1Q84

Nancy Pelosi's dismissive comment about Romney recent has me fearing that lazy Democrats (ie. a large majority) across America will just kick back and wait for Obama to get re-elected. Seriously scary. Everyone go out and vote and make everyone you know vote too!

Don't know if anyone mentioned it yet but No Country for Old Men is of course an amazing book and the Coen Brother's adaptation is just as good!

I guess we're staying well out of each other's spheres of application haha!

It all depends on what type of PhD program you want to enter, of course. Is it a "Top 20"? Although that might be on the lower end of a competitive GRE score for "Top 20" schools, like everyone always says around here, there are no guarantees. There are plenty of stories of people who have overcome poor scores and been accepted at their dream schools. Most professors I've spoken to have been emphatic that the GRE is going to be the least important deciding factor for adcomms. Just wow them in every other part of the application and hope for the best. (PS. I'm not sure if you've taken professional prep courses for the GRE. Maybe that's something you should consider if the GRE score is really stressing you out. I personally don't think that's worth it, but others might attest differently.)

Which funded M.A.'s are you applying to, if you don't mind telling. Ah, thanks! CSU:LA offers tuition waivers... I don't think it is fully funded but it's a large portion of it. Yes, we spoke about this before! (I had a different username then). The problem is I don't have the funds for Northridge... I was told that I'm already guaranteed a spot there. What a dilemma.

This made me spit out my coffee. Ha!

I had issues with figuring out what courses were being counted as well. What I did was I called the grad secretaries from the schools I applied to and asked them directly. One of them very kindly offered to take a look at my transcript right away and determine which courses that particular school would be looking at. Some courses that I thought were "upper level" and would be counted, it turns out, would not be. If you want some solid answers, go straight to the school.

The Princeton Review says that the markers won't really take the time to penalise you for a few spelling mistakes in the AWA.. as long as the rest of your writing is fine.

You mean, of course, me speaking my mind in a polite and non-aggressive manner, right? Yeah, I'll try and put a stop to that. Good one! I'm not taking it personally so much as finding it annoying that the same message can at once be cast down but when said to and by others, be supported. All in the same thread. If people disagree with me, fine. But I would expect that when someone else expresses the same opinion that it would be similarly put down. Anyway, I was more bemused than anything. I'm not sitting here gnashing my teeth over it... moving along indeed, confusedgradadmit!

I looked over what I said again. I took the same strongly-worded tone as michigan girl yet the only thing I can see is that I pointed out said colour-blindness in Dal Phder's comments, who seems to be part of the "well-liked" clique. Again, not what you say or how you say it, it seems, merely who you say it to. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; I've encountered this in ever forum that I've been to. Somehow I just thought grad students would be more, I don't know... mature?

How does one find if a school is a feeder school? As in statistically all MA grads go on to PhDs? So far I've only found one funded MA program in California (for international students, that is).

Accountability to whatever equity/anti-discrimination policies most decent universities should have in place? I'm not dumb enough to think that they'd come out and say so but I think if people were to hold them accountable (a systematic change) instead of just saying "adcomms will be adcomms"...

I heartily agree with all of this, especially because it's what I was saying earlier in the thread. Judging by all the up votes for michigan girl and down votes for me, I'm guessing that means I just said it to the wrong people... people who you're not supposed to disagree with? Good to know there's cliques on this forum too.

But there's still an appeals process and stuff, no? I don't think it's completely shrouded in secrecy... there has to be some tiny bit of accountability for their decisions. Or am I just being naive?

Is anyone here applying for a Masters? Anyone? I don't see anyone applying to a CSU school... does that mean less competition? No competition? MA Program: CSU: LA (I reallllllllllly want to work with Prof. McManus!) CSU: Long Beach CSU: Northridge Loyola Marymount University PhD Program: UC: Santa Cruz UC: Irvine UC: Santa Barbara University of Southern California Interests: Renaissance Lit (Spenser, Milton), Classics (epic poetry, Virgil) all through the lens of Gender Studies Obviously I won't get into those PhD programs but it's kind of a test for myself... and never too early to start studying for the Lit Subject GRE, right?

They couldn't possibly discriminate against you based on having a family, could they?

Oh right, definitely. I was just referring to it in passing (1 sentence to address my low GPA). Also, I keep wanting to right "the xyz of your department is..." and such but is saying your too informal? It just seems to awkward and circumlocutory to say "and the department at X University is..."

I'm wondering about this too. A lot of websites say "essay format is acceptable". But what about stuff like GRE, GPA, etc.? I was hoping we could use abbreviations because we all know about word counts and all :/

That's pretty low. I don't know if verbal factors hugely into initial selection in your program but a score that low can certainly take you out of the running when it comes down to the wire or for certain types of funding. If you have the time and money, do it.

It will vary. But some "top schools" that I have emailed with the same question said that the first hurdle you have to pass is a 1375 combined score (Q and V) that the graduate school requires before you even get to your specific departmental requirements. So according to the ETS concordance tables, your 167 V would be a 710 old score. That means that your Q would have to be at least a 665 (or about a 164 new score) in order to qualify for those schools.

It doesn't really matter. The AWA section is testing your technique over the content, in the end. Of course, you can't just spout off nonsense but the fact that you've been practicing a lot of old sample essay questions should mean that you're now quite adept at knowing how to grab a topic that you may or may not know much about and being able to wrestle that information coherently and intelligently into paragraphs. That's all you really need.

Thank you so much for the feedback! Needless to say, I've been viciously editing it since this thread and it's quite different from what I posted here. But I'm sure there's still way more cutting that needs to be done... so thank you for your help ETA: And yes I have been rethinking the PhD thing for now. The funding problem is just getting to me...

There's always overseas, guys... .that's my backup plan. They literally throw money at you until you tell them to stop in Hong Kong and Japan.

If you're really aiming high, I'd try to up those V and Q scores... I mean I know they say everything is more important than GRE scores but when it comes down the wire and they have someone who have the same stats as you but with 160+ scores... it could work against you, especially the Verbal, if you're talking about Humanities programs.

OK two threads now with the same typo- I need to say something: it's rigorously!