qbtacoma

My friends promised to bring me out to a fancy restaurant where I will order oysters on the half shell (something I've always wanted to try!) and also delicious bourbon.

Congratulations!

I personally go for the formula "Trendy Hook: First, Second, and Third Theoretical Concepts Which are Somehow Related."

Trust your professor. He has given you specific, professional reasons for why Prof. Y will be an inappropriate advisor (as opposed to vague impressions), and those reasons are pretty damning. If you can stay away from a colleague like this and interact with him at a distance, do it. Go to the recruitment weekend for the school without Professor Y. If he/School X treats you coolly after this then you will have some indirect verification of your undergrad professor's assessment. You don't need to put up with someone dishonest for your degree.

Yeah, I'd like to go back to that time when you could just apply to any program you wanted and get in with no problem, and you could afford it, and then shortly after finishing your degree you could own your own house. I am sad, but not surprised, to hear about Wisconsin's situation.

Pureed Butternut Squash and Parsnip Soup This also goes great with carrots, either in addition to the squash and parsnip or substituting one. 2-3 parsnip roots 1-2 medium butternut squash 2-4 cups of stock (depending on how thick you like your soup) 1 tsp salt nutmeg to taste Cube the parsnip roots (no need to peel) and peel and cube the butternut squash. Add to stock and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until a fork easily goes through a cube. Use an immersion blender to puree all the cubes, or pour the soup into a countertop blender in batches. Stir in the salt and immediately serve, mixing in the nutmeg in each individual bowl and sprinkling a bit across the top for garnish. (Add the nutmeg last so the flavor doesn't get cooked out.) You can also serve this soup cold! Cheddar-Oat Griddle Biscuits (adapted from How It All Vegan! by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard) To actually make this vegan, substitute Nucoa or Earth Balance for the butter, soy milk, and vegan cheese. 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup rolled oats (or quick-cooking, it doesn't matter) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 3 tbsp butter As much grated cheese as you can stand Slightly more than 1/4 cup milk but less than 1/2 cup Combine the dry ingredients and then cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Note: it may be easier to do this if you add the oats after adding the butter, but your call. Stir in cheese (I eyeball it) until it is evenly mixed in and then add just enough milk to form a stiff dough. Roll it out on a surface sprinkled with flour to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out 2-inch rounds (I use a drinking glass to cut out the biscuits). Put directly on a hot skillet WITHOUT oil - that's right, a dry skillet. Cook on medium heat until both sides are brown.

I'm not feeling anxious yet, but I am annoyed that I applied to one school which, in retrospect, I don't want to really attend. It's not like I just have $100 lying around for applications, so why did I do that? I am annoyed with myself. I could have applied to a lot of other places with great programs, but they are in parts of the country that I don't want to live. Since this is the last time in academia that I pick where I want to go I decided to take that into account, but maybe I won't next year.

Way to be a troll, dude. Take your snark elsewhere - GradCafe is a place for respect. Georgetownhopeful, your GRE scores are fine (but I think you know that).

I'm kind of at peace with what I assume will be my rejection from Wisconsin. This is mostly because the professor I wanted to be my advisor is on leave right now. I applied anyway (because hey! maybe not) and I would be so pleased to be accepted, but I'm not counting on it. I hope you get good news!

Ooh, in one of the Year's Best Science Fiction (or perhaps Horror) there was a story called "White" which still creeps me out to think of it. Thanks for reminding me of these collections, they're definitely what I'm looking for.

I'm afraid that if I start A Feast for Crows I will not sleep again in my eagerness to finish it! Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I've been meaning to pick up de Lint particularly one of these days, and now I have a good reason.

If you are professional in the way you ask the questions and respond to them then hopefully they will trust that you will be discreet. I don't think you can do much else to convince a wary grad student to spill the beans. It is a calculated risk we all must take. I'm not looking forward to that part of the process. Also, if your undergrad professors happen to personally know the people you work with then they will be happy to give you a heads up about potential problems.

Okay, I have a very specific request: I would like book recommendations for light reading that is engaging but not, you know, all that good. I have been trying to read nonfiction in my subject area, but then I realized that I may potentially be reading that for the next seven years of my life, so I stopped. I have a research assistantship and if I get a casual book which is too good I won't be motivated to work. I just finished the third George R.R. Martin book and whipped through all 1200 pages in about four days, losing sleep as well as research motivation. And if I pick up Harry Potter I'll just read through all seven books again so that's not an option. The best writer I've found so far for my purposes is Laurel K. Hamilton: sexy bits, vampires/fairies, and murder investigations, but the characters are all two dimensional so I don't care very much about them and I can stop at any time. However, I've read pretty much everything she has. As you can see, I like fantasy/urban horror, though I would also be tempted by not-cheesy-but-not-great sci-fi. Well-crafted historical fiction is also an option. Thanks!

I appreciate that you own it. I know how far I personally have to come with stereotypes that I have unwittingly picked up. It is hard to do the right thing and to remind myself to be measured, compassionate, and self-critical. That's why recognizing what you have to work on is so important. Bukharan, saying that rsldonk shouldn't get a hard time just because "most Europeans think" that is such a lazy excuse. The number of people who have a bad idea has no bearing on the idea's merit.

What the hell. That's just rude.

On the other hand, if you want to give socializing with others a shot, here are two ways to make it low pressure: go out for coffee, because you can always say you have to go if it isn't going well, or inviting a small number of people over to your house for a late dinner, because you can tell them that you have to get up early to prevent after-dinner lingering. I agree that your professor was just politely checking to see if you are doing okay and that you can tell her/him that you are, and that's fine.

A professor who served on admissions committees before coming to my university told me that you absolutely must address any weak points - staying silent, especially over a drop in grades, is bad. They could give you the benefit of the doubt, but they are also looking at stellar applicants with no hiccups. I had to address a semester of low grades - I failed a class not in my major and barely scraped a B- in another. I was in another major I hated at the time and I had given up trying in it, but the real reason I failed was because I had just ended a relationship and I was sad. This, however, is not a professional thing to say, so I just put in a short sentence about that semester's grades emphasizing my frustration with the other major and that I was going through a difficult personal time.

Well, unfortunately, I think the time to contact professors has passed. The applications are in and you can't do anything to change that, and they are really busy people. Contacting them now, especially with nothing more specific to say than "hi, please remember me" isn't going to come off as very considerate. At this point you need to wait for them to contact you, and you certainly shouldn't expect to visit with them. Don't worry too much about it: plenty of people get in to grad school without contacting anyone first.

At many schools there are conversation groups for speakers of all languages. If you can't find a formal group like that I suggest putting up a poster on campus or a notice on Craigslist saying you are looking for people to chat with in English for an hour or two a week. I'm sure someone will be delighted to talk with you!

Sounds like she should go to grad school herself if she's so passionate about seeing her name published.

There is a big cultural difference between northern and southern California (something that toypajme shouldn't expect you to know). San Francisco has a reputation for being very politically liberal and has a lot of residents who are on the cultural cutting edge - artists, people who have very radical political views, people who like to challenge gender boundaries, etc. They are very visible there but you will find all kinds of people there too, and there is a large immigrant population from all over Asia. San Francisco is also a very expensive place to visit. The weather is chilly for most of the year. Southern California, in contrast, has more politically conservative people and its most visible immigrant population is Mexican and Latin American (depending, of course, on where you go - LA is truly an international city). Southern California has a "beach culture" where people spend a lot of time surfing, sunbathing, etc and it is hot year round. To get into stereotypes, southern Californians are materialistic and care about nothing but shopping and going to movies. Northern Californians are pretentious hippies who spend all their time doing drugs and protesting. Philadelphia is a whole other game entirely - east coast culture vs. west coast culture. I haven't lived out east so I can't speak to it in detail.

Maybe this is the only thing the OP could do after realizing that legal action wasn't feasible. But the post definitely has a whiff of character assassination about it, which I feel bad about writing because what U of Houston really did screw them?

As I tailored each SOP to each school I would make it better and better, so when I think back on the first place I submitted it to I worry that it was too disorganized, etc. Which is too bad, since the first school is one of my top choices.

Dang it, I was going to ignore the results page at least until February. Congratulations to the lucky applicant!

We can talk about how back in the day Mary Jane wasn't so damn sweet.