liszt85

I heard this from a source but this could very well be wrong: If the university is aware of the grading policies of your university (how tough/easy), they will have an idea about where the topper would be, where the middle of the class would be and where the bottom would be. In my case, my department (Physics) at my university (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur) is pretty well known because illustrious students in the past have applied to top programs and have been accepted. So the physics departments in the US know the range of GPAs here and my 7.0/10 (a mediocre one) would mean that I'm somewhere at the middle of my class. Middle of the class would translate to a 3.0/4.0, the issue with my particular application is that people from my department probably have never ever applied to a psychology or a linguistics department. Hence those psychology and linguistics departments would not have this information (unless they are willing to walk over to the physics dept and ask for their input which I doubt they'd take the pains to do). This conversion is the only one that makes sense. I've heard of other nonsensical nonlinear conversions like: (Intl GPA - 2)/2 which would mean my 7.0 goes to 2.5/4 and I guess this is what happened at most places because these departments probably never have had an application from the physics department here. (McGill, I'm talking to you!)

That was very helpful! Thank you.

You're probably right We have a week off here for a festival called HOLI and I decided to stay back on campus because I've got a load of work but I haven't been able to do any of it due to the application fever. I just screwed up my chances at OSU by writing to another professor enquiring about some of his work on music cognition. Now this other professor (who had given me the information about this other guy in the first place), who had initially told me that he'd commit to funding me from his research grants, asked me to let him know if I was switching advisors :| Was it a mistake to cc that email to him as well? I hope they go ahead and grant me the funds regardless :|

Dear liszt85, Have you heard of fans shooting down their favorite rock stars? You are our favorite applicant and we've gone crazy with adulation that we have no choice but to reject you. A shooter will be sent down to your address tomorrow. We cannot bear the consequences of what your kind of applicants can do to the sanity of admissions committees. Thank you for being who you are, its time for you get out of our heads. Its better to burn out than fade out, as Cobain once said..you'll be in our hearts forever. Your greatest fan, DGS, XU.

Prof Y in turn: Hi liszt85, I can only tell you about my own lab at McGill; unfortunately there is no room this coming year. I suspect your grades did not make you as competitive for fellowships as some of our other applicants were, and we try to make sure our admitted students have financial aid. I'm sorry to not have better news. Best wishes with your choices, Prof Y I did however appreciate the honesty as they had a valid point but I also wondered how my bad grades in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics were going to affect graduate studies in Psychology!

Thanks for the info. I would probably need to start with slightly more advanced classes that piano for non-majors. I last lessons I took were at the Vienna Conservatory, I've been playing for around 10 years now (but a lot of my practice methods were imprecise which led to some little technical flaws, some of which I corrected in Vienna). In any case, I believe, with the information that you just gave me, that I could find an instructor at the school of music.

I'm just thinking aloud. Would it be okay for nandelle to contact the DGS at Oregon and tell him/her that "I've been accepted to Minnesota and UCI but without funding. I do not know yet where my application stands against the background of this year's applicant pool at Oregon but if there is the slightest chance that Oregon would be able to offer me a funded position, this is just to let you know that I'd accept the offer in the blink of an eye." I say this because as everybody knows, funded positions are extremely limited, and it would help if they knew that you would accept their offer for sure.

Just to make sure that this is bothering you enough, I'd like to know what it was too! I, just as she had had, had had cereal for breakfast for years. (Is this grammatically alright? ) Just trying to refresh your memory..

Is there a good chance that you'd accept their offer? If so, you might say something like "I've heard back positively from these places too but please let it be known that your offer is high on my preference list and I request a little time in order to make a carefully weighed informed decision". Like the letter said, you are under no obligation but IF there is a very good chance that you'd accept, it might help build trust. If they have a hidden agenda, I do not know. I cannot think of anything.

One of my friends faced the same problem! One of his universities made hm send them the score thrice! He used to call up the grad secy who had no problems understanding individual sentences but had a problem comprehending a small body of logically bound sentences. So it was a frustrating experience. I think somebody must give some of those grad secy's an IQ test before they are hired. I do not mean to sound rude and mean, its just so frustrating to deal with some of these grad secys due to whom the guy ended up spending $60 for a stupid GRE score report! I believe they ended up finding the "missing" report later on. :|

While that surely was nasty, here's a mail sent to me by a professor who had initially shown interest in my application. At least this was personalized but he was cut and dry with what he said. The grad school is yet to convey a decision to me but it has to be a rejection after this: ---------------------------------------------------- Dear liszt85, I won't be taking you into my laboratory next year, I'm sorry to say, there were other students who were better qualified for my particular type of work. You might check with Prof. Y. ------------------------------------------------

Yea, but if you actually go to the financial verification document, one option listed is Penn State funds, and I assumed that this is a document that people submit after they received a funded offer and so then they could always check "Penn State funds" as the source for their funds. Its standard practice everywhere else to submit an application for an I20 after you accept an offer and I thought this would be something similar. No, there were no specific professors I wanted to work with. I had only listed what areas in acoustics (beamforming, acoustic holography) I'd worked on earlier and I had also mentioned musical acoustics as a possible area of interest for the future. Following your suggestion, I have now requested a refund.

Pathetic indeed, if the university did actually do this! You should also consider sending this little letter that you composed to them. What was the date on the letter? Was it after you had conveyed your decision to them?

The warning in CAPS may not be sufficient for me to resist the temptation of copy pasting this awesome (reverse) rejection email. Just kidding..

I had high expectations from this particular school and program. I spent ~$100 on this application which is around 1/4th of my family's monthly income (don't be shocked, its pretty normal in India..and I'm well above the poverty line ) The grad secy emailed me and said the following: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello liszt85, We have received your applications to the Acoustics Program at Penn State and supporting documents. However, we have not received your financial verification. The financial verification is important as funding is not coupled to admission. All students are advised to come prepared to pay the full cost of their studies and cost of living. This is particularly important for foreign national students as most project sponsors require US citizenship as a criterion of eligibility for a project funded graduate research assistantship. In addition, because we are a graduate program only, all of our course must be taught by those who already hold the highest degree in the filed (i.e. PhD). With over 10,000 graduate students on campus, other departments have their own graduate students teaching undergraduate course, so that is not an option. Therefore we require that students understand the funding situation and come prepared. I believe the financial documents can be found at the web site of International Students Services, http://www.international.psu.edu/iss/fi ... nts_p.html . You seem to be very interested in the acoustics of music. Be advised that we so not have an emphasis area in musical acoustics. If that is that area in which you want to do your research, you may want to explore other options. If you have questions about this matter , you can contact me by email or phone at ___. Program Coordinator --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.acs.psu.edu/Program/assistanships.htm This is the funding information and never does it talk about this requirement! I mean, it does talk about limited no of RAships and TAships but never does it mention that submission of financial verification is necessary for fully considering the application of an international student! I'm seriously pissed off at having wasted 100 bucks here.

Nice! Topless too?

I perceive that what you really want to do is just do a MS and then get a MBA or directly get a job. If you have strong reservations as you seem to have about carrying out research for the next 5-6 years of your life, it probably means that you shouldn't do it. If you think you can repay the loans without going hungry for it, you probably should go ahead and do the MS and I'm guessing you should land a good enough job after a MS from Stanford to enable you to pay off that loan. That's my input for you good luck.

Nope, I got one by post

I did my summer internship in Vienna. Its an awesome place for a student to live in. The university is pretty good too. Helsinki is great as well, I turned down an offer from there for a summer internship but have friends who went there and enjoyed the experience a lot. Europe is a great place to do a PhD in if funded because they generally pay you much more.. you can live a pretty comfortable life as opposed to frugal lifestyles one would have to adhere to as grad students in the US. I do not want to do my grad studies in Europe simply because I lack undergrad background in the area that I intend to do my PhD in and hence would like to have intensive course work which only US offers. So its kinda unfortunate that I would not be able to go spend my graduate days in my favorite place, Wien, though I might soon have an offer from the musical acoustics dept at the University of Music and Performing Arts there but I have to decline it if they do make an offer. I love Vienna!

Posting so that this gets to the top. To the person who wanted info on Montreal, please continue asking your queries here.

How about starting a math tutoring forum here? Some of us are from the science/math background and might actually do something of use while we lurk about here. So what I propose is make such a forum where people can ask GRE quant questions and concepts they have problems grasping and some of us can try to explain how we understand and apply them. I know that I'd surely be able to help. One concept every few days and you'll be ready to ace the quant in about 3months from now. Anybody for this?

I have had almost ZERO background (just two units (8 credits)) in linguistics but have been accepted to a pretty good linguistics graduate program (Northwestern). I most certainly feel like an imposter, but at the same time do also realize why my background (physics) held an attraction for them (due to the kind of analysis they carry out on music and language systems). I've got that fraud feeling all over me simply because I heard that this program accepts only 2-3 people every year (sometimes just 1 a year!) and I can't really get myself to believe that my application looked better to them than most others' especially with the kind of grades I'd been getting in my ug courses (screwed up core engineering courses which I absolutely abhorred). I did have a great writing sample though (a term paper on Mandler's work on conceptualization in infants). Maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am and I think all you guys who've been accepted into great places like Harvard must have deserved to, these schools know what they're doing. Its a lot of money they're putting into funding you, they have no reason to accept somebody whose application is weak (relative to their research objectives).

One more question that comes to mind is this: I will have a MSc in Physics and a PhD in Linguistics (or Psychology) 6 years from now. Would my lack of undergraduate background in linguistics/psychology play a detrimental role when it comes to determining if I get a tenure track job later on? Would this kind of an academic background be marketable? I know that some interdisciplinary research centers at universities like Northwestern might be interested in candidates with diverse academic backgrounds, and my guess is that more traditional departments wouldn't appreciate this kind of an academic history. Do I understand right?

Same here.

If I were you, I'd most certainly read positively into this. I would in fact go ahead and place my bets on an acceptance coming your way. There is no way they'd say this to somebody unless they're almost sure they'd extend an offer to the person. Anyway, that's just my perception, wait and see what others think. Exercise caution though, I don't mean to give you false hope. I was only commenting on how I'd have interpreted this email if I were you. I agree with nyfilmfest, it should pay off to pay them a visit ASAP. Good luck!