EALC / EALAC / EAS 2019

[lordtiandao]

On 11/23/2018 at 9:38 AM, potsupotsu said:

I did actually think about applying there! I didn't apply for kind of a superficial reason, but to be honest I couldn't see myself living in LA for that long... I prefer the east coast too much!

That's what they all say until they've spent time in LA?

[BagelBabee]

On 11/24/2018 at 5:16 AM, FedeHikari said:

Chicago, Harvard HEAL, Columbia (History - East Asia), Yale, Princeton, Wisconsin - Madison, Univ. of Chicago at Urbana, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB (lol written like that they seem drugs) ahah! Good luck to you too

Hi there, I would encourage to apply to Brown too! Kerry Smith and Samuel Perry may also work for you  

[FedeHikari]

35 minutes ago, BagelBabee said:

Hi there, I would encourage to apply to Brown too! Kerry Smith and Samuel Perry may also work for you  

Actually, I've added it!! (Especially for Professor Smith)  Thank you ❤️  Now I'm almost done with every application (and ardently hoping my recommenders upload every letter in time...)

[AnUglyBoringNerd]

5 hours ago, BagelBabee said:

Hi there, I would encourage to apply to Brown too! Kerry Smith and Samuel Perry may also work for you  

How's going at Brown?

[civitas]

I have no idea... Whether an AW of 4.0 is enough for an international applicant? I got my GRE score today.

PS I have made up my mind... I'm going to examine the imperial heritage in modern and contemporary Chinese institution.

Edited December 2, 2018 by civitas

[BagelBabee]

On 11/30/2018 at 10:40 AM, FedeHikari said:

Actually, I've added it!! (Especially for Professor Smith)  Thank you ❤️  Now I'm almost done with every application (and ardently hoping my recommenders upload every letter in time...)

I'm glad you did! Feel free to ask me if you have any questions. I'm also doing colonial Taiwan.

[BagelBabee]

On 11/30/2018 at 3:21 PM, AnUglyBoringNerd said:

How's going at Brown?

Hey everything's nice! It's a pretty cool school. I suppose you are also enjoying your life in Columbia?

[AnUglyBoringNerd]

17 hours ago, BagelBabee said:

life in Columbia

Aww definitely! My wonderland and gingerbread house it is! So glad to hear that you are doing great!

[Naito]

@civitas I applied to EALC/EAS last year. Got into UPenn, Stanford, etc. for MA and could go on to PhD after the MA but declined ALL their offers. (I'm now at Harvard for a completely different graduate program, and just finished my first semester with a 4.0 woohoo, and my friend at Harvard RSEA MA is regretting his decision with a boatload of debt!!!) I think you should focus on getting into Harvard's Graduate School of Education. I attended a talk of a guy who graduated from GSE and is now working for Google as a university recruiter (they have a group just to recruit Harvard students). You can do a lot more than just education with Harvard's GSE, unless you really, really, REALLY love doing EALC research. And whatever you do, do NOT take on a lot of student debt, or you will be like this person (BA East Asian Studies, Cornell; MA East Asian Studies, Stanford, but debt): https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-have-a-lot-of-student-loan-debt

I'd like to defer to this 高人 for how admissions at the Ivy Leagues work for EALC in terms of GPA, GRE, LOR, SOP, etc. etc.

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by Naito

[Naito]

@AnUglyBoringNerd I'm glad you are enjoying Columbia!  I'm still writing classical Chinese poetry in my spare time...because “对酒当歌，人生几何” and "生年不满百，常怀千岁忧。 / 昼短苦夜长，何不秉烛游！ / 为乐当及时， 何能待来兹 ？/ 愚者爱惜费，但为后世嗤。/ 仙人王子乔，难可与等期。" haha

[civitas]

4 minutes ago, Naito said:

@civitas I applied to EALC/EAS last year. Got into UPenn, Stanford, etc. for MA and could go on to PhD after the MA but declined ALL their offers. (I'm now at Harvard for a completely different graduate program, and just finished my first semester with a 4.0 woohoo, and my friend at Harvard RSEA MA is regretting his decision with a boatload of debt!!!) I think you should focus on getting into Harvard's Graduate School of Education. I attended a talk of a guy who graduated from GSE and is now working for Google as a university recruiter (they have a group just to recruit Harvard students). You can do a lot more than just education with Harvard's GSE, unless you really, really, REALLY love doing EALC research. And whatever you do, do NOT take on a lot of student debt, or you will be like this person (BA East Asian Studies, Cornell; MA East Asian Studies, Stanford, but debt): https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-have-a-lot-of-student-loan-debt

I'd like to defer to this 高人 for how admissions at the Ivy Leagues work for EALC in terms of GPA, GRE, LOR, SOP, etc. etc.

 

Thanks for your kind response. As all my applications are nearly filed in, I have no choice but wait for the outcome and then consult your opinions. My undergrad GPA is low for said reasons (establishing my own business in China), and I have strong LoR from my professors in a top Chinese university (with top Chinese and history departments) in EAS applications. My LoRs for education departments are different: however, none are coming from Western universities and I don't think they have connections. I am still doubting whether I will get rejected from them all

[Naito]

@civitas I took a German class with a girl working at the World Bank. She did NOT have a great GPA. I think she went to National Singapore University for undergrad. She got into Harvard GSE for this Mind, Brain, and Education Master: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/masters/mbe

Best of luck civitas! 新年快乐，心想事成！  
 

[civitas]

3 minutes ago, Naito said:

@civitas I took a German class with a girl working at the World Bank. She did NOT have a great GPA. I think she went to National Singapore University for undergrad. She got into Harvard GSE for this Mind, Brain, and Education Master: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/masters/mbe

Best of luck civitas! 新年快乐，心想事成！  
 

Thanks for your wishes! I wonder if they have a GPA threshold at Harvard or other top universities; I did not even submit my average GPA since my undergraduate institution did not provide one. If they review my CV maybe I am safe for now; otherwise I have to doubt it.

[AnUglyBoringNerd]

@Naito Happy New Year to you too! Glad to hear that you are enjoying Harvard!  And @civitas, don't worry about the average GPA thing, many non-US universities use a different grading policy, in which case it's normal to leave the average GPA blank. And your GPA looks alright to me. (I personally don't think anyone would get admitted to humanities programs bc they have high GPAs or rejected for less than stellar GPAs, what's way more important is the SOP and the writing sample)

[civitas]

2 minutes ago, AnUglyBoringNerd said:

@Naito Happy New Year to you too! Glad to hear that you are enjoying Harvard!  And @civitas, don't worry about the average GPA thing, many non-US universities use a different grading policy, in which case it's normal to leave the average GPA blank. And your GPA looks alright to me. (I personally don't think anyone would get admitted to humanities programs bc they have high GPAs or rejected for less than stellar GPAs, what's way more important is the SOP and the writing sample)

Thanks! I wonder if they will somehow ignore my GPA (in last 2 years) for my reasons provided. I have many (5+) awards to prove my words. Usually, they will appreciate those who have a low GPA in freshman year but managed to get better later, however, I am not in the case..

[Naito]

On 1/8/2019 at 2:01 PM, AnUglyBoringNerd said:

@Naito Happy New Year to you too! Glad to hear that you are enjoying Harvard!  And @civitas, don't worry about the average GPA thing, many non-US universities use a different grading policy, in which case it's normal to leave the average GPA blank. And your GPA looks alright to me. (I personally don't think anyone would get admitted to humanities programs bc they have high GPAs or rejected for less than stellar GPAs, what's way more important is the SOP and the writing sample)

Thanks @AnUglyBoringNerd! Actually, I got accepted to Stanford for a certificate in between semesters at Harvard, and I'm actually doing the certificate program right now during the winter recess before the Spring 2019 semester starts at Harvard. I'm enjoying both. Also, there is a 30-credit MS at Columbia that makes one eligible to apply to a Doctorate at Columbia in the same field that I really like and want to do, but I'll try to get a job first after the Harvard program and then get my employer to pay for me for both the Columbia MS and Doctorate so I won't have to pay a dime. Never stop learning!  

[FedeHikari]

One question to senpais or other poor fellows who share with me this hellish wait XD I did receive today an email from Harvard GSAS Department, "As part of the application review process, the admissions committee has requested additional information from applicants regarding prior language study and language proficiency. In order collect this information, we have added a brief form to your online application record." 

Obviously my heart skipped a beat when I saw the email, even though rationally I do not hope to hear back until February at least. But does it mean they already did some sort of skimming process? Since the deadline was a month ago, even given Christmas holidays in between, I kinda figured that they had already "eliminated" some applicants. Do you think this is the case or the email was sent to all applicants? I may have imagined the process in a very wrong way.  Sorry for the long post! This wait is killing me, and it's way too soon to go nuts X'D 

[potsupotsu]

It was sent to me and my friend as well so I think they are sending it to all applicants. Though surely by this point it means that you've made it past at least the first review? I should think.

[FedeHikari]

8 minutes ago, potsupotsu said:

It was sent to me and my friend as well so I think they are sending it to all applicants. Though surely by this point it means that you've made it past at least the first review? I should think.

I totally share your thoughts. By browsing this very forum I should conclude that every applicant was sent this email. However, it feels strange that they still are at first review stage...

[EAstudies]

11 hours ago, FedeHikari said:

One question to senpais or other poor fellows who share with me this hellish wait XD I did receive today an email from Harvard GSAS Department, "As part of the application review process, the admissions committee has requested additional information from applicants regarding prior language study and language proficiency. In order collect this information, we have added a brief form to your online application record." 

Obviously my heart skipped a beat when I saw the email, even though rationally I do not hope to hear back until February at least. But does it mean they already did some sort of skimming process? Since the deadline was a month ago, even given Christmas holidays in between, I kinda figured that they had already "eliminated" some applicants. Do you think this is the case or the email was sent to all applicants? I may have imagined the process in a very wrong way.  Sorry for the long post! This wait is killing me, and it's way too soon to go nuts X'D 

I also got this email from Harvard. And this is about time they review Ph.D. applications, so it shouldn't be surprising if they had started the process. In fact, I already finished a Skype interview with one of the schools last week and received an interview request from another school today.

But that being said, it seems like most schools just started to review the applications. It's unlikely that they started the process as soon as they received all the applications since most professors were still grading finals in early and late December and the administration also needed to compile application packets. The professor I had an interview told me that their committee will be reviewing the apps starting this week, and the school that sent me an interview request today said that I will be interviewing with the committee (which means that they officially started the process not too long ago). And my friends who are well into a Ph.D. program told me that they won't start reviewing the applications until early-January. Every school and department has a different schedule, but I don't imagine it will be drastically different by school.

So I think it's very possible that Harvard sent out the email by mistake (and I certainly did submit language proficiency). Or, as you said, they might have been through the first round of elimination. Who knows! I'm just trying not to read into things too much since the result will be out in February one way or the other! ??

[frankego]

 

On 1/9/2019 at 3:05 AM, civitas said:

Thanks! I wonder if they will somehow ignore my GPA (in last 2 years) for my reasons provided. I have many (5+) awards to prove my words. Usually, they will appreciate those who have a low GPA in freshman year but managed to get better later, however, I am not in the case..

It seems to me that we have the same interest in research field.? But my GRE/TOEFL scores are no so well compared with yours. Just wondering whether these scores are important in MA application (in applying Ph.D it may not so important )

[AnUglyBoringNerd]

On 1/11/2019 at 1:20 PM, FedeHikari said:

they still are at first review stage...

Winter break hasn't ended so I imagine some professors are not back yet and the applications could still be with the department administration. The application form of Harvard used to have a section specifically devoted to language in great detail (at least that was the case when I applied in 2016), maybe this year they forgot to add this section and now are trying to collect that info.

 

[Naito]

22 minutes ago, AnUglyBoringNerd said:

Winter break hasn't ended so I imagine some professors are not back yet and the applications could still be with the department administration. The application form of Harvard used to have a section specifically devoted to language in great detail (at least that was the case when I applied in 2016), maybe this year they forgot to add this section and now are trying to collect that info.

 

Yeah professors are away for the winter recess and won’t be back for classes until late Jan. The clerks in the GSAS office probably are assembling the applications and ranking them in terms of GPA, GRE, AND languages etc. for committee review. 

If I remember correctly there was a language section for virtually all the schools I applied to (UPenn, Stanford, Harvard etc.) in 2017 as well. 

[Naito]

Also, Fall semester grades were just posted recently at Harvard so it is doubtful the professors had time for both recording the grades and reviewing prospective students’ applications...

Edited January 13, 2019 by Naito

[potsupotsu]

I also had an (informal) interview with a POI at one of the schools I applied to and it definitely sounded like the POI had read my application materials, but they also noted that the committee had not yet met.