Venting

[UnlikelyGrad]

We're still venting, right?

And now I will try to be done.

"Try" being the operative word, eh?

[ColorlessGreen]

[...]it would be nice if someone were to acknowledge how much work these applications are! For some reason people expect you to have your applications finished in a couple days, like you just have to casually enter a few test scores and grades into a computer and you're all finished. Especially in social situations, people can be annoying. People expect me to be able to come out all the time and dismiss working on applications as a legitimate thing to spend time on.

I feel your pain. I'm the only one of my friends who is graduating college OR applying to grad school this year, and NONE OF THEM GET IT. Last weekend I had to finish one of my applications at the last minute, and all weekend, it was, "Are you done yet? Why are you ignoring us? Wanna watch a movie? Can't you take a break?" and I just bared my teeth in a fierce, taut grin, and answered, "Could you please let me finish my writing sample, I have to mail it off tomorrow and it's not good enough yet."

And now this week my friends are all complaining to me about finals, and I am not in the mood to be sympathetic. I'm taking advantage of their preoccupation to work on other apps, but when I tell them this, they all respond with horror, demanding why I'm working on something "unimportant" like applications instead of studying for finals.

MY FINALS ARE NOT HARD, PEOPLE. Grad school applications, however, ARE.

[/rant]

[Venetia]

(Is it just me or do international students do that more? They post once, expecting us to be the all-knowing experts.)

Haha, I think I was like that when I first came on this forum. I did my undergrad and masters in the UK/Ireland, so I had this impression that American applicants had all this intel that I just didn't have. All the American students asking questions on here as well showed me that we're ALL in the dark in this. Not exactly comforting, but I guess that means that it's a level playing field...but my view of you all as 'all-knowing experts' has been compromised, sorry !

[randybobandy]

Not sure how it is for other programs but Neuroscience grad apps are not exactly very difficult or time-consuming.

- GRE: alright, study some vocab for a week or two

- SoP: write a two page essay, modify a paragraph or two for each school

- LoR: send your SoP to three profs and they do the rest...

- applications: fill out a few forms online

- send your transcripts.

Seems pretty simple to me. I started and completed most of my apps within a few hours.

The hard part is the waiting, which doesn't exactly require any effort. Sounds like you guys need to chill

[captiv8ed]

Not sure how it is for other programs but Neuroscience grad apps are not exactly very difficult or time-consuming.

- GRE: alright, study some vocab for a week or two

- SoP: write a two page essay, modify a paragraph or two for each school

- LoR: send your SoP to three profs and they do the rest...

- applications: fill out a few forms online

- send your transcripts.

Seems pretty simple to me. I started and completed most of my apps within a few hours.

The hard part is the waiting, which doesn't exactly require any effort. Sounds like you guys need to chill

Spend several weeks deciding on the right programs, taking into account rank, faculty, fit, availability of schools/programs for husband, cost of living, schools for children

Study off and on all summer for GRE, bomb it, spend several weeks studying to retake

Spend many many hours over two or three months writing, rewriting, receiving feedback, reworking, and polishing SOP.

Spend several hours revising my writing sample.

Several hours on CV

LORs: write "fantasy letter" for one, write talking points for another.

Fill out seven applications online. The most time-consuming part of this has been the college search part, since I have 6 undergraduate schools.

Maybe I do need to chill. But my least competitive program has a 30% acceptance rate, so why would I take any chances?

[coyabean]

Not sure how it is for other programs but Neuroscience grad apps are not exactly very difficult or time-consuming.

- GRE: alright, study some vocab for a week or two

- SoP: write a two page essay, modify a paragraph or two for each school

- LoR: send your SoP to three profs and they do the rest...

- applications: fill out a few forms online

- send your transcripts.

Seems pretty simple to me. I started and completed most of my apps within a few hours.

The hard part is the waiting, which doesn't exactly require any effort. Sounds like you guys need to chill

You obviously missed the above post where this kind of comment? Is NOT A GOOD THING!!!! It makes me angry...and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

[randybobandy]

It's all about stress management. I'm of the opinion that stress is the worst part of any process like this. If you start to overthink things, they begin to consume your life, making you sleep worse, making you feel worse, really making you unhealthier. And worst of all, we put all of this stress on ourselves.

All I did was make a list of everything I needed to do at the beginning of this process. Every couple of days, I would take one item on my list, and work for maybe 15 minutes to an hour. Then I would go out with friends or do something fun the rest of the night.

Yeah, there are a lot of elements and variables to the application process, a lot of things out of our control (slow professors on LoRs, I was pretty worried around Dec 1), but the worst part is what we do to ourselves.

The more we include destressing activities in our day (different for everyone, could be exercising, weed, watching tv, anything really), the easier the process becomes.

But that's just my attitude, and who knows if I'll get in to my programs. But I'm still confident, and that's probably because I never let the stress get the best of me. To be honest applying to college was a lot more work than this.

Edited December 13, 2009 by randybobandy

[ColorlessGreen]

But that's just my attitude, and who knows if I'll get in to my programs. But I'm still confident, and that's probably because I never let the stress get the best of me. To be honest applying to college was a lot more work than this.

Really? I didn't find applying to undergrad stressful in the least. There was far less competition at a far lower level. Maybe it's because I was going to a state school, but I was never worried about getting in, just getting scholarships. Now, what worries me about applying to grad school is that I don't know how good the other applicants are, or how good I'm expected to be. I knew exactly who my competition was when applying to my current college; for this, I have no idea. I agree there's no point to stressing over it too much, but it's frustrating to be told not to stress at all.

Anyway, I kind of like the stressing, in a masochistic way. There's a strange kind of joy in looking at the completed application and knowing I did everything I could. Even if I don't get in anywhere, I'll know that I took the risk of putting myself out there to be judged by strangers.

...And that's not actually a comforting thought at all. Hmm. Back to square one.

[Pamphilia]

It's all about stress management. I'm of the opinion that stress is the worst part of any process like this. If you start to overthink things, they begin to consume your life, making you sleep worse, making you feel worse, really making you unhealthier. And worst of all, we put all of this stress on ourselves.

All I did was make a list of everything I needed to do at the beginning of this process. Every couple of days, I would take one item on my list, and work for maybe 15 minutes to an hour. Then I would go out with friends or do something fun the rest of the night.

Yeah, there are a lot of elements and variables to the application process, a lot of things out of our control (slow professors on LoRs, I was pretty worried around Dec 1), but the worst part is what we do to ourselves.

The more we include destressing activities in our day (different for everyone, could be exercising, weed, watching tv, anything really), the easier the process becomes.

But that's just my attitude, and who knows if I'll get in to my programs. But I'm still confident, and that's probably because I never let the stress get the best of me. To be honest applying to college was a lot more work than this.

That's really nice for you, and I'm jealous. But do not think for a minute that if your applications are simple, all grad applications must be, and that the rest of us are just overthinking it and need to "chill" (jesus, how many heads did you explode with THAT little piece of advice??).

I'm assuming that if your applications were so easy peasy and only took "maybe 15 minutes to an hour," it's largely a numbers game for you. How grand. It's not for me, or for most of the people on this forum. As the get ether of the interwebs keeps telling us, in humanities/social sciences graduate programs, bad numbers will keep you out but good numbers will NOT get you in. The statement of purpose, the writing sample, etc. do that for you.

So, what did that mean for me? A solid six hours, minimum, per day, every day (with I think seven days off--total--all of which were spent at intensive dance workshops) from the first week of August to the last week of November working on these apps. Hunting down facsimiles of manuscripts to compare various editions of sonnet sequences to original manuscripts in order to double-check my three-year-old research; resurrecting said old research to find that I needed to overhaul my arguments completely in light of current scholarship. Seventeen drafts of my primary writing sample (at least twelve of them major rewrites), which had already been polished enough to submit as an honors thesis. Seven drafts, ALL major rewrites, of my secondary writing sample (required by only one program). Twenty drafts (at least fifteen major rewrites) of my statement of purpose BEFORE I started tailoring it individual schools. For each of the TWELVE schools to which I applied, at least five individualized drafts of the statement of purpose. Five drafts of a personal history statement, subsequently scrapped; seven drafts of a significantly different personal history statement (plus substantive changes to and several drafts for that statement for each individual school that required it). This is not counting the hours spent researching programs, contacting professors, researching and reading and annotating faculty members' scholarship. Not counting the work on my CV. Not counting the work on the actual applications (the easy, but goddamn annoying part).

I've worked my ass off. And I have the advantage of badass numbers to back up that work. But you know what? I still might get rejected from all twelve programs to which I'm applying. Most of them average 1-3% acceptance rates in a good year (not this one).

Your advice about keeping "destressing activities" in one's daily life is very good--and I did that. I kept going to dance classes, have been working on new and challenging choreographies; I got up and danced or played music when I became too frustrated with the application process. Made time to practice and train a shitload, and to drive six hours to attend workshops with a master teacher (my personal dance guru...), where I performed well enough to move up in her format. That was VERY cathartic. I watch a lot of Buffy and played with my cat. Listened to a lot of Prince. And I made a list, too, like you did! (Though it took longer than fifteen minutes to check something off of it.) All of that was helpful, but the application process still sucked out loud. If you applications were easy, bully for you. Mine were not.

P.S. Sorry if I sound mean. I honestly do think it's amazing that you have managed to remain stress free while applying to grad school. But hearing yet another person implying, or seeming to imply, that this process should be easy and I'm just worrying my little head too much about it...it sort of...filled me with rage, momentarily. I'm better now! Venting is good. Let's be friends.

Edited December 13, 2009 by Pamphilia

[randybobandy]

It's not about numbers at all. My GPA is pretty poor compared to most people here, my GREs are good I suppose. It's all about marketing yourself almost as a product. Schools are looking to make an investment, simple as that. To write my statement of purpose (two drafts), I thought long and hard about what made me different from other students applying. I chose the schools that appeared to be interested the the traits that made me different. There are plenty of people with good stats, those really only tell you if they're good enough.

PS. Sorry Pamphilia, that sounds like a full-time job. I would have gone crazy doing that. Power to you.

[alexis]

I have to agree with Pamphilia. I went into the process thinking it would be easy (oh how was I proven wrong). I thought, "I've already taken my GREs, I don't need to submit a writing sample, just fill out some applications and write an essay." Even for those of us who don't have to submit a writing sample (which goodness, I can't even imagine how much extra work that would be), making sure you do the proper research on the programs, contacting professors at the programs, coordinating with LOR writers, writing about 20 drafts of your personal statement, creating/perfecting the resume, etc etc DOES take up a lot of time. Yes, I probably over-stressed myself, and worry too much, but most of that work was necessary--to get into programs, we have to be thorough. Not to mention the issue that most of us have a lot of other things going on in our lives...jobs, full-time students, etc, which is why there is a lot of stress/strain on time with this application process.

Edited December 13, 2009 by alexis

[Pamphilia]

It's not about numbers at all. My GPA is pretty poor compared to most people here, my GREs are good I suppose. It's all about marketing yourself almost as a product. Schools are looking to make an investment, simple as that. To write my statement of purpose (two drafts), I thought long and hard about what made me different from other students applying. I chose the schools that appeared to be interested the the traits that made me different. There are plenty of people with good stats, those really only tell you if they're good enough.

Ha, well, who knows? Maybe you are just the application whisperer and the rest of us missing the point. Wouldn't that be something? You do sound like you have your shit figured out. I admire that.

It's also worth noting that I'm clearly an insane person.

[randybobandy]

I should also point out that I'm lazy.

[JerryLandis]

Actually, I don't think I will mind the waiting so much. Don't quote me on this, but I am kind of looking forward to when my applications are all in, but it's too early to expect any results. This is because there's very little chance of me getting into the programs I really want, so until I hear back, I can live in my dream world, in which I pretend that next year I'm going to be in some amazing place, participating in some amazing program. And I can think about this without then thinking "shoot, I need to remember to mail this to University X" or "I need to rewrite those couple sentences in my writing sample" and other little things that add up to a giant stressful monster.

[alexis]

Actually, I don't think I will mind the waiting so much. Don't quote me on this, but I am kind of looking forward to when my applications are all in, but it's too early to expect any results. This is because there's very little chance of me getting into the programs I really want, so until I hear back, I can live in my dream world, in which I pretend that next year I'm going to be in some amazing place, participating in some amazing program.

Haha right on! I've been dreaming about what it would be like to get my ivy league acceptance, how I would tell people, and how I would be on cloud 9. (Or, frankly, how happy I will be if I get any acceptances). It's more fun to think about than stressing over the waiting.

[All About The Bones]

This is also how I feel, I want to know so I can start sorting things out, know what I am doing and which continent I will be in next year and hopefully repare the damage done to my stomach during the stress of waiting. However, when I find out I haven't got in anywhere, thats it dream over. I am so confused right now!

[gazelle]

I agree with the OP, and for me it's definitely NOT a numbers game, and I wish there were more people here with stats like mine that I could compare to (3.1x engineering GPA, 1250 GRE). Luckily out of that 1250 700+ was on my quant section, and I'm applying to just two programs, both of which I think have a quantitative bias, as does my research. With my stats, I really had to focus on my SoP and essays. One school wanted 4 essays, and I spent weeks upon weeks revising them, and writing has always been my academic gift so writing something good from the get-go is usually pretty easy for me. Nonetheless, I spent more time on these essays than on any other writing I've done in my life. With my numbers, I didn't have a choice. What was worse though--was knocking my 3 page SoP for one school down to 400 words for another. Ouch. While one school wanted 4 essays and a 2-3 page SoP, which aggregate allowed me to paint a comprehensive picture of myself, going down to a 400 word SoP and no supplemental essays for the other school was extremely difficult--I had to sell myself in a mere 400 words, with unimpressive numbers and a fair number of C range grades littering the trailing end of my transcript.

I'm done now, as I axed two of my four programs I planned on applying to, and I feel *pretty* good about what I've sent, but I refuse to read my essays anymore. It's done, it's over, I can't stress over it. I focused heavily on fit in the final paragraphs of my essays, and opened them up with direct statements about what I want to research. All I know is my numbers don't speak for me, and can only hope that my 400 words did.

[NeuroNerd86]

Gazelle, I'm in your ballpark "numbers-wise" and I just need to hope and pray that my research experience and LORs will pull me through...

[mikazukipie]

I've sent in all but one application now. I thought I would feel relieved, or at least only anxious about the waiting, but instead I'm checking the copies of things I've sent constantly, sure that I'll find a life-ending typo, or that I must have left page six off of whatnot, or that my LOR writer won't get the letter in on time even though she SAID she totally would. . .

Not helping is that half of my schools don't have an "application status" page, because they use the same online app software that I used to apply to something else last year, and I never even received an email from them to say my payment had been received. How am I supposed to know if everything got lost in the mail!?!?

Okay. Time to go reread my SOP for the bajillionth time for typos, ex post facto.

[ma7eb4i]

In this same vein, I get annoyed when advised to focus on fit more than location of the school. The program could be absolutely perfect for me, but if my family and I are miserable in the town we are living in, that is going to affect my chances of success. I was able to find enough programs that address the fit question within the areas I would want to live.

+1, as a postdoc friend of mine at Harvard advised me:

"There are going to be times in grad school where very little will be good in your life. It's going to suck, and you will be depressed. At those times, you need the city, your friends, and your hobbies to make things good. Don't apply anywhere you wouldn't want to live."

[modernity]

It's all about marketing yourself almost as a product

Yes, marketing yourself... to an audience that you know very little about (even with reading their work, their CVs, the blurbs on the school page).

I get the spirit of what you're saying, and that is appreciated... but it's just not that easy for all of us. It's hard for me to chill out, because all I can think about is how I could be using that time to improve my application.

[caputmundi]

+1, as a postdoc friend of mine at Harvard advised me:

"There are going to be times in grad school where very little will be good in your life. It's going to suck, and you will be depressed. At those times, you need the city, your friends, and your hobbies to make things good. Don't apply anywhere you wouldn't want to live."

Easy for your Harvard friend to say...

[coyabean]

+1, as a postdoc friend of mine at Harvard advised me:

"There are going to be times in grad school where very little will be good in your life. It's going to suck, and you will be depressed. At those times, you need the city, your friends, and your hobbies to make things good. Don't apply anywhere you wouldn't want to live."

That's my thinking on the matter. I am more productive when the sights, smells, aura of a physical location aren't making me suicidal.

Edited December 15, 2009 by coyabean

[LateAntique]

I haven't really given much thought to the geography of my choices. I'm pretty happy where ever I end up, although Iowa is definitely out there. One of the selling points from a grad student I know there was: "We're only like 3 hours away from Chicago." Only three hours.

[JerryLandis]

I don't care too much about geography because I have moved several times before, and I know that after 6 years of PhD stuff I'll just have to move again if I'm lucky enough to get hired somewhere. So I'm not applying anywhere that would make me miserable, but anything within the United States (except for NYC) goes. I still looked at some departments located in NYC, but I was very relieved not to see any relevant faculty members there!

I think the obsession some people have with "fit" is mostly a reaction to the assumption many people have that applying to grad school is just like applying to college, and the universities can be ranked neatly and easily.