psychgurl

book worm

jack daniels

I don't know if I read about it on this thread, but someone mentioned treating their significant other to something special after getting an offer! I don't know about you guys, but my boyfriend is a saint for putting up with me from October-March. My mood was all over the place! We're going exploring at the campus of one school I got an offer from this weekend, and I'm treating him to a nice dinner date afterwards (with lots of WINE)!

I let my boss know in October that I would possibly be leaving in August...it takes a lot of planning on her part to phase me out of the big projects...but I am going to tell her as soon as I officially accept an offer my approximate end date. She's an academic herself, so I feel really lucky with how supported I am at work for going to grad school!

gummy bear

Can you tell her ASAP to wait until April 15th? That's what I would do!

worst enemy

I think it depends on the department. I know for a department I got accepted to, I was told in person (we were at the same research event) and another girl who got an offer was accepted via phone. My guess is that it depends on the department's policy, and if there is no policy, POI's preference.

Did you give a time commitment when you took the job? I would still tell them as early as possible, otherwise it appears that you are just too cowardly to tell them. If you committed to, say, 2 years but can only put in 8 months total, I would gear up for some heat from your boss....I still feel like it's the right thing to tell them early, though.

I think the main thing prep classes are good for is learning a variety of quant techniques to solve the problems quickly. I considered myself very good at math before prepping, and I even thought their shortcuts were useful. As coonskee pointed out, you really have to weigh the cost of the class against what you think you'd get out of it. It's not great for everyone. Good luck

Don't wait until the last minute...this is the worst thing you can do for your company, and it could sever any relationships you have there. As others have mentioned, I would say as soon as you officially accept your offer, you should tell your boss that you officially accepted. Give an approximate "end date": mine is mid-August (I want to work right up until school starts for the $$$). As I get more materials about orientation, I will set a hard end date. I suppose I have an easy way out, as my boss assumed from the time she wrote my LOR that I would be leaving in the fall. As a result, she has known since October not to give me any year-long projects...I'm lucky in this respect. It's also important to keep people in the loop so you can start training your replacement(s). And hey, why not let people know?! IT'S GREAT NEWS!

mortal sin

Yes, prep courses are good. I did Kaplan and was very satisfied with my score. You can also prep yourself if you are self-disciplined...for quant, buy as many quant books as possible and do MANY practice problems. Also, practice doing them at the pace you would for the real test, as timing is the only thing that makes the quant section hard. For verbal, I would recommend Kaplan flashcards (I think you can buy from barnes & noble). Learn all 500 words. Use Barron's vocabulary book as a secondary method if you have time. I know this sounds excessive, but unless you were born an amazing test-taker, I firmly believe that you can increase your score tremendously with the right practice. I think my first "cold" GRE (no prep, not really understanding timing) was around 1150. After my prep it was ~1400. Good luck!

haunted graveyard

chocolate therapy

I have been saving up Chase reward points for God knows how long now...$900 worth of rewards points later, I'm ready to celebrate with a new MacBook Pro for grad school! (Yes, I know that the $900 is a little short, but who cares!)

Also keep in mind that the search is narrowed if you have any geographic limitations (for example, if you don't want to go to school on the west coast, that eliminates A LOT of choices!). If you have a specific research area in mind, then it's actually not as daunting as you'd think to go down the NRC list mentioned above. Give yourself a couple of months to do this...it would be torture to sit down and do it in one day. I looked through a few each day and wrote down any schools that caught my eye. Advisors can help you notice schools you may not have noticed. Also, apply to a VARIETY of schools from different "tiers" (aka- don't apply to only the top schools in your research area). I would apply to ~10 schools... don't apply to any school you wouldn't actually want to attend! Good luck!

SO TRUE. I feel like there should be a thread that is just Sh*t Moms Say When Applying to Grad School....my personal favorite is when I got rejected to multiple schools out of state, my mom couldn't help but excitedly exclaim, "Who wants to live in California anyway? At least now you may end up close to home!" GAHHHHH!!!!!!

I'm not so sure I would start with the quote in the beginning as it is; I know what you mean now...but when I read it the first time, I thought it meant that if you have no idea what to do, you should become an economics professor. Perhaps you could clear up this misconception if you elaborate on when you first realized that you wanted to pursue an academic career (so adcomm's know that one professor's comment to you wasn't the cause of your career choice). Also, do you have any projects with professors you can expand upon? Related work experience? Master's thesis? Any detail that you can add to make your personal statement unique should be added. For me, I talked at length about my research experience in psych labs/post-graduation job and how these experiences prepared me for graduate school. I think your experiences are the best ways to prove that you are ready for grad school, not your course work. Talk about how these experiences have helped increase your commitment to this career path and focused your research interests into a specific graduate research agenda. Tie these SPECIFIC research interests into the work of professors in each department you are applying to. Perceived fit seems to be one of the most important factors in admissions decisions. Hope this helps! Good luck!

Your gmail account should probably be just fine...when I contacted POIs this season, I used my gmail account. I got responses from all of them. When I applied for RA jobs, I don't remember getting confirmation emails from all of them. Maybe wait another week or two- this is spring break for a lot of universities.

Sorry about posting again, but you have little control over adcomm's perceptions of you. I'm sorry, but doesn't EVERYONE plan ahead and improve their applications? Many people STILL don't get into ANY programs even after improving their apps. It really depends on if there is funding that year.

Totally agree with this. I would want to start my post-grad school life ASAP. Even if you don't mind the thought of 8 more years of school now, what about down the road when you're 8 years older and still in school? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if it were me, I would take the phd. Also, I was a nervous wreck during this process and would do anything to avoid doing it again. Finally, what were the good qualities in the phd program that led you to apply to it in the first place? I always am surprised when people apply to programs they really don't want to go to (application fee down the drain)...perhaps focus on what made you like it originally.

I did a small "leadership & involvement" section in my CV...it only contained the highlights. It can't hurt to include those things (just not excessively) to show you're a well-rounded applicant. I don't think this is a super-important criteria in their decisions, but I don't think it could hurt!

Would the MA program help leverage you into a PhD program? I know that for some fields it could make your application more competitive. In any case, I'm so sorry!

Gah! Try to remember that the whole process is just a crapshoot...I am convinced that the issue is a combination of poor funding (read: poor economy) and a rush of people trying to get into grad school (again, poor economy). More than anything, I am just frustrated that it probably just comes down to luck...as much as we'd like to attribute it to personal deficiencies. Trying not to take it personally is so hard, but I think it's the only way to move on and try again next year.