 0%, but I can live with that. Ok, so I know noone is really going to do it. But if you check the results for your programme this way, I bet your chances are better than what you thought :wink:

It'll depend on the city, for me. And what I, as a foreigner, would have to do to get a licence in the US. If I go to Columbia, there is NO WAY I'll want a car. UMass Amherst , NO WAY I'll not have one. Actually, I dunno what Amherst is like, but I assume a town so small I only heard of it last year doesn't haver fantastic public transport. I've been wrong before though.

To insert some much needed optimism: perhaps a bunch of people who are planning to apply to grad school decide that in this economic climate they should hold onto their current jobs as long as they can, thus reducing the size of the overall pool. Unlikely, I know.

Mine is that I get a phone call from the person I reeeeeeeally hope will be my advisor telling me of my acceptance and how impressive my application is etc. He invites me to admitted students' weekend (for which the department pays all my expenses). On the visit, we start to talk, and he quickly realises that it wasn't me he was so impressed with - he dialled the wrong number by mistake. My application was on his desk because it was so bad it was going on the website in an attempt to show future applicants what not to do. Others?

You can thank me and my %$#@ing 4.0 aw for that. You're welcome, I aim to please!

My default position is not to deviate from what they've asked for in a way that they'll notice. So, if they have a pile of 250 word SoPs, it will be very obvious that your statement is double the length of everyone else's. Worst case scenario, their responses could include: 1)This person can't follow instructions - bin it. 2)This person thinks our requirements don't apply to them. They are likely to cause us headaches for the next 5 years - bin it. 3)This person has caused me to spend double the time I had planned to reading their statement (though in the grand scheme, 1 min vs 2 min is probably not that important). 4)This person has not mastered the important skill of using as few words as possible to make their point. Probably not ready for our programme - bin it. Of course, it could be a requirement of the grad school and the department may not care. But you have no way of knowing this,so I wouldn't take the risk. If you're submitting electronically, the programme may not let you upload anything that doesn't comply with their specifications. Having said all that, 250 words is ridiculous! I'm very glad I didn't have to do that. Do you have the option to include a CV or personal statement or anything? Could some of your SoP go there instead?

I just received my report in the mail a few days ago and there was a note (can't remember if it was on the report itself or one of the gazillion other papers that came with it) to effect that percentiles may be different on future reports. It makes sense I guess - if they're trying to give a standardised measure, then it has to be, well, standard. Otherwise, how would they compare the 86th %ile in Jun 06 to the 84th %ile in Feb 07? Or, schools could recognise ETS and the GRE for the scam it is, but we all know that won't happen any time soon.

Of my applications, Fancy U, Prestige U and Snooty U were all due in early-mid Dec, while Perfectly Good U isn't due until Feb. I wonder if PGU might have chosen its cut off date strategically, given that decisions from Fancy, Prestige and Snooty seem to be out in Feb?

That's interesting, rising_star. I'd have been apprehensive about using that approach - it could come off as presumptuous to make contact with soemone and demand they give me a reason to grace them with my presence. Obviously you pulled it off, well done!

Feeling a touch masochistic, I went and re-read my SoP from my first application this round - incidentally my top choice programme. I realised I didn't even name the university once! There is a genuine "fit paragraph" with the name of the department (only slightly less generic than "Department of English") and the unique concentration this programme offers and the professor who makes this programme my top choice, yet not once did I actually specify Dream U by name. D'oh! I have a scary feeling this could have happened with at least one other SoP since. Double d'oh!

Fantastic idea! Would you want posts at/by specific dates, or just when inspiration struck?

Good luck! Hopefully I can maintain that attitude as notifications come in...

Hopkins (yeah, like that'll happen), Columbia, UMich, Yale, UMass, NYU and public policy at Portland State. Would have liked to go for Berekely, but I hear they almost never accept international students, and UMinn, but the aplication fees (SOPHAS + school fees + foreign credential eval) are prohibitive. Health policy/health and public policy, and Sociomedical sciences at Columbia. All PhD programmes. It's funny, on these sort of forums it's rare to run into other Public Health types. Lots of History and English, and it's easy to think that public health is less competitive. But, no. Columbia sociomed gets about 100 apps and have about 6 slots. What about yourself?

Yip. Not feeling confident AT ALL. First deadline Dec 1. Yipes!

I wasn't able to order them until a couple of weeks after I took the test. Kept getting error messages saying the system couldn't find me. Maybe because in choosing the test date, I had to wait until the month wasn't current? Who knows.

I hear ya - can't wait till applications are over. Yale's is my only application needing a diversity statement. I was planning to take it on face value that it really is optional. Now I'm having second thoughts. Sorry, nothing constructive to add.

I'm doing an MPH at the moment (not in the US). I had briefly toyed with doing another Masters, in America, but I'd been thinking of it as a way to strengthen my PhD applications. But I don't want to be a student forever (difficult as that may be to believe with the number of degrees I have!) and I understand that funding is harder to come by for masters programmes anyway. Come February and admission decisions being advised, I might feel differently, of course!

I should clarify, given the comment about USNews, I meant that of the 12 programmes I'm considering, five are top 20; not that I plan to include five top 20 programmes in my final applications. My field is public health, and I'm looking at health policy programmes. Some programmes will let me take what amounts to a minor in political science. There are a couple of public policy programmes with a health policy track in my list too. There are a reasonable number of researchers looking at My Favourite Health Issue. Most seem to be interested in looking at communities and treatments, while I am interested in the politics of it all. One person is looking at the politics of a different, though still interesting, issue. There is only one person I've discovered who looks at the politics (that I care about) of health in general, and has supervised dissertations applying this to all kinds of issues.

Obviously, USNews isn't a gold standard of anything. But, it you know what it measures, and how important that is(n't) relative to other factors (namely, the elusive "fit"), these rankings can be useful.

Hi, Right now there are about 12 PhD programs I am seriously considering. For financial reasons, I don't want to send more than 7 applications. 5 of the schools are ranked in the top 20 (US News), 4 of those are top 10. My application will be strong in general I think: SoP and LoRs, writing sample, relevant research experience. I take the GRE later this month and am aiming for 700-750 on both sections. My GPA is my weakness - a genuine weakness, not like those folk who complain about their "horrible" 3.8. I'm an international student so there is no exact conversion, but degree 1 + 2 is about 3.1, degree 3 is 3.7, degree 4 is in progress, won't have any grades to report before applications. So, if I'm only making 7 applications, I don't think I have the numbers to justify having 4 of those at top 10 programs. Schools 1, 2, and 3 are ridiculously competitive (2-5% acceptance). Schools 2, 3 and 4 have an incredibly appealing structure for their coursework, allowing a minor in a related discipline, which is ideal as my research interests are at the juncture of the discipline. Only School 1 has any faculty doing research that is exactly what I'm interested in, the others have poeple using realted methodology but different topics, or looking at the same topics but with completely different methodology. School 4 is at a uni where there are interdisciplinary research centres that do work I'm interested in. Is it more important to match EXACTLY with faculty research interests? Or is matching the overall "vibe" of the program sufficient to convince admissions committees of fit? If you were me, where would you apply?

Does anyone know of a website that has systematically compiled admissions information for PhD programmes? GPA and GRE range, % applicants admitted, etc? I suspect that the schools who have decided not to put this on their own websites might be unimpressed by an email asking for information they have obviously decided not to give out.

It could be that I'm thinking about this way too much, but I'm worried about my writing sample for one particular application. I plan to use a modified chapter from my masters thesis for my sample. One of the key authors in the field, who I will cite a lot, is a faculty member in the department in question. Will this just look like I'm sucking up?