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I can't live without my trashy Bravo shows.

[quote name="Louiselab

Talk to professors in your poli sci department. They'll know of MA programs with good reputations. Also, they'll have an idea of where former students ended up.

Generally speaking you can't run that far away from your GPA in an application. First off, a 3.5 is by no means bad and shouldn't be seen as a problem. If you want to disguise it you can probably put your major GPA on your resume. In the application packet itself they will ask you specifically for your overall and major GPA. Some of my schools even asked me to recalculate my GPA to include only the last 60 hours of credit work, which further raised my GPA. As for the MBA program, a 3.37 isn't bad either. Use your SoP to talk about how you can better handle grad level work. Also if you really feel that you need to mitigate that even further, most applications have a short answer question devoted to explaining grades.

A good LOR has a combination of facts/figures and personal stories. Adcoms want to know that you got an A in your subject area and that you were published in X, Y, and Z. That said, they also want to know that you are a hard worker and that you have spent countless hours meeting with profs in office hours showing a passion for the material. Also, take the opportunity to make sure to highlight things that are your strongest attributes (both academic and personal) and that strengthen your application. Remember length is an issue. No adcom wants to read War & Peace so follow the advice my English prof gave my class. It should be like a lady's skirt: Long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to keep it interesting.

I completely agree. Generally speaking they care that the person is an academic (regardless of field). Especially since your other two recs are in your area, if this person is slightly tangential it will probably be ok. The fact that this individual knows you well and can give a substantial letter is more important.

It takes a month or two. Lets put it this way, you'll know when you have it done when you'd rather kill yourself than read it over again.

I had the same SOP, the only thing I changed was the school's name and the couple of sentences specific to the program.

A lot of it depends on if you are applying to Masters or PhD programs. Personally I applied to 3 Masters programs and got in at 2 and waitlisted (and later notified that I wasn't getting called off) at 1. Since Masters programs tend to be larger you don't need to apply to as many.

Agreed with above. I took the Kaplan course and studied with their books. The teacher for the course said they a) disproportionately give harder questions and score you lower. That way you feel like the real test is "easy" and you have an improvement and can't claim the $-back guarantee.

Both statistics may be possible, but keep in mind Peterson's (in particular) doesn't update their information very often. My programs had information that was 5/6 years old. Also, keep in mind that the recession has changed the rules about funding, so don't take them as gospel. If you talk with the depts and/or visit they'll probably tell you how many spots they are looking to fill.

Although you don't want to burn bridges, you probably could just leave the message unanswered. I doubt they will hound you trying to find out the answer.

Generally speaking the rule of thumb with cell phones is you pay for what you get. AT&T and Verizon are the most expensive but they tend to get the best coverage. I'm on Verizon and when I visited UIUC, I got amazing coverage.

If you are moving to DC, get Verizon. They have an exclusive deal with the Metro subway system that will allow you get service underground.

Don't know about the Wayne State, but when I visited Cornell, Minnesota, and Illinois (ranked 1, 2, 3 respectively) they said they consider MSU to be competition. If I remember correctly the MSU program is ranked 5 or 6 in the country.

Every month you will get a statement that will tell you a) how much you charged how much credit you have left on the card and c) a minimum payment due Always pay in full otherwise you'll be charge interest. On the statement it will tell you how to write and send the check. Also, if you have online banking through your bank that issues the credit card, you can set it up with online bill pay to have the credit card company take money out of checking account.

I think it depends on the reputation of the school. People aren't going to judge you if your undergrad/grad institution is the well respected in the field.

I graduated in December and considered doing the spring admission for a Masters, but ended up not doing it. When I visited the program they told me not to apply. Even though I didn't require funding, they said if I applied for spring I wouldn't get merit aid (ended up applying for the fall and got a lot of money). Also they admit far fewer applicants -- most Masters admit 8 times as many in the Fall. You are better off applying for the Fall but submitting your application very early -- I was able to submit my part of the application by August and had the entire application (transcripts, recs, etc.) in by the end of October and got my first acceptance literally 5 days after I got an email saying my file was complete.

Many of us have been using facebook for a while and many of us have come up with some interesting theories regarding it. Who joined the network of their graduate school? Who is waiting to do so? What are people's thoughts. I thought this would be a welcome break from the serious conversations.

It's "free". From the website it looks like you have to pay $50 for orientation. Ah, the joys of going to a state school.

FYI, The Orientation website finally updated the dates for orientation. Not exactly the most exciting programing options, but it'd probably be a good idea to attend. http://www.ofyp.umn.edu/gradstudents/or/index.html

Yeah, I saw that. The weather there seems to be all kinds of strange.

When I got accepted I began checking the weather for the Twin Cities... ...I stopped after a couple of weeks because it was too depressing.

http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/license.htm#driversfromothernations

The quick, but unhelpful answer is that it probably depends on the state -- each state has control over driving. Your best bet is to go to that state's department of motor vehicles website. The information should be there.