runonsentence

Honestly, if you're happy with any kind of job at the college level, you might have luck finding adjunct work. (In my field at least, it's common for adjuncts to only have an MA.) And possibly community college work, it can't hurt to look. Perhaps tutoring college students is also something you could pursue? I have many colleagues who actually find tutoring in the writing center even more rewarding than teaching in the classroom. Anyway, throwing some ideas out there in the hopes that you feel less discouraged about a career in higher ed. Good luck.

Talk to your recommendation writers and ask if they can address the fact that you are in a professional program (which doesn't subscribe to the same grade-inflation as many academic programs) and ask them to assure the committee that you worked hard and performed well.

What a rough situation. I know it must be emotionally exhausting. But unfortunately, I think that the above posters are right in saying that it sounds like a lost cause because of several red flags. Even if you do stay, consider that you'll need more than an adviser to get past your candidacy exams and your dissertation. This may be the department recognizing now that they don't feel confident in passing your on your exams or your dissertation and trying to shuffle you out before you get that far. (Or maybe it's all political; it's hard for us to know.) I'm not sure if these questions have been directly addressed yet (or I apologize if they were and I missed that): basically, the terminal M.A. means that they're willing to give you a consolation prize for leaving the program early. Since most master's degrees in the humanities are comprised of two years' coursework, the DGS may be willing to decide to recognize your PhD coursework as having fulfilled the requirements for an M.A. To hazard a guess on your second question, yes I would think so. Because accepting a terminal M.A. would mean leaving the program and also disassociating your name with their PhD program (sorry to say, I know that sounds harsh), I don't personally think you'd find a lot of resistance if you asked for it. The person to approach on the terminal M.A. front, though, is probably the DGS, not your adviser. Unless your department is structured very differently from mine.

Behavioral is right that you'll have much more autonomy over your research once you're finished with coursework. But while you are in your coursework, perhaps there are opportunities for you to cross-register in classes in other departments? I do this currently. I think you should speak to an advisor or faculty member you feel comfortable with about your anxieties and desires. Or speak with other, more established students in your program. This sounds to me like a matter of simply making the program work better for your interests, and that seems doable. Someone else who has a better idea of what the program offers should have some suggestions. It may be that right now you're doing foundational work that's necessary before you can move on to the sort of analysis that interests you. Or perhaps there are professors in your department teaching classes that would better speak to your interests that you're not yet aware of. Or perhaps you need some time to adjust to a new discipline before you can see how to make it better work for you. Think of it this way: you surely expressed your interests in inter-disciplinary work and cultural analysis in your application. The department surely thought they could support these interests if they accepted you to their PhD program (and funded you as well). I'm sure there's a solution here, somewhere. Good luck!

Americans have a saying: "the grass is always greener on the other side." It sounds to me like perhaps you're having trouble adjusting and are trying to convince yourself that Columbia ("the other side") would be the better choice for instance happiness. But I think that thinking comparatively like this probably isn't helpful. No decision is ever perfect, and no school will be without its problems—I don't think that Columbia is necessarily your instant fix. Try, if you can, not to focus on lines of thought like, "Oh, if I'd only gone to Columbia, I'd surely like my neighborhood more...." I think I agree with other posters that many of your difficulties may be related to the initial adjustment to a new school, a new program, not knowing anyone...also, I wasn't clear from your post, but have you moved from abroad to the U.S. for the first time, as well? It may be that you're also experiencing some culture shock. I would suggest you wait it out, definitely for the rest of the semester, if not the year, before making any decisions. Good luck, and I'm sorry you're having some trouble.

For anyone who's having trouble allowing themselves to relax, please remember: balance makes you more productive. There are studies that prove this. Taking time off to relax is necessary for your mental health, your physical health (exercise!), and has the added benefit of allowing you to work more productively when you get back to it. Treat yourself kindly; you deserve it!

and I know I live in the Midwest, but $1500 is not only larger than my monthly paycheck, but almost 3x my rent!

Hmm. Your shorter paper would probably have the benefits of better displaying your reasoning/critical thinking/analysis skills, since you'd be able to include the entire argument and not just a short excerpt. And in my field at least, 20 pages isn't short for a sample, it's somewhere around the mid to max page length. Last, you'd still be able to mention your honors thesis in your SoP and/or your CV. But it's always nice to show the adcom you can write in your proposed area of interest. But in the end: which do you feel is the better/stronger piece of writing? That's, without a doubt, what's most important in the end.

CVs tend to look different not only from person to person (after all, it's possible to spin most experiences several different ways—e.g., my assistantship could go under a "professional experience" heading, a "teaching experience" heading, or "awards," depending on where it might look best based on my background), but also from field to field. This is to say, if/when you look for samples, you may find it most helpful to base your own CV off samples by others in your field.

long_time_lurker: do you own the house? if so, have you looked into installing better/more insulation? grad school isn't the optimal time for home improvements I know, and the cost is all frontloaded which strains a grad student budget, but it seems like better insulation would surely save you $$ in the long run.

I'd recommend something more like an attributive tag (that is, something like, "In his 2002 book ___, physics research John Smith argues..."). Reference lists, works cited, and footers are, I think, a bit out of place in the SoP genre. Most importantly, they take away valuable space where you could be talking about you.

check the applications carefully: some of my applications actually asked for separate materials if applying for an assistantship (a separate statement, teaching philosophy, CV, etc.), so in that case you wouldn't want to waste space in your SoP talking up your TA/RA pedigree. if the application does not have specific areas for assembling material for RA/TA consideration, perhaps spend a very short paragraph or portion of a paragraph (2-3 sentences) discussing your qualifications. but remember, the focus of the document is on you as a lively, thoughtful scholar.

I've gotten similar emails before. I think they honestly just go down a list of graduate students listed at an institution and spam them with whatever they can find from a Google search. They had slightly wrong information about me; they thought a paper I'd presented at a national conference was a thesis and offered to publish it.

Relieved I wasn't first again. Quarter finally has me occupied and productive!

If I remember correctly, they mostly (completely?) make money through suggesting (advertising) various financial services, but it's at least the kind of advertising you can benefit from. For instance, there is a feature on the site that takes your financial profile into account and sees if you can use a different service to make money. Say you're keeping a small amount of money in savings, and another bank has a higher savings rate: it suggests that you try out another bank with a higher savings rate. The bank wins because it suggests you use it, and you win because you can earn a higher interest rate.

I like http://www.mint.com as a financial tracker/planner sort of website. It tracks and categorizes your purchases and also has budget planning features.

It'll vary somewhat by school, because adcoms meet at different times. My school's recruitment weekend was in late February, but I believe that other schools do hold them in March.

IK: one paragraph was changed in and out, where I discussed the school's strengths and how I fit in with them. But I made less quantifiable changes throughout as well (emphasizing different interests and experiences and the like, re-structuring).

Actually, I don't think you really need to mention your dissatisfaction with the working world (which I can imagine could easily look like trying to "escape back into school" to an adcom). I'd instead suggest you concentrate on telling the adcom what your career goals are and why you need to get your degree—and even better, why you need to study at their program—in order to achieve your career goals. If you express this strongly enough, you won't need to tell them you're dissatisfied with working life. It'll be implied. I actually didn't list specific professor names in my SoP, and instead talked about general research trends and strengths of the program. I was advised by my DGS to be careful about dropping names, unless I really thoroughly understood the political climate of the department I was applying to. But, others feel just as strongly about the opposite approach. It also might vary by field. You should in some way show that you're a strong fit for their program. Whether you do that by dropping names or in other ways is up to you.

Speaking with an admissions counselor is entirely different from speaking with a faculty member. It is an admissions counselor's job to meet with potential applicants and work with applications, whereas for faculty it's a side service they provide to the department on top of their teaching and scholarship. (Though I'm not really sure there's anything to be gained by speaking with someone from the admissions office for graduate applications anyway, as the department adcom is the group of people it will be most difficult to impress.) I think the above posters had it right. My (admittedly murky) impression from studying the UPenn website three years ago when I applied there was that they weren't incredibly keen on visits.

If you potentially have three strong letters from a graduate program, I say use them. If you think one of your letters would be stronger coming from this Chinese program, then get one from your undergrad professor. It's all about what you think will be strongest. It sounds like you think your grad program will have stronger letters, especially since you indicated those letter writers are well known in their subfield. I don't think there's a real right or wrong, here. But letters from your grad program professors will be best able to reflect your recent work (whereas your undergrad letters would be, by comparison, a little out-of-date, so to speak) and will be better able to speak to your capacity to do graduate-level work.

I found graduate administrators/secretaries surprisingly nice about helping out with paperwork issues like this, when I applied. It wouldn't hurt to give the secretary/office admin at your prospective a phone call, if they already have the letter in hand.

Some departments will read all four, and some will have adcoms that will be really annoyed at being asked to read more than the mountains and mountains of materials that are already required of their applicants. So, to reiterate advice above, I would ask.

Do you feel comfortable having a candid conversation with your advisor (and later, with other committee members potentially writing your LoRs)? If s/he has already volunteered to write a "positive" letter, it seems as though s/he would be open to a discussion in which you ask these very questions. I think it'd be very reasonable to ask how/why your advisor would be able to positively recommend you for another program, given your history. As to your chances for funding, I think that the sort of advice often offered here on the boards to first-time applicants is also applicable: it might be worth it to check with the DGS of potential programs. But I do agree that you'll never really know the answers for sure unless you apply. So I think you should take some time to really think about how badly you want your PhD. For instance, let's say that we on the board (or your advisor) told you that your chances for funding were limited, and you decided not to apply. Would you always regret taking a chance on it? I know that if it was me, I probably would. While $80 isn't insignificant for a grad student, it's also not much in the grand scheme of things when we're talking about your future.

Sure, some students turn in stuff written in 10 minutes the night before, no question about it. But the thing is, it's sometimes difficult to tell when it's pure laziness and when there's something else behind it (like bewilderment about the assignment or personal issues in the student's life). Further, I still don't feel comfortable with the idea of only making fun of the work that's lazy...I think that following that logic of justification can get dicey. Even though the site is anonymous, students are aware it exists, and I can imagine it would feel like an incredible breach of trust to see work you just turned in quoted on that site. For me identity has little to do with my discomfort: it's the motives behind posting to such a site in the first place.