doubledotty

I suppose. It's good to know at least. I would assume that your recommenders being fairly big names in the field wouldn't hurt either? In an ideal world, I'd rather that I just got in because I was good enough. But when there seem to be so many rules about how to present yourself and how to structure your application that's never going to happen. It seems like you get in if you're good enough and have presented your SOP in exactly the right way and have provided a writing sample that is in line with what they want to see and have the right LORs. Which does make sense, but sometimes I wish that you didn't have to spend such a long time making sure everything was done the 'right' way and could just show some evidence of raw talent or something. Ho hum. I checked the results survey and Berkeley sent out rejections for my program on this Saturday last year. So I can't relax even though it's the weekend!

She's not too recent a grad but her old adviser is still there and is my POI, so she sent her an email asking her to look very carefully at my app. One of my other recommenders is also good friends with my POI. Does that kind of thing actually make a big difference? I assumed it would be written off as nepotism!

Thanks! I'm catastrophising probably. My department gets one or two people to the US every year so there is a glimmer of hope I suppose. One of my professors (although we don't call them that here - just plain lecturer!) was at Yale and gave me a lot of advice on applying, just not on the actual technicalities of the application. I'll keep my fingers crossed but my hopes aren't too high, although encouraging words are much appreciated

Thanks, I feel better about it when I think about it that way! It was a long shot in the first place so I shouldn't be so wound up really. I'll get to do it eventually, even if it takes a few goes and I can't go to my top choice school In some ways rejections would be good because then I won't have to leave the UK for another year!

Thanks! I did research quite thoroughly before applying, but somehow a lot of the information that's on this forum doesn't appear to come up on a google search and I was definitely stumbling around in the dark somewhat. I didn't get in touch with any POIs before applying (although one of my recommenders was at Yale and she sent a note to her old adviser who is one of my idols, don't know if that counts), my SOP was way too unfocused and I didn't do enough drafts, my writing sample was probably all wrong (we don't write long papers on a regular basis in the UK) and didn't have a cover sheet and it all just feels like a disaster. Even my GRE scores don't seem to be all that exceptional as I've seen loads of better ones on here and I was thrilled when I got them. I'm sort of hoping that they'll take pity on me for being ignorant and English! And that my recommenders hold some kind of sway, seeing as that's pretty much the only part of my application that I'm guaranteed to have not screwed up Sorry for ranting! None of my friends are applying to the US, or even to do PhDs at all, so I'm really on my own with the stress here and it's nice to find people who understand. I'm definitely reapplying next year anyway - not going to let all the money I spent on the GRE go to waste

I've gone from being rather chilled about my apps to totally freaking in the space of 24 hours. For the most part I blame my inability to leave things alone and not excessively research when I'm feeling mildly panicky. Yesterday I found the results survey, which informed me that acceptances for my program at Berkeley have already gone out. Today I spent a long time on the forums working out everything that I did wrong with my applications. I'm from a UK university, was advised to apply to the US fairly last minute (early November) and didn't get a whole lot of advice on how to go about everything, so just followed what I thought were clear online instructions and it turns out that pretty much every part of my application is not how you're actually meant to do it. A lot of the time that's because the teaching system in the UK isn't really set up for it, but some of it will just look like poor preparation. So I've gone from thinking that I have an outside to medium chance to knowing that I have no hope in hell I wish they'd stop giving me the silent treatment

Hi everyone, just found this forum on my hunt for a timeline for Berkeley decisions! I'm applying for film & media (with Slavic) at Berkeley and Yale. I'm from a UK school (Cambridge) and was originally intended on applying for grad school here, but funding is really difficult to come by in the UK and the structure of a US PhD would suit me a lot better. My app was pretty rushed though (no revision for GRE (literally booked it a few days before and got up and did it, without having done maths in 4 years!), only two drafts of my SOP, writing sample thrown together from my third year dissertation and two favourite undergrad essays) so I'm not really expecting to get in... And it looks like I'm on Berkeley's reject pile already, as acceptances seem to have gone out. Anyway, this forum has kind of freaked me out because I didn't really know before how underprepared I was. I think I did okay on my GRE (V 166, Q 159, AW 5.5 - although I have basically no idea what that actually means and there seem to be much higher scores floating around here), but what's really worrying me is my lack of research experience and conference papers and things, because that's not an option for UK undergrads, particularly in the humanities (I current just study Russian). Is that something that will be ruling me out already?