fuzzylogician

I think the myth of the strict cut offs might be a bit exaggerated. Schools might have (strong) preferences, but even if they are looking for students with AWA scores above 4.0, if they find an otherwise excellent candidate with a 3.5, I don't think they will immediately exclude him/her. They will look at the AWA score in the context of the rest of the application -- is the TOEFL score low? Does the student's writing seem weak? Do their LORs say they are good writers? The approach is more holistic. (Of course, if you *know* for a fact that you are applying to a school with a strict cutoff score that's higher than yours, that's a different story.)

As long as you have a good TOEFL score, I wouldn't bother. Do make sure your SOP and writing samples are well written, and run them by a native speaker if there is any doubt.

Yes, you could do that and in this case it sounds like it would be a good idea. It would get you the benefit of a detailed letter along with an established name at the bottom. The student most likely isn't the most experienced at writing these letters, so it would help them to have the PI involved and could be a learning opportunity for them too, if they want to view it that way.

Okay, what you describe really sucks. You've gotten good advice here. Most importantly, I think you should separate what's going on with the students from what is going on with faculty. For the students, there may not be much more to do than keep doing what you're doing, and unfortunately accept that they may not like you and you may not be able to change that. It sucks and it's unfair, but fighting it might not be the best course of action. Maybe finding friends outside your program is what you need to make this period of your life a happy one. Another thing to keep in mind is that these things sometimes take on a life of their own, especially in group situations. You may do better in one-on-one situations, if you're able to chat or go out for coffee with just one or two of them at a time. Having someone defend you to the group can go a long way, if somehow they've decided that you are unfriendly or someone they otherwise don't want to hang out with. For faculty, I think I would do my best not to make any assumptions. A lot of faculty can be socially awkward, or just very busy. I would bet they aren't even aware they made you feel uncomfortable. "She just looked at me and walked away" might be "I nodded at her and gave her a smile" in their minds. Emails sometimes get filed away by accident or if it was too long or unclear, they might have missed the fact that it's time sensitive. I always assume in these cases that people are 100% well-meaning and things might have just fallen through the cracks. Send a follow up email, and also try and figure out if this is one of those people who just suck with email; maybe there is a better form of communication with this person, such as a phone call or text, or maybe the best course of action is to find her in her office and talk in person. Despite how the students might be treating you, there is no reason to think that the professors would do the same.

It's always dangerous to submit a co-authored paper as a writing sample, because there will be obvious questions of who actually did the work and the writing. If you have the support of your advisor and, as you say, you did the bulk of the work yourself, it could be a good option. You will want to submit a short summary along with the paper stating exactly what your contributions are. It could be a supplement, or sometimes it can be done as a simple footnote at the beginning of the paper: "X conceived of the idea, did all the work, and wrote up the paper; Y got a free ride" (or, you know, something more subtle to that effect), and you should have your advisor also address that in his/her LOR, so there is no doubt. If this mysterious first author is your advisor or if you otherwise think you might not have your advisor's support in submitting this paper, then I would advise against it. If the adcom suspects that it's really your advisor or the other author who did the work or the writing, then your writing sample could be discounted or wholly disregarded. If this paper is based on a chapter of your thesis, I would say another perhaps safer option is to submit the chapter and add a note that it's been revised for publication and has been submitted to Journal X. Either way, I'd probably say submit the whole paper/chapter, even if it's longer than the page limit, along with instructions to concentrate on pages X-Y (and perhaps a short summary of the background and methods). The choice would partly depend on how much the paper has been revised/improved compared to the chapter, along with the authorship concern.

I've heard of this happening before, mostly (only?) in the Humanities. Not much you can do, I think, but the people who I know that this happened to negotiated with their departments to have the funding that would have been allocated to them put "on hold," so to speak, so they would be funded at least one year beyond the normal 5 years of their program if they wanted to. This meant that they had extra time to work on their dissertations without worrying about funding, which as far as I know was a good thing for them. I've also heard that some people try and negotiate a small "bonus" on top of their fellowship which wouldn't be the full amount of their anticipated stipend but would still be something beyond the usual amount. This all said, winning prestigious fellowships looks great on your CV, whether or not you receive an increase in your paycheck (but I am not discounting the paycheck part of it!). It's still good news, so congratulations.

To clarify, people are not inviting you to private events that happen outside of school? Are they just the people in your cohort or everyone in your program? Is this a Masters or a PhD (that is, how much coursework vs. independent work do you expect to do)? Are they excluding you from projects that you are required to do for class? Are they actively doing anything to harm you? What you described wouldn't be my first definition of bullying, so I am trying to understand the situation.

In all likelihood that will not be a good idea. I assume your introduction sets up the problem, discusses why it is important, and sketches roughly what it is that you're going to do in the thesis. If so, it's going to be missing a very important ingredient of a successful writing sample -- actual research. You don't usually provide any details or support for your claims in the introduction, you just say what you're going to do. That's perfectly fine for an intro, but a writing sample should show that you are able to develop a sustained argument for a certain point, not just say that you will. So, I would suggest picking a contentful chapter and, if you would like, appending to that a portion of the intro or writing a short summary of what happened in previous chapters.

Sure, go ahead.

It's of course possible, but it might be difficult to find a dual degree program that would support that particular set of interests. You could certainly apply for one degree and then the other. The second time around, you'll probably need to explain why you're getting a degree in a field that is unrelated to the first one. And the whole ordeal might not be cheap. But sure, doable.

What do you mean by "I have 4 research interests"? Are there four specific questions within a subfield that interest you, or do you have interests in four separate subfields, or something else? If it's four related questions within a subfield, then more than likely the same people who can support one will be able to support the others. They don't to have studied your particular question to be able to advise research on it. If it's four separate subfields, then that is most likely too much and it would not be advisable to write about them all in one SOP. Unless they are directly related to one another, they would probably sound disconnected and therefore make you sound like someone who doesn't have their act together. That, in turn, would make you a risk and not a good fit. In that case, I would suggest picking two and expanding on them. But you still have to ask yourself, in case you really do have so many different interests, if you are ready for grad school and if you are able to make good choices for where you should attend. It may be helpful to sit down and try to narrow down your interests: is there a common thread that links them? If so, try and write about that. Your specific interests would then just be examples of a more general question of interest. And again, in that case, it's probably better pick just a couple and expand on why they are important and interesting than have a longer list but have it be shallow.

Yep, this is a very good lesson. More generally, you are the one who is most up to date on what should be happening with your degree, and you are the one who should care the most. Your advisors might be the best intentioned people in the world, but they have a hundred other things on their minds and mistakes do happen. It's always good to be on top of things that matter--not only if you're older and not only when it comes to exams. This is excellent advice for everyone.

My understanding of the "unofficial report" was that it was essentially you self-reporting the score that you'll send the official report for. Maybe that was a mistaken interpretation. In any event, I don't think you are generally obligated to share all your scores with them; I think you can choose to submit the latest/best one. However, if this school explicitly asks for each attempt over the past 5 years, I don't see how you can get out of doing that and not lie when you will later affirm that you've provided all and only truthful information that was required.

No one can make you any promises, but to my knowledge it shouldn't automatically exclude you from being admitted. Every time I've seen a question like this, it comes with a "please explain" field in case you answer Yes. So I would work on an explanation whose gist is "this was stupid and well in the past, it does not reflect who I am today." Make sure that it doesn't sound like you're making excuses (which the wording you have here does; you may be 100% telling the truth, but as a third party observer, anything like "trumped up charges my roommate made up" sounds like there must be more to the story). Keep it short and to the point, no more than 2-3 sentences. I would not suggest lying about anything, but also keep in mind that being honest does not mean being candid. You are not obligated to reveal everything about your personal life.

You should definitely ask the professor. You should really try and find a second one, since your programs explicitly say you should. If you absolutely can't find another professor, it's very hard to choose among the two options you gave since you don't give us enough details to work with. Does one of them know you (much) longer/better? Have you done work that is relevant to your degree or future career plans with one but not the other? What can each person write about you -- is there something that one knows but not the other or will all the letters basically say the same thing? Does either person have an advanced degree or any other reason to have an opinion as to whether or not you can succeed in your program? You want to choose the letter that is more detailed and confident about what it says. If they would be similar in that respect, then the letter that says things about you that the other letters won't. If it's all the same, then it sounds like it's a toss up. In that case I guess I would choose option 3, so it's one letter from work, one from school, and one from a volunteer experience, because that sounds overall more balanced. But again, depending on how strong these letters will be and how weak a letter from another professor might be, I would try a bit harder to find another professor to write you a letter.

The grade/GPA will be listed in your transcript. There is no need to put it in your CV. If you graduated (summa/magna) cum laude, that is something you can indicate.

First of all, you want to apply to more than one university. The numbers vary but for starters find yourself at least 5, and perhaps up to 10 potential schools. Most people don't get into every school they apply to, and it's good to have options. Criteria you might want to look at include: potential advisors in your subfield, resources, placement rate, stipend, climate; there are others, and you might not care about all of these. The most important thing is to have a good advisor, which means someone who can support your research and preferably is at least somewhat famous and can help you get a job when you graduate. Alternatively, if the person you want to work with most is junior, that can work too but then you want to make sure that there are senior people around who you can have on your committee. Official rankings don't matter much because they aren't based on criteria that would matter for graduate school selection. This is a difficult process and you have to do your own legwork. Consult your current professors, read up on schools' websites, look at recent publications in the top journals and conferences in your field to see who is up and coming. It takes time and no one can (or will) do it for you.

Excellent, I hope you get lots of helpful comments

CostaRita, I tried to edit it for you but whatever formatting you carried over from the spreadsheet can't be undone. (At least, I haven't figured out how to do it.) I'd recommend starting a new thread so it's easier for people to read. Let me know when you have, and I'll delete this one.

There's some distance between saying "I am interested in field X" and coming up with a detailed research question for your dissertation. A good place to start is to be able to describe in some detail what you've done in the past, and (if relevant) how you'd like to build on it or extend it in the future. For every project you've been involved in, you should be able to describe the question that was asked, how you went about finding the answers, what you found, and how it contributes to your field (i.e. why we should care about what you did). This is one place where being specific helps. You've done the work so it's not hypothetical, and you should know. Another place where you could provide more detail is not so much about what you want to do in grad school (that can be kind of vague still), but why you think it's important and interesting. Why this population, why these methods, what will this project teach us? How will this expand what we already know in a meaningful way? Also, why this particular lab is a good place to support your interests. I think you'll find that in many interview situations, the details of your research plans don't really come up in conversation. Your POI will probably spend some time telling you about his lab and what's going on there, describing some ongoing/future projects, and maybe talk about the program and school, and he will ask you if there is anything you want to ask about (so come prepared with some questions. You should always have something you want to ask). Your interests will come up too, most likely, but in my experience you don't get asked for many details about your future plans, because you're not really expected to have the answers at this point.

- You don't need to pitch a specific project. You do, however, want to express an interest in what this guy does. If you say you really want to do something else, that essentially means you're not a good fit with his lab. So, I would say the two things you should probably do are (1) think about why you want to be in his lab and be able to articulate it. This will probably come up as a direct question like "why do you want to study in this lab?" or more indirect "what are your interests/what do you want to study in grad school?", both of which you will want to answer by spelling out interests that he can reasonably support. It's okay to say you haven't done much work in this area, but you're intrigued and think you want to do more. You don't need to already know all the details or have all the answers; after all, that's what you're going to grad school for. (2) have some kind of idea of what's currently done in this professor's lab. You don't need to know the details of any papers, but you should have an idea of the kinds of questions that are asked, if there is a "projects" page on the lab website then generally what's in it, and what techniques are used in this lab. More generally, spend some time on the lab page to know how it presents itself to the public. - I am probably not the best person to ask, but I think everyone can get very anxious during this process. Up to a certain point, I think that being excited about the possibility of joining the lab is a good thing. Take deep breaths and remind yourself that no one thing you say or do will decide your fate, but to me getting involved during the interview or right before is not necessarily a bad thing. Beyond that, I do my best not to get too invested (which I suck at, btw). The two things I do are remind myself that no option is the only one, or the best one for that matter, there are others that I can get myself equally excited about; and I have a friend who makes a list of bad things about the place for me, so if it doesn't work out and I'm upset about what I'm missing, she whips it out and tells me all the ways it sucks. So, I guess, acknowledging it, knowing that it happens to everyone, and just talking about it, helps for me.

The best way to know if you're really behind (as opposed to how you're feeling about it) is to talk to your advisor. Framing it as "you know all those things I was supposed to be doing? Yeah, not so much" won't be too helpful, but frankly, if you're so far behind, where has your advisor been all this time and why hasn't s/he pointed this out and helped you out of it long ago? Your advisor has a fair amount of responsibility here too. That aside, though, s/he should help you come up with a plan that you are going to be held accountable for. Your point about needing to cram four years of work into two can have two possible (and related) responses. First, things take longer in your second year than in your fourth, because in your second year you're also taking classes and in addition you're new and don't know how to do things yet. The same amount of work will take much less time in your fourth year. Second, you may have to settle for doing less than you would like. In fact, you absolutely positively will have to decide that some things that would be great to have are not going to happen. This would have been the case even if you had a full five years to think about nothing other than your dissertation. There is always more that you should do. So take that as a given and don't worry about it. The question is really what is good enough. Get your advisor's help in figuring this out. Two years really is enough time to do something meaningful. Regarding collaborations, as rising_star suggested, a good way to get them started is to meet people at conferences. Also a good point by rising_star is that the best people to target will be early career. They will be the ones with the drive to publish and the time to do it. Can you think of any postdocs or assistant professors who have similar interests to yours? Maybe someone who could benefit from your particular expertise? If you can get to know them at a conference or workshop, great. Otherwise, you could try cold emailing them. Ask to have a skype meeting to either talk about something to do with your work or something to do with theirs, to see how it feels to talk to them. If you get along, you could try pitching a small project, e.g. "I really enjoyed the thing you said about X. Have you considered applying [methodology Y] to it?" (where methodology Y is the thing you can do that they can't). Many early career people I know will not object to a collaboration with someone who propose to take charge and apply a technique they are experts in to data that this researcher already has, it's a way to expand their resume that is low risk for everyone. These things often have a way of stalling, especially if no one really takes charge, but you have nothing to lose by trying. And related to that last point, if you are sitting on secondary data that you could write up and publish, do it now! it is not too late, even if you've had it for several years. Seriously, this should be a top priority. Whatever else you have to figure out, this is a clear objective and something you can do that will make a real difference. Do it NOW. Then try and figure out if anything you have written up can become a chapter in your dissertation, but first just write the damn thing up and get the submission process started. These things take time.

Have you talked to your advisor about this? Or is there someone else who would be able to give you a straight up assessment of how you're really doing? For what it's worth, I only started working on my dissertation project in my fourth year, and I wrote the whole thing up in about 3 months at the end of my fifth year, after spending the first half of that year stressing out about the job market and not getting much work done. For my field, that wasn't terribly uncommon. It still ended up in good shape, if I may say so myself. A separate but related question is whether you can find a way to collaborate and get some publications out of it. Even if there is no one who you could work with at your school, maybe there are other students or faculty who share your interests at other schools? In addition, it might be worth exploring more whether anything you have might be interesting enough to submit. I think it can take many students a long time to understand that their work is good enough for journals. Early on it's hard to have perspective on what is and isn't good enough. Again, this is a good thing to consult with an advisor about. In my experience, the best way to fight this feeling of being overwhelmed is to come up with a plan of action. Map out what you need to do between now and when you graduate and spell out the details of what would need to happen between now and then. You absolutely need to get your advisor's help with this. If you have a committee, theirs too. If you don't have one, this might not be a bad time to think about who would be on it. This is an anxiety inducing and difficult process. You are not alone in feeling this way. Get the support of the people around you who understand.

That's such a broad question. Some things you might consider are: admissions chances, funding, whether courses would be taught at times that suit you. It's really impossible to say anything more, as whether these are potential issues would depend on the degree and schools you'd be applying for. What in particular are you worried about? Most schools accept students only/mostly for Fall admissions, but if you find programs that admit students (with funding) at other times, then what's the problem?

If this person has a PhD and is at your school on a permanent basis, then that sounds like a good option. If she is transient and/or doesn't have a PhD, that makes the value of what she can say more limited. That said, if you already have two letters from professors, then if this is the strongest third letter you can have, I'd still seriously consider it. There is a question of what each potential letter writer can write about, and more importantly, if this lecturer can write about aspects of your personality or work that your other letters won't address. If the professors who are your other options hardly know you and the lecturer knows you well, there is a good chance that she's still your best shot, even if she's not a professor.