Fall 2012 Applicant Chit Chat

[Sigaba]

Wise words, as usual, Sigaba.

Thank you for the compliment.

However, if my recommendations don't help people get to where they want to go, they're useless.

Or, to paraphrase Winston Wolfe, let's forgo the congratulatory hand shakes until we get the car to North Hollywood.

[Safferz]

This might have been covered on another thread, but I thought I'd get some advice from history folks.

How are you all managing your reference letters? Any best practices to recommend? Do you give each referee a package with your application materials and links to online application so they can input the letter? Is anyone using a dossier service?

I am temperamentally unsuited to asking people for favors. So I hate asking for reference letters, even though professors have been really nice and have offered to do it. I know many professors are happy to do it, but I still don't like asking for them. So, I just want to make the process as efficient and glitch-free for them as possible.

Any advice on managing / tracking / submitting letters would be appreciated!

I gave each referee a package - a sheet with the name of each school and its deadline, and a copy of my SOP, transcript, CV and writing sample. My understanding is that with online applications, we'll have to register the name and email of each referee, and each will receive an email instructing them on how to upload their letters to the online application. So I've told each professor to expect those emails, and that I'll try to register their names on all of my applications on the same day (I'm aiming to finish all my applications by the second week of Nov), so they can receive all nine emails at the same time.

[oryantin]

I've been told by a friend of mine who got accepted into Michigan last year that it may be good to a bit exeggerate qualifications that I have. Do you think that way and that this does not harm the chance of being admitted? For example, he said that if you are beginner in Arabic, state that you have an intermediate level of it. In case of acceptance, you'll improve it until the first semester of your PhD. He also warned me not to do this in my application to Princeton because they call a group of applicants to the school

Edited October 19, 2011 by orient

[cooperstreet]

orient,

The assessment of language levels are pretty slippery. A year of arabic training isn't the same across universities, so you could get away with it, but I don't think it matters what your self-assessment is. They're going to assess your language training by the courses you took and any study abroad programs you completed, or if you demostrated knowledge of the language--say, translating something for a publication or conducted research in foreign language sources. Or at least that is what I have been told.

[TMP]

This might have been covered on another thread, but I thought I'd get some advice from history folks.

How are you all managing your reference letters? Any best practices to recommend? Do you give each referee a package with your application materials and links to online application so they can input the letter? Is anyone using a dossier service?

I am temperamentally unsuited to asking people for favors. So I hate asking for reference letters, even though professors have been really nice and have offered to do it. I know many professors are happy to do it, but I still don't like asking for them. So, I just want to make the process as efficient and glitch-free for them as possible.

Any advice on managing / tracking / submitting letters would be appreciated!

You need to work on this. You will be asking for favors throughout your entire academic career and you'll have others asking you as well. You can't get ahead without help. LORs are part of the job and you will be writing LORs for your future students. Put yourself in your future student's shoes. What would you do, as a professor? You need to take the initiative- professors are busy with their lives and don't want to have to do everything for their students. Your LOR writers certainly can't submit the letters to grad schools without you signing them up!

It's uncomfortable, I know, but trust me, it gets easier over time once you start seeing the results of asking for favors. They are amazing.

Cooperstreet- I was just told this as well. You need some kind of...evidence, may it be in your writing sample, classes on your transcripts, or volunteer/work for an archivist... just something. I know one school in particular that is SO stringent in its language requirements that it actually demands a separate essay detailing your training history, including books used! That's because that program knows that this language isn't taught in a standard manner in the US and want all of its students to come in with fairly equal knowledge of that language.

[sandyvanb]

Bad teaching day today... I hope that one of my sections drops, I mean the whole class. I feel so hostile... On the other hand, I touched base with my LORs and and I'm going to give them some additional material next so they are all ready for my apps. It's nice that my former profs are now colleagues.

[Sigaba]

On creating a strong application for each school, beyond tailoring the SOP and contacting profs what more is there? I suppose I could do so through my writing sample but that may be like opening pandora's box........ LORs?

I urge all applicants to consider the utility of spending a few hours "scrubbing" their presence in the digital world. Institutions in the private sector are increasingly performing internet background checks. I have it on good authority that academic institutions are increasingly taking their cues from the private sector for "best practices" when it comes to risk management.

Apply the standard of not putting anything on the internet that you'd not be comfortable reading on the front page of the New York Times. Assume that a professional researcher who believes that "the personal is political" is going to spend thirty minutes on google using information in your application to find out what you've written on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LiveJournal, blogs, and internet BBs.

[oryantin]

hey, another question :S

is a writing sample on an intellectual biography of an early modern muslim mystics okay? how important is using primary sources? is there anyone who is willing to give some feedback on my paper when it is completed hopefully at the end of this month? i'll appreaciate especially if someone who studies islamic history does so. i have already requested a professor for feedback but an early check before him will be great.

[TMP]

It needs a solid argument, excellent writing, and a plethora of primary and secondary sources to support your argument. Topic doesn't matter as much as those three criteria.

[crazedandinfused]

Anyone want to read a Statement of Purpose? Or a Writing Sample?

Edited October 20, 2011 by crazedandinfused

[StrangeLight]

Anyone want to read a Statement of Purpose? Or a Writing Sample?

you should really be asking this question to as many professors as you can, NOT graduate students, let alone fellow applicants. the advice that anyone could give you here, even the most seasoned graduate students, will pale in comparison to what young professors can tell you about your SOP and writing sample.

[crazedandinfused]

you should really be asking this question to as many professors as you can, NOT graduate students, let alone fellow applicants. the advice that anyone could give you here, even the most seasoned graduate students, will pale in comparison to what young professors can tell you about your SOP and writing sample.

I'm sending them out to my recommenders tomorrow, and I've already had one professor proofread my writing sample. I was just feeling anxious when I posted that. Point well taken!

[goldielocks]

Alright, people. Checking in on what you've all gotten done this weekend. Deadlines are approaching faster and faster, it seems. How's it going?

Conference paper #1 delivered. Went great. Met with a potential professor in that city while I was there, and it was fantastic. Now polishing conference paper #2 for the week after next, and revising the SOP, as usual. Managed to register all of my recommenders on all of the app websites. Slowly gaining steam.

How about you?

PS: Sandy, still sending good vibes to you and your teaching load!

[sandyvanb]

I am trying to stay on top of my lectures. I'm hoping to revise two writing samples tonight after I upload a quiz and get my powerpoint done for tomorrow. I am still trying to plow through a few journal articles before I write some potential advisors. We had fall break on Thursday and Friday and I had originally planned on getting a lot of work done, but alas, I had to run around and get things done both days.

Goldie, thanks and congrats on the successful conference presentation!

[goldielocks]

Sandy, are you a list maker? I'm an obsessive list maker — something about checking off things satisfies my neurotic need to be productive all the time. It seems like you're juggling things well!

[sandyvanb]

Goldie,

I am a compulsive list maker! If I do something that isn't on my list I have to add it on so I can cross it off!

[goldielocks]

C'mon, I know Sandy and I weren't the only ones working this weekend.

[crater21]

Super unproductive weekend! With family visiting from out of town, my grand plans to whip off another draft of my SoP went totally awry.

In the end, I managed to write to a couple more potential supervisors (positive reply from one, still no reply from the other), and worked a bit on condensing my thesis into a writing sample. That is going to be one of the harder parts of the application, I suspect. I still don't know what to cut and what to keep.

[crater21]

I gave each referee a package - a sheet with the name of each school and its deadline, and a copy of my SOP, transcript, CV and writing sample. My understanding is that with online applications, we'll have to register the name and email of each referee, and each will receive an email instructing them on how to upload their letters to the online application. So I've told each professor to expect those emails, and that I'll try to register their names on all of my applications on the same day (I'm aiming to finish all my applications by the second week of Nov), so they can receive all nine emails at the same time.

Thanks! That is similar to what I'm doing as well. But, I was thinking of registering my referees on the online application now, rather than waiting until each application was complete. Are you waiting to register them when you have completed all the applications?

[iamincontrolhere-haig]

Thanks! That is similar to what I'm doing as well. But, I was thinking of registering my referees on the online application now, rather than waiting until each application was complete. Are you waiting to register them when you have completed all the applications?

Some applications will send emails prompting your LOR writers to upload their letters as soon as you register them, while other applications will not accept letters until you have submitted a complete application (even if you register your writers beforehand). To avoid confusion and lost emails, I think registering all of your writers and submitting all of your applications on the same day is a good idea.

[Sparky]

To avoid confusion and lost emails, I think registering all of your writers and submitting all of your applications on the same day is a good idea.

Careful with this, though. Make sure your LOR writers know how many letters they'll be writing and that they should have received notifications from N number of schools.

The reason for this is that multiple colleges (of course) use the same general application software. So if the professor's e-mail provider is Gmail-based, like many universities, e-mails sent from the same corporate address even though they have to do with different schools' applications, like rec_letters@applyyourself.com or whatever, they will show up as ONE THREAD in the prof's inbox. Make SURE your profs are aware that this might happen, and to look for ALL the e-mails in the thread, not just the one their browser jumps to when they click on the link.

You really, really don't want to be dealing with the last minute panic when you realize it's a week past the deadline and one of your apps is missing 2 out of 3 LORs, simply because the profs never scrolled up to the first e-mail in the thread!

(ETA: The corollary advice, of course, is don't wait until a week after the deadline to check up on whether the LORs were received.)

Edited October 25, 2011 by Sparky

[Safferz]

Thanks! That is similar to what I'm doing as well. But, I was thinking of registering my referees on the online application now, rather than waiting until each application was complete. Are you waiting to register them when you have completed all the applications?

I was planning to register them a week or two before completing applications, but iamincontrolhere-haig raised a point I didn't consider. I assumed the applications send out emails to referees the moment you register them! I guess that means I'll really have to get these applications done well in advance of Dec.1st so my letters are uploaded on time.

C'mon, I know Sandy and I weren't the only ones working this weekend.

I read the Hunger Games, does that count?

[Khayzuran]

I read the Hunger Games, does that count?

Great book! Though I think books 2 and 3 went downhill.

[TMP]

Careful though! A lot of professors will wait until much closer to the deadline to submit their LORs because they want as much time as possible to get to know you and your work. But there are SOME like *cough*oneofmyprofessors*cough* who "think" that they have to get their letters in ASAP even if you're still working on your draft or whatever. I remember freaking out when I saw some of my professors send in their LORs as early as early November for mid-December deadlines. Of course her letter didn't hurt but... it was discomforting and I thought "is she really sure that she knows me enough to write up a letter in a single night?"

So... remind them that they should take the time to write a good letter, don't rush.... just remember to send them in around the deadline!

[remenis]

quick question everyone:

If I want to mention a specific course title in my SOP, do I put it in quotation marks or what?