2018 Blooper Real*

[FreakyFoucault]

@punctilious, gotcha! I wish we could read our letters as a matter of course, but I understand the arguments against it (in normal circumstances). 

[mk-8]

6 hours ago, FreakyFoucault said:

 

Did you two actually see your letters (or, in @punctilious's case, your husband's)? How'd you find about these little boo-boos? 

So, I have two separate asides for this. 

When I was applying to MAs, it logged me as not saying that I waived my right to view the letter (when in fact I had), but my professor emailed me and was like “hey you need to do this, it’s okay, here’s all the nice things I wrote about you” and sent me a letter with lots of nice things but also got the programs name wrong LOL

When applying to PhDs (now), one of my letter writers asked if they could send me the letter to make sure I approved of the way they were talking about me. I appreciated the notion, but in the end was very flattered by all they said. 

In both of these cases, I guess it really depended on the relationship I had with the person (which was pretty good in both instances). 

 

[Ufffdaaa]

Confession: I still have trouble spelling "Tennessee" when I try to Google it/search the results board. I think I caught all of my misspellings, but I never checked again after I submitted my app. 

[punctilious]

So this is a blooper that could have happened, but thankfully didn't.

I encouraged my husband to have a paragraph in his SOP about his experience studying in Russia (we both took Russian throughout college and studied in St. Petersburg for a semester). One of his professors/letter writers said to remove it, but I told him that no, it gives more insight into him as a person and makes his a bit unique, he should keep it.

The professors from Maryland that interviewed him were specifically intrigued by his experience in Russia and how Russian literature connects to his interests in postmodern/contemporary American lit! I'm SO glad he didn't take the advice of his letter writer.

Takeaway is that sometimes you need to go with your gut. Take the advice of your mentors and letter writers with a grain of salt. They are not always going to be right!

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

15 minutes ago, punctilious said:

So this is a blooper that could have happened, but thankfully didn't.

I encouraged my husband to have a paragraph in his SOP about his experience studying in Russia (we both took Russian throughout college and studied in St. Petersburg for a semester). One of his professors/letter writers said to remove it, but I told him that no, it gives more insight into him as a person and makes his a bit unique, he should keep it.

The professors from Maryland that interviewed him were specifically intrigued by his experience in Russia and how Russian literature connects to his interests in postmodern/contemporary American lit! I'm SO glad he didn't take the advice of his letter writer.

Takeaway is that sometimes you need to go with your gut. Take the advice of your mentors and letter writers with a grain of salt. They are not always going to be right!

This isn't a blooper but a "thank you." I was thinking yesterday about how I'd opted to include a little bit of "personal" info about myself in the SOP and if that was going to prove to be a mistake - your husband's success with it makes me feel so much better. Moreover, I'm so glad it worked for him - I think depts (at least certain ones) appreciate a sense of the personal and I have my fingers-crossed that you guys get good news back from Maryland soon!

[FreakyFoucault]

@punctilious, you better make sure that hubby devotes a good amount of space to you in the acknowledgements section of his dissertation, especially if he ends up at Maryland!  

[punctilious]

4 minutes ago, FreakyFoucault said:

@punctilious, you better make sure that hubby devotes a good amount of space to you in the acknowledgements section of his dissertation, especially if he ends up at Maryland!  

He already said he'll dedicate the novel he's working on to me if he publishes it, but I should totally suggest this as well!

He's very appreciative of the extensive time I've spent on this process with him--building the massive spreadsheet, researching schools and professors, helping him write his SOP and prepare for his interview, etc.--but all I ask in return is that I get to say 'we' got a PhD in the end. Is that reasonable? Lol.

[punctilious]

10 minutes ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

This isn't a blooper but a "thank you." I was thinking yesterday about how I'd opted to include a little bit of "personal" info about myself in the SOP and if that was going to prove to be a mistake - your husband's success with it makes me feel so much better. Moreover, I'm so glad it worked for him - I think depts (at least certain ones) appreciate a sense of the personal and I have my fingers-crossed that you guys get good news back from Maryland soon!

Absolutely! I think the SOP shouldn't be 100% about your research and essays or whatever--if there's something that makes you stand out, don't eliminate it just because it may not feel totally relevant. Russia may not seem completely relevant to post-45 US lit, but what does he have to lose my mentioning it? Someone might skim over it. But what does he have to gain? Someone stopping and thinking, "Huh, that's pretty cool! I'd like to learn more about that!" or "I love Russia/Russian literature as well!" or "Hey, he taught English in Russia? That's cool, so he knows he likes teaching!" and deciding to give him a chance. Plus, his research experience in the history department was on US-Russian trade relations (also relating back to 'things'/'goods'/material culture, which he wants to study in literature!). So it all loops back to inform his love of his research focus.

Of course your SOP should be a total personal essay, but I think to really feel your passion and drive, there has to be a sense of who you are. That's what was missing before he added his paragraph on Russia.

So what I'm saying is, don't be nervous about that. I think it can really help. And our fingers are crossed for you too!

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

5 minutes ago, punctilious said:

Absolutely! I think the SOP shouldn't be 100% about your research and essays or whatever--if there's something that makes you stand out, don't eliminate it just because it may not feel totally relevant. Russia may not seem completely relevant to post-45 US lit, but what does he have to lose my mentioning it? Someone might skim over it. But what does he have to gain? Someone stopping and thinking, "Huh, that's pretty cool! I'd like to learn more about that!" or "I love Russia/Russian literature as well!" or "Hey, he taught English in Russia? That's cool, so he knows he likes teaching!" and deciding to give him a chance. Plus, his research experience in the history department was on US-Russian trade relations (also relating back to 'things'/'goods'/material culture, which he wants to study in literature!). So it all loops back to inform his love of his research focus.

Of course your SOP should be a total personal essay, but I think to really feel your passion and drive, there has to be a sense of who you are. That's what was missing before he added his paragraph on Russia.

So what I'm saying is, don't be nervous about that. I think it can really help. And our fingers are crossed for you too!

Agreed 100% - and thank you!

[ArcierePrudente]

9 hours ago, Wooshkuh said:

Confession: I still have trouble spelling "Tennessee" when I try to Google it/search the results board. I think I caught all of my misspellings, but I never checked again after I submitted my app. 

I can still never remember which 'eminent/immanent/imminent' I want to use on the first try. Once I have a free second to breathe I'll need to devise a mnemonic. Especially since I'm in... eimmainent critique. 

Biggest Application Blunders:

1. When writing the phrase "Machiavellian political thought," in one SoP (fortunately for a school that's much lower on the list) I accidentally missed a 't'. Evidently I am going to orient such-and-such with respect to "Machiavellian political though." 

2. Not my fault, but because of a system glitch, one of my M.A. courses showed as 'Incomplete' on my transcript. After several frantic calls to the University Registrar's office, I ended up having to attach an explanatory letter to all my applications with the Registrar's phone number, my assurance that I'd gotten an 'A' in the class, and my subtle but clear indication that the 'incomplete' mark had nothing to do with me or my performance in the class. My transcript only just now got changed. 

(In hindsight I should have just gone full Donald Trump circa the Hawaiian Missile-Misleading Crisis... 'This was a registrar thing but I am now going to get involved with the transcript office. I love that they took responsibility. They took full responsibility.') 

3. I applied to two PhD programs in the same department, and therefore had to open two applications on the same portal. If I had both application windows open at once, the server would automatically copy my responses for one application and paste them into the other application. Talk about terrifying. I hate robots. 

[JustPoesieAlong]

Talking to one of my schools about an issue logging on to my account, the woman on the phone opened my records to check on the situation and asked, "For your graduate GPA, it reads 8.939 (or some such erroneous number). Is that right?" Since both of my previous schools recorded GPAs out of 4.0, no that is most certainly not right. I'm certain I triple-checked these sorts of things on all my apps, so I'm thinking it may have been a system error. Here's hoping adcomms and other administrators look at my transcripts if they see something like that... 

[echo449]

8 minutes ago, JustPoesieAlong said:

Talking to one of my schools about an issue logging on to my account, the woman on the phone opened my records to check on the situation and asked, "For your graduate GPA, it reads 8.939 (or some such erroneous number). Is that right?" Since both of my previous schools recorded GPAs out of 4.0, no that is most certainly not right. I'm certain I triple-checked these sorts of things on all my apps, so I'm thinking it may have been a system error. Here's hoping adcomms and other administrators look at my transcripts if they see something like that... 

They almost certainly will not care about something small like that, &, if that was enough to disqualify you, just remind yourself that a department with that little generosity is probably a bad fit for you. 

[Carly Rae Jepsen]

One of my statements of purpose was in retrospect very convoluted.

Acquiring expertise in this area will allow me to become a scholar and educator who contributes to this important conversation, in an increasingly globalized world that needs more than ever to create bridges and have frank conversations about historical relations between nations.

This could use so much editing.

 

[FreakyFoucault]

1 hour ago, punctilious said:

He's very appreciative of the extensive time I've spent on this process with him--building the massive spreadsheet, researching schools and professors, helping him write his SOP and prepare for his interview, etc.--but all I ask in return is that I get to say 'we' got a PhD in the end. Is that reasonable? Lol.

He should be! In addition to building the spreadsheet, doing research, and helping him draft his SOP, you're also his PR apparatus! That's certainly cause for a joint PhD.

 

56 minutes ago, ArcierePrudente said:

I can still never remember which 'eminent/immanent/imminent' I want to use on the first try. Once I have a free second to breathe I'll need to devise a mnemonic.

Just to get the ball rolling, here's my shitty attempt at a mnemonic: "Eminem was an eminent rap artist of the early 2000s"; "mankind is immanent, while deities are transcendent" (we'll ignore that fatuously reductive statement for a moment...); and "the danger of mines is that some are in imminent threat of collapse." 

 

21 minutes ago, Carly Rae Jepsen said:

One of my statements of purpose was in retrospect very convoluted.

Acquiring expertise in this area will allow me to become a scholar and educator who contributes to this important conversation, in an increasingly globalized world that needs more than ever to create bridges and have frank conversations about historical relations between nations.

This could use so much editing.

Carly, if you think that's bad, this was an actual footnote in a rough draft of one of my writing samples:

"If we pay attention to the characters not necessarily as characters but as pseudo-pluralistic actors in a homogeneous semantic-linguistic space, we may be able to better analyze the “associative clusters” around which Naked Lunch’s ontology manifests itself."

Thankfully, I got over my "must-sound-impressive" phase and replaced that sentence with something that actually approaches meaning and not simply bombast. But still ... yikes. 

[mk-8]

2 hours ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

This isn't a blooper but a "thank you." I was thinking yesterday about how I'd opted to include a little bit of "personal" info about myself in the SOP and if that was going to prove to be a mistake - your husband's success with it makes me feel so much better. Moreover, I'm so glad it worked for him - I think depts (at least certain ones) appreciate a sense of the personal and I have my fingers-crossed that you guys get good news back from Maryland soon!

Yeah, thanks for posting that @punctilious. I too included something very personal (really personal, actually) in one of my SOPs about why I wanted to work with a certain prof, and I've been freaking out about it ever since. Who knows what'll happen there, but it's good to see something similar worked out for someone!

[ArcierePrudente]

21 hours ago, FreakyFoucault said:

Just to get the ball rolling, here's my shitty attempt at a mnemonic: "Eminem was an eminent rap artist of the early 2000s"; "mankind is immanent, while deities are transcendent" (we'll ignore that fatuously reductive statement for a moment...); and "the danger of mines is that some are in imminent threat of collapse." 

+ 30 points. 

And by points, I mean fully-funded months of PhD study. 

[FreakyFoucault]

@ArcierePrudente, 30 fully funded months of PhD study would be more than welcome!! I took a bunch of "pre-law" classes in undergrad, and for the life me, I just couldn't regurgitate the >5,984,217 dates and case names unless I used silly mnemonics to remember them. 

I kid you not, this website https://haikubriefs.wordpress.com/ was a God send for my grades. 

[posts]

Here's a bad one: I counted wrong and sent 13 pages of writing sample to a school that required 15-25. I don't know how it happened, but it makes me feel nauseous. About half my schools required fewer than 13, so I didn't notice until I was applying for another school with a 15-page minimum and opened up the sample to check it.

I'm just going to hope that enough applicants include the citations pages in their page counts that adcoms are flexible on the exact number of pages. 

My writing sample just makes me feel ill as a whole though, so nothing new there.

[Warelin]

3 hours ago, turtleducks said:

Here's a bad one: I counted wrong and sent 13 pages of writing sample to a school that required 15-25. I don't know how it happened, but it makes me feel nauseous. About half my schools required fewer than 13, so I didn't notice until I was applying for another school with a 15-page minimum and opened up the sample to check it.

I'm just going to hope that enough applicants include the citations pages in their page counts that adcoms are flexible on the exact number of pages. 

My writing sample just makes me feel ill as a whole though, so nothing new there.

FWIW: A program I spoke (I can't remember if it was in Rhet/Comp or English) said that their program does include the work cited page in their count. They told me that I should cut the works cited page if I'm over the limit. Other directors have said other things. I ended up cutting a different part because I felt the works cited page was too important to cut. YMMV.

[NotAlice]

I had two bloopers on one of my applications. I put the wrong semester as a start date for a class tutor. Caught that after one application. Also, my writing sample has a stupid footnote error. I edited it and forgot to change one footnote to ibid. It's noticeable (now, of course) because there are several cites from the same book on that page both before and after. So it's book cited, ibid, ibid, ibid, same book cited, ibid, ibid, ibid. 

[Glasperlenspieler]

26 minutes ago, Warelin said:

I ended up cutting a different part because I felt the works cited page was too important to cut.

That's the beauty of Chicago style.

[FreakyFoucault]

57 minutes ago, Glasperlenspieler said:

That's the beauty of Chicago style.

MLA pales in comparison... 

[WildeThing]

MLA all the way.

[Bayesian1701]

Not in your field but I wanted to contribute my errors.  

So I applied for a fellowship (NSF GRFP) and I reused my SOP for graduate application.   The application is not necessarily evaluated by someone in your subfield I so explained what my subfield, Bayesian statistics, was.  I did not remove this statement in the SOP I used to Duke which is a department where almost everyone does Bayesian statistics.   I still made the shortlist so it turned out ok.

Another error I made was the typesetting language I used (TeX, common in STEM) has some weird formatting quirks one of which is occasionally ignoring apostrophes and removing them from the text unless you use a special code.   I had three apostrophes in my fellowship application that were omitted.  I said things like University Xs conference instead of University X's conference.   I will see how that turns out later but since it is very competitive I might have ruined my chances.  I still have 2 months of waiting left. 

I am not rereading my SOPs or CV since there is nothing I can do about it now so I don't want to stress.  Plus I have read enough paper to realize that almost everyone has a typo (at least in my field) in most of their publications.  It is very easy to make a mistake in a big document,  no matter how many times you proofread it.  

[FreakyFoucault]

57 minutes ago, Bayesian1701 said:

I will see how that turns out later but since it is very competitive I might have ruined my chances. 

@Bayesian1701, I’m about as totalitarian as English majors get in terms of orthographic correctness, but even I am entirely disheartened to hear that three mere apostrophes could ruin one’s chances at a STEM fellowship. That’s some shit, if you ask me.