dowjonesindustrial

Not only have notifications been prompt, but I've found professors and administrators enormously helpful in fielding questions. It also helps to have heard great things from about 5 current students.

I'm almost certain I will be, as soon as they sort out the details with financial aid. What field are you in? (English)

I'm going to go with Dead Moon, via Pearl Jam "This is my life, this is my chance; This is my hope in an alleyway This is my choice, this is my voice; There may be no tomorrow, now It's okay, It's okaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy You don't have to run and hide away"

To the OP: Pearl Jam is always a good choice. Recently: Jaydiohead (Radiohead and Jay-z, in case you haven't heard 'the new grey album'...) Devotchka The Parlor Mob Wu-Tang Clan

Got into UC Davis today and am thrilled to start 1/1! One other poster evidently did as well... wonder if we might talk later on.

/\------ The Great American Novel I finished Naked Lunch, almost done One Hundred Years of Solitude, now onto Pale Fire and Underworld (Don's).

yes! I lean and loafe and YAWP in support of this thread!!!

16 PhD 1 MA (the net below the precipice...)

adaptation's got the right idea out of 16, i only need one i'd love 3 i'd kill for 5 no really. give me a name. 8)

Haha, yeah. I know zilch about their program in English, but I saw U of Sand and Sun on someone else's list and thought: "damn, why didn't I think of that?"

First off, I don't think you want to draw attention to your GPA in your statement. It's not that bad, and there are probably lots of kids who went through a similar experience. Also, I would expect most adcom members are savvy enough to notice WHY a GPA is low/high, and whether or not it's because of the relevant classes. I'm actually a little surprised that you say none of your schools are interested in major GPA; I've found that many/most of mine are, and I assume it's something any adcom would take a concerted interest in looking at relative to your overall. Lastly, and this is just for honesty's sake, if an adcom is going to toss all 3.3 overall GPA-ers, well there's not much point in you worrying - you don't have control over that. Avoid self-deprecation on your SOP.

Well I'm glad I could help. And if the city felt like putting together a little stimulus package... well....

Yes indeed; you can always wear layers here. And like you said, a little internal heating goes a long way, especially compared with the struggle of cooling down a summer in Cyprus. To be honest, the cold isn't what makes winters in the Northeast a hassle. Yes it will be Very Cold here, particularly in January and February (below 20, say). But again, you put on an extra scarf and walk through it. (now I bust out a graph: http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimat ... undeclared) What's a serious pain is the snow. It is unbelievably beautiful to have a winter wonderland here, but if you've never woken up 45 mins early to go shovel a driveway, three consecutive days... But again, for a grad student, this amounts to what? You buy some nice boots, a scarf, make sure the place you live has heat and ask about the plowing during the winter. You won't have to/want to drive all that much in Burlington, so unless you plan on being a home and car owner right off, then I doubt it's that big of a concern. The upshot is that it's very mild the rest of the year, perfectly gorgeous drives (even when there is a foot of snow on the ground, we get it off the roads quickly enough), and about one of three places in the US where you can find forest, mountains, and a lake all in one place. (wow, maybe I should work for the city....)

As a matter of fact, I live about 5 minutes from campus (and my sister attends). Burlington has been consistently ranked one of the best small towns, hippest art communities, healthiest (top 2?) spots in the US. It, in short, is a phenomenal place to be. UVM is part proper of the town, and although that does spread it into a little bit disproportionally large a campus, Burlington is safe, navigable by foot or by a decent public bus, and tons of fun. Although I don't know about Biophysics, the medschool, bio and even the vet program gets accolades in the Northeast. That said, the winters are (is, at present) lousy. Where are you from? I wouldn't imagine that the weather would be the biggest factor when deciding on a school, but if you've spent your whole live in Nevada, well, maybe you'd want to reconsider spending the next 5-? years in Vermont. I would, and do, however, praise the city of Burlington across the board. (and let me know any other questions; like I said, I drive by the school almost every day ) Edit: viz. our "mad props" : http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/mayor/bu ... olades.php

This is already a more interesting thread than it was ten posts ago; salud to all 3 above posters for their thoughts and re/covering of the middle ground.

No I'm afraid I'm not. Moreover, the selectivity of your response aside, my continued point is that you are mistaking a contemporary argument for a historical one. I am a vehement atheist, and I suspect you and I have the exact same gut reaction to when a classmate or wide receiver or whomever says "I'd just like to thank my buddy Jesus cuz he's the one who aced the exam/caught the ball...etc." I would argue that for anyone even remotely involved with a non-believing community in modern times, the sheer rational force of Not Knowing should be overwhelming. However, denying -historically- that anyone holding some kind of faith or belief or even going to church on sundays could have been an intellectual is in fact to categorically deny all earlier times and peoples the possession of intellectual merit. That they did not have the choice of non-belief because of historical context is not an excuse, it is exactly the point. If you intend to exclude all thinkers before say the Renaissance, or Nz's Death of God, or whatever your mark is, as being non-intellectuals then your definition of intellectual itself is biased beyond repair, and so meager as to be useless. We share like sentiment here. My post was intended to redirect the focus of the thread away from the bile of both sides, and so while I share with you the same view of "fossils are just clues to a wrong path! john smith ran around america with a three-story book made out of gold!", your refusal to acknowledge Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes et al as thinkers of intellectual value is a tunnel vision of the same variety, if perhaps not nearly the same degree. selah.

Most admissions secretaries I've spoken with have suggested that they are most lenient with GRE scores arriving late (as compared to your other materials). I don't think, however, that sending a scanned copy can hurt (it's what I would do).

Okay, I'm going to try and rally this discussion a little. The opening contention that "no one has ever believed in god and been an intellectual" doesn't hold up, of course, if you allow equally for contextual interpretations of 'belief' and 'intellect' throughout the last thousand years. The real Idea behind the Invective here seems to be the familiar assertion "religion interferes with rationality." Now you don't have to be 100% rational to be a genius. Nietzsche talked to a horse (then promptly went mad and died a syphilitic's death), and while NO one would call him a Believer, he is a perfect example of someone whose irrationality was sometimes a gift to his intellect. And so, when the two sides meet in the middle, I think what we're coming to is a debate of "to what degree can belief/faith and intellectual pursuits coexist?" and the much more interesting corollary "how do they interfere and/or stimulate one another." The Kabbalists/Gnostics are a prime example of belief stimulating thought, even when the myths themselves will never be proven in a million years. They represent a method of thinking, one which has had bountiful results across the humanities. Hope that helps.

I agree that a school should opt for one of "two papers" and "less than 25 pages," but not expect us to manage both. Even as an undergraduate, selecting a 10ish page paper of serious quality to send alongside my principle writing sample took bit of thought (and then of course editing). I understand wanting to see plural instances of our thought process, but don't simultaneously give us the signal "Oh but we're really not going to read that much of it." ...on a more constructive note, for a MA student I think you have the right approach. If you have a review, that might be even better, but I would adhere to the page limit, and clearly indicate by leaving your main sample whole that it is your chief article of representation.

I knew what I wanted my writing sample to be in advance, and since I was a graduating senior, took the opportunity to have a professor look over it in detail. I also spent the entire summer working through drafts of my SOP, because that was by far and away the biggest challenge for me. Additionally, if you have a subject test to study for, don't slight the time you need to earn a satisfactory score. Plan out weeks (months?) of studying if it's what you need. With all this in the work from May through September, by the time the apps come online you'll be ready to tend to the needs of individual applications.

If the schools will accept your 570 as such, and you are satisfied with the score, I don't see any reason to retake. I'm a lit applicant, and I know that many of the posters in our corner of the cafe have "taken the hit and ran" on the quant section. That said, if you feel like this score underrepresents you, study to refresh, and retake the test. I know that my Quant score is at the bottom tier of importance to adcoms, but I also know that I have no problem with that level of math, and a 570 on that section would not have satisfied me. So, if the score is legitimate, then it's really up to you to gauge where in your range it lies.

I have one particular professor who has been a living BS-detector for me since day 1. Painful at times, but oh so helpful with a 500 word essay.

rinneron, I wouldn't worry about the lack of Big Names in your SOP. In fact, I think the tendency to name drop can be a problem for a lot of undergrads -not saying that's what you are, just speaking from experience- who are just so excited about Baudrillard, Husserl, Bhabha, etc. that they want to make sure everyone knows how much they've read. ...but yeah, I worry about the infinite possible non-ideal readings of my SOP and daydream about the graphic mannerisms which accompany my application being trashed by the adcompanopticon (courtesy of a poster at LJ).

There are definitely a group of schools out there who don't want any calls regarding applications... right now. I would recommend asking whether or not you'll be notified if a piece of the application is missing, or if you can contact the department a couple of weeks after the due date. So, while I had an admissions assistant at An-Ivy-to-Remain-Nameless tell me that "there's really not much you can do if we lose something" ( ), these are two backup options for a little further down the road (jan 5th for december apps, etc)

Yeah, this may be a formality, but it's a formality that (nearly) everyone takes rather seriously. I agree with the above posters.