ktel

Well it's Thanksgiving now, but can you go to his office on Monday?

Kudos to you guys for trying to drill the point home. I must say I've reached my limit for how many times I or others can say the same thing with no change in the response. This conversation has spilled onto just about every thread Aaron has touched recently on this forum.

This is particularly untrue. I know I personally have expressed opinions somewhat similar to yours, but stated them in a different way, and thus got a different response.

Aaron, You are certainly not clueless as to the way you come across, and therefore the responses shouldn't be unpredictible to you. I have noticed you have begun to take on 2 distinct tones when posting here, one generates heated responses, and the other generates much more helpful responses. If you are able to figure this out, it seems you have figured us out.

Have you contacted UBC to ask them what they think of this? I find that strange that UBC would require a '.edu' e-mail when most Canadian universities I know of don't even provide their profs with '.edu' e-mails. But in summary, contact the schools and ask about your situation. They will know better than we will.

I also seem to recall that we actually weren't allowed to take home our final exams. We could look at them in our profs office, but not take them home.

On another thread, which I can't find right now, someone mentioned this. Apparently this sort of reasoning can sometimes cause the department to regard the student as a flight risk. If the only motivation to research something is to find the cure for a family member, the individual might quickly lose motivation when they see that is indeed not possible or if their research changes direction.

I don't know how "clan"-like the GradCafe can be, as I really know quite little about the demographics of most of the individuals, except perhaps their approximate age and field of study, I don't think you really are as different as you like to say you are. While a lot of your posts are antagonistic, lately I have seen many of your posts change in tone in what appears is an attempt to reach out. It's evident you are struggling with many of the social aspects of grad school, which I think could only be solved by reflecting on yourself and your interactions with those at school.

Yes, and many of these posts come from you. If your real world behavior is similar to your online behavior, I second Sigaba's opinion that perhaps there are deeper reasons as to why you lack social connections within your department. You certainly seem unable to make them here. My university had a similar policy, but it was hit or miss whether the professors followed it. Many still maintained a stack of assignments outside their office and put a stack of exams at the front of the class.

I would think it would be perceived incredibly negatively, but the best way to know is to contact the schools in question.

I know people who did that. I also know students who would be writing up reports and accidentally write something inappropriate as a joke to their friends, and then forget to take it out. I was surrounded by occasionally immature boys in undergrad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation A very comprehensive article, which I didn't quite expect. This should answer your question. I would say if everybody is getting low grades, then you are NOT experiencing grade inflation. If YOU are just experiencing low grades, that's a separate issue. I'm not sure what you think grade inflation is, because what you're describing doesn't sound like it.

Keep in mind that a January 1st deadline means that you typically need to have your LoRs before Christmas break, as I doubt professors will want to do it after that. So you might think you have a lot of time, but subtract at least 2 weeks from that.

I think you're looking at this all wrong. A professor at another school who has no personal connections to you went out of his way to help you improve your application.

Are you serious? EVERY professor I EVER had listed their office hours and contact information on the syllabus. If you couldn't find it there, you could find it on the department website. Heaven forbid you spend 5 minutes figuring it out and going there.

Your undergrad GPA is low, but it's above most of the minimum cut-offs of a 3.0. While your Master's GPA is higher, that's expected, because Master's classes are typically marked higher, so it might not be fully considered as a huge improvement. If your research is impressive, that's what should matter most after you meet some of the minimum requirements that programs have regarding GPA and GRE scores.

You signed the application form right? But not the student checklist? I agree with surefire, you should contact them. I believe it's the application form that you sign to give consent to share your information, while the student checklist is just certifying that you have handed in all of the required documents.

No it doesn't work like that. Here is an example of a typical university grade distribution: http://www.uofaweb.u...entshow=section I would suggest you look at the grade you got in EACH course and attempt to convert it to a letter grade. Otherwise there are online resources that should be able to help you. EDIT: In addition, you can contact the Canadian universities you're applying to and ask. Guaranteed they've encountered this before.

I've moved to a slightly milder climate so I hope the winter will be less miserable. Although winters in my hometown are at least very sunny when the sun comes out. I have a feeling it will be very grey here. Seeing no sunlight all day definitely affects me though. On long days when I don't leave until 5 or later I definitely feel pretty bummed out that I missed the sun. I try to stay active and stuff like that.

Well I asked most of my referees in person, so got an instant response. That is what I would recommend you do if possible. The referees I did e-mail are notoriously prompt with e-mail, and got back to me that day or the next. Some professors are really slow with e-mail, and once I realize this I try to ask them things in person as much as possible.

Do you get letter grades? Or only a percentage?

Hating math is definitely not an extenuating circumstance. Death, family responsibilities, illness, etc. are.

^ What he said. I did the same thing, e-mailed all of them way before I submitted my application and then sent an e-mail to let them know I had submitted it.

^ Yes, I didn't consider that, as the OP's location was listed as "Canada" I simply assumed they were a Canadian citizen.

You guys really need to be way more persistent. At least try to send one or two more reminder e-mails, or even better, drop into their office if possible. E-mails fall through the cracks all the time, especially for really busy professors. Some professors have several grad students to supervise, classes to teach, and their inbox soon gets flooded with questions from students.