Safferz

Always, always a blue Paper Mate Comfortmate ballpoint pen.

Thanks! I searched the forums and found a thread in Art History from last year on the same issue, and the advice was to ignore it. I'm with you -- it's a huge relief to have most of my applications in at this point. I suspect the anxiety of waiting won't hit me until January, when I suddenly realize adcomms are beginning to meet and deliberate over my future...

Anyone applying to Penn? I've submitted my application but on the status page it says 'not received' under the 'transcript' heading. I thought that Penn only wanted an unofficial transcript uploaded to the application, but this would suggest they're waiting for an official transcript to be mailed to them...

Thanks goldielocks. Hope your revisions are going well!

Next week is the last week of classes at my university, and I must say, I'm more overwhelmed by all the papers I have to do than my grad school applications right now

FWIW, I go to the University of Toronto, and I've heard differently from my professors. I don't think you can make blanket statements like that.

Well I submitted a bibliography, not realizing that Penn had stated not to include it But bibliographical information will be in your footnotes anyway, so they'll know what sources you're working with.

Hope it went well, Tay!

I've submitted 7/9 at this point. I'm not anxious because what I've done hasn't quite hit me yet -- completing grad applications has so far felt like one more task on top of my already stressful schedule. Come January and the realization adcomms have started actually looking at applications, I'm sure I'll be freaking out too.

I think this would be more of a concern in other fields, but many history applicants get into Ph.D programs without sending a single email. I wouldn't sweat it.

Make that 7/9 applications! Thanks Sigaba, I'll be sure to start on the book review as early as possible. I was having a similar issue, but my brother helped me out by using Photoshop on his computer, which has a 'reduce size' option that is still readable.

I was not aware of titiritero83's posting history -- I am just stating my observations based on the sequence of posts in this particular thread, and that I actually took StrangeLight's post as the provocative remark, not titiritero83's comment that it was rude. Regardless of what one should/should not post on an internet forum, the fact is that many people come here for support and express their frustrations with other students who can often speak to the situation from either a position of shared experience, or simply understanding what it's like to be in graduate school. If you visit the Chronicle forums, you'll see that professors vent about their students and colleagues there as well. I don't have a problem with students here sharing their experiences and looking for advice and support, and most are careful enough to limit the information they share to remain anonymous. That said, I am not disagreeing with your assessment of HaruNoKaze's comment. What you've said is constructive -- picking at his/her grammar to suggest he/she deserves those marks is not.

So this weekend I've submitted 5/9 applications! I've been avoiding a conference paper I need to finish by the end of the day tomorrow, but I'm glad that my procrastination has been productive in other ways The only applications left to complete require a few extra tasks/assignments -- that awful book review, a diversity statement, and editing down my writing sample to 20 pages. I'm hoping to at least get the writing sample done early this week so I can send off two more applications, but the final two applications may have to wait for a while because I have what feels like a million papers and tests to write this month.

4/9 down, and I'll have three more done this week. The final two require an extra essay each (diversity statement and a book review) that I haven't gotten to yet. But I feel on track with my applications and it's great to have them mostly out of the way at this point.

Is it confrontation to ask someone not to be unnecessarily rude to another member? This forum should be a safe space for discussion (and in this case, venting) without personal attacks. There are other ways to disagree with what HaruNoKaze has expressed in his/her post.

I have 6 of 9 applications ready to submit (just the ones with additional assignments involved left, like a personal history statement... still need to do those), but I'm going to hold off on actually submitting everything until mid-November. I'm really not even sure why, but it doesn't feel right to send them off this early!

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! I found out my 25 page sample is actually 23 pages on Word (I usually use Pages on my Mac), so whittling it down by another three pages doesn't seem as daunting a task. In other news -- it's almost November, folks!

Thanks Sigaba! I actually went through this process, to cut the original paper down from 30 pages to 25 pages for one application. Unfortunately I have a few applications that have a 20 page limit, so I'm thinking I may just omit entire paragraphs and put something like [Omitted from sample: Discussion of XXXXX]. Bad idea? I think I have a well-written sample, and I'm afraid that I'll sacrifice quality if I try and simplify/condense my writing any more than I already have.

Can you drop in during his office hours? One of my referees (who has written a LOR for me in the past and has always been enthusiastic about my grad school plans) did not reply to any of my emails in September, so I just showed up. Emails get lost quite easily, especially in the midst of midterms. This prof can also be quite disorganized and has asked me to drop in from time to time to make sure he has submitted his letter. Another alternative is to call, if going in person isn't an option. As for the GRE, I don't want to even think about it. Channel that energy to the parts of the application that actually count, like your SOP and writing sample. My understanding is that the AW is generally the least important score on the GRE since schools will have a real piece of writing from you anyway, and your quant score certainly won't matter much to a history adcomm. A strong verbal score and a good enough composite score is really all you need, and even then there are so many other factors at play that a not so great score can be overcome.

I'm going to edit my 25 page writing sample down to 20 for a few schools (if anyone has suggestions on how best to do this, let me know!), customize my SOP for a few schools, and work on a conference paper that needs to be finished by the end of next week. Aside from a certain school's book review, and another's 'personal history statement', it looks like I'm on track to finish 7/9 applications next weekend. But I've been assured that the process of actually filling out applications is full of its own time consuming surprises. I also have quite a bit of work to do for my classes, as always. I've scheduled my breakdown for the afternoon of Dec.5th, when I hand in my last paper of the semester

I took the old GRE earlier this year (did OK but not great), and took the revised GRE in August. Am I correct to assume that the four schools I selected after taking the revised GRE will receive the reports with *both* scores in November? I logged into my ETS account today, and it says "your GRE scores have been sent to the authorized recipient at each institution listed." I hope that doesn't mean they've been sent already, before my revised scores are available! Yikes.

I think it's 25 pages, not including title page or bibliography. I've seen that on a few websites, but I would assume applications that don't say it explicitly would expect the same.

I was planning to register them a week or two before completing applications, but iamincontrolhere-haig raised a point I didn't consider. I assumed the applications send out emails to referees the moment you register them! I guess that means I'll really have to get these applications done well in advance of Dec.1st so my letters are uploaded on time. I read the Hunger Games, does that count?

Not sure what others have done, but I've only listed the course code, course title, and the professor who taught the course.

I'm not sure I see why it's unrealistic for you to get into a Ph.D program. Your GPA is still competitive, and some schools (like mine) don't even have an honours thesis option. That has not gotten in the way of graduates from my institution getting into top Ph.D programs.