wolfentinus

Your words reflect what I feel as well. I'll be 25 too.

Social Psych - social identities I'm fascinated by how the identity of each of us is shaped by our group memberships, and however some may deny, the power of social influence is very real & powerful, yet subtle.

Mine ranged from 1 to 2 paragraphs. Usually 1 paragraph talked about the POI's interest and our match. I also mention that this match was confirmed through email correspondence (if he/she really said that there's a close match). For some, I'll mention about the program in general, e.g. emphasis on multi-disciplinary research. Or some initiatives/programs/tracks that they have that I am interested in (e.g. neuroimaging track, or some initiatives/'programs' that allow for cross-disciplinary research).

I think TOEFL takes longer than GRE. I always order GRE and TOEFL reports at the same time, yet many schools reported having received GRE but not TOEFL.

Thank you both for the advice. You've been really helpful

applying to programs in social neuroscience as well as programs focusing on social identities

Hi I have a little situation and I'm not sure how I should proceed. Making long story short, there's this superstar professor who offered to write me a letter of recommendation when he found out that I am actually applying to graduate school. For various reasons I won't elaborate here, I did not ask him for letter initially so his offer really came as a very big (and pleasant) surprise. So my situation is, most of the schools I'm applying to do not allow me to register 4th recommender. I can't delete a recommender because my original 3 recommenders have already submitted their letters. So that means I can't make use of the online system to allow this 4th recommender to submit his letters. Yet it is very difficult for me to get a hard copy (and sealed) letter from him because he is currently in Canada (and I am at the other end of the world). A letter from him will definitely strengthen my application, but I'm not sure how I should go about getting his letter to the schools in a manner that's least troublesome for him. Or should I just let it go and leave things as they are? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I could only get into their online system when I key in my name in CAPS, as that's how it appears in the actual score report.

My brain totally froze during the Verbal section. All the words look familiar to me, but I couldn't remember any details about them at all. All I could think was, "that look familiar. I studied it... now what does that freakingly mean?" Ended up making guesses for most of the verbal questions. Didn't manage to finish the Maths section too.

Decided to cap at 10.

I agree that you aren't the only one with these concerns. I myself having similar concerns (worse as I do not have such a stellar GRE score). With regards to research interest, a good start will be to ask yourself why you are interested in the topics you mentioned. You'll probably be able to focus your interests based on your answers, and that will help you to narrow your list of schools. Your answers will help you in the emails to prospective professors as well Even better if you can link your thesis idea (however little) to your interests.

I'm actually more worried about Quant than Verbal. My professor mentioned the graduate schools often take the nationality into account, so according to her, my Quant score is actually pretty low for an Asian applicant (i have 710Q). Not sure how true her words are though.