fuzzylogician

Are you applying to math programs for grad school? Without knowing more about your situation, I would say that your story would raise red flags with admissions committees. If you can explain whatever made you slow down as a thing of the past which you have overcome that's one thing, but it sounds like whatever the problem is, it's not resolved yet. If that is the case, then grad programs will be very reluctant to invest in you. You are likely to take the support (fellowship, advising, space in your cohort, other resources) and not make as much of it as other students, perhaps even throw it all away at the end because you won't be able to complete the degree requirements. It's something admissions committees will be looking out for and will not appreciate in your application.

"Not prepared" and "not smart enough" are two very different things. If the problem is not with your colleagues' abilities but rather with their current state of knowledge, that will likely sort itself out before the year is out. But if you think that you're not going to get the stimulus you need to push you to do your best work, that is another issue. Without knowing which one is the problem, I'd say that if leaving the school with a Masters is an existing option in your program, then you could use it. Be strategic - you want to maintain good relations with the professors in your program since you'll need LORs from them, but there should be a way to make this work. However, since I assume the Masters program is two years long, I'd highly recommend doing your best to make the program you're in work, and only decide on a course of action towards the summer. At that time you'll have a much better sense of your fit in the program.

I think some posts confuse coming from a privileged family and behaving like a privileged brat (for lack of better definitions).

The calls for papers in my field usually specify things like length, fonts and format. When in doubt I use a 12 point standard font like times new roman and give a full list of references. If in a space crunch, one of the first things to go is the reference list (I might write: Smith'80, NLLT, for: Smith, John. 1980. "Paper title which is quite long and boring: Predictable subtitle". Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 12, 1-45). A standard format will open with a title, have a short introduction/summary of the argument, followed by the main idea and data supporting it, reference to previous theories and their inadequacies and a conclusion. It's neither a seminar paper nor a full journal publication - it's an advertisement for your presentation that should promise exciting new material with just a small taste of what it actually is. Here are some tips that I find useful - they discuss linguistics in particular but others may find them helpful too: http://www.unc.edu/l...s/hil-tips.pdf.

So you have an official position in the class? In that case, I would request a meeting with the instructor and bring these issues up. You could phrase them simply as information you'd like to have in order to inform your students. Honestly I think you shouldn't do work beyond what you're paid for, though I understand that it's hard to say no or to walk away from what seems like a great learning opportunity. The instructor might not know how much you're paid or what your job description is, and I think you should be very honest and clarify this issue immediately. You're right - the way the data is used should be discussed upfront and any possible authorship issues should be agreed upon before you start the project. As for REB, I'd find a way to mention it (e.g., can I have the REB approval number to put on the handout I'm preparing for class, or some such) and see how it goes from there. It's generally best to assume that the professor has done his job and has thought these issues through so I'd start by framing my questions that way. It's not your job to fix a professor's mistakes or even frame questions in a way that assumes they don't know what they're doing, so be careful. All you want to do is get the information about whatever is making you uncomfortable and nothing else. I've never been involved in a class quite like what you're describing, but I was asked to TA for a class last year whose instructor had a somewhat similar idea - that students would learn methods throughout the class and would then form small groups that would create final projects that could be submitted to a journal for publication. I thought the concept was fraught with potential problems and declined the offer. I'm not sure what came of it, but I can see a number of potential problems with authorship in joint projects by such ad hoc groups.

Admissions committees are not going to see your SATs. Therefore, they are not going to be able to have an opinion about the correlation between your SAT score and your GRE score. As a result, you have nothing to explain.

Everyone makes mistakes, and no one is perfect. If you said something wrong to your undergraduate students, just fix it. Don't get hung up on the mistake but make sure they have the right information. You can be very matter-of-fact about it and unless you make a big deal out of it, they won't either - they trust you to teach them and that's what you're doing. If you're screwing up in front of professors, get used to it. That's how you learn. Ask questions, even stupid ones, and don't be shy. Just because you're in grad school to study X does not automatically make you an expert on X. (But on the other hand it's also a good idea not to jump into a conversation with very strong opinions about things you're not sure about. Better to ask than to make statements.)

I love these types of collaborations. My colleagues are some of the smartest people I know and I enjoy talking with them about complicated ideas we read in papers. Of course it's a good idea if everyone could at least skim all the papers and then one person has the responsibility of creating a more detailed summary (and, by the way, no one is stopping you from reading all of the papers thoroughly before you meet with the group). My research always benefits from talking to other people rather than flying solo and keeping all to myself. But, if any of this makes you uncomfortable, find a way to excuse yourself from the group and do what works for you.

In my field I would list any publication/presentation that had my name on it, that was accepted to a peer-reviewed conference/journal. Although it's true that presentations don't count as much as peer-reviewed publications and furthermore that being first author counts more than being somewhere in the middle of the author list, it's still a reportable achievement and I would view it as that. Experienced professors on the adcom will know how much value to attribute to different entries on a CV.

You could probably also find information either by contacting the university directly or by contacting the Turkish embassy nearest you. A very quick look through the UK Turkish embassy website shows that they have such a thing as a "Spousal visa or partner visa" whose description is "provided to the spouse, civil partner or de facto partner of a resident or Turkish citizen," and is probably what you want to get.

Heh, my posting level is directly related to my work load. More work --> more avoidance --> more posts. Simple.

Good advisor, hands down and by far.

I'd proceed exactly as if I were a domestic student and simply add another consideration to my decision process. Find universities that might be of interest to you based on the research that they do and the potential advisors you could have there. As always, aim to have 2-3 possible advisors and a department with diverse resources that could support you if you change your concentration (within reason) and enough professors to serve on your committee and give relevant advice. Eliminate schools that don't have the research resources you need; also eliminate schools that are located in areas you will not consider living in (generally, a good rule of thumb is that you should not apply to a school if you would not consider going there in case it was the only offer you received). Then look more closely at the departments that make this cut: what kind of students do they usually accept? Are there many international students? Is it a private university or a public university, and if so what state is it in - is it in one of the states whose finances have suffered recently? Read the admissions page closely - does it say anything that could be interpreted as discouraging (or encouraging) international students to apply? If you can't find any information, you could try and write either the administrative staff or the DGS in the program; be careful how you frame the question - no one will overtly tell you they're not accepting international students, but if you ask correctly you may learn what kind of resources are available to internationals and whether they are limited compared to domestic students.

As far as I know it depends on the financial situation of the department, which directly depends on the financial situation of the university. This, in turn, depends on the financial situation of the state for public universities, but not for private universities. There are several reasons why programs in public universities may prefer to admit domestic students rather than international students: first, tuition for domestic students is often cheaper; US citizens can become state residents for a discounted tuition rate (in some states) whereas internationals cannot; for the amount of money a program would spend on the tuition of one international student, it could cover the tuition of two or more domestic students. Second, public universities are required to admit a certain number of local state residents (which, again, international students aren't and can't ever become). Third, for some programs I have heard that there is an issue with trusting the credentials of international students; if there is a higher attrition rate of internationals vs. locals, the program loses its funding for that student - that is, a program is allocated a certain amount of money, and that money goes away and can't always be reused if the student drops out. The money essentially goes back to the central pool and is reallocated to another program. When making admission offers some universities face a similar situation - if a potential student rejects an offer, the money that was put aside for that student's funding can't always be re-offered to a different applicant on the wait-list; so, if an international rejects an offer, more money is lost than if a domestic student does. Lastly, some programs are very concerned with the makeup of their student body and want diversity, but others are less concerned with that and prefer to have students from similar backgrounds to (in their opinion) ease bonding and lower attrition rates. All this affects some states more than others. I learned about these issues through my applications to public universities in California, and it's possible that the situation is markedly different in other states. For private universities, on the other hand, there is no such difference between international and domestic students. Tuition and fees cost the same for everyone and there are no external demands on the student body makeup. That is, a program is able to admit whoever it wants depending on its own needs, which may include concerns about attrition rate or composition of a cohort but don't need to care about a student's origin, per se.

There are always going to be too many interesting things, and you're going to have to learn to make smart choices. You could just sit in on a class (I, too, have never been turned down for that) but at some point you also have to decide not to do an activity you would be interested in, simply because there are too many of them and you need to concentrate on doing well in the ones that are required. It's your first semester, I think it's a bad idea to assume that you can take 2 courses more than anybody else; it's possible that you can, but you should develop your work habits slowly and not overdo it. What looks doable now may become completely unbearable later in the semester and may cause a complete breakdown come crunch time.

You could put your projects under research experience but honestly obvious attempts to beef up your CV will be just that - obvious. Everyone starts somewhere and no one expects a participant in a student conference to be extensively published. Stick to education, publications, presentations, honors (fellowships, scholarships, awards, etc), teaching experience, research experience, service (and anything else that is relevant in your field).

Not to get in the middle of anything and without re-reading all the posts, is it possible that it's not what you said but the tone you used or the choice of words? It is possible to convey very different messages by just altering one's delivery of the very same content. I just find that it's usually better to assume that people aren't out to get you (though sometimes it's possible that they are!) until there is more evidence of that. Lacking positive evidence -- as someone who upvoted michigan girl -- I wasn't part of a clique, I just liked both what she said and how she said it.

I believe that in England it means you did quite well, whereas where I'm from it means you're close to failing. You need to find a conversion system that is sensitive to your university's grading system and we can't do that here with the information you've provided. If this is just for general reference, try googling and I'm sure you'll find unofficial advice about grade conversion in your country/university. Most universities will just want your original transcripts and they'll convert the grades themselves. There are also professional conversion services and some universities require you to use them, but they also tell you which ones you can use.

In that case you can talk about that research interest as it developed through undergrad and the MA program - if it's a long lasting topic for you, that's fair game. You could mention both your work during undergrad and the MA program. Is this also the topic you're planning to study in grad school? You want to be careful not to appear to only have one very narrow interest - that is, you should explain how it could be expanded and adopted into a PhD topic, if that's something you're interested in. On the other hand, if you're interested in another topic then you don't want to seem like you've never given it much thought because you've always been involved with this one other project. But, those concerns aside, you can definitely mention relevant work you did as an undergraduate.

Well, I honestly don't remember anymore what (if any) my expectations were, but I remember being pleasantly surprised at how well prepared I was compared to some of my peers; I also remember being very happy with my cohort and our new first-year office, and a little shocked by the amount of work we were expected to do. Learning to field all the requirements was somewhat of a challenge initially. Since we all take the exact same courses in our first year it wasn't until second year that I had to deal with conflicting advice about courses. That ended in one semester of complete overload leading to incompletes in all of my classes, but I eventually made up for them all without consequence. That semester ended up being very successful in terms of presentations/publications so I think the course issue was completely understood and forgiven. We don't have official advisors in my program but I was very lucky in that I was pretty much accidentally assigned to do some work with the people who ended up becoming my main support system in the program. That didn't happen until the later part of my first year and the summer after that, and these people aren't who I had initially designated as POIs in my SOP. But hey, things happen unexpectedly and if there is one thing I've learned in graduate school is to seize every opportunity with both hands and take it as far as I can.

It's wonderful if it works out but could be terrible if it doesn't. What were your past breakups like? That's a good indication of what the future will look like - do you get into a lot of drama? can you stay in touch with your ex? how about see him on a regular basis? be friends with him? If you date a colleague and it doesn't work out, you'll still have to see him around the office on a daily basis. You'll have joint friends and you'll see him at events, maybe even take classes with him. so you need to ask yourself if that's something you can live with. That said, romance has a way of creeping up on you when you least expect it and if it ends up being a colleague you may find that you have many shared interests and a similar view of life. There are many couples in academia, so there's clearly something that works about dating a colleague.

You could mention your undergraduate education but it'd probably make more sense to focus more on your MA education, assuming that it is directly tied to your proposed PhD studies and that your research skills and interests developed mostly during that time.

This is for dissertation defenses. For comps in my program the student presents the work in front of the committee and there is a Q&A session but no audience, and it's overall shorter than a dissertation defense.

The format of a defense changes from program to program. In my program, students simply go through as much of their work as they choose to for about an hour or so, followed by questions from the audience, followed by a private Q&A session with the committee. There is no speech or anything preceding the presentation.

Try here: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/65-social-work/