Seeking

I don't know about the other places, but in Columbia, you should write to the admissions office and ask if they have received your scores. Send them scanned copies of your score cards along, so that they will find it easier to locate your score cards. The scores status didn't appear on the activity page in my case and I wrote to them to confirm if they got the scores.

Taking some Undergraduate classes in social work - at least worth 12 credits - and getting a good GPA would help here. The problem is not just the GPA, but that you are changing from English Major to Social Work and they don't correlate well - unless you had Social Work Minor - in that case you should highlight your Social Work Minor more in your SOP, if you have good grades there. It's true that you have great experience in the field and it should go in your favour. But a lot of schools may still want you to have completed Undergrad courses worth at least 12 credits in Social Work. So, you can enrol for some Social Work classes, write in your SOP what Social Work classes you are enrolled in and when you can expect to send them these grades - the earlier the better. Try to get good grades in these courses and it should be alright.

As Far as finances are concerned, ideally you should go for a funded PhD - where you get fellowships and teaching + Research assistantships from the University. If you get partial funding and can't find additional funds from anywhere, you can pay partially for your PhD. But there is no point in paying all the way for a PhD when in most cases you can get funding. Academically, it is worth it if you are really interested in the discipline you are applying to - that is the only reason you should apply - because you are really interested in getting an advanced research level experience in this discipline and you want to stay in this discipline for the rest of your academic life. If you don't like the discipline, then it's not worth it. Because Doctoral research requires a high level of commitment, several years of investment in research and sacrificing many comforts of life because of this research. So, if you don't like the discipline enough to be able to stay in it for a long time and give your academic life to it, then don't go for it. Get a professional degree instead and go into the job market. You have correctly gauged that without a PhD your progress in academic career will be hindered. And you should get your PhD from a reputable school, because when you go into the job market for faculty positions, graduates from higher-ranked schools will always be preferred over those from lower-ranked schools - regardless of their knowledge level and academic potential. The academia prefers the tag of the school more than the knowledge level or the academic potential of the candidates. So, even if you get a funded offer from from a lower-ranked school, it's not worth it. Before applying, do a survey of where a particular department and school ranks in the Universities ranking system and how their alumni have fared in the academic job market in the past few years. If you apply with this knowledge, it will be worth it. Also, it's not a good idea to change your discipline at the Doctoral level. Get a PhD in the discipline in which you have a Masters. In the application stage, most schools will expect you to have completed a minimum required number of courses in order to be considered for selection. If you have not completed this required minimum, it is difficult to get selected into a PhD program. There are few schools that will admit you into a PhD without it. Usually, this required minimum corresponds to the courses required to obtain an Undergraduate Minor in this field. After the PhD, when you apply for a teaching job, you will be expected to have studied a required number of courses in this discipline at Undergraduate and/or Masters level. If you have not studied these courses but have produced a brilliant PhD and have an excellent publication record in your Doctoral discipline, you are likely to lose your teaching job opportunities to someone who has an average PhD from a top-ranking school and not a shining publication record like you - because s/he studied a required number of courses at Undergraduate and Graduate level in this discipline and carries the tag of a prestigious school. So, changing disciplines in Graduate school is a good idea from the intellectual perspective, because it opens your mind to receiving multi-dimensional ideas from different disciplines, but it doesn't work in the real world of Graduate level teaching jobs. If at all you want to change your discipline, go for a closely allied discipline and make sure you complete the required minimum of courses at the time of applying.

First, you have not heard from the schools yet, so think positive. For all you know, you may get accepted! If by any chance you have to apply for the next season, don't get stressed. I know it's difficult not to get depressed, but keep yourself strong, find a job or an RA-ship to sustain yourself and apply the next year. Also, critically evaluate your applications to understand where you may have fallen short and what kind of strategies you need to improve your applications the next time. Many candidates with very good records don't get in the first time, so there is no need to feel embarrassed about it.

PS - You can also consider sending scanned copies of your GRE (and TOEFL/IELTS if applicable) score cards to the Graduate Admissions office and ask them to forward these to the Ad-Comm while you write to the ETS again. Do this when you write to the Grad admissions telling them the date when ETS sent your scores to them. Just attach scanned copies of score cards for their convenience in finding your scores and request them to forward these. I had done this when my scores were not found and the Columbia Grad admissions were helpful enough to send my scanned copies to the ad-comms.

No, it won't affect your chances. Columbia Grad Admissions is quite helpful actually. The ad-comm will view the unofficial scores while official scores arrive.

Cyberwulf, No, I didn't miss your point. Yes, I know that's the thought process running in the academia in this regard. I was just trying to point out that not all top-ranking schools Graduate are all that smart and many lower-ranked schools graduate are often smarter than some of the candidates coming from the prestigious places. The academic world should be sensitive to this variation that exists in all schools - regardless of their ranking. I otherwise find your comments on this forum very helpful and insightful.

That was a compliment. GPA is not everything. Other aspects of your CV quite make up for it.

I am quite impressed by Darwin AG's absolutely transparent personality and also by his brilliant CV! A brilliant academic record combined with a transparent personality reflects the great quality education he has had - at school and at home. I do hope he stays this way forever.

It's true that most schools - regardless of their reputation and ranking - don't quite understand the concept of interdisciplinary studies. I was educated in a highly interdisciplinary school and it comes as a shock to me when I see top-ranking schools "closing the boundaries" of their disciplines. Quite obviously, these schools have a long way to go. Anyway, I feel it would't be viable for you to go all the way through the end of the PhD program. Perhaps it's more advisable to complete your Masters with hard work and a good GPA, with a dissertation attempting to use concepts of Public Policy into a Sociological topic. If you don't want to become a professor, you can do without a PhD and perhaps use those years getting work experience in Public Policy if that's where your heart is. But I would say definitely get a good Masters from here. And write a dissertation from where you can get some research papers later with some revisions if you have the chance. Sometimes it happens that candidates who are not interested in PhD research in a particular discipline get interested after a couple of semesters and produce a very good PhD in the end. Keep this in mind and wait till the end of your Masters to see how you feel about going further. For the time being, work hard on your masters the way your Professors want it and see if you want to stay after Masters, or if you want to go.

The rankings differ by specialization. For example, for European Renaissance Art, perhaps Princeton would rank much higher than the schools ranked above it. For South Asian Art, Columbia and Univ of Penn would perhaps tie up, Minnesota coming close behind. For Islamic Art, Harvard would top - not because it's Harvard. I don't think Duke and Delaware should top schools such as Stanford and Cornell. For South-East Asian Art, Cornell is the best place to go. But thanks for the informative links.

ssk2 is right. For rankings, see US News and Times Higher Education. Funding information is usually there on the admissions page of universities.

See this - http://www4.uwm.edu/ceas/cs/academics/degree_programs/ms/faq_msc.cfm Of course you need to write to the Graduate Department to get more information about funding for international candidates, how many extra courses they want you to take etc. Usually, if the university is so relaxed about qualifications, funding for International candidates may be difficult. Perhaps it's better to leave it to them to convert your % to the American GPA, rather than you telling them how much it translates into. Also you need to explore how this degree competes in the job market. You can ask them the placement rate of their Graduates in the last few years. But I guess a Computer Science graduate should not have a problem finding a job. Of course, your profile is good enough to get you an admission in a much higher-ranked programme than this one.

Looks like you have a fair chance. Apply in Europe as well.

Well, like it or not - what Cyberwulf says is really true. That doesn't mean it's also a fair practice - to the contrary, it's a highly unfair practice in the academia that candidates are often judged on the basis of the tags they carry and not on their knowledge, performance and experience. Students who didn't get a chance to go to an elite school for whatever reasons are at a disadvantage. I have had the occasion to teach courses where I had students from Yale and Harvard sitting alongside those from much lesser known universities. And I can say that those from the less prestigious places were in no way worse off than those from Yale and Harvard - often they were actually better. In every institution there are students ranging from poor, average to very good and exceptional. And prestigious schools are no exceptions to this. I do feel that the academic world should stop making selections on the basis of the name on the degrees of the candidates rather than their actual expertise and performance. But Cyberwulf has given a very realistic picture of how selections are made.

This happened to my GRE scores at Columbia too. I just wrote to ETS and they re-sent the scores without any additional cost. So, you can send an email to ETS, telling them the scores have not reached Columbia yet. Ask them to tell you the date when they sent the scores and send this date to Columbia, asking them to check. If they still can't find your scores, write to ETS again, telling them the scores have not reached Columbia.

Experience would certainly count in your favour. You may consider emailing the Graduate co-ordinators of the EE departments of these universities and asking them what has been the range of GRE Quant/Verbal scores of successful candidates in their departments in last few years and how much the GRE scores influence selection, including funding. Sometimes this information is also given on the Univ website.

Here is the ETS conversion table of old-to-new GRE scores - http://www.ets.org/s...information.pdf In your discipline, a Quant score of 165+ would be regarded as ideal, especially at top-ranked universities. For middle-ranged universities, perhaps a score of 160+ should be good. A lower score may affect your funding chances adversely. If you are going to self-fund at least part of your education, you can take a chance at the middle-ranged universities. But still, a score of 158 would be a risk. Of course, some universities have the system of uploading self-reported unofficial scores online which you can copy from the ETS website as soon as they are visible. Th e ad-comm sees these scores and the official scores arrive later. But this is true only for some universities. I just noticed that your GPA may be a little on the lower side.

For your discipline, I guess the verbal scores are alright if your TOEFL/IELTS scores are high enough. But your Quant scores are a little low for your discipline and it's the Quant scores that are going to be important for this discipline more than the verbal scores. After the deadline, the Graduate admission departments take a few days to sort out the scores and match them to the applications. If your fresh scores reach during this post-application period, for some schools it may be alright, but some schools may have a strict rule that all scores should reach them before the deadline. So, read the guidelines carefully to see if this condition is laid out. You may consider emailing the Graduate admissions and asking if they would accept the scores if they reach a few days later. Also, you can write to ETS and ask, in how many days at the earliest they can send the scores. Usually, they take a few weeks after the test date.

There are universities where an A+ exists only in principle, never awarded. An A is extremely rare - my be awarded to only one student in a small class and to two in a large class and that too not always. A- is awarded to top 5-10% of the class in such places. As a result, A- is really the top grade most of the time in such places, is highly prized and is awarded after a lot of hard work on part of the students. B+ is perceived as not top 5-10%, but definitely a good grade in such places. I hope the ad-comms take into account the diverse patterns of grading in different places while evaluating applications, as students are applying from different patterns of grading cultures.

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JNU is the best place where you can study South Asian History and its Centre for Historical Studies is very prestigious and also very rigorous - you can't find a better place to study any aspect of South Asian History than there. Some other American, Canadian and European students have also taken this route before - to get an MA from the Centre for Historical Studies at JNU and then follow it up with a PhD in South Asian History in their home country. If you do well at JNU, your performance there will be well respected at a South Asian Studies Department in your country when you apply for a PhD later. If you have lived in India before, you should be able to cope with the environment and "not quite the 1st World-like" infrastructure of Delhi. And you'll save a lot of money in the process! Good luck!

Diermh, Congrats and good luck for funding!

Would anyone like to claim the CUNY acceptance on the results page?

Congrats, Salvatura!