Loimographia

It won't hurt to ask. I had to do that with U Toronto as well (but they're jerks who won't let you re-upload a writing sample because of their stupid system, grr ). It was before the deadline, which helped, but you can still ask even if it's after the deadline. After all, committees usually don't look at the applications for a few weeks after the deadline, and give leeway for things such as GRE scores and LORs. Either way, relax, and take a deep breadth; it'll be ok!

As I understand it (a mere fellow applicant), committees are fairly forgiving about small errors. They aren't a reflection of your abilities as an intellectual, they're just human mistakes, and any sane reviewer is going to care more about the strength of your argument than whether you spelled argument "agruemnt". Even repeating a paragraph really isn't going to take you out of the running. That said, if it makes you feel any better, I submitted a WS with the error "POSSIBLE (?)" in all caps to one program -__- I would be more upset about it, but when I think about it, I imagine the committee reading my paper aloud and then yelling "possible" in a bewildered tone, and it makes me laugh every single time.

Got my writing sample at toronto fixed by personally contacting the department! A five minute mistake took 24 hours to resolve. NOW I've discovered that they went and sent my LOR request to the wrong professor... Toronto, I hate you so much...

I'm officially angry with the University of Toronto. Once you've uploaded your writing sample once, they then NEVER ALLOW YOU TO EDIT IT > I accidentally uploaded a WS that's half the length of their requested sample, and realized not five minutes after I'd uploaded it. Every other program I've applied to allows you to upload and re-upload all your supporting documents until the second you submit your complete application, but noooo Toronto had to be a jerk.

"from whence it came." Apparently almost no one knows this anymore (or, indeed, in the last 100 years or so, just saw Arthur Conan Doyle use it!) but it is, in fact, grammatically incorrect and redundant. Whence is "where" but with the "from" bit already included, so "from whence" essentially means "from-from where it came." I love me some ablative, so my heart breaks a little every time someone uses "from whence." Doesn't exactly annoy me though (I mean, I'd be angry at just about the whole world if it did) just makes me sad... Similarly, people who go out of their way to SOUND grammatically smart, but are in fact using incorrect grammar. See: using "whom" when you actually DO mean "who". Or: "Person and I," as in "come hang out with Sarah and I for ice skating." It's just that they're trying so hard to sound smart that they don't actually care if they're RIGHT...

This is me. Whenever I'm not busy convincing myself I'm not going to get in anywhere, I'm fantasizing about getting into all my top choices. It's kinda reassuring, in a way, to have it firmly in the realm of fantasy, because when I get the inevitable rejections, I won't be disappointed, but in the meantime I get to enjoy deliriously unrealistic daydreams: "Why yes, Harvard," (you must imagine this in the snootiest voice possible) "I can see that you love me only slightly less than I love myself. I WILL deign to accept your program."

I want to emphasize that much of what I'm about to say is hearsay, I have no personal knowledge or statistics. But I have definitely heard it said that it's difficult to get a US position with a UK degree because many american schools prefer PhDs who have more teaching experience, and that UK schools often either don't fund their PhDs (and all-but-never fund their MAs, though I do know one person who got a full scholarship) and when they do fund, do more fellowships than TA positions. UK academia, from what I've heard, is much more focused on publishing (and more books than articles, too) rather than teaching. That said, if you were accepted to an MA program, then GO GO GO, because what matters is your PhD for employment much more than your MA (indeed, in my area, medieval history, getting your MA in the UK and then coming back to the US is a pretty popular thing to do).

This is very much mine. -__- I imagine them looking at mine and saying "almost-good gpa, almost-good gre, almost-good writing sample/SOP, but just not good ENOUGH. Applicant B, however, IS AMAZEBALLS" Which, sadly, is a very real chance.

In that case, as BDav suggests, you can ask him to keep it on file on your behalf, it probably won't be an alternative. Still, he may, like one of my professors, simply ask you to ask him again later at a date closer to your application. Assuming he likes you, it's not as if he'll be irritated that you asked him too soon; professors only usually get grumpy if you ask too late.

does your school have a letter service, where the professor can send his letter to your school and they keep it on file and later upload/mail it out on his behalf? This is what I did for one of my professors, who had been a visiting professor to my school and left after my junior year. It has the negative side that the letter cannot be customized to each school (as I know some professors do), but the benefit of having the power to choose when to submit their letter (after having dealt with a professor who seemed incapable of submitting letters by the deadline, and the panic that entails, let me tell you, I loved being absolutely certain that I could have at least ONE letter on time).

I've always heard that SOP, Writing Sample and LORs are the most important aspects of the application, and that GRE's are mostly used as a minimum bar to pass (i.e., all apps with below a certain mark are tossed out, but otherwise it's essentially irrelevant in terms of acceptance. It is, however, heavily used in funding/fellowship decisions, as I understand). I'm not sure about the role of GPA, to be honest, but I do still hope that it's more important than GRE but not as important as, say, your writing sample. I think it's dangerous to assume that LORs will be discounted because they're all so complementary these days, because I think there's elements of inflation/weakness in all aspects of an application: GPAs are heavily inflated, some people just don't test well for the GRE, or had a fluke good/bad exam, CVs can overstate achievements or contributions (I know of at least one pre-med student who listed a lab on his resume -- he had been kicked out of the lab due to incompetence. But how's an adcom to know that?). OT: I would LOVE see my LORs. I totally understand the whole "reading the compliments would be awkward" attitude, and take compliments rather poorly myself. But in this whole process of feeling hopelessly certain to be rejected, I could really use the ego boost. One of my professors told me I should just give up on one of my schools, because I had a snowballs chance in hell of getting in. When I received honors with my dept, my professor sent me a copy of his recommendation he'd written about me to the dept. Now, sometimes when I feel like I must be complete idiot for ever thinking I might be qualified to go to grad school, I pull out the letter and say "oh yeah, here's someone who actually thinks I can produce intelligent stuff. Maybe someone else will, too!" That and hey, I'm just the curious type; If somethings kept a secret from me, I'm going to want to know!

One thing to consider is that (supposedly) many departments will contact you if there is an element of your application that is missing before they just toss it out entirely. They know that mail gets lost, papers get misfiled, etc, and that it's not necessarily the fault of the applicant if this happens.

well all of the different apps i've looked at are beginning to blur together, but i'm fairly certain you can. If you go to the recommenders section on the menu, and from there it lets you click on the link to your specific LORs list, it'll show whether they've received notification, have started the app, or have completed it. I make no promises that I'm not, say, thinking about UPenn's app though.

At least for the Grad School of Arts and Sciences (not sure if EE is included there) they send them as soon as you save, iirc

I spend most of my time trying not to panic about the prospect of not getting in anywhere... and then panicking and obsessing that I'm not panicking and obsessing enough, and that this will result in a sub-par application and ensure I don't get in anywhere.

wow, now that is the height of stupidity.

I app'd to their hist. dept. (deadline was the 1st) and was angry about the same thing (it basically requires that you submit your app several days before the deadline!) BUT they accept LORs well after the deadline. I found this out because even though I submitted my app, on LOR only submitted his rec's today. So, even if your LORs take off the holidays, you should be OK Now, of course, I have to freak out thanks to this jerk prof, because I know some others schools of mine DON'T accept late LORs, and their deadlines are on Thurs and he hasn't submitted. I've sent him 3 e-mails now, and he hasn't responded to a single one.

I once had a sentence with so many clauses that by the time my prof finally found the verb four-odd lines later, he had forgotten the original noun, thought it didn't agree, and marked it wrong.

I can beat this. I had a friend edit my WS on the document itself, so she actually typed questions into the .doc. So I submitted my Dec. 1st deadline writing sample with the typo: "POSSIBLE (?)". You can't even count on the addcoms to glance over it, cause it's in all caps

Hoo boy, I feel like everyone else here is so much more amazing than I am, I'm officially terrified now. That said, I need an excuse to procrastinate finishing some apps right now (hehe) so I'll fill this out and then go cry in a corner. Undergrad Institution: Large public research university, very respected in history, and medieval studies. Major(s): History Minor(s): Medieval Studies GPA in Major:3.63 Overall GPA: 3.71 (I pulled Bs my sophomore year and took too many History classes that year that kinda mediocre-ized my Major GPA, then I brought it up overall by taking every medieval studies course outside the History dept for the rest of undergrad Position in Class: No Clue Senior Thesis: Yes, required Honors Program: No honors program, honors are determined by minimum GPA/Thesis grade, and then subsequent nomination by your Thesis advisor Type of Student: domestic, female, caucasian GRE Scores (revised/old version): Q: 155 (69% I think?) V: 165 (96%) W: 4.5 Research Experience: Thesis, plus briefly assisting a prof at a summer course in his research Awards/Honors/Recognitions: High Honors, also received an undergrad research grant (of a whopping $50 to order a microfishe, but they don't have to know that. . . ) Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Assistant editor to my school's undergraduate history journal Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Took classes abroad after graduation on medieval architecture and architectural restoration (Don't know if this is an accomplishment, but it does show I'm dedicated to continuing my education? Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Applying to Where: UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, U Toronto, Harvard, Georgetown, U Kansas, Notre Dame Research Interests: Late Medieval Mediterranean, esp. Italy's interactions/trade Languages: Latin, Currently enrolled in classes in French and Italian (Beginning Level, pretty much ;__; ) Letters of Recommendation: Another weak spot (?): All are strong (well, I think. Hope.), but two are "Medieval Studies" rather than History. There's really only 4 medieval historians at my school, and of those, one's a late antiquitist, another a byzantinist, and the third only ever taught one course I hadn't already taken with other medievalists >.< Of my three LORs, the historian's definitely a big name, another's a not-so-big name (but I loved him and his class so much that I think it'll be strong despite that), and the third was a visiting big-name from Oxford, which I'm secretly hoping will count for something. OK, not so secretly. Statement of Purpose: One standard for all, with then a paragraph inserted tailored to each school. In each I tried to not only name professors I wanted to work with, but also why I really want to attend that specific school (i.e. they encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, or they just received a massive donations of unstudied manuscripts (I'm talking to you, UPenn. I love you, please take me so I can touch your MSs. . . wait. . . ) This was easier for some than others (really, UPenn, you can have my firstborn!) Writing Sample: A very whittled down version of my senior thesis. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I amputated entire sections. Communications with POIs: My biggest regret. I was a total coward and never worked up the nerve to contact profs. Really, really wish I had. Lessons learned: Contact POI's. Get started a year before you think you actually need to. A good way to find details about the program that you can add to your SOP is to google "University Name + era/subject of interest." No matter how many times you've edited your WS, read it again word by word before you submit to make sure you don't accidentally submit it with an unbelievably stupid typo (whoops, sorry U Kansas).

I've just gotta say that, and I mean this in the nicest way possible cause I have a soft spot for UC peeps, if these are problems that have plagued you for a long time (undergrad, then getting fired), then dropping out won't actually solve your problems at all. It sounds like your problem isn't the intellectual challenges of grad school, it's how you handle stress, and stress isn't ever going to go away completely (though to be fair, it is significantly worse in grad school). I really think that if you struggle with holding jobs, you should consider getting screened for depression/ADD/anxiety disorders/any chem brain imbalances that can impact success. Then, treat it. Therapy, meds, yoga, whatever floats your boat. This isn't about you not being smart enough, cause at the end of the day, grades are more about how you handle a billion other things in addition to your actual ideas. You haven't blown your second chance yet, and if your school thought you were smart enough to accept you *despite* grades, that only means that they were probably so wowed by the rest of your app that they let you in anyways. Remember that, and let it motivate you to keep going.

Pictures and bibliography count, to my knowledge. It's a hard cut-off: they usually print out the first 10/20/50 etc pages of the document and dump the rest. I guess they just really don't want the 20 page appendix to my 40 page paper

I had a similar problem. I've essentially learned that when many profs say they're interested in the Mediterranean, apparently they only mean spain

When I first showed my SOP to a previous professor, he told me, about my research ideas, that "i needed to be more specific... but less specific, less rigid." It made no sense, but I think it was still right: adcoms want the best of both worlds, someone who's refined their ideas enough to know how to approach research, but not actually have a concrete, resolute plan. I've tried to sort of balance the risk of sounding too specific by essentially proposing multiple ideas of specific things I'm interested in, so that I sound like I know the direction I want to go, and that I have specific ideas of research, but that I'm not incredibly attached to any single dissertation. Here's hoping that's the right approach...

I have a nightmare I'll think all of my schools have a later deadline than they actually have, and so all the deadlines will pass before I turn in my applications, and thus get rejected before I even get to try. . . (obviously, this could be solved by turning them in NOW but then I feel I won't be able to make each SOP and WS as perfect as they could be.) My other nightmare is that I somehow sleep through a deadline after staying up all night editing my SOP (It sounds insane, but it's something I would totally manage; I nearly slept through a final exam once and it traumatized me)