taybaxter

Interesting thing I just noticed as well. Just checked my app status on the Columbia page and I saw that my thesis adviser submitted two recs. I wonder if she wanted to do that or if it was a strange fluke in the system.

Someone posted interviews for History from UPenn and Yale on the results page...

Not yet, but I haven't been on academia.edu for very long. I'll look out for that in the future.

You need to make a profile on academia.edu and the site will send you an email if someone googles you and clicks on a link to your profile there. You can view what the person's google search term was and what country he/she was in.

Someone googled me for the first time tonight and I have a pretty unique name so I doubt he/she was looking for someone else. I guess I've generated at least some interest out there.

I'm applying to the History program but I've gotten the same email you guys have gotten around four or five times since I turned my app in in late November. I appreciate the updates but I've had everything in for six weeks or so at this point. I imagine it'll keep coming until the application season is over. No big deal.

I got the email too.

NYU in. Now all done unless I decide to go ahead and apply to WUSTL (due Jan. 15).

Clever way to get in touch with her. Best of luck! I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

My last--and most important--LOR writer finally submitted her letters just now...less than an hour before deadline. Talk about nerve-racking but I'm SO relieved right now. I was getting pretty close to calling her house, even in spite of the fact that she has young kids whom I probably would have awakened.

Yes! I'm glad it's not just me.

They don't say anything about it until you see the directions on the upload page on the App. So in my case, I had prepared a 25-page writing sample with normal margins only to see that they required a two-inch margin once I got to the upload page on the app. Very frustrating to have to make more cuts...

All in except for my one late deadline. *whew*

I got mine down to 525 words and figured that was close enough. When I turned it in it showed me a preview and it looked fine. I had to cut out references to several of my major research projects though...hoping that they'll read my CV closely!

I know. She's been great! No complaints about her...I'm lamenting the fact that Yale is so hard to get into

Ugh...I was just communicating with my thesis adviser. She wants me to send her a list of the people at each school that I most want to work with so she can customize her letters. I hadn't thought about how many people there were at each school before but after writing it out I found that Yale had the most people by far. I guess it's my top choice! Too bad it's impossible to get into...*sigh*

Why wouldn't they sit on your committee? If you're admitted I'd think you'd have as good of a chance to snag them as any other graduate student.

Heard back from WashU on this issue and they said they want "standard formatting." I realized that in the first chapter all of the individual sections are too long to adequately reduce in size so I went back to the third chapter, which has shorter sections that I could excise. That one is my favorite by far and I wanted to use it originally but it was WAY too long at 42 pages double-spaced. I ended up reducing it by the necessary 22 pages by taking out sections and essentially writing one paragraph replacements for the excised sections in brackets where they used to be detailing what they were about and what sources I used to make my argument. Also, I reduced the text size of the footnotes by one point...still quite readable though. I'm quite content with the ultimate 20 page result and I'm probably going to use it for other schools too. Does this sound like a good way to go about it guys?

Good luck! I applied to Duke's history program. I got my app in kind of early but only because the History department allowed me to submit my entire thesis as a writing sample. Certainly means A LOT less work finding an excerpt.

Agreed! I'd love to go to any of my schools, although I admit there are some I would choose over others! (BTW, our lists are pretty similar...maybe we'll meet next year!)

I'm sending each of my LOR writers a small gift and a letter for the Holidays.

Yes! I forgot to add this too but this is a really important networking device. As my prof. told me, I'm meeting my future colleagues! I already feel like I will be in close contact with two in particular in the future even if I don't attend their schools.

Check back with me in a few months and I may be able to tell you. For now though, I've gotten three things from contacting professors: 1) Information (really valuable information about prof. availability, whether they feel it's a good fit for me, working groups, classes, grad students to talk to, etc.) 2) Confidence (I've had several really great phone convos with profs at various schools and many more great emails. Some have told me they want to work with me and I seem like a strong candidate. We'll see.) 3) Silence (a lot of profs I've contacted never replied. I've learned not to take that personally.

Yay, the recommender I was most worried about making the deadline (because she is so busy) just submitted to all my schools! Making progress. My third rec writer submitted last week so now the only rec I'm still waiting on is the most important one and the strongest one...my thesis adviser. I'm not worried about her though because we've been very much in touch over the past few months. On my end: Four Apps done and submitted, two apps basically done (just not submitted), three more still need some work. I'm also still contemplating whether or not I should submit to a school that has a Jan. 15 deadline...that would bring me up to 10 schools. Likely won't worry about that until I start freaking out about my chances after christmas.