fuzzylogician

This happened to me last year at a UC school. Basically, as others have said, the funding situation was such that they could not re-offer a spot if the person they originally offered it to declined. They were quite pushy about it, because they could only afford to admit one international--if that person declined, they would have zero internationals in the cohort. I really didn't appreciate the pressure and ended up withdrawing, but if you're interested I think the right way to play it is to say the school is one of your top choices and you'll be happy to attend, but you'd need a little time to investigate finances and make sure it's affordable for you. I think that's a fair answer that shouldn't hurt you.

Oh well, there's always next time

Depends. Different schools make decisions at different times. Check out the results page for an estimate based on previous years. In my case: the first notification always came in the form of an email/phone call from an adcom member. That was followed by an official email from the graduate school. I think all the schools that allowed online status checks eventually changed my status from "pending" (or whatever) to "accepted", but it took a while in some cases.

I only have people who are actually friends I care about on my facebook. As such, they knew I was applying, were supportive, and were curious about my results. Now what's more "obnoxious" - calling each of them personally to let them know, not letting them know at all, or posting one status update? Hmmm... It's not bragging, it's simply letting friends know the good news. Seeing as it was going to cause a major life change for me, they were bound to find out sooner or later...so why not sooner? sheesh.

I did. Whoever thought I was a conceited bitch before got their confirmation, but who cares about them. I was just very EXCITED!! . ETA: none of my friends were applying to grad school in the US, so it's not like I was rubbing it in anyone's face.

Both, in a sense. You need this to be an isolated incident, so no more dropping out of big projects mid-way through. You can't remedy the situation, since you can't go back and finish this project, but you need to let the adcom know it won't happen again. A PhD student is a big investment on the department's part, and it will be afraid to spend the money on someone who might drop everything and run away when things get tough--and they always do, at some point. Also consider shortly addressing this issue in your SOP. Opinions vary here, and usually I believe the SOP is not a place to make excuses but to be as positive as possible; but if there's a big glaring issue in your record to explain (like dropping the seminar and making your major into a minor), I think you should say something about that, otherwise the adcom will be left wondering and will have no choice but to assume the worst. Since I assume you're not applying for a PhD before (at least) next year,you have plenty of time to consult professors, grad student and communities like this one to come up with the best explanation of what happened.

First off, I don't think anyone should despair because of one blemish on their record. If you have a problematic record your route to grad school may be longer and harder, but it is still certainly possible for you to get there. Now specifically in your case, your dropping out of the seminar may make things a bit harder for you, but there's no reason why it should keep you out of grad school altogether. You do have a minor in your field, and you'll have a MA as well by the time you apply to PhD programs. Provided you do well in your MA program and address the undergrad situation honestly and maturely, you should do just fine. Make sure you secure LORs that can speak to your conviction and perseverance, because those are issues that adcoms may be worried about, based on your past record. Don't drop out of any more classes, or stop projects in the middle. If you show you can carry on and produce good work (=produce a strong writing sample from this year, for example), that should be good enough to convince the adcom that you've grown and now know what you want from yourself and your future career.

There's a discussion going on about this issue in the Lobby:

My new favorite way to answer (just tried it out for the first time yesterday): Clueless person: You're a linguist? So how many languages do you speak? Me: It depends. By 'speak', do you mean 'able to read literary texts', 'able to watch TV', 'able to buy fish at the market', 'can tell you about the case system', 'can tell you what the phoneme inventory is', 'learned in class', 'done field work on', 'wrote a paper about' ... because each of those has a different answer. Clueless person: ... Me: See, the thing is, it's not really about the number of languages you can speak...

It's probably a good idea to let the department know you have a fiance who's also applying the same school and that your decision will depend in large part on the outcome of her application. I would then leave it at that; I think it's a bad idea to ask your department to lobby for your fiance. If they want to do it on their own initiative that's another matter, but I agree with TerryM that asking yourself will reflect poorly on you. Others have mentioned that sometimes when a department really wants someone, they will create a position for their partner. I know this happens after the PhD level, when looking for employment, so it's possible it also happens for particularly attractive PhD applicants. Maybe you'll get lucky.

It's always a good idea to say thank you after an interview. An email should be enough, no need for a handwritten card. If you don't know all the interviewers' names, send the email to those you could find and ask them to forward to the other ones.

Unless you applied to your own school and that professor is on the adcom, the only way she could know what's in your letters is if the writers told her. Or she could be making a generic statement about your writers' reputation and the connections they have at the schools you're applying to.

It can make a big difference. Your recommendation will be coming from someone the faculty know and trust, so their word counts for more. If your recommender goes the extra mile and calls/writes their friends about you, that means they think highly of you. I know a few people who credit their acceptance to certain schools to a LOR's connections there. For example, one friend was accepted to 1 out of 8 schools she applied to a few years ago, and said her (current) advisor told her "if X thinks so highly of you, that's good enough for me!."

I agree. As the saying goes, if you can see yourself doing anything other than grad school -- do that. The academic track can be grueling and unrewarding, and it's important to know the difficulties going in. I believe in being realistic. The professor who encouraged the OP not to apply to any top 75 programs is definitely overdoing it, but it's important for a person to have someone tell them the cold hard facts, even if they're hard to hear. Better advice probably would have been to spread your bets -- don't apply only to top ranked schools, but also to lower ranked schools where your admissions chances are higher. In the specific case of the OP, though, I don't think the professor who gave you advice knew enough about your situation to give good advice; don't be discouraged by her.

Of course there's a chance you'll be notified of admission after the conversation. Usually only finalists get interviewed, so your chances of admission are pretty good. How many people are admitted out of the ones that were interviewed depends on department policy, so it's hard to tell if/when the department decides--but it'll probably be within the next few weeks.

This. <rant> Try convincing a school that doesn't have transcripts to give you one! I had to make one myself and beg someone in administration to approve it. Then get the departmental secretary to sign 15 copies + put them in official envelopes + sign across the flap. They didn't like me there for a while after that. The LOR who told me the week before the deadline that she would write me a letter like she promised, but it couldn't a strong letter (this is my MA thesis advisor who I also TAed for. ). The scrambling to get a 4th writer last minute. Filling out and overnighting them forms abroad. The extra costs of being international - higher app fees, the TOEFL+score reports, higher postal fees. The school that changed the deadline from Jan 15 to Dec 15 but didn't post a notification, only changed the small print in the FAQ section (it's a good thing I'm obsessive and rechecked the requirements every so often). Diversity statements. Schools that can't admit you because there's no funding for internationals, but won't refund your app fees. People who tell you they're sure you'll get in. People who don't understand why you're so stressed. People who think you're wasting your time going to grad school. The Wait. </rant>

Sometimes things change between when they say "yes" in September/October and when they actually get around to doing it in December/January. It's not an excuse, but not everyone is evil.

Contact the department and let them know you submitted your application before they uploaded the new guidelines. Depending on whether you want to rewrite the entire SOP or just add an answer to the 4th question, ask to supplement your application with that. Since the deadline hasn't passed yet, I don't think there should be a problem. Don't just leave it and hope for the best, you want your application to have the best starting point it possibly can.

For starters: are you familiar with word processing/typesetting software? Can you do statistics? Do you know programming languages? Have you written long papers before? Worked in publishing/editing? Do you have an extensive background in your field?

There are a few. There's the famous "you're a linguist? How many languages do you speak?" (it's not about that!) There's the "oh, so you tell people how they should speak." -me: "no, I study how people actually speak, not how they should speak. I don't care about that." - they: "but saying X that way is wrong" - me: "but that's how people say it." - them: "then they're wrong!" .. -me: "but! you say it like that too, everybody does.. don't you want to know why?" .. it can go on like that for a while after that. Or: "so how do you spell so-and-so?" - me: "like this.. but I didn't learn this in university. You learn that in grade school!" My favorite: "So what will you do with that after you graduate? Be an English teacher?"

I assume if I were contacted by some random person, I'd reply with some info about the program, but I wouldn't tell dirty little secrets to internet strangers. Now, if they were referred by my advisor/the DGS/the graduate secretary, then I might be more forthcoming. It's a good idea to talk to current students at some point. I did it after I had my answers and needed to make a decision, and got some very useful inside information. I think the students were much more forthcoming because I'd already been accepted and wasn't just contacting them out of the blue.

Or: put your SOP on a website or save it as a public google document, and post a link to it in the forum. Ask people not to quote whole paragraphs; you can later remove the document if you're uncomfortable with it being online.

It looking even better than before, very nice! I don't have time to go into a lot of detail, but for now: The first part sounds like a good idea; the second part, not so much. Why talk about your fascination with crusades in the past tense? That's what you're proposing to work on in grad school. (Or are you referring to the first sentence of another paragraph?) Also: P2: I began to explore these questions in my undergraduate research, which included a textual analysis of Robert de Clari’s La Conquête de Constantinople. Break to two sentences: I began to explore these questions in my undergraduate research. For a course on X, I wrote a textual analysis of Robert de Clari’s La Conquête de Constantinople. [description of work]. More recently, I undertook a study to ascertain the reasons why [blah]. I undertook a study to ascertain the reasons why -- it's a bit wordy, but I don't have a good replacement suggestion for you right now. P4: Next year Professor Nicholas Paul, who is an expert on the medieval family and crusading traditions, will have returned from leave. Professor Paul’s expertise will help to guide my own research. There's no need to tell the department that one of its faculty is an expert on X. Change to something like: Next year, Professor Nicholas Paul will have returned from leave. His expertise on the medieval family and crusading traditions will help to guide my own research. P4: Additionally, as my French continues to develop I hope to learn Middle French with Professor Susan Dudash, an expert on the language. Likewise on telling the department someone is an expert. Is she from outside the department so they wouldn't know her? I'd suggest editing to remove that part and add the specifics about the course you'll take with her, or alternatively how she will help advance your research. If you have specific ideas about how to use Middle French in a way that will benefit your project, consider mentioning them.

I don't take offense to your question the way some people do; my advice is very practical. Start writing your SOP yourself. You should at least have a draft ready before you can go out and seek professional help. Several people have already said this in this thread, and you'll find many others who have had the same experience if you read through old posts on the GradCafe: writing the SOP is one of the most important ways you grow intellectually. It's how you refine your interests and find out what truly motivates you. Only by investing the time and effort in doing this can you truly know your needs and desires. After you know exactly what you want, then you can turn to a consultant who can help you present it in the best possible way. I don't think it's objectionable, or that you should be a great writer right off the bat; it's one of the things grad school trains you for, and some people can be incredible researchers but never develop strong writing skills. However, you should be very aware that consultants and editors may be very good at their job, but you know yourself the best. If you can present your passion, attributes and interests to an editor, even in a half-baked way, they can help you formulate them convincingly. But you have to know yourself what you want your essay to say. Consultants can't know it for you. You have to do the work yourself. All this said, at the point when you have worked on the SOP for weeks on end, I'd strongly suggest having professors, friends and successful applicants read your essay and critique it, before using a payed service. You can get great free advice on websites like this one and from your friends and professors, which might just be all you need to writing a compelling essay.