Whither my chances? Kindly calling for assessments of my academic profile...

[alchemical]

Alright, I've been meaning to post an "assess my academic profile"-type topic, so....please assess my academic profile

Anthropology BA, magna cum laude, College of William & Mary

Minored in Mandarin Chinese ("nearly fluent"), basic familiarity with Japanese

Undergraduate GPA - 3.75, Major - 3.86

Elected to

Lambda Alpha

(Anthropology Honors Society)

2.5 semesters abroad in mainland China and Taiwan

GRE - V 740 (99%), Q 600 (48%), AWA 4.5 (63% GAH! I'm actually a strong writer but I almost had a meltdown with my topic during the test...fortunately I recovered and did decently on V & Q).

I'm proposing to work with Buddhist liberation movements ("Engaged Buddhism") in East Asia and the U.S. See more about that in my statement (would REALLY appreciate some input there as well!).

Background experience includes research in W&M's anthro department, work on a third party presidential campaign, canvassing for a social justice group, and being a Peer Advisor during a summer cross-cultural exchange program with Japanese students at W&M.

3 strong recs from professors at William & Mary.

See my sig for the schools I'm applying to.

Questions:

-Any recommendations for other programs to try for?

-Will my AWA score screw me over? Will my high verbal score balance it out or even matter overall? I'm having one professor speak to my writing skills to combat that and I believe my writing sample is pretty strong.

-Should I add more backup schools? One of my professors said I should just try applying again to the top programs if it doesn't work out this time around, as she felt I'd benefit the most from the environment/resources at these programs.

I'm shooting for Duke, as it's a good fit in terms of the profile of the students there and the interests of the faculty.

UC Berkeley is a dream, but I'd love to go there.

Any thoughts would be welcome and much appreciated.

Edited November 29, 2009 by ctkaplan

[modernity]

To answer your questions (as best as I can anyway):

1. There have to be some more west coast schools out there for you - I felt like every west coast school I looked at had at least half a department full of asian focus professors - have you looked into these? I can't think of any specific names as this is not my area of expertise.

2. I've seen a lot of 4.5's on this forum and others. Its not the best score - but if you read the description on the GRE it means you completed the essay with only minor errors that did not distract from meaning. It's also above the cutoff for most schools that I've seen. I think as long as you write a powerful SOP you'll be just fine. I hope schools realize how flawed the writing scores are - how often in academia are you going to write a timed (in minutes) paper on a random topic? Never. Okay that was a bit off topic, but you get my point.

3. Whether or not you want to add "safeties" is up to you. As people on this forum could tell you, having a good profile doesn't guarantee you'll be accepted. You could perfect - and they may only have one slot open for your specialty this year, and the ad comm just so happens to admit one of the applicants that has a lesser profile based on superstar LORs, for example. The schools you're applying to have hundreds of applicants every year..and there are many unknown factors to acceptance when you apply. You have to weigh how you feel about that - would you be happy at a safety school, or are you determined for top schools only?

My question, for you and others... how relevant is Lambda Alpha?

[a fragrant plant]

Your profile looks good. I'm more concerned with the schools you choose. As you know "fit" is the most important thing in graduate admission. Is there ‘fit’ between your project and the departments you're applying to? I'm also doing work in East Asia so I am quite familiar with the schools/people you are applying to. While I see a fit between your research project and Duke's/UCB's department, I don't quite see how other depts you're applying to fit with your research projects:

Harvard - I presume you'd like to work with J. Watson? But I am told that he's retiring soon.

Chicago - the two China specialists don't work on religious movements. Do you want to work with other profs there?

Yale - I know you're deeply influenced by David Graeber, but he's no longer at Yale. He's at U of London Goldsmith.

Please don't get me wrong. I find your research project extremely interesting and I like your SoP. I just worry that you're applying to schools where there are no specialists to support your research. "Fit" is directly related to your chances.

[alchemical]

To answer your questions (as best as I can anyway):

1. There have to be some more west coast schools out there for you - I felt like every west coast school I looked at had at least half a department full of asian focus professors - have you looked into these? I can't think of any specific names as this is not my area of expertise.

2. I've seen a lot of 4.5's on this forum and others. Its not the best score - but if you read the description on the GRE it means you completed the essay with only minor errors that did not distract from meaning. It's also above the cutoff for most schools that I've seen. I think as long as you write a powerful SOP you'll be just fine. I hope schools realize how flawed the writing scores are - how often in academia are you going to write a timed (in minutes) paper on a random topic? Never. Okay that was a bit off topic, but you get my point.

3. Whether or not you want to add "safeties" is up to you. As people on this forum could tell you, having a good profile doesn't guarantee you'll be accepted. You could perfect - and they may only have one slot open for your specialty this year, and the ad comm just so happens to admit one of the applicants that has a lesser profile based on superstar LORs, for example. The schools you're applying to have hundreds of applicants every year..and there are many unknown factors to acceptance when you apply. You have to weigh how you feel about that - would you be happy at a safety school, or are you determined for top schools only?

My question, for you and others... how relevant is Lambda Alpha?

Thanks for the response, modernity. Also, appreciate the rant on the AWA -- totally agree (still not sure what a timed essay like that measure and anyway, I need several revisions before any of my work looks decent, and I believe that goes the same for most!).

Good idea about Cali schools -- the thing is, though, as someone mentioned somewhere else on this forum, the UC system is pretty broke at this point...so I wonder if it's worth it?

Also, your point about "safety" schools is well taken. I could only stomach a master's at some other schools I've considered applying to as "safety" to bolster my profile and get more experience (not to say it wouldn't be worthwhile to go there or anything, but I think my mind's set on a top school in anthro if possible).

In terms of Lambda Alpha -- honestly, it seems like a pretty minor honors society. They've got a website straight out of 1995 (complete with the annoying background MIDI music) and I've never seen it mentioned anywhere...like, ever, I believe. That said, I'm hoping it helps a bit, but I can't imagine it's a make-or-break sort of thing. That's just my sense of it, however, so if anyone else has any relevant input on that, have at it.

Your profile looks good. I'm more concerned with the schools you choose. As you know "fit" is the most important thing in graduate admission. Is there ‘fit’ between your project and the departments you're applying to? I'm also doing work in East Asia so I am quite familiar with the schools/people you are applying to. While I see a fit between your research project and Duke's/UCB's department, I don't quite see how other depts you're applying to fit with your research projects:

Harvard - I presume you'd like to work with J. Watson? But I am told that he's retiring soon.

Chicago - the two China specialists don't work on religious movements. Do you want to work with other profs there?

Yale - I know you're deeply influenced by David Graeber, but he's no longer at Yale. He's at U of London Goldsmith.

Please don't get me wrong. I find your research project extremely interesting and I like your SoP. I just worry that you're applying to schools where there are no specialists to support your research. "Fit" is directly related to your chances.

Thanks for the encouragement!

In terms of my reasoning for the other schools --- well, they're top programs and I've studied a lot of the people at those schools and their work dovetails with my own interests in some respects. Maybe not as overtly as religious movements, but in terms of thinking about modernity, yes.

Harvard - Ted Bestor and a few others

Chicago - Farquhar, specifically

Yale - I got a few positive responses there in my correspondence. Also, I may end up taking Graeber out of my the Yale version of my SoP - there was some controversy with his firing/nonrenewal of contract or something, possibly for unsavory political reasons or something like that. Anyway, it may not be a good idea to mention him.

Every school I'm planning on applying to thus far, I've contacted professors who work in Asia and at most schools have gotten a few good responses. But yes, "fit" is the operative term here. I may be investigating a few more schools this next week.

BTW, any of you anthro's out there going to the AAA meeting in philly this week? I'll be there!

[a fragrant plant]

Your reply me reminds me of a question I had after reading your SOP. When you said "I now wish to examine not only the modern institutions and conditions that have produced the extreme disparities in wealth, resources, and well-being endemic to modernity", I feel that you need to be more specfic about what "modernity" means in the context of your research project because the way it is presented here seems a bit tokenistic. Same with "modern institutions and conditions" in paragraph 3, what are they exactly? I understand that you may not want to launch a theoretical discussion on the concept of "modernity" but I think a short sentence or two would show that you're aware of the complexity.

Other than that your statement of purpose is very good. I also really like the paragraph on David Graeber.

P.S. Consider Boston U and Case Western.

[alchemical]

Your reply me reminds me of a question I had after reading your SOP. When you said "I now wish to examine not only the modern institutions and conditions that have produced the extreme disparities in wealth, resources, and well-being endemic to modernity", I feel that you need to be more specfic about what "modernity" means in the context of your research project because the way it is presented here seems a bit tokenistic. Same with "modern institutions and conditions" in paragraph 3, what are they exactly? I understand that you may not want to launch a theoretical discussion on the concept of "modernity" but I think a short sentence or two would show that you're aware of the complexity.

Other than that your statement of purpose is very good. I also really like the paragraph on David Graeber.

P.S. Consider Boston U and Case Western.

Aha, another good suggestion...I'll be working on that for my next revision. I just finished another one before I read your post -- follow the link to read, if you're interested!

v7: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AU-ATp5G6ObkZGc3Z3p2c2tfODI3eGZ6c2RnaGg&hl=en

Thanks!