Application FAILS!

[FaultyPowers]

Nice guy! Just... thorough.

[daykid]

On the upside its good he's this interested!

[isilya]

Not in Anthropology but thought I'd chime in! I have two...

 

First of all, WTF is up with the NSF GRFP document upload system?? It did not want to take any version of my transcript PDFs!! Eventually I had to just take screenshots of my unofficial transcripts, put the pages all together, and convert it to a PDF! Yeah, those blurry images look totally legit. /s

 

Also, NYU is so annoying...once you upload a document, it's there forever. You can delete it and upload a new document but you have to name it something else! I happened to revise my CV a couple of times and now the final name in the system is something like "Name CV new" because I had used up nicer names in previous iterations...ugh -__-

[FaultyPowers]

Not in Anthropology but thought I'd chime in! I have two...

 

First of all, WTF is up with the NSF GRFP document upload system?? It did not want to take any version of my transcript PDFs!! Eventually I had to just take screenshots of my unofficial transcripts, put the pages all together, and convert it to a PDF! Yeah, those blurry images look totally legit. /s

 

Also, NYU is so annoying...once you upload a document, it's there forever. You can delete it and upload a new document but you have to name it something else! I happened to revise my CV a couple of times and now the final name in the system is something like "Name CV new" because I had used up nicer names in previous iterations...ugh -__-

 

Isn't it ridiculous!?

 

I had to just make a new log in for one of mine. And then be really, reeeeeally careful with all my uploads.

[FaultyPowers]

He said it "didn't matter"... and yet, if it's not there I clearly haven't submitted it yet. It's like calling somebody to ask whether they're sitting on your lap. Regardless of their answer, you should know already!

He's getting a partial SOP, a writing sample and one unofficial LOR and he's just gonna have to be happy with that.

 

Oh GOD this FAIL just keeps gettin' worse!!

 

The interview went well, chatty-chat, talky-talk etc. He told me I was in the top tier of applicants, which is good, but then he said that on top of the letters, he would also want to talk to my letter writers on the phone. 

 

See, here's the thing with my letters. One is from a supervisor at my field site which, since the POI at this program wants you to already come in with a field site, is pretty important. That's fine. The other is from my supervisor at work, who's a big name in the field and has known me longer than my other writers, but I've never been his student. But my third letter is from my MA thesis supervisor. 

 

Here's the thing about that. During the final stages of my MA, the chair of my thesis committee decided he was done with working, and QUIT. He didn't slowly retire, staying on the committee's of all his students, no. He just up and left, with five or six students suddenly without a committee! LONG miserable story short, I got a new committee and a new thesis chair, but it was someone who was a relatively new hire and knew almost nothing about me or what I was doing. I called my former supervisor, I emailed him, and in over a year he has never returned a single call or email! So the new guy agreed to write me a letter, but his letter - while representing my MA granting institution - does not really do me a lot of favors. So not only is that something that I have to now apparently explain to all my POI's, because according to this one it's a "red flag" that could make people think I'd been kicked off of my original committee, but it also makes my other two letters WAY more important.

 

BUT. My supervisor at work? The famous one, whose letter would probably be carrying the most weight? Damned if he isn't going to be in the field at EXACTLY the time that this POI wants to call him! Because of course he is!

Edited December 18, 2014 by FaultyPowers

[daykid]

This is so strange. I've never heard of anyone going through the applicant to talk to letter writers..... or any of this really. I don't think it's really a fail cause none of it is your fault and it's really not something you should have been prepared for. It's really just weird. Good luck with it.

[AKCarlton]

So today I learned that it pays to be early. Really, really, reeeeally early.

 

It really does...not just for instances like this, but instances where you're nearing the deadline and your letter writers still "haven't got around" to writing your letters for you. I understand, the fact that they can be electronically submitted now should be less stressful, but it isn't. I emailed my letter writers almost every other week to just check-in and let them know the deadline was approaching. My previous journalism education and experience made me a deadline writer myself, but the entire grad school experience untrained me of that mentality.

Edited December 19, 2014 by AKCarlton

[AKCarlton]

This is so strange. I've never heard of anyone going through the applicant to talk to letter writers..... or any of this really. I don't think it's really a fail cause none of it is your fault and it's really not something you should have been prepared for. It's really just weird. Good luck with it.

 

I can only wonder what the entire educational experience will be like if accepted to this program.

[FaultyPowers]

This is so strange. I've never heard of anyone going through the applicant to talk to letter writers..... or any of this really. I don't think it's really a fail cause none of it is your fault and it's really not something you should have been prepared for. It's really just weird. Good luck with it.

 

I know!

 

And the funniest part (I suppose "funny" is a relative term) is that I wrote the guy who took over supervising my MA and told him that I was in the top tier of applicants but the POI said it was essential that his letter reflects the circumstances, because otherwise he and other POIs might assume it was because I did something to get myself kicked out of the original committee or something, and the guy answers ALL that with:

 

I haven't gotten a review invite from XXX University yet.

 

That's it! No congratulations for making it this far, no reassurance of any kind about the fact that he WILL cover those details, not even a statement that he WON'T and that I'll have to explain it myself! And when I wrote back and said that he won't get an invite until I submit the entire application (which I've already told him) I got this in response:

 

oh...thanks.

 

 

 

Great guy. I'm just going to interpret that to imply that he won't adequately explain the circumstances and that I'll have to do it myself in my SOP. Which is unfortunate, because I have very strongly worded and theoretically embedded SOPs and it's a shame to break it all up with "my adviser quit and it was so hard and it wasn't my fault wahhhhhhh!", but so be it.

 

 

I can only wonder what the entire educational experience will be like if accepted to this program.

 

I'm actually more annoyed at the FAIL! of my letter writer than I am this POI. I mean, he is definitely being very involved in this whole thing, very VERY involved, but given what I'm used to (ok...thanks) I almost think it might make for a refreshing change.

[museum_geek]

That's it! No congratulations for making it this far, no reassurance of any kind about the fact that he WILL cover those details, not even a statement that he WON'T and that I'll have to explain it myself! And when I wrote back and said that he won't get an invite until I submit the entire application (which I've already told him) I got this in response:

 

I know he's probably busy but the lack of empathy from this guy is super aggravating.  Doesn't he remember the stress of applying to grad school?  Did he not have POI's and mentors who took the time to respond to his desperate emails around deadline time?  I guess it's easy to forget what it feels like to be an applicant once you've "made it" as an academic.  Anywho, I hope this all works out for you!

[FaultyPowers]

Transcript request system is down.

 

Sigh. Of course it is.

[FaultyPowers]

The transcript request system is STILL down, and will remain so until the day the application is due 

 

So that's a MAJOR fail on my part, but luckily I don't think I need to send them to one place because they should have them from last year (waiting on an email to confirm that, but that's what the FAQs say) and I just called the other place and they told me that it didn't matter, as long as the application itself was on time. And actually when the person I spoke to asked which department I'd applied to and I said "Anthropology" she sort of chuckled. "Heh. Oh yeah, you're fine." 

 

So....not a win exactly, but an un-fail perhaps. I'll take it.

[smg]

I thought I had an app due on the 15 and it's due tomorrow at 11:59pm.  I'm not particularly worried about getting it done in time I'm more concerned with whether my LORs will upload their letters before the deadline.  I might have screwed the pooch on this one. 

[FaultyPowers]

I *think* that you have a slight grace period with LORs as well. Especially if it's one of those schools that doesn't send the invite until after you've submitted the whole shebang.

[grad_wannabe]

Agreed with FaultyPowers -- there's usually an unwritten grace period of about 7 days for LORs.