Stories

I second these recommendations. It seems that your scores are low across the board and you might not even get past the cutoff phase.

You shouldn't explicitly ask for money; it's implied in your application already. And no, needing money won't hurt your application than the next guy who needs money, as well. Every student will need support, so don't worry about that. You shouldn't need a "professional" writer for your SOP. Just have faculty members take a look at your application (they know what kinds of things to look for).

Apologies, I didn't mean to include fields where a master's is a pre-requisite for admission to the PhD program (Epidemiology is the same way). I meant the statement to hold true for fields where a master's is unnecessary to gain admittance. If the OP had an interest in the MA/MS, he/she could get one on the way to the PhD if he/she was directly enrolled in the PhD program.

I took a quick gander at my textbooks that were biostatistics and epidemiology. It all came back pretty quickly. Just needed a small reminder.

I'm an entertainment junkie. I own a HDTV, receiver + speakers, PS3. Getting cable TV is something of no brainer to me. I watch too many sports not to get the package. I'd go crazy without my sports.

There aren't going to many PhD programs that don't at least offer funding. The question is, are you an applicant that school wants to provide funding for? The vast majority of schools will also confer a MA/MS on the way to a PhD if you fulfill the additional requirements for the master's. However, if you're doing the PhD, what's the point in wasting that time for the master's?

In my field, most schools don't. Some do, and the school I'll be attending did.

Than PhDs, yes.

Just about every single tier-1 university should offer a PhD in political science. It's one of the biggest fields in academics.

"Safety" simply means that the school doesn't have a huge name and that you will face far less competition in applicants than a "Reach" school. So let's say: Harvard vs. Southern University and A&M. Chances are, Harvard will have 500 applicants for a program whereas SUAM will have 20. The odds of you getting into SUAM are much greater simply because of a numbers game.

Here's the thing, if you've already demonstrated that you can shine in a grad program (your other MA), even if the school doesn't have a solid rep, it's not only your uGPA that's holding you back from PhD offers. I really don't see how an ADDITIONAL master's is going to change that, particularly since it's not going to change your uGPA. You've done everything else that makes a good PhD applicant, published work, presentations, teaching experience, a MA degree with solid grades, etc. If you're really at the "edge", I would seriously spurn this new MA offer (what does it do for you, honestly?), and move on beyond academics. It's not worth this kind of BS. Especially considering the state of jobs in the humanities.

Now that's a boat load. Here's the most important thing. Get yourself back on track. You're already year (or more) behind the curve and have extra baggage to start. Fix that, pronto. Go to school, and demonstrate that you can be a legitimate student at UCR. Get yourself up above a 3.0 and then we can take a realistic assessment of your chances at "a very good graduate school". Don't think that school is a cake walk, either. That attitude won't get you anywhere. Whatever you were doing when you seriously crapped the boat that first semester, get away from those habits. Community College is not the same as a full University. Don't think that your A's in CC will automatically make you get A's at UCR. The standards are going to be very different. Also, "I would eventually like to transfer to a higher college for my major, biochemistry. I do not want to finish my bachelor's degree at UCR, preferably something like UCSD would make me happier", check that crap at the door. You'll be impressing nobody with that attitude and piss off a lot of people. UCR is a fine institution and transferring to UCSD will not only set you back some in your studies (as the courses won't transfer over 1 to 1), but it's not even a given that you'll be able to transfer.

I'm enjoying my summer quite nicely, thank you very much. Fall will come when it comes. Don't let it come too soon

DU is private, so residency won't help with tuition costs.

This is a complete guess, so keep that in mind. I'm also using sports as a reference here. In sports, when a team says they are placing player X on the disabled list (or injured reserve) retroactive to date Y, it means that player X was injured on date Y but hasn't played a game since that date and is now being put on the injured list back dated to date Y, even if date Y was 5 days ago.

Is there an importance placed on the mathematics for architecture? If there is, you may not even get past the minimum GRE cutoff for quant. 530Q is a pretty low score.

Generally, you'll send a CV to PhD programs rather than a resume. This way, it can encompass all of your past research experience and work history that is relevant and make a distinction between the two. Your SoP, LoRs, GPA/GRE, and CV are all parts of the application. The greatest factor is probably your SoP (and you'll probably talk about your research experience here to demonstrate you have an understanding of the field and what you're going for). As for research, you should get involved with whatever interests you. Being involved in research that interests you lets admissions committees know that you're interested in that field and are serious about pursuing that field in the future. This in conjunction with a cogent personal statement are crucial for getting into PhD programs. There's no point in pursuing research that you don't want to do in the future. Take as many graduate level classes as you can so you effectively demonstrate your ability to do graduate-level work. If you want to do work using SPSS, SAS, STATA or other statistical packages, go for it. Again, it comes down whether you want to pursuing that kind of study. If you don't, don't bother. You won't use it in your graduate level work unless you enter that particular field. Going to a top school does have some influence in the decision-making, particularly if the school is strong in the field you're applying to, but it's not a significant factor. But if you're comparing a 4th tier school to UNC, yeah, there's a difference there.

Keep your GPA, get to know your professors very well, continue to get even more involved in research, internships which give you more skills towards research and idea development are good. Don't get an internship just for the sake of having an internship. Those are useful for finding jobs, anyway. Other ECs are pretty much fluff. Keep doing them if you enjoy them, but don't force yourself if you don't. None of those ECs will really boost your PhD application, anyway. They might boost an application to a professional degree, however. So if something like a MBA or MPP is on the radar, they will help depending on what kind of experience it is.

All good points. The most important one is that the professor thinks you are capable of succeeding in a graduate program. That phrase (or some form of it) must appear in the recommendation.

Folks interested in starting up a IM softball team in the fall? Yale offers leagues in the fall, spring, and summer if you're interested I've captained before, so I'm more than up to doing it again!

At Yale, all PhD students are given a "fellowship" of some sort. These aren't taxed at time of fund dispersal (our stipend comes twice a month), we have to pay quarterly taxes to federal government and CT state taxes yearly on our own. W-2's are not given--we calculate our own tax liability on our own. I don't know how common this is, though.

It's not a bad idea, but it's not critical. I didn't contact many professors before I applied and I did fine in admissions. Ironically enough, the schools I contacted and had conversations with rejected me

A good fit will give you a far better opportunity to be accepted, especially if you can demonstrate the fit in your personal statement.

I had a full paragraph outlined for each school. I named potential faculty I wanted to work with and what research was on-going that I would liked to have be a part of. I mentioned resources that would be useful to me and my research. The beginnings and endings had a little blurb about attending that specific school. The research I wanted to do was general, but specific, and I made sure that all those specifics were a right fit for the school.

Keep in mind my background comes from natural sciences and health sciences. Sounds like your research assistant work (interviewing + SPSS work) could be called research. Your intern work is less of the traditional research since you just put together info pamphlets. Generally, "research" when applying to graduate schools encompasses work towards novel and new ideas and theories that further the knowledge of the field. That's why the intern work probably wouldn't fall under that category that is useful for graduate schools. Hope this helps!