criscamino

Wonder if you or someone else could explain to me about how you sort out automated alerts? Sounds useful. Thanks

Thanks for the advice. As a foreigner I am a little unsure about how the process works but an American friend who has an almost pathological fear of the gre (she is going to law school to avoid it) wound me right up about the whole thing. Thanks for setting me straight

I did the GRE last autumn, putting in a couple of applications to absolute dream US schools whilst mainly focusing on doing an MA here (in England - at King's College London as it turns out). US applications didn't pan out and once I have my MA, extra language skills and some research assistant work under my belt I intend to try again for a US PhD programme for autumn 2013 entry. Hearing the GRE was aptitude based, I went in with little preparation - I got 760Q and 780V, which I was told I should be happy with, but when the written portion came back I came in the 66th percentile (don't have the precise score to hand - 4.5?). I was pretty disappointed, but I have no idea what to take from this. Texas say they don't look at the writing score, but how do other schools view it? Obviously I have time to do it all again but I'd be concerned that I wouldn't score nearly as well on the other bits. Any advice?

I had a not dissimilar experience and spent so many months fretting about it that I ended up delaying grad school a year at least (monumentally silly). I frankly couldn't believe that I could get into the tip-top programmes that my tutors were recommending - but what would be their motivation for misleading you? They are not going to want to write a stack of references for hopeless cases. Take the compliment and start looking into the application process - there's a lot of leg-work to be done

This sounds reassuring. I did a few applications to absolute dream schools last autumn, more in hope than expectation, with the intention of doing an MA here (England) before doing a PhD (in History) in the US. I went into the GRE largely blind, and came out with 760Q and 780V, but with 4.5 for the writing. I was pretty confused frankly, and rather disappointed. Should I stick with what I have, or go for it again in time for the next admissions cycle? (I'm tending towards the former.)

Just going for the three US (PhD) programmes, all exceptional schools and so quite unlikely to come off - though I have no doubt where I'd go if I got multiple offers. I got into this whole application process a little late, not realising the earlier deadlines in America. I think chances are I'll do an MA here in England - yet to decide exactly where, apart from Oxford - and use everything I've learned this year to do it all again next autumn. I've really learned the value of fit - as much as I wanted to be in New York and as good as Columbia is for modern US history, I just could not find anything to write for that part of my SOP at all. I've certainly made a great reading list for the next few months from trawling so many faculty profiles - and I'm sure that'll set me in good stead if it comes to reapplying.

Thanks! I have indeed found some of the online forms to be extremely confusing and rather wished I'd got stuck into them sooner (nice selection of deadlines today!). Won't be so naïve next time round, and I fear there will be one. I've ended up with something that is still a resume but a bit more academically focused than usual, so I'll go with that. And see what happens

Just the one pressing deadline does say cv/resume, so that sounds like a plan. I've got a little time to mull over the other cv-requiring one Thanks, both of you

Haha, sadly not - to the latter. Life certainly does revolve around pubs though. Indisputably the hardest thing to leave behind.

Except the issue is not the eating of the candy but the exploration of quite striking differences between superficially similar countries, this being the sort of difference that engaged me back then. I don't know if I can be bothered to try and explain it because I'm probably going with a more sober, less caffeine-brain-frazzle-inspired angle

Hi. I'm English and here what we call a CV is the thing you send out to get whatever kind of job you are going for and roughly equates to what you guys call a resume, I believe. The things I find when googling academic CV don't seem too relevant to me. I haven't taught (and never heard of an undergrad teaching at my uni), haven't received research grants, haven't been published, haven't presented at conferences, don't belong to any professional organisations... but then none of my friends (who've been getting into great programmes over here) have either, so I don't think that not having these things is unusual. So what am I supposed to put on this CV thingummy? Edit: I'm doing history, by the way

This all looks very useful. Having waded through Harvard's application form for Arts and Sciences, which for some reason feels four times the length of any other Ivy, I've finally got to uploading my (frankly, rather gaudy) Berkeley transcript and it's well over twice the size it should be!

I'm applying from abroad as an international applicant, but I do have the complication of having transcripts and LORs coming from the US, having done my year abroad there, and really it's been fine. I am Mr. Super Last Minute (I'm sure I'll be working till almost 5am tonight, deadline day) but the fact that everything's online means it doesn't really matter too much.

Sadly, this is England, where bar staff get minimum wage and don't get tipped

I've been a barman by night for a good few months whilst 'working' on applications. Although I have much of the day free the mixture of the job's hours and its soul-destroying nature have left me with loads to do before the deadlines tomorrow. I doubt I'll get on any of the PhD programmes I've applied for in the US but I'm reasonably confident of getting into one of my top choices here in England to do an MA before having another crack at US schools with an Oxford (fingers crossed) MA under my belt. I just need to get the hell out of my crappy small home town and my crappy job asap as the boredom and gloom here's actually sapped my motivation. Pressure and business undoubtedly makes it easier for me to work

My apologies. I'm English, so that is the point of comparison. I don't like pre-teen but i was trying to think of a word that covers the period up to about 10-to-12 yrs old. Also I would definitely use twenty-something as opposed to twenty-something-yr-old, but that may be a difference in style between my kind of english and yours. I was worried this was just too stupid to be worth keeping, but I actually kind of like it now. I feel like (although I'd love to get in this year) that my current applications are more of a dry run for next year than anything else (by which time I'll have more research experience and language skills) so I may as well go for this and see what happens. Edit: Oh, and thank you very much. Where are my manners?

Getting utterly sick and tired of the rejigging of my SOP and given that's it's nearly 3am here and I'm hopped up on caffeine I've come up with an entirely new first paragraph that is rather more jazzy (and probably remarkably more stupid) than the old one. Thoughts please! My fascination with the United States has very deep, grape-flavoured roots. When I was four, my uncle moved to Austin, Texas, to get married and from then on my brothers and I periodically received gift packages from him and his in-laws. While the many and varied knick-knacks entertained us and turned our friends green with envy, one particular thing caused utter befuddlement – the peculiar American penchant for grape-flavoured confectionery. Nearly twenty years later, that fascination remains undimmed and follows surprisingly similar lines. The sweetie-obsessed pre-teen may have blossomed into a twenty-something with a love of politics and history, but my essential interest – the often-bewildering differences between two seemingly similar nations – remains. (It then goes into my interest in late twentieth century US history, especially the big social change of the sixties and the rise of conservatism) Please help. I think my brain might actually be broken