fuzzylogician

My writers usually updated me after they uploaded each letter so I just replied with a quick thank you. I sent them one email after I confirmed that all the paper letters arrived at their destinations. I then sent another email after I had all the outcomes, and then a last email with my decision after I visited everywhere. I sent all of my writers Christmas cards this year, because I want them to know how thankful I still am.

It seems science programs are usually quicker than Humanities programs, but of course it changes from school to school. The common wisdom is that very strong and very weak applicants tend to hear early and as time passes schools make decisions about the applicants in the middle. It could take as long as April 15th or later, since some people are put on unofficial waitlists and are made to wait until after the first round of admitted applicants make their choice. FWIW I heard back from all of my schools between late January and late February; some of the schools had open house days in early-mid March so they had to get word out before then. Around that same time accepted applicants visited the other schools they were accepted to as well. I met several people more than once in different places - it seems that's visiting-season for linguistics programs and everybody was set up to house and schmooze the prospies at around that time. My guess would be that other fields also have these unofficial dates by which they make their decisions. Check out the results page -- I found it was very accurate, I got notified on the same week as people in the previous two years. The results page could also tell you if/when your schools have interviews and visit days so you'll know around when to start checking your email

Just because the application site has this option doesn't mean the program allows you to submit more than 3 letters, you should check the program's requirements. If you have a fourth letter that's strong and helpful you should submit it, but don't submit a "did well in class" letter.

How large is the part you're omitting and does it contain anything relevant to the argument you're making in your paper? If it's only a few paragraphs you might not have to make any reference to them previously being in the paper. I sometimes edit out whole paragraphs when I write papers, no one really cares that they were there in previous drafts. If you're excerpting parts from a much larger paper you could write an abstract and explain where the parts you're submitting fit into the larger point you were making.

$650 - Application fees (conservative estimate of ~$80 * 8) $225 - TOEFL $190 - Postal fees (international, *not* overnight. Including overnighting forms to last-minute extra LOR who was out of the country) $180 - GRE $80 - GRE additional score reports $80 - TOEFL additional score reports $30 - Transcripts $25 - GRE prep materials $1460

I don't see any problem with taking the test a year before you apply. As others have pointed out, the test is going to change so make sure you study for the right one. I also don't see a reason not to send your scores out to 4 schools you might like to apply to. There's a good chance they won't keep your scores for that long or that you'll change your mind about applying there, but it's free - you have nothing to lose. Worse case scenario, you'll pay to have the scores sent again a year later. The only caveat to this is when I was applying, some schools wanted scores that were less than 2 years old, even though scores are officially valid for 5 years. It's not a big deal if you take the test one year before applying, but you might have to retake the test if you decide to postpone your studies by another year. But right now that's an uncertainty you might not even want to consider.

I'm not in a science program so this might not help, but: be ready to talk about your research. Have at least a 5-minute version and a 15-minute version; different people will want to spend varying amounts of time asking questions about your past projects and you should be able to answer every reasonable question. (On the other hand: don't be afraid to say you don't remember something -- it's better than bullshitting an answer! .. It's also fine to take a moment to think, the silence is never as long or as awkward as you think!). At any given interview day you'll have to give this same spiel multiple times and it's a good idea to be generally prepared, though not to the point where you sound too rehearsed. Interviews usually start with the interviewer asking you to tell them about yourself. Be ready with a short intro of your background and interests. Mention projects you worked on, researchers you collaborated with, conferences you attended/presented at, etc. The conversation flows in most cases so just go along with it. After you present yourself, the interviewer will usually present their current work as it relates to your interests, and will ask if you have any questions. It's a good idea to have a few questions prepared (e.g. about labs, coursework and other requirements, funding, placement of recent graduates, etc). I know some people say it's a good idea to read at least one paper from every interviewer you know you'll have; I've found it's not necessary or even expected. In most cases my interviewers were already working on new topics...it takes forever to publish these days. It was enough to be familiar with their interests and seem interested in their new research. Ask them how they got interested in this new field, if they have grant money to work on it (=if they're going to be into this thing for the next few years), what methods they're using. Re clothing, I always feel very odd in fancy clothes. I started out wearing black pants and nice cardigans; the other interviewees mostly wore jeans and T-shirts, and so I soon changed to that too. My interviewers usually came in jeans and buttoned shirts. I don't think anybody got accepted or rejected based on clothing, as long as, you know, they wore clean clothes and didn't smell.

I assume that if you attach the form to the email to the graduate secretary/DGS that should be fine, or they wouldn't have contacted you about submitting it in the first place. Just make sure you get a reply on Monday (=call if you don't hear back by noon) because everybody is starting to leave for holiday vacations and you want your file to be complete as soon as possible.

I don't think you can really "polish" your CV. It'd be seriously detrimental if you said you did something, or can do something, and then it would be found out that you didn't/couldn't. The SOP is a different matter - there it's all about representing yourself in the most attractive light possible. Again, this doesn't mean you should lie, and it would be just as bad if you did, but you can (and should) choose to say the things that make you seem the best fit for a given department. So you might choose to expand on interest A, which Awesome Prof studies, and not so much on project B, which you also enjoyed but isn't something anyone is particularly concerned with at this particular school. Maybe these are the things you mean by "polishing yourself" in the SOP? You word yourself in ways that make it clear to the reader that you know the ins and outs of your field. You choose a glamorous research interest and write about how you would like to study it in grad school; a happy coincidence would have it, your potential advisor has studied this same topic for 10 years. You have a similar, yet different, topic for other schools. This is all part of the SOP game, and I don't think it's dishonest. Everybody knows your interests are very likely to change by the time you get around to choosing a dissertation topic. You don't want to outright lie or choose something that you're not interested in, or you'll simply be unhappy at a school that doesn't fit you, but I think it's totally fine to tweak your interests to make them more appealing to the admissions committees. If you do it right, there's no reason why you would sound like you're boasting. You should be choosing things you're genuinely interested in, and if you're truly passionate about them, it'll shine through your words.

Good luck with those deadlines! .. and don't forget to go out and celebrate once you've submitted everything

I've recently learned that work I did for a linguistics professor as an MA student and earned me an acknowledgment should have earned me author credit. Sucks indeed.

It seems it's getting too close to Christmas. No one is coming into the office these days. I've only managed to ask one person and he didn't contact anyone either, but that's not exactly representative..

You have two options, I suppose: 1. Don't send anything and don't mention it. Assuming these CC courses don't appear on your college transcripts, no one will ever know. I imagine that's what I'd do if I were in your shoes, even though it's usually considered a big no-no, because you need to solve this catch-22 somehow. 2. If the courses are mentioned somewhere: attach a letter to your transcripts explaining the situation and why you can't provide original transcripts. Consider sending whatever you do have - certificates showing grades for those courses, mention in highschool diploma (even if it's not a certified copy), etc. In any case don't let this stop you from applying to a school! Edit: this is of course after you've tried fancypant's suggestions and failed..

Congrats! You've finished all your requirements for this semester? I'm so jealous! I don't have any finals, thank goodness. All my classes had a problem set due every week, and two want us to write squibs -- one is done (had a meeting with the prof who checked it yesterday, went fine), one will be done by tomorrow (hopefully, met with the prof today and he says my analysis looks good, I just need to finish writing up the data). I think everyone in my class is going to get an A in all of our courses..we haven't gotten our grades yet, but I'll be shocked if anyone got anything lower than that.

Haha, it goes along with best procrastinator ever award.

Preliminary reply: I never contacted anyone before I submitted my app. They contacted me later either for interviews or to let me know I was accepted. I eventually had very nice phone conversations with at least one semantics faculty at each university I applied to, and I visited and met in person all the semantics faculty at 5 of those places. But this is all after I had applied--I think the first contact was made towards the end of January, the last decision was made in late February. I'll ask whoever's in the office tomorrow and get back to you about what they did.

Actually in my experience it's usually the lower ranked programs that publish GPA/GRE cutoffs. The higher ranked programs don't publish these stats and I think they use a more holistic approach.

All the programs I applied to guaranteed funding for all accepted PhD students. I can't help you with MA apps, I didn't even know schools still offered that option. I got offered very different amounts, but the norm was an offer of +20,000 with TAing in years 2-4, plus health insurance. There was no need to apply for this funding, though they do encourage everyone to apply for outside funding; but that's not a requirement or anything, it's just an attempt on their part to save departmental resources. Check the websites - the funding info was posted very clearly on the websites of all the departments I applied to. The majority won't tell you exact amounts, but the more competitive programs offer the same amount to everyone (one less thing to be competitive about, thank god!). In any case, all the offers I got were at least livable, though only one would have actually allowed me to save a nice amount every month. But hey, I'm a grad student. I'm meant to be poor

This prompt reads very much like an SOP prompt. Are you writing this in addition to an SOP? If it's the only thing you're writing you should look at it as more of a research oriented essay and not include too many personal references.

Yes, the consensus is you should waive. But no, you're not automatically rejected because you didn't. Since you really can't do anything about this, the best thing you can do is try to look at it as positively as you can. Some profs might be more suspicious of your letters, others will not be. But for sure you won't be rejected across the board just because you didn't sign the waiver. If it helps, I didn't waive my rights for at least one program that required that I send in a signed form (didn't find out until after I had send off everything else and didn't have time to send that by itself) and I didn't waive my right to see any of the letters I got from a 4th writer who I had to add last minute. I doubt it made any difference to any of my acceptance decisions.

yeah, six is overkill. mentioning four should be more than enough.

1. Regular computer paper for everything. 2. I put my name, "statement of purpose" - program/university, page X of Y. 3. I've heard it's better to use a paper clip and not to staple because the grad school people need to make copies of the materials. I put a clip on my sop and on my cv. The cover letter is just one page and so I left it laying on top of the other things. 4. I'm not sure what this means. I don't think your recommenders really need you to tell them to put the postcard in the mail--that's obvious, isn't it? 5. A big brown envelope.

Most internationals tend to have MAs, but I think that's more because it's very hard to apply straight out of undergrad when you're in a 3-year program than anything else. You'd have to apply after finishing the 2nd year, which in most cases means you won't have taken any seminars or written any large papers, and so you couldn't get strong LORs, etc. So most people will finish their BAs and at least start an MA program (to put the extra year to good use). Another issue in many foreign countries is that undergrads don't have (m)any opportunities to do research, and you can only start getting hired as a research assistant after you've finished your BA, if then. For Americans and Canadians the situation seems to be different, as the system is geared towards grad school applications and students have many more opportunities to do research while in undergrad. Looking at my cohort and at the successful applicants I met last year during school-visiting-season, I think most Americans came with only a BA, and all the internationals had at least some post-graduate experience. Some people presented in conferences and had proceedings publications, but I don't remember anyone having a journal publication. Some people had worked on projects as research assistants, others had done some field work. Others were just really really smart and apparently had strong LORs. I think everyone had strong writing samples--at least everyone's sounded very interesting. I think successful applicants are good at marketing themselves as having potential to do innovative work. They show maturity and understanding of both what advances the field has made and where are some weak points that require more work. They come off as focused and knowing what they want to do (but of course they don't really!). Trendy things to mention nowadays are wanting to work on underrepresented languages (read: not English) and wanting to do experimental work. If you're into that, say it. But if not, don't worry. Many of us theoreticians did just fine.. Good luck!

Don't mention as a publication it on your cv, it's not your publication. You could put it under research experience and describe your duties in the project. You could also mention the experience and subsequent publication in your sop and hope the adcom looks it up and sees the acknowledgment.

Are you sure they don't say anything? As I recall there were two types of schools that wanted me to upload unofficial transcripts - those that wanted them sent in anyway (most of the schools), and those that wrote that I could wait until after I've been accepted to send official copies. In both cases the websites were very clear about what to do. Look on the application software and on the school/program websites. If you can't find any info try asking the graduate office. If it were me and I didn't get an answer I'd just go ahead and send two copies. I'd rather have the school throw them out than throw my app out as incomplete.