fuzzylogician

Hey, giving up is never a good strategy. Make the effort to confirm that your advisor doesn't understand what's going on, or maybe it's you who is misunderstanding. Maybe it's time to discreetly ask around and consult with more advanced students - this could be a "known" issue (of the kind everyone knows but no one talks about). If you decide it's the advisor, not you, then I think it may be time to start exploring ways of extricating yourself from the situation, preferably by finding a new advisor who you trust and can work with. You're only one semester in, so it's not too late to find a new advisor and project, if necessary, without it affecting your progress in your program.

On days when I don't teach or have anything out of the ordinary: jeans, blouse or nice sweater, sneakers. Neat but not fancy. I dress nicer on days when I teach, and also for presentations, meetings with people from outside the department, etc.

What do you mean by similarity? We use equations to describe sentence meanings in semantics on a regular basis, but I don't recall seeing anyone argue that the ways in which you form the two resemble each other.

Well, the semester is over. Thank you all for your suggestions. I suppose I should reflect on what techniques actually worked for me. What ended up working was a combination of: (1) staying around after class to let the student talk for a bit - he was awkward but was obviously trying to connect; (2) hanging out near the student whenever I had the class work through a problem by themselves before we solved it together on the blackboard - that's a good time to let him ask about whatever irrelevant detail is on his mind; (3) teaching him what questions are appropriate by giving feedback on the question itself as well as giving a reply (and explaining that I am ignoring X because it's not relevant now -- but then talking about it with him after class); (4) and simply ignoring some comments and remarks when there was no time. Because of the nature of the class, slides were impossible. But whenever I could have handouts I tried to do that, so there was a clear agenda of where we are headed and what we need to cover. That made it easier to deflect questions and comments that would have otherwise derailed the class.

Are you sure you'll have to repeat the coursework? Normally in cases I know of where a professor brings with him students from a previous institute, they are not expected to re-do everything. Usually they also end up graduating from the original institution they applied to, instead of the new one the advisor moved to (even though as part of the contract between the advisor and new school, there may be physical space at the new school for these students to work in). You need to find out where your degree will be granted, and also if it's possible to get exempt from retaking courses. These are things you need to ask your advisor point blank. You might also want to find out about the possibility of not moving with him but continuing to have him as the main advisor on your dissertation, if that's something you think could work for you (use skype for weekly meetings, meet in person less often - it works for some people). I honestly can't see myself retaking all of my courses and I can think of more than one topic I could write a dissertation on, so the main thing I would care about in a situation like yours is who I would be working with as advisor. I think the student-advisor relationship is a very important component in the entire graduate training process.

It's good news. It means you're a strong applicant. In some fields departments will try luring strong applicants by promising them a named fellowship or better funding, and applying for those funds happens before the student is officially admitted, so it's part of the funding offer that is made with the admissions offer (and sometimes as a result the department will lose said funding, because the intended recipient rejects the offer).

Yes, of course you can list it - under publications. Congrats!

How about the header "Addendum"? Followed by "In this addendum to my application I wish to clarify X," followed by a short 1-2 line explanation of whatever you're explaining and the explanation.

Actually in healthy departments there would be interest in helping the new hire settle in and get on track, and that would include having them starting to supervise students. There are other concerns with having an inexperienced advisor that are similar to what you mentioned - they may have less resources to get students extra funding or to help them go the conferences; they may simply be unaware of procedures or off-books ways of doing things, they may not know which administrator to schmooze to get an application approved - things of that sort. Of course, there may also be department-internal politics that could hurt the advisor, so that's a worry too -- but it's just as possible that powerful professors have also made enemies who will try to hurt them behind their back...unless you have concrete reasons to worry, I'd leave those concerns aside.

Not to state the obvious, but how do you think your experienced professors got their experience? OP: what other support network would you have in the program? Ideally since this POI is inexperienced you'd want to have someone who could provide a second opinion and support your advisor to get you through your degree. There are good and bad things about working with a young advisor - the inexperience is the bad, as mentioned, and it'll mean that for all kinds of things you may need to be more active in your education than you might otherwise. You'll learn on the go together, and that may be good or bad. The good thing is that young professors are more likely to be driven to publish, and as you say in this case it's a good fit in terms of interests. As for your chances, you already know it's impossible to tell. But it's indeed likely that young professors have less people who apply to work with them compared to more experienced professors. That may work in your favor, as will the close fit in interests if you described it successfully in your SOP.

What's your field? For most fields I don't see how multimedia creations are helpful for your CV. You can list the skills you used to create the multimedia under a "Skills" section along with languages, programming skills and whatever else is relevant for your field. It's also problematic to list yourself as the author of a document if you're not credited on the document itself. ETA: In both cases, it may be possible to list the employment that led to the creation of the multimedia and the reports on your CV and mention authoring the relevant work there.

No. If anything, the only time I've heard professors talk about someone accepting an offer immediately, it was in astonishment that they didn't take the time to weigh factors such as other offers and questions about the offer from my school. Your advisor is going to develop an opinion of you that is based on your daily interactions and your work; your initial reaction to the offer is outweighed by these other factors.

There is truth to your concern, but keep in mind that admissions decisions are often made at a departmental level. The difference between getting admitted or rejected can sometimes be all about having someone willing to go to bat for you. On the flip side of this way of doing things, other adcom members, who are championing other students, might be looking for obvious flaws in your application. Make sure not to give them any. The person arguing against your acceptance may (often) have nothing to do with your work in the department, in case you're accepted. Because of this, I recommend first getting the offer and then finding out how the relevant people in the department - your potential advisors and others who will likely sit on your committee - feel about whatever issue you are worried about. Do it once the odds are in your favor: when they are courting you, not before.

Again, only the first and last sentences tell me about you and your interests. Are the sentences in the middle going to teach the adcom something relevant they don't already know? After studying structural engineering for two years, I came to the conclusion that I am not interested in simply applying the engineering concepts I had been learning, as engineers normally do. Instead, I want to have the knowledge that would allow me to formulate such concepts. For example .... (your example here, possibly stripped down to bare essentials if the adcom already knows this). By obtaining a degree in statistics, I hope to be able to apply statistical methods to other areas [of ______] and to improve efficiency and realize cost savings [in area].

I have some specific comments below, but the main thing I would encourage you to work on is bringing yourself into this SOP. You describe a lot of generalities, including things that adcom surely already knows about its field, but there is not enough of you in there. Why are you interested in this field? What exactly are interested in? What do you want to do with these interests? Why this University in particular? There is some answer to all these questions but there should be more.

Here are some thoughts: I am not in Psychology so I might be totally wrong here, but it seems to me that you are listing quite a few diverse interests here. If all these interests are clearly closely related to each other, then ignore this altogether. But if they are quite diverse, maybe you should provide clear links between your interests or edit some of them out. You want to show a clear and consistent view, and you want to have interests that are compatible with what maybe 20-30% of the faculty is doing (in my field, that corresponds to finding 3-4 faculty you could work with).

There are many good advice threads on the forum. Why don't you start with the pinned ones at the top of the forum, particularly

I would encourage you not to lie, if asked point blank. You could simply refer to personal/family obligations that forced you to slow down, and I doubt anyone will ask what those were. But from my experience with interviews, I was never asked about anything in particular from my transcripts. Conversations were always centered around the present and future - what are my interests, why I want to pursue a PhD, why at that particular school.

I don't think it matters at all.

First off, not being told what you want to hear is not the same as not getting a "legitimate response." I think Omniun makes a very good point: how can you want a PhD in a subfield you don't know at all? You need to do your own legwork here, and you're not helping yourself by outsourcing this part of preparing for PhD applications. Go on the websites of a few programs that have good computational linguistics; look up their PhD requirements, look at their course offerings, find out what the faculty's interests and current research is about, and find out what current graduate students and recent alums are working on. That will give you the answers to the questions you asked (and a few you didn't) - how much knowledge in linguistics you'll need to have coming in, and how much you will acquire during your studies; what other knowledge you'll need to have coming in and what you'll learn during the degree; what kind of work is normally done in computational linguistics; and the balance between linguistics and CS in the program. Second, if you don't want my "dick" advice, stop PMing me to solicit it. I don't need to waste my time on people who don't appreciate it (or bother to know my gender, and address me using rude language).

Instead of just randomly googling, target the programs that you are applying to and others that are relevant. Many will have a "people" page, which usually includes entries for graduate students. Some will give you links to their websites right there, or else you could try googling the names you find.

The prompt sounds fairly common to me, and not particularly lenient as you suggest. "Plans for graduate study" is intended for you to describe your research interests. You may not have a specific research question in mind, but you should be able to describe a subfield or a set of questions that are interesting to you, unless you're applying to strictly professional programs, which - from the wording of the prompt - does not appear to be the case. Also, don't brag, and do yourself a favor by stopping to believe that using your parents' achievements to manipulate the adcom is "bragging." Giving this information is presumptuous and might annoy some members of the admissions committee, but more importantly it's completely irrelevant to your application. Just because your father is Joe Fancypants or your mother is Mary Famous we can't conclude anything about your abilities or fit with a particular department. Why should you be chosen over someone who used their SOP space wisely to actually address the questions in the prompt and convince the adcom that they are a strong candidate? Spend your time proving that, and you'll have better chances of being admitted.

As others have said, don't mention it. It's not relevant at all. If you were on an adcom, would you want to admit a demonstrably excellent student or one who brags about her parents? Use the space in your SOP wisely - on convincing the adcom that you are worth the time, money and effort that are invested in each graduate student that is accepted into the department.

This is good advice, but instead of professors I'd suggest you google for peers. Look for CVs of graduate students in different stages of their careers. First-years will have more sparse CVs that might resemble yours in terms of content, and will give you an idea of what achievements people normally had before starting grad school. More advanced students will have more professional-looking CVs, and should give you a good idea of what people in those stages have done and also how they tend to format CVs.

First off, you'll be required to submit a transcript from each school you attended, including the one you transferred out of. The best thing you can do is find out what the official transcript looks like and whether it specifies the reason why you stopped attending. My guess would be that it doesn't, and that the school will not just disclose this information to unauthorized parties (e.g., grad school adcoms). If that is the case, then you need to think about whether or not to address this blemish in your SOP when you apply. On the one hand, your GPA was not low; on the other hand, you left that school and moved to a less prestigious one for no apparent reason. Some people will wonder. You could address this with a one-line vague statement in your SOP that mentions personal circumstances that forced you to take a leave of absence and then go to a new school. In all likelihood, that will satisfy adcom's curiosities and they will not ask further questions. If/when you get interviews, if you're concerned that the issue will come up, then maybe you can prepare a response that sort of addresses the question but avoids unnecessary details. In any event, that's about a year into the future and (I think) generally unlikely to come up in conversation unless you talk about it yourself. So, I'd say consult an advisor if you have one you trust to work out whatever plan you want to pursue, but otherwise don't worry overmuch. If you are doing demonstrably better now, that should be enough to overcome this issue.