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That awkward moment when...


melissaam

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That moment when the country you currently live in (China) decides it's a great time to block all the major VPNs and tighten up internet security to a ridiculous level . . . so now you can't access ANY department websites!  And then you have to start harassing departments via email to make sure your documents have all arrived (and explaining, with just the right amount of pathos, that you live in a very restrictive country that hates intellectual freedom).  So, so, so frustrating!

I can't even imagine!!

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That moment when the country you currently live in (China) decides it's a great time to block all the major VPNs and tighten up internet security to a ridiculous level . . . so now you can't access ANY department websites!  And then you have to start harassing departments via email to make sure your documents have all arrived (and explaining, with just the right amount of pathos, that you live in a very restrictive country that hates intellectual freedom).  So, so, so frustrating!

 

Oh, I know how you feel. Applicants from lousy countries, assemble!

My president "has suicided" a prosecutor that was investigating her and I fear that this event affects negatively my application. Ok, maybe my worries are too far fetched. But they are still here.

Edited by Beatrice Blumenstrauss
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Oh, I know how you feel. Applicants from lousy countries, assemble!

My president "has suicided" a prosecutor that was investigating her and I fear that this event affects negatively my application. Ok, maybe my worries are too far fetched. But they are still here.

 

I don't see why that would be held against you - it's not as if Brazil is the only country in which stuff like that happens, and regardless, while it is pretty depressing, it just makes your pursuit of intellectual freedom in an academic setting even more relevant.

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... you send out follow-up emailsduring the wait period to POIs you have already skyped with, just to remind them about yourself and reiterating how excited you are for the possibility to work with them.  One of them responds, and at first you are really excited, thinking how nice for them to write back - but then you open the message and it says "I am not sure I can respond for the "certain school name" PhD Program. At "other school name" we have just started reviewing our applications."

 

YIKES!  I had to send out a really apologetic response.  I hope that didn't screw things up too much :(

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I don't see why that would be held against you - it's not as if Brazil is the only country in which stuff like that happens, and regardless, while it is pretty depressing, it just makes your pursuit of intellectual freedom in an academic setting even more relevant.

:)

 

You're right.

By the way, it's Argentina.

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OOPS… Well I was thinking of Brazil because I had read some articles about endemic corruption there, and was simultaneously thinking of the other BRIC countries where prosecutors/dissidents mysteriously die, but yes, it was Argentina - my bad. 

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So, this time around I had a Prof who decided he no longer wanted to write my LORs because I wasn't "selective enough" in my university section and he thought my masters and bachelors PI's would provide better LORs… one week AFTER all of my apps were due. Oh, and did I mention that both of those individuals were already writing references for my applications? You have to love the differences between UK and US applications, with the UK needing 2 LORs and the US needing 3, sometimes the Professors just don't understand.

 

After 90 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing, those were fun phone calls to make.

 

I'm glad my anxiety ridden thread from 2 years ago is still living.

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OOPS… Well I was thinking of Brazil because I had read some articles about endemic corruption there, and was simultaneously thinking of the other BRIC countries where prosecutors/dissidents mysteriously die, but yes, it was Argentina - my bad. 

:)

 

Gosh, Brazil is great compared to us!

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I swore my parents to secrecy because I didn't want to have to explain to all the relatives if I happen to get rejected from all six schools I applied to (WHY was I such a fool to only do six?!?!?!) . . . and now I believe we're up to at least eight relatives dear Mumsie has blabbed to.  Sigh.  It's touching how much she believes in me, but now I feel all this added family pressure suddenly.  It would be the first PhD on either side of the family (I also have the first MA and will soon have the first M.Ed.), so I guess my mother wouldn't be human if she weren't a little excited.

 

In other awkwardness, my dear China is still happily blocking absolutely every website that I need to access . . . except Grad Cafe for some reason.  Odd.  Usually the government dislikes any site that people use for communication.

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I swore my parents to secrecy because I didn't want to have to explain to all the relatives if I happen to get rejected from all six schools I applied to (WHY was I such a fool to only do six?!?!?!) . . . and now I believe we're up to at least eight relatives dear Mumsie has blabbed to.  Sigh.  It's touching how much she believes in me, but now I feel all this added family pressure suddenly.  It would be the first PhD on either side of the family (I also have the first MA and will soon have the first M.Ed.), so I guess my mother wouldn't be human if she weren't a little excited.

 

In other awkwardness, my dear China is still happily blocking absolutely every website that I need to access . . . except Grad Cafe for some reason.  Odd.  Usually the government dislikes any site that people use for communication.

 

Well, if you need something just send me a PM! I can look things up for you!

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When I was applying for one of the schools a few weeks ago (deadline was Jan 15), I was browsing through a few professor's research websites, and one of the professor's website looked very interesting and I was stoked because I finally found a faculty whose interest may mesh with mine. I wrote the entire email, prepare to send him my qualifications, only to glance at his "prospective students" webpage again to see a sentence of small font size reading "note: I am not taking any graduate students this year or next year". 

This happened to me. I basically toiled over the "I Have a Dream" of prospective student email speeches for a few days and, before I hit 'send', decided to quickly re-read my POI's school profile once more. It had been updated since I visited earlier that week to read, "Dr. X is not accepting students for fall, 2015". 

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When you accidentally select to have all your correspondence with the University come in French, and have to awkwardly ask the grad studies department to change it - I don't know how well this bodes for my chances at a bilingual university haha 

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I thought I would be fancy by doing all of my SOPs in LaTeX. To personalize them I included the physical address of each graduate school at the top of each letter. The one I sent to Cornell was addressed to the wrong school.

 

Surely this has nothing to do with why I haven't heard so much as a whisper back from them...

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  • 4 weeks later...

When your plane gets delayed three times to finally get cancelled, then they book you a flight 7 hours latter but it eventually gets cancelled as well, then they offer you a flight 24hrs later which would get you to your destination once the interviews are over, so you just head home and pay $100 for a cab...

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When your plane gets delayed three times to finally get cancelled, then they book you a flight 7 hours latter but it eventually gets cancelled as well, then they offer you a flight 24hrs later which would get you to your destination once the interviews are over, so you just head home and pay $100 for a cab...

 

Oh no :( That ALMOST happened to me, but I managed to get on the last (overbooked) flight available. Not a good time for flying right now.

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When your plane gets delayed three times to finally get cancelled, then they book you a flight 7 hours latter but it eventually gets cancelled as well, then they offer you a flight 24hrs later which would get you to your destination once the interviews are over, so you just head home and pay $100 for a cab...

That really sucks, I'm sorry. I had a terrible time travelling this week as well, but it was on the way back from a visit weekend. I had an extra day there with the other prospectives whose flights were cancelled.

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  • 3 years later...

This thread needs to be revived!

On my end I just realized that I had gotten the first name of my POI in both the application and SOP completely wrong (apart from first and last letter of the name). I emailed the grad adm team and they said they cant change it, but the dept let me resubmit my SOP. So i've got that going for me which is kinda nice

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38 minutes ago, loffire said:

This thread needs to be revived!

On my end I just realized that I had gotten the first name of my POI in both the application and SOP completely wrong (apart from first and last letter of the name). I emailed the grad adm team and they said they cant change it, but the dept let me resubmit my SOP. So i've got that going for me which is kinda nice

hahah wrong version?

Still, the departmetn knows, so let's hope they won't tell ad comm or use both letters...

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13 hours ago, Boolakanaka said:

You start your personal statement with this first sentence,  “My path to (insert hoity toity Ivy university) and you send it to schools other than the one you just named....

If it’s any consolation, I still got admission to two of my four tops schools....

I ended my statement with "I am very excited to pursue graduate education at [school]" and miraculously only forgot to change it once... thankfully they let me resubmit my SOP when I emailed the department!

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14 hours ago, Psygeek said:

hahah wrong version?

Still, the departmetn knows, so let's hope they won't tell ad comm or use both letters...

I spelt her name as Karen instead of Kristen. My brain somehow saw first and last letters and just went with Karen. good job brain. you had one job

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3 hours ago, loffire said:

I spelt her name as Karen instead of Kristen. My brain somehow saw first and last letters and just went with Karen. good job brain. you had one job

Just make sure to get it right if you actually get to the interviews :) These things happen!

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