Pet Peeves about the application process

[GraceEun]

Just had a brief but annoying encounter on the phone with a woman at the graduate admissions office. 

I was calling to check application status since I could see stuff I had already sent was missing, but the woman pretty much snapped at me and looked up stuff in a huff. I know that these calls are common, and that sometimes callers can be frustrating (I work at an admissions office) but for an applicant who is spending extensive time and money to apply to ___ institution, some courtesy/manners/friendliness would be nice. Makes me kind of question my intent to even apply to that university :/ 

 

Oh well. 

 

What are your pet peeves?

Edited January 13, 2014 by GraceEun

[Parnassus]

SOP. I'm in the beginning stages (pre-writing) following Asher's advice, and the first prewriting activity is what makes you unique (not as a student but as a person.) He had a an example of this girl who said she was "average"(but spoilers: she was in an earthquake!) I just found that advice too far fetched for my tastes, I guess.

[geographyrocks]

When visiting a school and meeting with the graduate admissions contact, I was told repeatedly how difficult it was to get into the school and how I should probably leave my options open/think about applying elsewhere.  The kicker was that the woman had no idea what my credentials were because we hadn't discussed them yet and I hadn't included them in the brief email I sent to arrange the appointment. 

[geographyrocks]

SOP. I'm in the beginning stages (pre-writing) following Asher's advice, and the first prewriting activity is what makes you unique (not as a student but as a person.) He had a an example of this girl who said she was "average"(but spoilers: she was in an earthquake!) I just found that advice too far fetched for my tastes, I guess.

 

I eventually went the route of writing down everything that could possibly make me sound interesting or anything that could be an accomplishment.  I then spent about a month weeding out everything that wasn't relevant/was too wordy/no one would care about.  This worked the best for me.  Prior to using this method, it had taken me 2 weeks to write a paragraph which I didn't even use in the end. 

[DeafAudi]

I have to apply through a centralized application portal (CSDCAS) and the purpose of this is to provide a "convenient" way to consolidate all of your application materials. However, most of the schools I am applying to that use this system also require their own copy of the GRE and/or transcripts plus a supplemental application complete with fee. UGH. Talk about a money grab! 

[microarray]

1) Every application is completely different.

 

2) There are no stats on how many interviews are offerred at universities. You can see how many students applied and how many accepted, but no info on how many interviewed.

 

3) Applications that don't let you submit letters of rec requests until you're finished applying. (note to anyone reading this in the future, apply a few weeks early in case this happens!)

[accioanime]

VIDEOS!!!!!!

 

Honestly, I thought it would be the SOP or getting LORs, but when one of the schools I am applying for asked for a video statement of why you want to be part of the program, it was the most difficult part for me. I only have 3 minutes to answer 5 questions which is too short of a time frame. I had to record it live so I am unable to edit or cut the video. God knows how many times I had to do it over and over again while trying to maintain eye contact with my webcam. This probably sounds silly because youtoubers can spend hours vlogging and just talking to the camera but it was just an annoying part of the application for me. I had always been a much better writer than speaker.