fenderpete

Absolutely nothing I think my aversion is more due to their focus on theory rather than IR/Comparative which are my fields. I tended to find (and I can only speak for our department) that the Marxists were more engaged in navel gazing research than applicable work. I don't care about theoretical background, more about how people apply it!

Thought it might be cool to see what the geographic distribution of forum members is like!

Ring home, go a bit crazy then pop some champagne I've got idling in the fridge The next more rational step will be to go in and get advice from my LOR profs about where to go, if I somehow get offered more than one place. I'm not sure I will, but after a good interview for a scholarship for one of my top 3 choices on Saturday I'm feeling a bit more confident about getting offered something. Like other people have said, there is still the possibility of striking out completely, but it's hard not to daydream when you've put this much emotional capital into something! If I did get more than one acceptance, that would be extremely stressful, particularly if it's from a big-West Coast vs my preferred location of East coast...

This all sounds very familiar and makes me feel a bit encouraged . I'd say at a conservative estimate I probably spent close to $1200 on application fees, GRE, study material for GRE, travel to do the GRE, postage for LORs etc. As others have said, the GBP dropping heavily against the dollar hasn't helped and handouts from parents has been how I put food on the table the last couple of weeks before Christmas. I'd like to think the complexity is to try and separate the wheat from the chaff as well, but I really don't think the cost needs to be so high - and international applicants can't get application fees waived which seems a little harsh. Like you've said, I think the 'I was juggling so much work, while sick, trying to do undergrad work, GRE and apply' will become the tale for younger generations if I do get in somewhere lol

Would it not make more sense to have the upper levels as 49 and 99 so scores are rounded down? I got 1300 which is a pretty big jump from 1251! This may just be sour GRE grapes from me LOL

The advice I'd give is that you really can't start preparing too early, and by that I mean with everything... Researching programs as a good fit is very important - start reading articles written by potential supervisors, find out what methods they use, see if you like how they write/look at the world. When I was an undergrad I liked being challenged by different perspectives, but my department was pretty much 90% Marxists - I would not want to go through that if I was writing a thesis! Being challenged intellectually is worthwhile, but I don't want a doctorate to be an uphill struggle all the time! GRE preparation is the next biggest one. Due to time/undergrad work requirements I really didn't do as much or as well as I could have. Getting a 1300 after three weeks of prep (and while writing a 4000 foreign policy analysis paper) is something I can be proud of, but I would have liked to have hit 700+ in my quants to be that bit more competitive. Recommendations are also hugely important - make sure you pick someone who actually knows you academically as well as personally. I had one recommender turn around and basically refuse to fill in the 'academic ability' coversheet of my application, despite knowing I came top if my year last year (he handed me the prize himself). If I could have done things differently I'd have asked for a recommendation from the professor who's now stepped in to give me a last minute recommendation to replace the one lost in the post by the disinterested professor (who sounds a lot like the 'lost interest' prof above. I think one of the most important things to realise is that the world won't end if you don't get into grad school, and that there are always other options.

Well on my train back from the interview and pretty happy with how it went. Think I gave a pretty reasonable account of myself, so if they don't like me they don't like me. My weekend begins right now. I've definitely had enough of all things grad for the next few days. I'm SO glad that's over. Now everything is absolutely out of my hands with everywhere I've applied so I can relax to some extent. Bring on my u undergrad dissertation!!!

Normally yes, not so much tomorrow because I've got a 9hr scholarship interview which I have to get up for in a little under 6hrs. So my day tomorrow isn't going to me quite the average waiting lol.

Do you think it means anything that it was the Grad Chair himself who got in touch, as I would have expected it to just be an admin person, or does that not necessarily mean anything?

Sharing the miseries of the GRE with another girl in the locker room during the 10 minute break after the AWA section. Great to know that all prospective grads can get together and be united with hate for ETS!

Small anecdote on this... An ex of mine read an extra one she had after getting into a grad program. Brilliant reference apart from the line where the referee described her as 'an extremely selfish person'. Obviously a typo given the context of the rest of the sentence, but in retrospect extremely accurate

Thanks a lot for the sympathy I've done all of the above, and my absolutely legendary professor has agreed to be a last minute referee. I'm now waiting to hear back from the Grad Chair about it. If he gets back to me today and says my backup is OK I might just go ahead with that as I think he'll possibly even write me a better reference and I can hopefully get it sent in pre-weekend. Trying to put a positive spin on this... Do you think it's at all significant that the Grad Chair himself got in touch with me, rather than just an admin person?

Well, just when you think things are going alright. Subject: missing letter Dear fenderpete I am writing to let you know that your file is missing a letter from [the professor who insisted on doing paper rather than online recommendations]. It will be important for our evaluation of your application for this letter to be submitted, on line or in hard copy, as soon as possible. [The Chair of my prospective Ivy League department] Have now sent off an extremely worried email to the Grad Chair asking how best to get him the reference, and to the professor in question who is currently in the middle of leaving as head of my department to go and run a faculty overseas. I'm now in severe panic mode, and asked the Grad Chair if I can submit an alternate reference from another professor somehow... If, that is I can get another professor to write me one at such horrifically short notice. The deadline for this program was 15th Dec and I sent the LOR letters out Airmail at the end of November and all the other unversities got them. Is this going to hurt my chances badly or will they be understanding? :(

Any idea what's been slowing them down so much? I'd be interested to see if UPenn has come up in Politics as there are some pretty good up-and-coming people there now...

Well I'm currently putting all my time into preparing for a scholarship interview on Saturday. It lasts from 9am-6pm and I'll be interviewed by 3 panels, have to give a 5 minute presentation (I find that harder than a 15 minute presentation!) and lead a discussion. Due to the nature of my course, preparing for that means being well informed on the news. All of it. So today and tomorrow I'm preparing my presentation, reading Newsweek, The Economist 2009 review and the entire BBC news website. After all that, I might fancy a little scream on Sunday. Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!

If it makes you feel any better, apparently on tracking UPenn still haven't got my only paper LOR which I sent them 8 weeks ago, despite having my GRE and transcripts which were sent much more recently :S

Plan B is currently to apply to NATO, failing that go out to the Middle East for 6 months or a year, get work experience that pays enough to put food on the table and get my Arabic up to a good standard and reapply.

LOL very true... I wish I'd applied to more and maybe tried to find a few more IR focused programs as I've gone pretty PolSci while still planning to specialise in IR. That came more out of what the schools I wanted to go to were offering and the decision that 5yrs in Washington now would be too hectic a start if that's where I ended up, similar thinking with NYC. I've applied to 5 schools, and had planned on applying to 6 but due to one of my recommenders being completely useless and money running out I didn't have time to start applying to more. I think the combination of doing final year undergrad, the GRE, getting out of a bad break-up and extra-curricular commitments meant I was juggling too much to be one of the 15+ application people. I still hate the feeling that I've applied in a slightly half-cocked way though, but keeping my average up was a pressing concern at the time, and I'm hoping it won't have damaged my chances too much. I'm hoping this is just post-app blues, but seeing some of the rejections on Applycorner was very sobering.

5. I was going to apply to 6 but didn't get the scholarship I'd need for the final one as it was a Harvard Masters so no funding, and the PhD deadline had already passed

I can definitely empathise with that, as I sit here reading Grad Cafe instead of revising for my Transatlantic Security Relations paper tomorrow... I feel like I'm waiting for this part of my academic career to be over, without knowing for definite that I've got something else to go on to and with a lot of work still to do (including my undergrad dissertation)...

Yeah that is mine too really. The 'nice' version of the nightmare would be getting in everywhere I applied and having to decide between schools you could barely get a gnat's hair between in terms of course/faculty.

Have to say, of those of us applying for the same schools, at least we're all applying to different sub-fields Hopefully the nail biting is getting towards the end.

The joys of ETS eh?

Well boredom drove me to ring up ETS today to pay $12 to get my GRE AWA scores (which STILL haven't shown up in the post!). Very pleased to have gotten 5.5 AWA, which will hopefully my V690 (96th percentile) and weaker Q610 (51st percentile). I'm hoping that the 600+ on quantitative will get me past the admin monkeys, then if the profs see I can write dem English real good they won't be put off

I think somewhere between the USPS, Christmas and the UK postal system it might have fallen into the cracks. If I don't get it this week I'll get in touch with ETS.