fuzzylogician

Here are a few relevant older threads for you to browse. Searching for "tattoos" and "piercings" will bring even more.

You can, and sometimes you will be entirely correct. But even if everyone around *knows* someone is a bad advisor, being the one to say it will almost never do you any favors. It's better to remain vague, and as much as possible find a way to talk about what happened that sounds like an objective problem and was solved in a reasonable way and isn't likely to be a problem again in the future. So things like change in interests so that they are no longer supported by the department, a personal issue that's since been resolved, or a general compatibility issue with the department might work best.

I would definitely advise you not to cast blame on anyone else, however justified it might be. It never reads well. I would say you left because of a compatibility issue with your advisor and/or program, and keep it vague. I would not say anything about being unsupported or poorly advised. The people you are talking about are colleagues (and perhaps friends) of the people who would be reading the SOP, and you don't want to put them in an awkward position. Especially if some time has passed between the previous experience and this application season, I would just stick to a short vague statement, followed by a "since then I've been doing [awesome things], and more recently I've decided to again pursue a graduate degree, with renewed resolve. I am confident that Uni X has the kind of supportive environment that will allow me to succeed" or some such. (Also, make sure that this is true, and the kind of advising at the schools you're applying to really is what you need, so you don't end up with an advisor like you had before!)

I assume this must be the GRE. The TOEFL has a speaking section, which starts at different times for different people, which means that there will easily be 5-10 people talking loudly right next to you while you try to do such things as read a passage for reading comprehension or write an essay. It's exactly as upsetting as it sounds, but you just have to deal with it.

It'll be just fine. It's an insignificant typo.

If you can update materials in your application yourself, go ahead and do that. For a deadline that was just a few days ago, it's doubtful that anyone's already looking at the applications, so updating it now should be fine. If not, if it's a big deal, I would email someone (probably the department coordinator in charge of applications, and if you don't know who that is then simply the departmental secretary), say that [important development] just happened, and would they be willing to replace your old CV with an updated one (attached to the email) that reflects this development.

You are most definitely not alone.

For the love of god, please do not look at submitted apps. What good could possibly come of that?

It's hard to predict your score, but if you're unhappy with it, it seems to me that you have nothing to lose by asking if you can submit a second set of scores or if there is anything else you can do to counteract the low AWA score. Generally, even when there is an official published cutoff, programs can sometimes admit someone who doesn't quite meet it if they are otherwise impressed with their application. This isn't necessarily something that they will tell you about (they wouldn't want to make any promises, and might not hold for the particular school you have in mind), so you might not know unless you apply, but I see no harm in talking to them first.

You have to wait. "Hours ago" is not very long, and I'm sure they have other emails and tasks to deal with. I assume your email says you noticed a typo in the SOP you submitted and has an attached version that fixes it? There is no guarantee that they'll agree to replace your already submitted SOP, but all you can do is hope. Either way, I don't think that one mistake will get you immediately disqualified. As you say, it's clear what you meant, so any reasonable reader would give you the benefit of the doubt and move on.

If you are very concerned, you could email the school, say you've noticed a couple of typos, and would they please replace the version they have with this newer version that is attached to the email? They may say no, but you have nothing to lose. (But this newer version had better not have any typos in it!) Either way, a couple of typos are not going to disqualify you, so I don't think you need to worry.

Assuming the letters are at least somewhat personalized (e.g. mention the school's name, why it's a good fit, who potential advisors might be), it wouldn't be a good idea to do this, even in the vanishingly small case that schools would agree to do it, which I highly doubt. You'll just have to contact your recommenders again and ask them to submit letters to more schools.

I don't know of any university that actively informs applicants that their GRE scores were delivered. Some have an online system that is updated occasionally so you can check yourself, but those aren't always kept up to date. You can email and ask them to check, and mention in particular that there might be a name issue that could be causing a problem. Given that you only sent your scores 15 days ago, I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't even gotten around to dealing with them, or to updating the system. Also, please don't post the same question in multiple forums. I've removed your other post.

I'm not sure what kind of advice you're looking for. Your PI sounds like the kind of person that needs to take time to think about things, and might take time before he is comfortable around other people. Some people are just awkward around other people, it's a fact of life and affliction many academics suffer from. With time, things will improve between you two simply because you'll get used to being around each other and hopefully you can learn to just wait until he's done thinking and not get upset about it or try to fill the silence with words. Those words probably confuse or distract him if he's thinking, and it doesn't sound like you're getting much out of saying them. You don't need to fill the silence, you just need to understand that's how he is. The one piece of advice I can give you is to stop these sessions with your friends where you compare his behavior across your meetings and talk about how bad it is. That will only make it worse. You're drawing extra attention to it and treating it like some kind of terrible thing you need each other's support to get through, where really this is much more common than you think and not a bad thing at all. Two of my four dissertation advisors were like what you describe: long pauses, lots of silence, staring out windows or at the page. Then words of wisdom come out of their mouths that make the waiting worthwhile. They were excellent advisors. I found ways to make myself comfortable--with one I always had my computer so I'd check my email or something; with another, I'd actually go up to their window and look out, or I'd draw on a piece of paper. Within about a semester, it wasn't awkward anymore, I just got used to it, and I think they got used to me.

I doubt a formatting issue will get you immediately disqualified. In the future, though, saving everything as a pdf before you start uploading files could help avoid this particular misfortune.

I don't think this will send your application to the automatic rejection pile. It's obviously a silly typo that was probably introduced at the last minute before you submitted. If I were reading that, I would just ignore it and move on. If you're really concerned, you could email the department, say you noticed a typo, and ask if they would be willing to replace that file with a newer (attached) one (that had better have *no* typos in it!). They may say no, but you have nothing to lose.

Any chance you can email someone (tech support for the application system or the department) and say "I noticed that my documents weren't uploaded correctly, could they please be replaced by these correctly formatted (attached) ones"? If it's as bad as you say, it should be clear that something went wrong.

This essay requires significant work. As a first pass, there is far too much background on bad things in your past that could perhaps be mentioned (though I wouldn't) but need to be consolidated. In particular, I would greatly condense or get rid of the last paragraph, and it needs to somehow be integrated with the first paragraph. The beginning of the first paragraph is very cliche, and you'd be better off not having it. You mention multiple things you've done in your past (volunteer experiences, the UN, working in the lab) but you never give any meaningful details about any of these experiences. The essay will be stronger if you expand on at least one or two experiences: what specifically did you do? what specifically did you learn from it? how has it informed your grad school plans? Note that statements such as "I enjoyed doing the research," "I want to take some classes because they will enhance my skills" and "I want to study how people develop throughout their lifetime" are vague and unhelpful. You need to be much more specific. On the other hand, you don't need to specify the content of classes you've taken. Honestly, what you specify seems like what any major would take (and it appears on your transcript, I presume), but I learned nothing about what you actually care about. Cut the first two sentences of the 4th paragraph and consolidate with the previous paragraph. Another thing you should do less of is describe your own character. This really doesn't read well. Finally, as TenaciousBushLeaper says, you need to write about why you are a good fit for the program you're applying for. More generally, I don't really see why developmental psychology is what you should be studying if your goal is to aid in the development of education systems in poor areas. If you're sure this is what you want, I think you need to draw a clear picture of how this kind of program will give you the training you need to get the job you want and to be successful, and why this program in particular is where you should be. Once you have a solid draft, take it to your university's writing center (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/) or get the help of a native speaker to edit it, because there are many language issues here, too.

For what it's worth, there is a chance s/he won't even notice, or that s/he'll assume it's autocorrect or a typo. It won't disqualify you or do any serious damage. I'm sure you're not the first or last to misspell that name, so I'm sure this professor is used to dealing with it. If you're really that concerned, you could reach out to the school in question and say you've noticed a typo in your SOP and would they please replace the existing version with the one you attach to the email. They may say no, but you have nothing to lose.

Maybe this will help? http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/1157-feeling-very-very-silly/?do=findComment&comment=22263

This post has been locked because it has been cross-posted. To comment, follow the link here: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/71049-personal-statement-for-psychology-and-education/#comment-1058309524

Keep in mind that we're just now coming back from a long holiday weekend, so it's not too surprising that an email that you sent 4 days ago went unanswered. I'm sure the prof now has lots of things to get on top of, and hopefully your letter is one of them. And to second what rising_star says, LORs often get a grace period that applications don't, so it's not the end of the world if the letter is a little late. Schools know that you can't control when your recommenders submit their letters.

Sounds good. Good luck, I hope all your letters are submitted in time!

I would have only sent an email from my own account, and included a line to the effect that "you should have received email prompts from Uni X at Date Y. If you can't find it in your inbox, please let me know and I'll resend the prompt." They may not appreciate suddenly having 15 new emails in their inbox from you. In any event, since you've already sent the reminders, I'd now send that email you quoted in your post. You can add a line saying that other deadlines for schools XYZ are at dates ABC, and you'll follow up about those again a week before the deadlines.

I don't know if it helps for me to say this, but I'll say it anyway. We're talking about first-year class papers here. First semester, not even the end of the year. That's about as low stakes as they come. Don't overthink it.