Grunty DaGnome

This is excellent advice. If I had known before applying which school was my first choice, I would've done this. I'm leaning one way, but I'm still not 100% sure yet.

Reading through the threads here, my advice would be, in order of importance;

1) Get real-world experience before applying. Preferably more than two years, preferably in client-facing or management positions. You will be head and shoulders above a lot of other applicants in the eyes of many potential PIs if you do, because you will already know how to speak to a group, how to communicate professionally, how to think on your feet. This will make the transition into a grad program about 50% easier, since professionalism is half the battle in grad school.

2) Consider fit!!! I'm seeing a surprising number of posters on gradcafe and other fora who are applying to 8, 10, and even 15 programs. I worked at a major research university, and I can tell you: if you are applying to more than 10 grad programs, you are going to be seen as someone who has no real clue what a grad program is, or why you want to go through with such a life-altering undertaking. In any given subfield, there are going to be at most 10 or 12 people doing the sort of research you want to do. Assuming, of course, that you know what sort of research you want to do. If you can't narrow down your interests from something as broad as "Cell and Molecular Bio" to something less broad like "X Cell Signaling Pathway in Y Model Organism, and its Relevance to Z Medical Problem", you're going to be viewed as unfocused, immature, and unprepared for the rigors of grad school. There shouldn't be many more that 10 people working on your chosen pathway in your organism for Z reason. If there are, you may want to consider another research interest.

I think this thread is great! Such insightful, well thought-out advice. As someone who has been a student rep on the admissions committee for their university, I'd add the following common sense (or not so common sense) advice:

1) Learn how to edit! Spelling, grammar, context, everything. I'm shocked at the number of applications I've seen where a doctoral applicant has mixed up "their" and "they're" or used "it's" instead of "its" or used the (non-existent) word "alot." I honestly can't believe that someone would turn in an application without proper editing. It's painful for an admissions committee to read those kinds of errors. If you really aren't great with words, then enlist the help of someone who is!

2) Don't give a university any reason to automatically toss out your application. If they ask for three rec's, then send three not two. If they ask for original transcripts, then send originals not photocopies. If they ask you to contact potential supervisors well in advance, then don't e-mail someone the day before your application is due and think that this will be okay! Grad school entry is already competitive enough without you giving the admissions committee a reason to immediately toss you. They'll think one of two things: 1) that you can't read or follow directions; or 2) that you somehow think you're "above" the requirements.

3) Prioritize supervisory fit and the academic strength of the department over the level of prestige the school's name carries. I know many people will disagree with this, but in the end, if you and your supervisor are a bad match, your life will be hell and no amount of school-name-prestige will help you get published, or hired, or funded, or make you happy.

UW Madison just sent me an email about financial aid and my heart nearly lept out of my throat!

...it turns out they were just reminding me to fill out the FAFSA. Sigh.

I didn't read anywhere that there was a deadline for filling it out, cause it only just opened. I hope this won't be counted against me...

WHY does grad school turn me into such an irrational person?? Why must you play with my heart so, UW-Madison??

Brown/Stanford/VA/Chicago

or

Anywherethatwillhaveme University

The article is a) way too long. He needs some serious editing and -- it's irrelevant.

Seriously dude if you wrote 8000 words to discuss how you can't talk to a plumber you need therapy.
To begin with -- that's a cultural stereotype. Plumbers can be well-paid. Second of all: TALKING TO PLUMBERS IS OVERRATED.
What does he think it's like 1940 and he's learning to converse with the "salt of the earth"?
I mean, really.
What a gasbag. Figures that a dude like that has an entire column at American Scholar.
I admit I skimmed because -- no editing!

me tooooooooo... I was really emotional last night Trying to distract myself but to no avail. Getting weird nightmares as well. I half woke up last night around 4am from a weird dream in which there was something hiding in my wardrobe and banging on the door, and all the while just had "Yale. Yale. Yale. Yale" going round and round in my head. What does it mean?!!

Always nice to hear a voice from the other side.

Don't worry too much about the subject test. Many of the school who require it do so merely because it helps the department's ranking in lists like USNWR. I scored a 570 (approx. 60th percentile) on the test and was really worried about it. I ended up getting into four very competitive programs, three of which required the subject test, and one of those that required it (where I ended up accepting the offer) also gave me a GSAS competitive supplementary assistantship in addition to the stipend offered to every PhD student. I'm not trying to brag (believe me, the rest of my numbers were middling compared to other students in my field; I think it was my SOP and writing sample that made the difference). I just want to give you some real world perspective on the subject test.

All those early deadlines give me comfort that I may begin to get results as early as the first week in February. Or, maybe the word I'm looking for isn't exactly comfort, but more like dread.

The closer it feels, the easier it is to repress, that's the upbeat take-away.

All those early deadlines give me comfort that I may begin to get results as early as the first week in February. Or, maybe the word I'm looking for isn't exactly comfort, but more like dread.

The closer it feels, the easier it is to repress, that's the upbeat take-away.

People, I have been there! I experienced the daily fluctuations between thinking I would get in somewhere and being sure I would not get in anywhere- all the while nursing the hope that I would get into my dream school. I have felt the frustration, shame and destabilization of my identity that comes with not getting in anywhere. I've worked a job I hated for extra years, questioning whether or not I deserved to do a PhD and, finally, I have felt the exquisite joy of getting into a program that really hoped for. Here is my advice, don't let your fears run your life. You are all more than a potential graduate student! You have spent the last five months being little else as you have worked on your applications, so go be whatever else you are for awhile...and enjoy it! Trust me, getting in is just the beginning and the program will provide you with enough pressure. You don't need to put more on yourself right now. If things don't work out, try again next year. Don't let the rejection define you. I applied the second time with almost the same application as the first (I did contact potential advisors the second time, an action I was too scared to take in my first round of applications) and my zero acceptances turned into four! This is a tough, fickle process, so find yourself somewhere else and let "graduate student" be just a potential aspect of who are.

I made an agreement with myself that, upon submission of applications, I would not, under any circumstances, review my statements of purpose, or any other elements of my application documents. For we all know the Newtonian Law of Typos, that a million pre-submission proofreads cannot tease out the glaring errors that one post-submission proofread can.
If I looked back now and found an error I would dwell on it for the next sixty or seventy days until I find out the admissions results. I don't want all of January and February to be consumed by a misspelled word or split infinitive or some other nonsense. I just couldn't take it. I'm assuming they are all 100% error-free. There's no use looking back now!

The best professor I've had in the MA program hasn't published much of anything since the mid 1990s. There are other, more well-known "rockstar" types on the faculty, [not as well known as Butler, but well known in their respective niches] and they won't really discuss anything with you, not your proposed paper, not the class reading, not even their own work assigned for class. Instead, they give you a line about how a "scholar" needs to learn to work independently --- but leave out that their spouses are in the same or related fields as their groundbreaking work. Yes, they probably never collaborated with anyone to work out their more complicated ideas. Did it all on their own.

I agree, this is the minimum we should get for our money. NYU and CUNY do the same.

I like KU. They sent me an email to let me know all of my application information had been received. Yes, almost everything is submitted online, but I mailed hard copies of the LORs. I like the schools that say "hey, just fyi - we got all your stuff you spent a lot of time and money sending us and we'll have decisions by mid-February". Go Kansas for your consideration of the craziness and anxiety applicants have. Ward off the unnecessary phone calls by just letting us know everything is good to go for review. It is the little things that make so much sense to me

If it wasn't terrentially raining here today, I would have gone back to the post office today to send off Purdue and Ole Miss materials. Instead, I took a nap.

The GRE is stupid.

Patlynn,

I've been a professional for 10 years myself and I definitely noticed the transition back to graduate school, specifically where teamwork and interdependency are concerned. These things are normal in the work setting but often awkward in academia. Not impossible, mind you, but I found I felt like a fish out of water for the first year or so, because of how often stating things with certainty seemed rude,, whereas when your working, it's normal to just state things matter of factly, then get corrected, or correct someone, as if you are on the same team. This does happen in grad school, but only once in a while. My best advice is, start slow. Take as few courses as you can get away with in the first semester, not because it's so much work, but because it will take time to adjust to the way people, including your professors, relate to one another.

Ok, I just got what your name means.

Thanks for the tip! I'm definitely going to take advantage of that extension!

Don't worry, Mistral, no one's December writing samples were polished, no matter how much we polished them. No one's SOPs were focused enough, even though I re-wrote mine 8 times.

Don't forget that you have lingered over every single word, and ad comms are blowing through hundreds of samples and reading them with that level of attention.

In the end, some of us will get in and some of us won't, but NONE of us will know why things worked out the way they did.

At that length, may as well just send a head-shot...or half a one, since they're worth 1,000 words.

The process is unfortunately inherently absurd. How can you explain a discipline that is arranged increasingly around the premise that language is referential and inherently meaningless, yet each year, university faculty awards 10-20 prized positions to people they've never met based on 10-20 pages of your writing, your test scores and your transcripts, which are pulled out of a pile of other applications, which only seems to grow larger each year?

Don't worry, Mistral, no one's December writing samples were polished, no matter how much we polished them. No one's SOPs were focused enough, even though I re-wrote mine 8 times.

Don't forget that you have lingered over every single word, and ad comms are blowing through hundreds of samples and reading them with that level of attention.

In the end, some of us will get in and some of us won't, but NONE of us will know why things worked out the way they did.

LOL! This professor is in Holland, Michigan! Where swearing is illegal! While I agree that not everyone who gets a PhD gets to be a professor, I have to ask him this; what the f*ck! No one in Holland has a good job! Believe it or not, I know someone who went to a math summer research insititute at Hope College and they said it was the biggest mistake they ever made in life. They still have acid-like Hope College flashbacks about the nurse Ratchety professors there!