Hi all,
I'm applying to MS programs in speech pathology. I'm taking prerequisite courses at a certain school, and am currently taking a class with the Graduate Admissions Coordinator. She's proven herself to be both an inept professor and a corrupt one (playing favorites, giving easier exams to one section of the class, complaining to them that she doesn't like our section and that we "take the class too seriously" and "ask too many questions", not knowing the material herself or being able to answer our questions, etc, etc, etc). She's made threatening remarks that we should stay on her good side because of her position. She's also made it pretty clear that she doesn't like me.
Last night, at 9:00 PM (two hours after I replied to another email of hers with something that was very polite and well thought out, but still probably angered her), the whole class received this email:
"Please let me know if you are applying for grad admission for spring, and if you are applying, how interested you are in attending."
Now I'm freaking out--Is this at all normal? Is she even allowed to ask a question like this? Is our response going to be part of our application file? Is she going to use it against us in class? I really wouldn't put anything past her. There's a rumor that she got someone kicked out of the program for filing a complaint against her with the school, which might not be true, but is still scary.
I just really can't see any legitimate use for our responses. If she were only asking how many people were applying, I could see how it might be a logistical thing, seeing how many applications are going to come in next week. But this feels like something that we're going to be judged on. If she WILL be taking this into account when looking at our applications, then people outside of our class don't get a chance to respond, so we're being evaluated based on a different set of application materials.
Is there a right way to respond to an email like this? After all that I've been through with this class and professor, I'm probably going to delay my application one semester so that I can apply to other schools at the same time (and for financial reasons, which I'll blame it on when people in the department ask). I have a few friends though who really do want to get in for spring, who don't know how to respond. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.