UnlikelyGrad

OMG!! So awesome! You have inspired me to buy a ukelele. Or maybe get back into singing... We have a seriously gifted/creative group of applicants on GradCafe this year. No one's done anything like this (or katerific's brochure) in past years.

Oooh, yeah, I've seen both of those, too, as well as other similar phrase butcherings. I will post here when I think of them.

Are these limited to academic papers? I see these more on discussion forums, actually...or in real life. There's actually a beauty salon called "Wa La!" down the street from where I live.

OK, fine, they're spelling errors. As someone who's keenly aware of foreign phrases, other misspellings I can't stand are: ect.--You know, at the end of a list. Puhleeze people. It is short for "et cetera"...how do you get "ect." out of that? Viola!--Unless you're referring to the string instrument that plays in the range between the violin and the cello, this should be spelled Voila! (If you don't know how to make the accent mark it doesn't bother me. Technically I believe it's Voilá! Or maybe the accent goes the other way...not sure...) Some people also leave off the v and spell it "Wala" or "Wahla" etc. (shudder) I think the problem is that people don't read enough--if you seen these in (properly-edited) print enough, you understand how they are supposed to be spelled.

principal vs. principle "Principle" is an idea. "Principal" is used for everything else, including "main" (e.g. Principal Component Analysis) I've even seen this one misspelled in textbooks.

How frustrating! I think you need an appointment with a punching bag about now.

I agree with LJK's assessment. Also, I think insisting on being co-advised is an absolute must in this situation. Not just because you have a "back-up advisor" but because more senior profs tend to have bigger networks...and networking is one thing your mentor has to help you do.

Agreed! I think the prize should be...a jigsaw puzzle made of this amazing photo. At least that's what I'd want to get. (Don't you think it would make an awesome puzzle?)

Boulder isn't cheap. At all. I know someone who bought there while a grad student, but she'd been working previously and had quite a bit of money put away. (If you are in this position too, expect to get a condo or townhouse rather than a house.) If you want cheap you need to go out to surrounding areas, like Longmont. Longmont isn't nearly as nice as Boulder, but you can get a decent home there for a decent price.

Is your boyfriend going to look for a job? If he thinks he may be working in downtown Denver, I would either pick Lakewood or Pleasant View--both have easy access to the 6 which will get you to downtown in ~15 min.

Everything depends on (1) how much you're willing to pay, (2) whether or not you have a car, and (3) what sort of digs you're looking for. The best place to live IMO is close to campus...i.e. north of Golden High School/24th St and south of highway 58. If you are willing to share a house, you can get a room for $400 or so. There's a Safeway just a few blocks from campus so you can easily handle life w/o a car. (For clothing etc. you can hop on the bus--you get a free bus pass as a student--and go down to Colorado Mills, which is a behemoth shopping mall, about 15 min away by bus.) The area just north of 58 is slightly more affordable, and walkable/bikeable. But be warned, we are in the foothills here and it will take you a while to adjust to altitude/elevation gain while walking/biking. Some parts of this neighborhood are great, others are kinda scummy. Downside: there is no bus service to this part of town, so if you don't have a car you'll be hauling all of your groceries up a hill. Not fun. Then there's the Pleasant View area, roughly defined as anywhere south of South Table Mesa but north of I-70. There are some reasonable neighborhoods here but there are also some not-nice neighborhoods. This may have something to do with the fact that the county jail, the juvenile detention center, and a (low-security) state prison all lie within the area. (The sheriff's department HQ is also here, though, so at least you get protection services quickly!) To be honest, this is where most of the grad students end up living. Because if you want your own place, and don't want to share, you probably aren't going to be able to afford it nearer campus. Advantages: There is good bus service to this area. The best grocery store in Golden is down here, and there are plenty of restaurants including ethnic food. (I have to admit, though, that most ethnic food in Golden is disappointing, with the exception of Mexican/Southwestern.) If you don't mind a slightly longer commute, you can get some really good deals a few blocks from Colfax Ave in Lakewood--which means decent bus service to campus. I'll be PM-ing you with more info.

Yes, BUT...genocide does not exist unless fed by propaganda. Go back and read the sorts of stuff people used to write about _________ (fill in the blank with favorite oppressed or formerly-oppressed groups: Jews, blacks, gays, etc.)--that people still write about those groups--that foster the hatred/malice/violence which led to genocide. Words can be effective weapons, which is why I have such a healthy respect for English majors! It does not matter what your gift is, be it words or chemistry; you can use it for good or ill. Words can be used to inflame passions or heal centuries-long feuds. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors of various sorts can be used as chemical weapons, pesticides, or Alzheimer's drugs. Stop arguing about whose field is more important and start asking yourself what you can do to use your own chosen field to benefit humanity.

In all honesty? I have an appointment with a lawyer to discuss divorce issues. *sigh*

Ooh. Hadn't thought of that. They're both banned now anyway though...

00001 00010 00011 00100 00101 00110 00111 01000 01001 01010 01011 01100 01101 01110 01111 10000 10001 10010 10011 10100 10101 10110 10111 11000 11001 (I guess I must have learned something in grad school!)

Ditto.

Well, how famous is famous? She's no Albert Einstein. She's no Harold Urey or Richard Feynman. But she puts out papers that get 100 cites/year (I checked once, for fun) and have staying power; people keep citing them year after year...and she's been called in to testify before Congress regarding stuff in her field on a couple of different occasions...that's famous enough for me. :-) If you are in her sub-field, you will know her name. I don't know how long the GRE has been around, but I know my husband took it in 1991, 20 years ago, and it wasn't new then, at all. So I think you'd be surprised at how many profs have actually taken the GRE themselves. Which is not to say that the test hasn't changed then--I think it was just a couple of years later that they switched to the computer adaptive test. And the AW section is relatively new, less than 10 years old. They used to have an analytical/logical reasoning test like the one on the LSAT. So the odds that the profs have taken the AW test is probably pretty slim unless they're brand new faculty. I'm trying to remember what else she told me that will be of interest to the OP. A lot of the no-nos she told me about were so obvious they were only good for a laugh. Like only get recommenders who know your academic potential...she's read LoRs from football coaches and (I kid you not) dorm RAs! (Needless to say we had some very amusing conversations on this topic.) The best advice she had for me was to visit each school I was accepted to and listen to my gut reaction. For some reason that's stuck with me over the years, whereas most of the admissions advice has flown out of the window.

Ummm, hello? Did you miss the part about my sister being a famous professor in her field? She's in a top-5 school in her field of engineering, in a very hot sub-field. In her department there's no real adcomm...the apps are basically circulated amongst all of the profs with whom the applicant's research interests match, and if one of them is willing to take on the student (and fund them), that student is admitted. She didn't take a sample: she took the test. Most faculty who are under the age of 50 have had to take the GRE to get into grad school themselves. My sister got an 800 V and 800 Q. She may have also gotten an 800 on the analytical section (she took it back before the institution of the AW section, which she says is useless); if not, she was certainly in the 90+ percentile. As a grad student she was also a both an NSF Fellow and, later, a Hertz Fellow. I grew up in the shadow of brilliance, and I know it when I see it. I always find it amusing when people put down tests as "useless"--they're usually the people who either couldn't score well on a test to save their lives, or are just too lazy to put in the work. People say "it's just a bunch of memorization" and "anyone could ace it" but let's face it, it doesn't happen without a heck of a lot of preparation. Guess what? Professors want to see students who aren't a bunch of slackers. So a high verbal score does mean something after all. (Comrade PhysioProf of the blogosphere also told me at one point that he likes to see science grads with high verbal scores--so it isn't just a case of my sister being unusual or something.)

My dad is not a famous professor, but he's done a lot of collaborative work with a guy who is one of the Founding Fathers of his subfield. My oldest sister, on the other hand, is pretty darn famous in her field. And though I have to admit that my eventual admission to a top-10 university (which I later turned down) may have been partially based on name dropping (though the prof asked first! really!), the best thing I did was to ask both my dad and my sister: "What should I do to make myself more attractive to adcomms?" Their answers were not what I expected. For example, I was pretty darn pleased about my 800Q score on the GRE. But Chrissy was relatively blasé about it. "90% of the applicants I get have a 800Q," she said. "But your verbal score? That makes me raise my eyebrows. I almost never see applicants with a verbal score like that." (She's in engineering.) Anyway...what I recommend is to do what you said you are already doing, namely to ask your dad, AND his friends, what they think you should do to get into top schools. You might even want to show them drafts of your SoP for their input. This will have two effects: (1) They will give you some amazing advice. (2) Your dad's friends (maybe your dad too, but probably not) will gossip with their friends..."Did you hear that Dr. X's son is applying for grad school?" Never underestimate the power of academic gossip. You will not see direct results from this, but it will have more impact than you possibly know. *Especially* if you send them your SoP so they have a good idea of what your research focus is. You do not want to conspicuously name drop. Ever. You have to at least *pretend* you're trying to get in on your own merits.

Yeah, he had half a dozen posts on half a dozen threads, all of this caliber. I banned him. :-) My weekend notification was an acceptance with full funding, so its clear he's full of BS anyway.

Speaking as someone who went into interviews as a non-traditional prospective student, I have to agree with the previous posters. I met some profs who spent most of the interview asking me how I was going to cope, others who didn't care at all, and others who told me it was cool that I was a mom (but quickly moved on to the meat of the interview, what sort of research I wanted to do). Don't come off as too defensive if you get one of the first sort. Be confident, in an arrogant sort of way. Go on the offensive if necessary, butting in to say things like, "But what I really want to know is how the data you found in study X led you to the conclusion that Y was impossible? Did you try method Z as an alternative?"

Different IP addresses though...very different.

Yeah. It does. But only we moderators can use it. This thread was mostly contention-free until you showed up. Trust me, your posting ability is in grave jeopardy.

Let me put it a different way: no personal attacks or you will be banned from posting for a while.

I've never been to law school but I have a sister who is a law prof and she agrees with you. She just started teaching her specialty, patent law, this year (her first couple of years were spent teaching that staple of law school, contracts). She had a lot of trouble finding a patent textbook that actually contained more than one actual patent...some contained none at all! She tries to design her courses with a decidedly practical slant, but this takes a lot of work on her part. Plus, most poli sci journals have reviewers who are faculty in poli sci, i.e. already have PhDs in the subject. Whereas, if I understand correctly, most law reviews are run by students, i.e. people who don't yet have JDs.