skybythelight

Minnesota is officially submitted, and I'm working on Maryland now. No tears yet, but almost, last night. I was sitting on the couch with my boyfriend looking over my shoulder as I hovered the mouse over the "submit" button... it was terrifying.

I THINK... my writing sample is done. Holy. Crap.

Psssssh, yeah right, Michigan.

I feel ya. My professor sent back my writing sample with her edits at like, 2am this morning, so I'm working on making those now and then I think I'm just going to submit. If I wait, I'll just make myself insane. I feel like once I just get ONE in, it'll be all downhill from there... or something... right... ?

Minnesota has a Dec. 1st deadline. I'm frantically making final edits to my writing sample now and plan on submitting today. Eek.

I think that may actually be a good way to go, except rather than just "I'm from Asia," you could talk about what specific experiences you've had growing up in Thailand that makes you different from US applicants and how, specifically, they've prepared you for graduate studies.

If you don't mind me asking, roughly how long is your statement #1? I remember you posting the e-mail response that was something along the lines of "there are no set regulations" for the statements so I'm not quite as worried about it, but mine is a little over 2 and a half pages and I'm hoping that isn't too much.

That's sort of what I was thinking, but I was afraid there was some secret grad application rules that I haven't been told or something. Thanks!

Can we talk about how I JUST realized that the direction for Statement #2 say "Please do not exceed one page in length." For the love of whoever, why don't I pay more attention?

I know there are other threads discussing font/size/page length questions, but I was wondering if anyone had any insight on a few other formatting questions... My writing sample is in standard MLA format, so I have my last name and page number in the top right, and will obviously include a title when I come up with something brilliant. That seems fairly straightforward. BUT, what about the SOP? I'm working on Minnesota's two right now, and I'm wondering if I should title them, page number them, simply title them "Academic Statement" and "Personal/Diversity Statement" ... leave them sans title and just begin with the text? How are others approaching this?

Sounds like we have a similar background. I haven't seen anything like this offered as an option before, either. I suppose it can't hurt to take advantage of it.

Is anyone going to use the option they give us on Minnesota's application to explain any anomalies in our application? I have one poor grade on my transcript from before I went back to school, and I'm wondering if I should bother addressing it. I mention it briefly in my SoP so it isn't like I'm ignoring it. Hm.

For two of my letter writers, I plan on leaving hand-written thank you cards for each in their mailboxes. I haven't decided if I'm going to include a giftcard or some sort... one of them is kind of an earthy-crunchy vegetarian and I know he loves this vegan cafe in town, so I may grab him a gift card from there. The other is my hard-ass department chair and I have NO idea what she would like. Eek. My third letter writer has also been my unofficial grad school advisor... we've had TONS of meetings to talk about programs, my strengths and weaknesses, and she's been the editor for my writing sample, which has been the most incredibly helpful thing I could have ever possibly hoped for. I also babysit for her kids occasionally. So for her, I'm going to go a bit farther and get, I'm thinking as of now, a gift card for one of the nicer restaurants in the city so that she and her husband can go have a nice night together and offer free babysitting for the night as well.

This was my advisor's advice for tackling the Minnesota statements, for what it's worth to anyone: Statement 1: "don't worry about it being boring. Give them what they are asking for, exactly, which is a statement that discusses a) what sort of work you wish to pursue in graduate school (what classes do you want to take? Which strengths do you want to hone? Which weaknesses do you want to address and how do you plan to go about doing that?). Next, what are your longer-term goals? What sort of project (dissertation) do you imagine embarking upon and in what critical conversations do you hope to participate? Finally, how do you imagine working on your career as an educator, and what sort of teaching/scholarship to you hope to do in the future. I know, I know. It's all speculative. But that's okay. Dream a little. Forget the narrative of the past - this is the narrative of your future." With that in mind, I'm approaching Statement #2 as a more narrative driven, standard, personal-rather-than-academic statement.

I have the same problem with productivity: I get myself too stressed out and worked up that I end up accomplishing nothing, adding to the stress and anxiety. It's a horrible cycle. I'm just trying to do what I can every day, even if it's just a half hour of reading, getting a paragraph written for my SoP, whatever. Anything helps. And my first deadline is December 1st, eek! I'm also not really close to being done with my sample... I've got the bulk of the paper drafted, but I haven't started on the introduction yet and am currently waiting for a book from my advisor to do so, which is making me feel like I'm just treading water.

Oh god what does that even mean.

I don't, unfortunately. I'm surprised that you've had such poor communication from them, though. I e-mailed the DGS fairly early in my "trying to figure out where to apply" process and got a fairly quick and kind response.

It isn't finished yet, but it's looking like it'll shape up at around 20 pages. I already e-mailed the DGS in Colorado; he said it was fine. Phew. 10-12 seems ridiculously low to me. Eesh.

I just revisited all of my programs' requirements: only one asks for something shorter than 20 pages. Damn you, Colorado. I've already sent an e-mail to the DGS asking if it's okay to send something over 15.

You described how I've been feeling pretty perfectly. I feel in a lot of ways better prepared this time around: I don't have a full time course load. I'm working closely with a professor on my writing sample. I did more research into the programs I'm applying to. But I'm also much more realistic because, like you said, I know much more about how things work this time.

This is what I'm doing as well, although I'm not submitting a chapter of a longer piece but a single paper written for this purpose. I am working really hard to create a good balance between theory and close reading, and hoping that will work in my favor. I'm also applying with literary theory in various concentrations as an interest, but I don't want to do JUST theory... one of my favorite profs in undergrad was a theorist, but he was SUCH a theorist that the literature tended to get lost, if that makes any sense.

I hear ya: it can certainly be mind-numbing. I have to go back through and double check, but I'm pretty sure that all of my programs ask for something similar in length, in the 15-20 page range. I'm sure there are a few that vary and will throw me for a loop. In fact, maybe I should go check that out now. Sigh.

Sorry, but I think you may have misunderstood... I've already done loads of research at my schools library and via their academic online resources since I decided to work with this one shorter paper. I also am working incredibly closely with a professor, so it will by no means be an unreviewed paper. I was just curious as to what others were doing, I'm actually beginning to feel fairly comfortable and confident in mine. The original paper is not really factoring into the final product other than as the jumping off point for some of the ideas. Thank you for the advice, though.

I know there are various threads where the writing sample is discussed, but as I'm right in the middle of trying to get mine finished and wanting to tear my hair out, I was curious as to everyone's process/how they're attacking this arguably most important part of the application. Are you revising an already-written paper? Starting from scratch? Working with a prof or doing your own editing? I graduated from my BA in May and am applying to 5 PhD and 4 MA programs, so I don't have a Master's thesis to work with. A former professor of mine is on a pretty sweet maternity package at Mt Holyoke this year (only teaching one course each semester), so she's graciously offered to devote a large amount of her time to helping me through this process: the writing sample, mostly, but everything else as well. I had a rather short, six page-ish paper I had written for an undergrad course maybe a year and a half ago, and another more substantial, fifteen pager that I was originally planning on combining: the themes were similar enough that I thought it could be workable. However, once I started doing more research into the author that first, short paper was on, I realized that I had more than enough to work with there, so we scrapped the longer paper and essentially started from scratch. Some of the ideas and themes I had in that original paper have remained intact, but none of the actual writing. As of now, I have about twelve pages written and revised a few times though by no means finished.

My professor-mentor through the application process this year has more or less echoed what others have already said here: if you are too specific, you risk appearing as though you feel you have nothing more to learn. In that case, why should you be accepted into a program whose purpose is to teach you something?