Fall 2017 Applicants

[Bschaefer]

@museum_geek Congrats! 

[marxistglue]

Just finished with my GRE. 157 verbal, 147 quant. Not the greatest but better than my practice tests.

Anyone have insights on these scores re: what admissions committees will think?

[EvelynD]

33 minutes ago, marxistglue said:

Just finished with my GRE. 157 verbal, 147 quant. Not the greatest but better than my practice tests.

Anyone have insights on these scores re: what admissions committees will think?

I have exactly the same scores, and people on this forum told me they got in their top-choices with scores like this!

Would anyone be interested in reading my SoP, or exchanging them? I'm drafting mine but I have no one to proof read it, or well no one that knows what a SoP must look like. 

[EvelynD]

On 9-11-2016 at 0:01 AM, museum_geek said:

Submitted my first batch of applications today!  Now the waiting begins...

Congrats! Are you satisfied with everything?

[UsernamesAreTricky]

5 minutes ago, EvelynD said:

I have exactly the same scores, and people on this forum told me they got in their top-choices with scores like this!

Would anyone be interested in reading my SoP, or exchanging them? I'm drafting mine but I have no one to proof read it, or well no one that knows what a SoP must look like. 

Speaking of SoP's... I just checked out the samples on Duke's website and it made me wonder if a bibliography would be needed for the SoP? The samples (which are intimidatingly detailed) have in-text citation, stating the author's name & year, but I'm not sure if the applicants had included a bibliography that is not shown in the samples posted on the website.

Thoughts?

@EvelynD I would be happy to read your SoP, but I can't pretend to know what it's supposed to be like...

[EvelynD]

I read about the examples on Duke's website too! I'll check it out in a sec. I would love to send you my SoP, I'm not a native speaker and I sometimes make mistakes in the way I build my scentences. And Dutch people can be really direct, so I might be breaking all sorts of etiquette rules. Can I send it to your inbox? I was wondering about the bibliography too...

Another question, it is weird to aks your Poi for some advice regarding the SoP? Every faculty want something else, I'm not going to ask them to write the thing for me but maybe they could give me some pointers. Anyway, weird or ok?

[UsernamesAreTricky]

Sure, go ahead and send it to me

This is the first (and hopefully last) time I apply to a PhD myself, so I'm not quite sure what one should/shouldn't ask a PoI! Maybe someone who has applied in the past can help you with that

[museum_geek]

@EvelynD Thanks!  I'm pretty happy with my applications.  I went through five drafts of my SoP with my advisor before I finally settled on a document we were both satisfied with, so I feel like I prepared as best I could.  I have 6-7 more apps to turn in but I wanted to get the ones with December 1 deadlines submitted ASAP.

As for including a bibliography with your SoP, I don't think it's really necessary.  I had one POI request a draft of my SoP and she didn't say anything about including a bibliography in her feedback.  I guess this could vary from school to school, but based on what I've seen I don't think it's necessary.

On another note, I'd be happy to swap SoP's with anyone who wants an extra set of eyes on theirs.

[EvelynD]

Damn, how many apps do you have in total? I have found 4 schools (I'm working in such a niche thats its like looking for a needle in a haystack to find people working on my subject) and I'm shifting between feeling happy with these 4 schools, and lots of doubt that maybe four isnt enough. Well, we still have some time to find more! I only wish I could find one or two more schools in the States, instead of Canada. 

I will send you a PM too, i'm just about to finish this draft!

[museum_geek]

I'm applying to 10 schools, which is about the most I can manage.

[EvelynD]

Pff, with the GRE, Toefl, travel expences etc, I can afford about half of that!

[museum_geek]

It definitely helps that I'm using the same GRE from when I applied to MA programs, plus no TOEFL or travel expenses.  I imagine applying as an international student is quite expensive!

[bioarch_fan]

5 hours ago, UsernamesAreTricky said:

Speaking of SoP's... I just checked out the samples on Duke's website and it made me wonder if a bibliography would be needed for the SoP? The samples (which are intimidatingly detailed) have in-text citation, stating the author's name & year, but I'm not sure if the applicants had included a bibliography that is not shown in the samples posted on the website.

Thoughts?

@EvelynD I would be happy to read your SoP, but I can't pretend to know what it's supposed to be like...

No, a bibliography isn't needed because you shouldn't have anything in them to reference. What you should be stating is what your interests are and the type of project that you would want to work on. They don't expect you to have a full proposal written out, so references would be highly unordinary. So if you don't have any...that is 100% okay.

[knp]

@UsernamesAreTricky

Personally, I happen to think that Duke's selection of essays are a disservice to prospective applicants for other programs. They're all very good essays, and they may give a clear impression of what Duke itself prioritizes. I don't know. But they freaked me out when I was applying, and I suspect that following them as a model too closely may make your applications to other programs more difficult than they need to be. (As a BA-only applicant, I literally couldn't copy the style that closely: my research wasn't developed enough! I did fine in admissions, though.) First, Duke apparently asks for a longer SOP than the usual maximum—they were about 30% longer than the maximum wordcount I had for another program. Second, the impression Duke's selection of essays gives is that they strongly value MAs (all in anthropology, or do some come from MAs in other disciplines? I forget) and several years of previous experience working in the potential dissertation field site. I don't know if that's actually true of their department, but most departments wouldn't require either that much background in anthropology nor years and years working in your field site. Both are obviously plusses, but I'd say that of my cohort, 1/3 had both, 1/3 had one or the other, and 1/3 didn't really have either.

[Quickmick]

I did not have a bibliography, but did mention a bit about the scholarship regarding my research. It went something like

While Yogi Bear explores blah blah from the perspective of blah, and WilmaFlintstone brings dabbadabba do into the discussion, I hope to take an approach closer to Professor Plum's "Hotdiggity" where yadda yadda ya..

I was a little conflicted about this. For one, if the adcomm doesn't like/respect the people I mention that could be a problem. Also, if I omit some giant in the field from the list they might scratch their heads about that too. In any case, I did include it, thinking that showing some familiarity with the current body of knowledge and how my piece might fit into the narrative outweighs the possible negatives. I took this approach for 6/8 of my SOPs.

 

[bioarch_fan]

3 hours ago, Quickmick said:

I did not have a bibliography, but did mention a bit about the scholarship regarding my research. It went something like

While Yogi Bear explores blah blah from the perspective of blah, and WilmaFlintstone brings dabbadabba do into the discussion, I hope to take an approach closer to Professor Plum's "Hotdiggity" where yadda yadda ya..

I was a little conflicted about this. For one, if the adcomm doesn't like/respect the people I mention that could be a problem. Also, if I omit some giant in the field from the list they might scratch their heads about that too. In any case, I did include it, thinking that showing some familiarity with the current body of knowledge and how my piece might fit into the narrative outweighs the possible negatives. I took this approach for 6/8 of my SOPs.

 

Right. Mentioning that stuff is correct but they don't expect you to have in text citations on anything at all. I think I mentioned other work that would be beneficial for my possible thesis.

[UsernamesAreTricky]

@knp The samples on Duke freaked me out too. I have no formal background in Anthropology, so seeing all these SoP's where people had BOTH field experience and a BA and MA in Anthro was a bit unnerving. I'm glad that's not the case for most departments!

@Quickmick I share the same concern about possibly erring in leaving out a big name or including an unpopular one. So I think I'll forgo including previous work altogether in the SoP. There's only so much I can say in <1,000 words, I'd rather be the one saying it 

@bioarch_fan I'll probably end up writing a writing sample from scratch, since I don't have any anthro papers, and then show how much I know about the field by citing people there instead of in my SoP.

 

Thanks for the advice!

[Bschaefer]

Just got interview confirmations from Brown and Vanderbilt for the coming weeks. 

[museum_geek]

@Bschaefer That's awesome, congrats!  I'm surprised interview requests are being sent out this early - I thought that didn't happen until after application deadlines had passed.

Edited November 12, 2016 by museum_geek

[Bschaefer]

@museum_geek they probably do, these are with POIs etc. I believe one of mine is on their admission board but not sure since it just changed and the website doesn't reflect it. They suggested it actually. 

[museum_geek]

Oh okay, that makes sense.  I was thinking of "official" interviews with the adcomm.  Best of luck - I've had a couple phone calls and a Skype session with POIs and they all proved helpful/productive!

[Bschaefer]

Thank you!

[sarahsh]

Hi all, 

This is my first time posting in this forum and have found it so far to be quite useful. 

I am going to revive an old debate. 

I am currently making some final edits to my SOP and have been receiving contradictory advice related to how to structure it. Some people are suggesting structuring the SOP as a proposal, while others are suggesting I make it more informal and embrace the flexibility of the form. 

Any thoughts on balancing these two styles? Is one better than the other?

[museum_geek]

I don't think the SOP should necessarily be a formal proposal along the same lines as a dissertation proposal, but you should discuss your geographic area of interest, research interests, potential project, etc.  I do think there is a bit of a narrative element to the SOP though, and there's certainly room for flexibility/balance.  

In my SOP I talked about my research interests in the context of my current MA project and how that work might serve as an interpretive training ground and springboard for a PhD project.  I also included a brief narrative about my shift from archaeology to sociocultural anthropology as a way of explaining why I want to study my particular topic.  I think it's tough to flesh out a research proposal in a document that's generally supposed to be 750-1000 words, so it's important to maintain a balance between narrative and theory/research/goals.

[suavesana]

Congratulations @Bschaefer!!! 

I'm about to submit my application to Emory ... I had a full bibliography in my SoP, but maybe I should get rid of it? Hmm. 

Good luck everyone!