fuzzylogician

Most people on this board aren't applying to medical school, so we don't have any relevant experience for you. I think medical school is quite different from research-based PhD and MA programs, so I wouldn't want to even venture a guess as to how strong your profile is. My guess is that that is why you aren't getting any responses.

The grad school (=as in, the office that is generally in charge of admissions at the school) has general sweeping guidelines for how applications should look. Each program can take that and customize it somewhat for their needs. If the program says no more than two pages, then don't write more than two pages. They are the ones who will be reading the applications, not the grad school, so go by what they say.

Can't come up with a good hook? Don't start with one. Try leading with your research interests and/or subfield. Option 1: "How can fennel be integrated into modern Chinese cuisine? At Awesome University, I plan to study this and other related questions about the uses of fennel in modern Asian cooking." (lead with a research question that you want to study at AU) Option 2: "Fennel has long been a foundational ingredient in French cooking, but can it be integrated into Chinese cuisine? Can naive restaurant goers reliably distinguish fennel from ginger in their ramen dishes? This question has profound implications for how chefs create new dishes." (similar to above, adds some description of why the problem is interesting) Option 3: "I am applying to Awesome University to study the foundations of modern Chinese cuisine and how it can be applied to French baking techniques." (lead with a description of your subfield, possibly more broadly than a research question." Option 4: "At the forefront of my research interests is modern Asian cuisine, with an emphasis on Chinese spices and their application to French baking. (lead a broad description of your interests) Option 5: "I would like to pursue an academic career in modern cooking with methodological focus on Chinese spices and their application to French baking." (lead with your longterm goals, phrased in a way that makes it clear why Awesome U is a good place to study things related to these goals)

I have no experience with this, but unfortunately I think it might make your life difficult. I think lots of systems in the US (and elsewhere) are set up to require both a first name and last name and just aren't equipped to handle your situation. You'll just have to figure out something to tell them as your first name. I found this post that contains some useful advice: http://ask.metafilter.com/176533/What-are-legal-aspects-of-changing-ones-name-to-a-mononym-or-employing-multiple-legal-aliases Also, this advice website for getting US visas: http://www.immihelp.com/immigration/passport.html I'd suggest choosing one of the options described in these posts. If the immigration website is right and your student visa will say FNU, I would simply go with that everywhere. I am sure that there are ways to verify this, for example by contacting any international student from your country who is in the US. I am sure they would be happy to help with this. Otherwise, the other two options that seemed reasonable to me were either use your name twice, or use NoFirstName for the first name field. I'd avoid symbols like space or dot because some systems might not let you use that. Whatever you do, I think it'd be best if you made the same decision for all your interactions in the US. It'll be difficult enough to deal with this without needing to remember what solution you chose for which service/system. ETA: found another website, this time an official US one. Looks like they'll use FNU. Also note that they specifically mention that you might have difficulties, and suggest some action for dealing with it: http://chennai.usconsulate.gov/temporary-visitors/faqs.html I think you might want to try contacting the US embassy in your country to ask about this.

I think it's appropriate to include this paragraph, though I kind of liked the first half of the paragraph much more than the second half. I think the first three sentences are good, but then I'm confused about the sentence that starts with "fortunately." That seems like an odd wording to me, and it also begins to be repetitive/obvious. I'm also not sure the last sentence is necessary, as is. It would be more appropriate somewhere near the top of the SOP where you'll then describe what you plan to do, but as a closing sentence it leaves me feeling like you were in the middle of a sentence, not quite done. I'd instead try to write something to replace these two sentences that does two things: first, acknowledges that your experience has influenced your decision to apply for this degree, and second, try and integrate what you've learned with what you hope to do next. So, sort of say "At Anneberg, I hope to [draw on this unique personal experience to study [blah]] so that I am then able to [apply this knowledge to something relevant that this degree trains you for (=longterm career goal)]."

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Whichever letter is stronger should be third, the other one should be fourth. That matters a lot more than the professor's affiliation. So, if one knows you longer/better or if one can say more about your research abilities than the other, choose that one. If the letters will be equally strong, I would go with the professor that is likelier to be known to the committee. If one is famous and one is not, make the letter from the famous person the third letter. It may carry more weight. If that's not a tie breaker either, I would go with the letter from the prof whose interests are a closer match to yours. I don't think it matters what department he is affiliated with, as long as he can talk about your research in your chosen area of interest.

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Well, I suppose that depends on what changed between last year and this and it's completely up to your professors to decide how to revise their letters from last year. I would imagine that most of what was in there before is still relevant now, but perhaps the intro/background and the conclusion would need to be updated and if you were involved in research activities involving them as supervisors or instructors then they may add a paragraph or two discussing the projects/classes you were involved in and what the outcomes were. If the letter was fairly weak last time, they may choose to just write a new one. If it was good before and stronger now, they may just add a couple of paragraphs to the existing letter to beef it up. At least, that's how I would do things if it were me.

I'd be careful with this. Adjuncts are temporary and it's not at all guaranteed that someone who is there now will also be there next year. Mentioning that you want to work with someone who won't be there by the time your start (and more importantly, by the time you start forming a committee and doing dissertation research) means that you are basing your decision re: fit with the department at least partly on something that's not going to work out, so you're less of a good fit than you might think. Of course, no one can guarantee that any professor will be there 3-4-5 years from now, but TT and tenured faculty have a longer term commitment and in general you can count on their sticking around, unlike adjunct or visiting faculty. Also, adjuncts don't tend to participate in admissions decisions (though I'm sure this varies) so meeting with them and getting their endorsement is likely not going to help much. If you do mention adjunct faculty in your SOP, I'd make sure it's a secondary reason to attend the school, with more prominent reasons being fit with TT or tenured faculty.

- Make sure you entered the email address correctly. - Have him check his spam folder. - Ask him if he has another email address, try that one. - Contact the program for help, ask if he can just email the letter to someone.

I'm sorry, but this sounds like a myth to me. Programs might care more about one section than another if it's more closely aligned with the kind of research the program does, but if there are official cutoffs then having just one section above the cutoff is probably not enough, and the AW section is generally the most likely to be ignored. A program might still choose to fight for you if your profile is otherwise strong, and they might be able to get around official cutoffs, but unfortunately your scores might be a hinderance in at least some cases.

I assume you need to write there statements for specific schools. The best thing you can do is read their prompts. That will give you the best indication as to what the schools are looking for and how long each essay should be. In the absence of any guidance (though I'm sure at least some of your schools do provide guidance), I would say: - Keep each statement to 2 pages or under, under 1000 words. - The personal statement can be more autobiographical: it can talk about how you got interested in your field, and discuss any difficulties you had along the way. If there were issues when you were growing up, health issues, financial difficulties, etc. Anything you want to explain to the adcom so they have a better sense of who you are as a person. - The statement of purpose should be a more professional document. It would include some discussion of your background but would concentrate on your research interests and future research plans, as they pertain to the school you're applying to. So, you'd want to describe what you care about, how you're prepared to study it, and how the school you are applying to can support you in doing that. A good SOP is focused and shows that you've thought through your interests and the places you've chosen to apply for.

If you are in a field where the final word and the responsibility for the findings go to the PI, not the first author, then I think you will ultimately have to defer to his interpretation of the results, or else ask to have your name removed from the paper if you really think something terrible is going on (but you'd want to be extra sure because nothing good can come of telling your advisor you want off a paper because you think there is a misrepresentation of facts in it). At this point, as others have said, the paper has been resubmitted and I would just wait to see what the reviewers say before doing anything else. In the meanwhile, though, I think it's legitimate to ask your advisor for an explanation of the graph and its interpretation. You don't need to feign ignorance, but this is a point where you clearly are disagreeing with him or missing something and it's important that you understand what that is. I'd bring it up as exactly that - a comprehension question about something you are currently confused about.

Normally the TOEFL minimum required score is exactly that: it's a cutoff you have to beat. It's sometimes possible for programs to accept students who don't meet the university's minimum requirements, but (a) they have to justify themselves, (b ) they can only do it so often, so you'd have to be extra special for them to fight for you, and (c ) you could end up getting rejected even if the program really wants you. I'd say it's worth retaking the test to improve the score, if you can. All you need to do is reach the 105 minimum, there won't be anything to gain from getting an even higher score, so I wouldn't work too hard to get a very high score, just improve a little bit. Just trying again with minimal preparation might be sufficient--I think ETS says that averages for people who retake the test tend to be higher than their first try, at least in part just in virtue of being familiar with the test situation.

That is probably another one of those things that depend on the field. In mine, it can take a long for a paper to go from "accepted" to the proof stage. For example, a paper of mine was accepted in December 2012; I got the proofs around May of 2014, and the paper should be out in an upcoming volume, presumably in early 2015. Meanwhile, the editor I worked with stepped down and is no longer serving in that capacity, so it'd be more difficult to thank him. In addition, the later stages of approving the proofs and signing over my rights were done with the copy editor and the publisher, without any involvement of an editor. This changes by journal -- some are faster and some have the editor involved in the proof stage. Either way, though, I wouldn't want to wait so long to reply with a thank you. I don't think there would be a problem with thanking the editor twice - once for the decision, and again when the final proofs are done and the paper is in the pipeline and about to get officially published.

It's unlikely that this will affect your decisions but of course no one can promise that with absolute certainty. For your own sanity, you could contact admissions and ask if you could submit a revised SOP since you found a mistake in your original submission. If they say no, I wouldn't sweat it. It's highly unlikely that this will make any difference, if anyone even notices it (reading is not a linear word-by-word process and often we won't even notice something like a 'be' missing there because it's to predictable from the context that we just assume it's there--like you did the first 9 times you read it ).

Do a victory dance, possibly take the evening off, if you can afford it. Also, let your supervisor know and update your CV and website. There may be a few last changes to make, like de(/un?)-anonymizing anything that you anonymized for the review process, adding acknowledgements, or small suggestions from the reviewers. If the decision letter doesn't specify, you could reply and ask. Either way, I would reply to thank the editor and express your enthusiasm at the favorable decision.

You can always just say "current GPA" or some such, so no one should be confused.

Normally you'll get approved immediately after your interview and at that point the embassy will take your passport away to stamp the visa in it. They should mail it back within a few days or you can pick it up from the embassy. In that case it just depends on when you can get an appointment. You can schedule the appointment as soon as the international students office at your school sends you the necessary documents, which usually doesn't take long once you've been accepted. If you have the documents in April, it should be possible to be done by May--though, again, it depends on the available dates at your nearest embassy so it's hard to know exactly. If you study certain topics, the process might be slowed down by TAL (Technology Alert List), which may take anything from a few weeks to a few months to complete. As far as I know they don't take your passport while they are conducting this investigation, it just slows the process down. However, I've never actually gone through that so I'm not entirely sure. That said, you can only enter the US on a student status 30 days before your program begins, so if you want to travel in the US before that, you will need to enter on a tourist visa and then either leave and re-enter on a student visa, or change your status without leaving (which is sometimes not recommended, but is possible).

Also look into Canadian programs. I think a higher rate of MA students are funded there than in the US.

You should ask the schools. Most won't care either way (and won't want to see transcripts) but I'm sure there are some that insist on every transcript from everywhere you've ever set foot. Same for the "schools attended" part. My guess is you should list every school you're getting a transcript for as a school attended, but this is based on nothing more than common sense and the school could have other ideas in mind. But I still think it's different when you enroll at a class in a college as opposed to take private lessons with someone who happens to be affiliated with a college. It would have been different if the OP had transferred the credit, but as it stands it's just private lessons that are not related to the college and not officially through it, as far as I can tell from the details the OP gave.

Attended: applied there, enrolled, paid tuition and fees, was considered a student by the institution (as in, had a student ID, an advisor, account on the web system, access to student services, etc.). Just because you took a couple of classes with someone affiliated with a certain institution doesn't mean you attended it. (unofficial definition, obviously not precise)

You didn't attend this school. The requirement is to submit transcripts from every school you attended, and this is not one of them. These are private lessons you got at age 17 from a private teacher, nothing more. I think you are overthinking this.

One thing that would come to mind is to do my own homework.