ristastic

You are living the dream! This is my new plan B if I get rejected from all 10 of my phd programs. My original plan B was just to keep working at my current job, which is relevant to my interests and not too bad.

Kudos to your partner! I'm in art history and have looked into applying to conservation programs, but all the undergrad chemistry requirements I'm lacking have put me off of it. Conservation seems to be a really small group of people, which may account for the lack of presence here on the boards.

I was recently invited to an "open house" at one of my schools, at which an informal lunch will be served and we'll have a chance to meet with professors, talk to current graduate students and learn about some of the department's new programs. Is this as innocuous as it sounds, or a secret ploy to see who's really interested? What's your experience with these so-called "open houses"? This whole process has made me really paranoid.

My grandma is VERY concerned that getting my PhD is going to interfere with baby-making, in that it will prevent me from being a "normal" mother. She's very old-fashioned, and I come from a very small town in the midwest, but it's still considered fairly abnormal there for a woman to want to go on to an MA or PhD after college.

I got the same Incomplete status message and had a small heart attack until I remembered that was one of the applications I uploaded an unofficial copy to. It says explicitly that if you upload, you should not also send paper copies. Don't worry about it until you get an offer of admission!

That e-mail bit is a little terrifying, though I think [hope] I presented myself well in all communication so far.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm kind of enjoying not hearing anything. It's sort of nice to have a few months to breathe, enjoy the fact that I've successfully applied to 10 doctoral programs, and live in a bubble that the sting of rejection has yet to pierce. Not that I don't want to know, but at this point I'm still allowed to hope without having the stress of the applications themselves bearing down on me. That said, I don't think humanities will hear until late Feb. at the very earliest, so don't worry about it!

I second that. I prepared by setting up a rough outline before I even went in for the test, then started by typing out the outline to ground my initial thoughts about the topic, then just started filling it in. A standard 5-paragraph essay that clearly states your points is the best, and a strong vocab never hurts. Overall, just having an idea beforehand of the way/order in which you want to write, even if you don't know exactly what you will write. I got a 5.5 and a 6 on my AWs with this "method," if you can even call it that. The general consensus is that AW doesn't matter too much, especially if you're submitting a separate writing sample.

For 10 programs: GRE prep material, the GRE twice, extra GRE scores, transcripts from 2 schools, 10 application fees (ranging from $50-$125), and copies/supplies/envelopes/postage, I spent about $1,600. Why am I doing this again?

Seems like they're getting rid of everything that was horrible about it. No analogies or antonyms, the ability to go back to a question, a CALCULATOR?! Curse you ETS!

I'm art history also, I included just the bibliography for the excerpts I submitted. It ended up only being about 10 sources from a 50+ list. I'd say as long as they don't specify and it's still clear enough to read easily, go ahead and use 1.5, though double seems to be standard across the board. I wish someone published a definitive guidebook for all of this stuff!

I'm apply to the Grad Center for PhD. I'm at Hunter College doing my MA now, and I have to say I've mostly had a great experience. The only downfall for Hunter, though I'm not sure if it's like this for the grad center, is the administrative disorganization of the art dept. What's your concentration?

About how long was your abstract? I have a super-long version that I turned in as part of my requirement, but I'm thinking this should only be about 300 words or so?

I had the same problem with Rutgers' online app. I just filled them in a last time before I submitted, and they were in the application preview. Don't know what's up with the non-saving thing, but it looks like they were submitted correctly.

I'm in the process of constructing a cover sheet for my writing sample. I'm in the humanities, and using 2 chapters from my Master's thesis that together equal about 20 pages. I'm just trying to figure out what to include on the cover sheet. A full abstract? A table of contents? A quick paragraph about what I've included and how it fits into the rest of the paper? The two chapters I'm including are the first and a middle one, so it's fairly self-explanatory. I don't want to do any unnecessary explanations or make the cover letter another point of worry! Any suggestions, or better yet, examples, would be greatly appreciated!

I raised both of my scores by over 100 points by dedicating months to studying. I used Princeton Review and the Kaplan workbooks. I found that just drilling practice sets was the best thing for me, but I also think I got a little lucky on the Q section the last time around, I got a ton of geometry questions, which just happen to be my one and only math strength.

I took it two years ago and the experimental section was unidentified, but the last two times I've taken it, August and October of this year, the experimental section was optional, and apparently if you score very well on it, you get entered to win a prize or something.

Agreed. I don't think the GRE should be necessary, because I think it measures all the wrong things. It measures your ability to prepare for and successfully take a stressful exam, definitely not your "verbal" ability, etc. I think the GRE General should be done away with, and if a school really wants a standardized exam, they should require just the subject test. I'm a humanities person and I stressed out over the math after my adviser said that adcoms weren't necessarily looking for a high score, but a low score would say to them that you didn't bother to prepare for it. I think that's totally unfair, but such is the GRE! I just hate to think that something as trivial as my GRE score could keep me out of the programs I want to get into to. As for the GRE being a deterrent, it definitely is, but isn't the whole process sort of a deterrent? The LoRs, the SoP, the organizational skills, the sheer fortitude of will (not to mention the hundreds of dollars spent on application fees!)? To my mind, anyone who wasn't totally committed to grad school wouldn't bother.

I used this same book and didn't do too horribly, though I do agree that their practice sets are way too easy. The review of math formulas was basic enough for me, having not had math in several years, to understand. I thought Kaplan's was a little too technical for non-math people. I'd recommend the Kaplan workbooks though, for harder practice sets, if you plan on re-taking.

Thanks for posting this! I'm applying to UPenn for art history, GRE 1240 and GPA 3.8. I hope they overlook those last 10 points and don't throw out my application based on a hard line GRE score cut-off. I think that's my worst fear with all of these applications.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I have a few applications that I could feasibly submit the online portion before my supplemental materials, which include 1 outstanding LoR, a writing sample, and my GRE scores, all of which will be sent in separately, but probably not for another month or so. Should I wait, just to be safe, or is it OK to submit online before the rest gets there?

If it's any consolation (I know it's not!), I had a similar experience with the Princeton Review tests, I was scoring insanely high scores, and when I took the actual test, I did mediocre. I've found that instead of straight memorization of words, it helped to just do a ton of practice sets. That way you get very comfortable with the format of the questions and learning to think in terms of antonyms and analogies instead of just in terms of what a particular word's definition is. Most of the time you'll pick up new words as they appear in questions anyway. I used Kaplan's verbal and math workbooks the second time around and did much much better. In both cases, just practice a ton, set aside an hour or so each day and just knock out practice sets, write down words you didn't know right away for later review. number2.com is also helpful for verbal review. Good luck!

I'm having similar problems with my writing sample. I would take out the original heading and replace it with one that reflects where you're applying, etc. I'm torn on the bibliography, but I think if there are footnotes, you should include the relevant bib. To my mind the bibliography doesn't count in the page limits either.

I was just going through my list of schools and their writing sample page limits. Most of them say 20-25 pages, while others don't say anything at all, and one says "of significant length." I was planning on submitting a portion of my 55-page thesis for the shorter limits, but what about the others? Should I send the whole thing, or just the smaller portion that I'm sending to the others? I doubt anyone will sit and read the entire thing, but is it better for them to have the complete work, just in case?

I had the same reservations as you, I'm much more shy in real time than I am when writing an email, so I was really nervous about speaking to professors on the phone. I bit the bullet though and am really glad I did, since I think I was much more memorable on the phone than via email. I had some great conversations and some OK conversations, totally depending on the professor and how much they were willing to engage. I've found that a great conversation-starter is to ask them what they're currently working on and sort of go from there. Ask questions about their research and try to introduce what you're doing. They should have some recollection if you also mentioned it in your introductory email. Use the opportunity to ask any questions you have about the department, what they like about it, etc. After a few minutes you'll loosen up and the conversation just flows. I spent 45 minutes talking with one professor, and only 15 with another. Just depends how well you hit it off, and how much they have to say to you, etc. In lieu of actually going to meet the professors in person, which helps them connect a face to the name/email, I think phone convos are really beneficial. Better to connect at least a voice and personality to the email than nothing at all!