acceptedwannabe

Hola todos, Espero que esta semana los haya tratado bien. Animo, ya casi salimos de la peor parte!!! Para mi lo mas dificil ha sido la incertidumbre: no saber que va a pasar y no poder hacer nada al respecto... solo esperar y esperar y chequear el email mil veces al dia... Merci beaucoup pour votre mots, Coho. Je ne parle pas francais, mais la solidarite des "grad"-aspirants c

Hola Niniasiesta y hola a todos, esta semana ha sido dificil para mi, porque he estado ocupado con mil cosas, pero sigo pendiente del forum. La proxima semana se supone que llegan los resultados de varias Universidades, entre ellas Cornell, Yale, Brown y otras (por lo menos eso es lo que indican las fechas de publicacion de los resultados del ano pasado). Que emocion y que angustia! ejejejej, welcome to "Hellweek applications 2009"... buena suerte a todos!!! Niniasiesta, nos vemos en UPenn!! Me da mucha alegria que puedas ir, que bueno que hayas conseguido tu tiquete de descuento. Yo llego a Philadelphia el jueves por la noche y me tengo que ir el domingo por la tarde, pero estoy seguro de que tendremos tiempo para conversar. Saludes a todos y un abrazo.

Hi Niniasiesta, Congrats for UPENN!!! Es increible que el espanol no sea tu lengua natal, a juzgar por lo que has escrito en este blog, tu manejo del idioma es MUY bueno. Seria muy interesante poder estudiar con personas como tu, que maravilla que alguien de Corea del Sur este interesada en la literatura hispanica! En que te especializas? En todo caso, creo que voy a poder ir al interview weekend. Logre conseguir un tiquete con descuento, asi que si todo sale bien, alla estare. Te mando un abrazo fuerte, nos mantendremos en contacto y mucha suerte (estoy seguro que te va a ir muy bien).

Hey ninasiesta, congrats for Pittsburgh!!!

Hola todos, que bueno ver que el forum crece!!! Para mi es un alivio poder compartir con ustedes esta espera tan dificil. Acabo de recibir buenas noticias: email de UPENN en el que me invitan al admissions weekend del 12 al 15 de febrero. I am very very very happy. However, those days are going to be crazy for me: I live in Colombia (South America), I have to go to Philadelphia for the interview, and I have to be in Yemen (Arabic Peninsula) by wednesday 18. I feel like a latino version of Phileas Fogg Fortunately, I have some air-miles, because UPENN is certainly not going to pay for any of these ticktes. Anyway, I am really happy!! On another subject, I got another call from Vanderbilt... for a second phone interview. I talked with a different teacher this time who had read my essay closely and had many specific questions, which were really well thought and difficult. They called me on my cellphone, I was at a friend's house at the moment and my friend didn't turn off the vacuum cleaner during the whole call... not cool from his part at all... but I already got even, Vendetta is my middle name The conversation was very interesting, and I believe you might find the subject useful: The essay I presented has to do with Vladimir Propp, and it is very specific about its "marco teorico". One of the main concerns the professor had, was if my plans for the doctoral studies were limited by this theoric line, or if I was open to take this author as starting point. I answered I was open to new perspectives. As with the first call, I was very nervous I don't think I did very well, but I am posting this because I've seen a number of forums about the "limits of your marco teorico" subject and I believe this experience might add: In the essay I was really specif about "el marco teorico", in the SoP I hinted other alternatives, and I tried to be as open minded as possible during the interview. This combination has given me some good results this far and I hope you might find it useful (or at least give you something to think about while we wait for our nerves to finally collapse). Anyway, les deseo a todos la mejor suerte, les mando un abrazo fuerte, y seguiremos en contacto.

Hola todos, I just had the phone interview, and these are my impressions (I hope you find them useful). It was my first time in an interview like this ever, so I was nervous. Overall, I don't think I did bad, but I feel I could have done better. I was not expecting their call so soon, and it caught me a little bit off guard, so I was nervous. A knot formed in my throat and I had to ask them if they could please call me back in a few minutes. Otherwise they would have thought they were speaking with the priest from the Exorcist III (my voice was that rusty). In any case, the professor I talked to was great, she was very kind and profesional. I had feared they were going to rip me appart with questions about my essay, but instead they wanted me to develop a few points about the statement of purpose. Specifically they asked about my research plans during the PhD. They also wanted to know why I was interested in their department. I am familiar with the work of some of the professors there, and I had recently re-checked the dissertation subjects of the graduating students (most department post this online), and all this helped. The interview lasted 30 minutes; it started in Spanish and, at her request, we switched to English. Finally I asked a couple questions about their program and their funding options (it is good indeed to have these prepared, thanks for the tip). As I said, I dont think I was terrible, but I know I could have done better. Anyway, I hope you find this useful, and once again saludes a todos. Like italians say, in bocca al lupo!! (good luck).

Hola todos and thank you very much for your comments. I still don't know the language of the interview or the date. They said "next few days"... and I could write a dissertation on all the possible meanings and interpretations I've found about it. I'll keep you posted with any useful info I can get. In the mean time, I found this page with frequent questions during grad interviews. http://gradschool.about.com/od/intervie ... tquest.htm Most of them are silly, though, so I will most certainly follow your advise and strenghten the academic background and review the SoP. Thanks a lot, y mucha suerte!

I recieved an "Interview request" e-mail from Vanderbilt University yesterday (Spanish PhD). I am really happy about it, yet I am also nervous: what else do they want to know?! What am I supposed to tell them?!! It is going to be a phone interview, but I have no idea if it is going to be in Spanish or English. Anyway, saludes a todos y mucha suerte con las solicitudes!! PS: I am seriously considering about buying a new phone just for this call, so I don't get any noise interference or anything.

Hi there, I am interested in "spanking", "black leather", and single latin females 20-30... oops, wrong forum, sorry about that. Seriously now, I am applying to Romance studies and Spanish literature and I am interested in a very specific literary topic: the application of Vladimir Propp's model to modern south american short stories. It goes something like this: Propp developped a system that helps analyzing the structure of faerie tales and folk tales; basically it synthesizes a story into something that looks like a short math equation. Modern literature doesn't work well with his model, and was never meant to do so because its narrative is too complex. But I found out that when you try to do so... and then you fail miserably... you actually discover a lot about the structure of the the story at hand. Is like trying to understand a human being by studying him as if it were a chimp. Although I am really passionate about this subject, this "interst" might turn out to be as bizarre and out-of-place in an application form as the the "spanking" and "black leather" interests mentioned above. Anyway, good luck to all of you "applicants" out there and may we all be "accepted" and "well fund" by mid march.