che psyra psyra

Oh my God, I'm so happy.

Congratulations! If you don't mind, are you also the results poster who mentioned that official invites would go out soon? Do you happen to know how soon? So nervous over here!

This. This is seriously my nightmare.

I just enrolled in a class at a local community college, and wondered about whether to report it as well. After making sure none of the schools would penalize me for not reporting it, I decided to save it. It's a strength, but it's not going to tip the scale. I figured it might be better to bust it out during interviews, as a sort of update that shows I've still been actively pursuing my education. I also kind of worried about appearing like I only enrolled to beef up my app, rather than because I realized it as a valuable skill that I might not be trained in as part of the graduate curriculum. Maybe that's neurotic.

I would definitely include it! I think it's fine to have it just in your CV, as I do think all research experience is relevant, but you might also mention it very briefly in your SOP if you're very concerned about it. Just something to put it in perspective for adcomms, like "While my interest in research was first sparked in X lab, it was in Y lab that I realized my passion for Y".

I did, I think it shows more respect.

Same, memo on my phone!

I think the way you address it depends on how big of a question you feel it raises. For most cases, I think that rainy_day's advice is the best way to go, as it's a clean and simple way to acknowledge that the work is not central to your current interests while still letting you include it as part of your whole package. If you feel that it's going to be something of a red flag, however, then I think it's very much to your advantage to preemptively answer whatever questions the adcomm might have. Is there a way to briefly mention Field A in your SOP - as either reinforcing your interest in Field B, or adding perspective to it? Why DO you want to study Field B, in light of your experience in Field A? This could just be a sentence or two, some segue like "My time as a _____ made me realize that _____, which inspired me to.../deepened my commitment to..." If nothing else, though the field might be unrelated to your current interests your work still shows that you're at least a hard worker and possibly also organized, reliable, a leader, a good communicator... there are a lot of important qualities that are independent of any one discipline. Is it possible to say something like "After graduating, I worked in _____ where I became very skilled in _____. This will serve me well as I pursue my true passion in _____ because _____"? I hope that's helpful - best of luck!

I also only had one school requesting mailed application materials, and it threw me off too! Ultimately, I decided to (1) use regular printer paper, since it's not like a single-page job resume that you want to stand out in a pile and is at risk of not being considered; (2) use paperclips instead of staples, since as someone who makes A LOT of copies, staples would be pretty annoying if they were making copies for a committee; and (3), mail it in a large manila envelope rather than a business envelope, to keep it un-folded and pretty. Additionally, I made sure with all of my schools that all of my materials had my full name and DOB/Application ID as a header on every page, but this seems like especially good practice here if it's not something that you're already doing. ...I empathize with the feeling that these might be somewhat silly "decisions". But it feels better to impose as much control over the situation as possible, right? Hope that helps!

Just submitted - eek! Can't believe there's nothing to do but wait... Good luck, everyone!