katsamac

I'm also taking silence as a no at this point in the game. But I've heard from pretty much everyone except for UCI (Had anyone heard from UCI?). As of now I think I'm going to be going to the University of Colorado Boulder😁

Hiya- In my SOP final writing push right now. I am applying to all sociology phd programs: UCLA Northwestern University UC Irvine UC Berkeley UChicago UNC-Chapel Hill NYU UPenn and probably- Emory Vanderbilt University of Colorado--Boulder good luck everyone!

Hi! So I am not an expert, and don't work at a University or in admissions. But I did take five years between undergrad and my MPA, and it has been 10 years since my MPA for my applications this year for a PhD. First, if you are even thinking about it, reach out to professors you liked. Yes, from 15 years ago. Did you have a favorite professor? Reach out and catch up, have a zoom call. And do this a full year before you are going to apply. I think you can reach out under the frame of "I'm interested in applying for X and I loved Y that we did *remind them who you are, and I'd love to speak with you about Z". If you are changing fields, I would try to get some experience in it. Even just volunteering, or a part-time job, with a supervisor who could be another letter. Last time I have a mix of previous professors and my boss. This time I have previous professors from my masters, and through them I connected with a professor in the field I'm moving into, and developed a relationship over a year+ focusing on my research goals etc. This last letter can speak to how I will do in the new field, the first two can speak to how I think, work and learn. hope this helps! Congrats on wanting to go back to school, it is a big project and particularly hard when you are bit older and out of the system.

Hi! So I can't answer if you could get into grad school or not, and computer science/computational biology is not my expertise. Hopefully some folks will jump in and give some thoughts on that. And if you are seriously thinking about it, I would reach out to past professors, and have a conversation with them about what they think. They know how you think and work. Plus, if it is even a possibility, you want to stay or get in touch with professors so you aren't asking for recommendations out of the blue. But that leads me to why I am answering this question: Why do you want to go to graduate school? Is it for career options ? Do you have particular research you really want to do? Knowing why you want to continue on in a subject is huge and admissions offices can tell the difference. I am not saying you have to know exactly what you want to research, or exactly what you want to do with a MS/PhD, but I would say don't rush into it unless you know your "WHY". I am biased in the sense that I took 5 years between undergrad and my MPA and another ten before I am applying to PhD's programs this year. But I can tell you that you don't want to go to grad school just because. You should have a clear goal in mind, even if it is just to be able to complete deeper research in a field.

Just posting here an answer I found to my own (secondary) question from @faculty "That said, as I lay out in the post linked above and as is highlighted above, there are specific reasons to email faculty and more effective ways to do it. If you are concerned someone might retire or if you would like to know if someone is going to continue working in the area, it's easy enough to shoot off a brief email saying that you're thinking of applying and that you're interested in the work that they did in a particular publication and wondered if they planned to continue working in the area and/or what their current or future projects are. That is entirely different than the emails that most students send, though, which tend to ask what the chances of getting in are or provide a long introduction with no apparent rationale or ask me to review a selection of materials or end with the vague and impossible to answer, particularly briefly, "Is there anything else I should know about the department?" question. If these are the emails that you're sending, please think twice. They're wasting your time and the faculty members'."

(This seems like such a quiet thread for October, but perhaps we have all just found our answers in past years.) Re: What are people's thoughts on emailing professors? Mainly, has anyone heard about schools that don't want prospective students emailing possibly faculty. Some schools (UNC) seem to encourage it outright on their admissions page and others (Stanford) say the opposite. Stanford seems to have softened their language, but it still asks prospectives to "Minimize pre-admission communication with faculty". Are there any other schools that people have heard NOT to email professors? Aaaaanddd I did find some past years on this: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/58966-emailing-professors/ https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/48678-emailing-professors-is-it-a-good-or-a-bad-idea/#comment-1058032110 which seems to answer the: "What are people's thoughts on emailing professors? Especially faculty that I have clear research alignment with, and want to make sure they aren't retiring or anything. And if you say "yes" email- how much detail of my own research desires should I get into in that first email? Attach CV or no? " But I am happy to hear thoughts on this if people have them.

@Not_a_Robot22 I'm planning on taking the GRE in a couple of weeks. They seem to have posted at least one new shorter practice test on the ETS website, which you get for free when you register for your test. As far as I understand it, the breakdown of the Verbal and Quant sections, aka what is on it are the same, there are just less questions. They cut out the unscored experimental section and they took out the Analyze an Argument in the Writing section (there is only the Analyze an Issue question). (Also- this score expiring thing is such a crock. I am also having to retake the test due to expired scores from before my MPA) You should be fine, and able to use old study materials (as long as they are from the last few years, they did get rid of analogies since the last time I took the GREs).