Armadilla

OMG!I am so excited for you!Even though bio anthro is not my field but that just makes me happy that someone I know (although virtually) is going to be interviewed at such an awesome program!!!!!Will you get to talk to Dr. Wrangham (that's how I know about the program, I read his book for general audiences)? Congratulations!!!

I don't know if you guys got that impression, but whenever I look at the admission results page, it seems like everyone on GC applied for a PhD program in Chemistry!!!Or Chemical Engineering, or Chemistry and Biological Sciences or something, rarely do I find any anthro posts

Allouette, good luck!They seem to follow Max Planck's model of recruiting (I mean, the evo anthropology institute in Leipzig), where they look for a lot of people who can work with stats and data (those DNA strains, I guess , that sounds like gobs of data ). But I wouldn't get too discouraged, I am sure they are looking for smart people from all kinds of backgrounds. And if not, you can always get a tutor and raise those scores, this is what I am going to do (although my program doesn't really require super high math scores, but these days programs are so tough to get in ).

Does HEB mean "human evolution and biology?"Is it the one that accepts people with super high math scores and quant backgrounds?Have you tried to contact professor there?

Believe me, I really do not care how many positive or negative posts someone gets on an online forum. The fact that you, an adult, care about such things and accuse someone of even more ridiculous behavior is sad. You questioned my intellectual ability and this is absolutely inappropriate. In case I said something that I offended you, I already apologized. You, in turn, cannot admit the fact that you went overboard and you were clearly disrespectful. Instead of considering the other side's opinion, you are counting "likes" or "dislikes," question one's intelligence, and act defensive. Even the way you are handling this "virtual misunderstanding" is illustrative. I don't know what kind of relationship you have with this student, but the fact that you act in such an immature and rude manner online is beyond inappropriate. Either way, I am done with this discussion and hope you have a great day/night and I wish you all the best with your graduate studies.

I just have a strange feeling we are reading the same listserv

Is it usf?

socanth,hahahaha!I know that feeling!Let me guess: was it Linguistic Anthro listserv?

Dal PhDer, first off, I do appreciate your opinion but we do not know the specifics. I have no idea how much help and assistance the student is asking for, so this is very hard to judge and make assumptions. Second, if the author of the post is a mature individual (which I presume, she is), she will straightforwardly and yet candidly express her concerns to the student in question instead of ranting on an online forum (on another note, if you have an issue and have a problem, are you really THAT lonely and isolated in your life that you need to take this problem to an online forum?I, for instance, do tend to rant about immigration because this is my immature way of increasing awareness of the issue since, in light of the latest immigration debate, the general population does not seem to be very educated on the subject; but if I have a personal issue I talk to my family and friends, I obviously do not passively express my irritations on a public forum). Basically, why not have an honest conversation with this person instead of posting more semi-exaggerated examples of a vile and pessimistic international student?Sounds like high school. And again, the problem I see here is not only the lack of communication but also the classic individualism vs. collectivism values clash that I have observed here so many times. And very few people make an effort to be a little bit open-minded and see the other side.

I am sorry, but a lot of things in your initial rant sound clearly misleading. Of course it is extremely nice of you to help her out with her kid and give her a ride, but the way you portrayed her sounds like she is plain stupid, lazy, and unwilling to make an effort. Now, here comes a bit more realistic side of the situation: SHE IS AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT. English is guess what..probably not her native language and the legal immigration system in the US is one of the most disorganized, unfair, and stressful immigration systems in the world (I can rant about it endlessly). If you are gonna make an argument, such as "then why does she even come here??" or "why do all these foreigners come here if they can't handle it?", then you are running into a fundamental problem here: having foreigners in the US and in your program benefits YOU, as well as other American students and the US academia as a whole. It attracts a lot of grant money, foreign investment, foreign tuition/room/board/visas/US taxes expenses etc. All these foreigners contribute tremendously to making YOUR country and YOUR program one of the best in the world. For your information, education is one of the top services US economy provides to the world and in this current economic crisis these foreign funds should be at the very least appreciated. In other words, if you or any other person does something minimally altruistic to a foreign student, that will make YOU a better person. And yes, that might be a little uncomfortable because you are taught from your very upbringing to be independent and highly individualistic but you also live in a very globalized world and this is not how the rest of the world works. I am sorry for my rant, but I, as a person who has gone through the worst cycles of the US immigration system just really want to see US citizens being a little kinder and more open to foreigners who make so much effort not only to stay here, but to make this country intellectually competitive.

Allouette, I love your primate, is it new world?

I would definitely apply and then try to meet them at the national conference. Or, right after their talk and during the Q&A session, dare to ask them a relevant question (and I am sure you can nail this one pretty easily since you are probably very familiar with their publications and research) and then, during a "mingling" or a perfect "networking moment" (a.k.a Hors d'Oeuvres, make sure you go for a nice Chilean cab!!!Malbec will do too!A great conversation starter.J/K), it will be way easier to start a conversation with that person because you have already asked her a question and showed interest.

PhdDreams, was it hard to become friends with your POI's on facebook?Does it help to keep in touch with them and conversation going?Maybe I should do that to

Thank you so much for such a detailed response, I really appreciate it!

AnthroDork, I got two questions for you!Did you have a publication prior to applying to your grad program?Which element of your application do you think increased your chances of being admitted the most?

I think if you are a bio anth it is very important to attend AAPA. In fact, it is more important to attend AAPA than AAA in that case (there were no sooo many physical or bio anthro sessions at the last AAA's and a lot of professors complained about how physical and bio are underrepresented

BruceWayne24, I totally understand you!I've been reading this topic for a while, completely outraged by the level of incompetence of the graduate students (!!!) and finally made a decision to speak my mind!

Again, YOU DO NOT MEMORIZE rules as a native speaker, it is a very sophisticated process called language acquisition. Chomsky was arguing about it 50 years ago (I don't remember exactly how many) and they are still arguing about it in linguistics and neurolinguistics to the present day. There are a lot of implications and a lot of processes that are not yet understood. We are talking about a high brain cognition, about bilateral interaction, about highly debated Brocca's and Wernicke's areas that are involved in the language acquisition of an individual. We do not fully understand the process of the first language acquisition by a child, not an adult learning L2. You learned your first language as a child and that was you L1, which is absolutely different from the situation of non-native English speakers. I just do not understand why it is so hard for an educated American grad student to make an effort and learn something about the L2 acquisition and cognitive linguistics. I feel deeply offended by your posts as a foreign student pursuing my degree in this country.

I presume you are in social sciences and I am just fascinated how poorly informed you are about the second language acquisition. Knowing the rules about articles or English sentence structure is still not going to teach a non-native speaker how to use them 100% properly and correctly. There is so much about cognitive linguistics tat is still relatively unknown or poorly understood; otherwise you could just teach any non-native speaker how to break down a sentence into semantic trees and easily determine a missing branch and correct it. If that was the case, the linguists would not be arguing about semantic trees and their preciseness and subjectivity and we would all have a perfect Google translator which would decently transform sentences from one language to another without losing any semantic elements. However, we DO NOT have such a magic software nor will we see it coming in the nearest future (and if you speak a foreign language with a high level of fluency, you have probably used Google Translator and are well aware of its limitations; some translated sentences are just plain embarrassing!!). I would recommend you to do a little research on L2 acquisition because some things that people have mentioned in this thread are just absolutely inappropriate and indicate a high level on unfamiliarity with language learning.

I am going to bury my grief at a salsa dancing party tonight, how are you guys gonna spend this Friday night of the most stressful week of this application season?

I saw that on University of Washington website long time ago!

Here is another link to this one http://www.amazon.com/Anthropological-Theory-Introductory-Jon-McGee/dp/0072840463 It's a great and concise book on anthro theory (especially the classics, although has a Bourgois article and Nancy Schepper-Hughes)

I just saw on the results board someone got a rejection email from Cornell. I don't understand how come I still didn't get mine if someone already got it.