ZeeMore21

If it is at all possible, I would urge you to retake the GRES and try to score at least a 600. Although schools may not come up front and say they have a cut-off, it is likely that they do expect a certain range when it comes to Verbal scores. For the school that I got into, the professor that I spoke to before I had applied strongly urged that I get at least a 600, although the department website never gave a cut-off to applicants. At that time, I had a 490 verbal score from undergrad and was planning on just keeping it, but the professor thought it would be best for me to retake the exam. I did and got a 620 the next time around, which was a relief. I think that if you can get at least 600, you will definitely have peace of mind...it will be nice to come up with a great application and not have to worry whether or not a school will penalize you for a score. I personally think that the GREs is nonsense, but given the high amount of applicants trying to get into humanities doctorate programs, I guess admissions committees need some kind of quantitative guideline that will help them sort through hundreds of applications. I'm sure the expectations of high verbal scores will only increase in relation to the growing numbers of applicants. If retaking the GRE is not feasible, then I would say that the rest of your application package has to be flawless in all honesty. A 560 isn't terrible, but it may raise some eyebrows, so you should plan on making sure you make up for the score through an excellent personal statement and writing sample.

Hey qbtacoma...never wanted to start a conversation on dating...you had put the above quote up referring to dating, so I figured that I would dispute it. The dating topic didn't come to my mind when going through this thread until I came across one of your posts. I took your very last sentence literally...my apologies for jumping the gun...but it seemed like you were making a generalization. I don't really want to assume the worst, but given that the only thing I can base my opinion on in this venue are tone, words, and how they are phrased (given that I do not know you personally), hopefully you can understand why I took your comments the way I did. Sorry for offending you, however. But anyway, this is an interesting thread overall.

Never argued that forming romantic relationships with people outside of one's background wasn't difficult...I am arguing against your generalization that these types of relationships never happen.They happen more than you think.

I turned down the Chicago MAPH program last year because I didn't receive any financial aid...this program definitely came off as a cash cow and nothing else. I received tuition remission from another program and never looked back. Best decision I made.

Your school probably has given you a transcript...I'm sure your GPA is recorded on it.

Johns Hopkins and Cornell perhaps?

A little bit confused by your answer here, but again, immigrants stay in their communities for various reasons, not necessarily because they don't want to form relationships with people who are from different backgrounds...which is what I assumed you were trying to argue with your dating argument.

I think this is a generalization...there are many people who have no problems dating people from other cultures, including myself. I would give people more credit than that...yes there may be some difficult boundaries to be crossed, but these types of relationships are doable...and dating someone from a different culture doesn't always have to be hard. I think it depends on what type of person you are...there are people who are raised to celebrate and embrace other cultures. They don't see forming relationships outside of their culture/ethnicity/race/religion as something so difficult that it needs to be avoided. On the other hand, these people enjoy the challenge of pushing themselves to understand people who are different from them and understand that despite differences, human beings are all the same. As far as the immigration question, I would say that during times of stress and feelings of loneliness/isolation, people do tend to go to what is familiar to them...I can definitely understand, then, why people who immigrate to the U.S want to socialize with those from the same ethnic background. However, I would also say that we should be careful not to generalize the immigrant experience. I'm sure there are many immigrants who feel comfortable enough navigating a new environment without the support of those from similar backgrounds. It definitely does depend on where immigrants are relocating to and where they are from originally.

I've lived in the the Northeast all of my life, specifically Pennsylvania, and will be moving down to Nashville, TN for graduate school. I am definitely looking forward to living in warm weather for most of the year and not having to deal with tons of snow in the winter. I've been told that people in Nashville go crazy when there is 1 or 2 feet of snow on the ground. Shows you how rare snow is down there! I don't think I will miss Northeast weather at all.

I doubt the University of Houston took her back, especially considering that she has left digital footprints all over the internet bashing a particular professor in the Economics department. Not only has she been bashing this professor on the Chronicle forum, but she has been posting this incident in many other places. I'm sure this department has been made aware of what this woman is doing online, especially given how unique this case is. For her to come back to the forum and post an acceptance is downright crazy. I'm sure her spot was not given back to her, but given to someone else smart enough to put their correct school in the application. Or better yet, her spot was given to someone who didn't feel the need to lie to get a position. If the Econ department really had thought she put the wrong school down by mistake, they wouldn't have completely rescinded her acceptance like that. I'm sure she didn't put the wrong school down only once in her application...perhaps she also put this school down in her personal statement as well, maybe also pretending to have worked with professors from the school. Whatever she did was more serious than just merely putting the wrong school down, say, in the educational history section of the application. She repeatedly used the wrong institution throughout the application. She should be ashamed for trying to collect sympathy on this forum and many others. Downright shameful. I hope she is reading this.

If they ask for optional material, then yes, include your writing sample. If not, I wouldn't include it...it comes off pretentious.

Drama I tell you! I wonder what happened to her.

Could you maybe be a little more specific about what you would be looking at within Jewish Studies? Lol, sorry about being picky! Music publications definitely could be included on your CV...it is a publication plain and simple. Plus, you deserve to have your accomplishment be commended and recognized!

Also, perhaps I just will take a break from this post and see what other people have to say. Behavioral, sorry for being harsh with my posts, I am probably just still on the defensive after your earlier post on the ability of M.A students as I took it very personally. Though I genuinely do have my qualms about solely relying on the quantitative, I'm sure I could have argued my position less harshly. Taking a break.

Again, like I have argued in other posts, you are free to argue for formulas and the quantitative. No one is disputing that. Yet, when I choose to argue against the use of the quantitative as far as admissions decisions is concerned, I am seen as not understanding regression models and what they are. Like I said before, I have studied statistics...it is not like I am an alien to this field. You have to understand that people like me may have serious qualms about quantitative research without assuming that they are just ignorant.

I misspoke when I said college administrators, and I do apologize for that. Please, however, don't question my abilities as an English PhD.....that is uncalled for. I have yet to attack your credentials as far as your field is concerned. I genuinely would like to know how these regression models would be used by professional academics. If they wouldn't be used to predict admissions for future academics, how else would these models be used? I do know that everyone is basing there arguments on hypotheticals and I guess my concern lies with the consequences of such models for future applicants.

Instead of trying to understand what point I'm trying to make, you have often chosen just to combat me with more technical information. I can respect the way posters like wtncffts have responded to my posts.

But I do apologize to the OP, I'm basically just responding to tangents. Hopefully we can get back to the question about the quantity of PhDs and what may attribute to that.

I have my opinion on who is voting them down but it doesn't matter. Anyway, thanks wtncffts for clarifying what is going on here...it's a little off-putting when someone is purposefully trying to run circles around you with overly technical material instead of trying to be understood or answer your questions. And also, thanks for seeing where I am going with my posts. I have had college level statistics, so I do know, on a general basis, what you and other posters are getting at. I think I am more focused on the real-life applications/consequences of a regression model and I am not really focused on the technical aspects. It seems like some people are trying to attack me on the technical side more than seeing that I am coming from more of a humanistic perspective. No one has really explained what these regression models would be used for. Wtncffts, you did point out that maybe college administrators would look at these regression models...for some reason, I just have a hard time supporting that. This is probably because I am coming from a liberal education...I tend to want to judge things on a qualitative and individual basis. I am also in English, a field that judges things qualitatively. So again, I'm not trying to be combative just to be combative...I really do have my reasons, and they are just as valuable.

Found this link as well: http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?action=printpage;topic=61897.0 Seems like the OP has some issues...has been going under various screen names defaming a certain professor. I wonder what the whole story is.

"His point is that regression models might be used by an outside observer to analyze patterns in graduate admissions. In addition, it has nothing to do with field, except, perhaps, in so far as some fields rely on explicitly quantitative measures (GPA, GRE, LSAT) more than others, which may mean regression models which are more convincing." I'm not sure how an outside observer would be able to fully understand how a specific admissions committee ticks unless he or she is part of the admissions committee in question. Also, the religion affiliation example you are using wtncffts doesn't really work....there are things that could be due to coincidence...how would be you create a formula based on that? Also, I'm not sure that a formula could be created for a whole field in general, departments may carry out their admissions process very differently even though they may be under the same field. Again, I am not saying that Behavioral is suggesting that formulas may be created to be used as predictors...he clarified this part so I am no longer countering that. I think the only reason why I am passionate when it comes to this specific subject of admissions and formulas is because I rather not have people stress over trying to come up with formulas that would explain a committee's admission decisions instead of just trying to do the best they can with their applications. Regardless with how efficient some may think formulas are, they are not perfect, and tailoring one's application around a specific formula does not necessarily mean you will have success. All I've seen are proponents for admissions formulas, but no one has stated how unreliable they may be.

Maybe you could be more specific about what field you want to go into? Perhaps, we could help you figure out how best to frame your qualifications. For example, your experience as a music writer would definitely support reasons why you would want to go into a sub-field like Poetics. Just an example though since I don't know what your sub-field is.

Thankful for this thread! I will be starting a PhD program this fall so I really am thinking about how to organize future articles. I'm still wondering if I will eventually go digital, I'm still not entirely comfortable with computers since my last computer crashed and I ended up losing important documents.

I'm honestly not trying to be combative or belabor this subject, but I honestly just don't agree, and I should be able to do so without being voted down. And again, despite how technical Behavioral's formula sounds, at the end of the day, his/her argument is that formulas can be used to reflect on an admission commitee's practices. I still don't believe that a formula could be created given the arbitrary decisions that go in selecting candidates, I listed some of them in my last post. And here I am talking about formulas that could be used to explain how a committee chose their applicants. How could a formula be created that takes academic politics into consideration for example? From the example Behavioral used, he/she only listed GPA, good/bad research experience, and GRE scores. There are many other factors that go into admission decisions that can't be covered within a formula, and that is what I've been trying to argue all along. I don't really understand what I am arguing as being difficult, and I'm sure others would agree. I do wish there were other humanities posters who could put in their two cents because I'm sure I am not alone in my opinion. I have no problem with Behavioral discussing a formula, perhaps other fields use this. But, I do think I can speak on behalf of humanities, that admissions decisions is nuanced, and there is no formula that could explain how and why applicants were chosen. Admissions is made on an individual basis...applications materials can be weighted differently depending on whose applications is being reviewed. With this in mind, there is no cookie cutter formula. That's all I really have to say about this subject. And to be honest, I do not even understand how formulas came up in this thread, seems off-topic given what the OP's questions was.

This post makes absolutely no sense. Anyway, zwat, I suggest that if you really want to apply to a doctorate program, you dedicate most of your time writing an excellent personal statement and writing sample. I wouldn't focus on what you don't have, because that won't get you anywhere. I would focus on what you do have, and find a way to connect them to your academic goals. Being a published music writer will count for something, definitely.