Why it's Important to Read Instructions Before You Do Anything...

[saralinds]

How much more hairy can graduate application process can get?  While reading the instructions carefully for where to send my transcripts, I found out that the school basically requires you to submit your application before ANY of the supplementary materials can go out (transcripts, LORs

Comments

[adequaticus]

Does the 'application' part require a SoP, or can that be sent as supplementary material?

[saralinds]

SOP...Personal Statement..CV...basically your part.

[crazypumpkin]

I used to do this fun (for me) activity with my students (high school science) that reinforced direction reading. It was a simple sheet with a list of tasks to be completed to get 'credit' for the assignment. There was only a line or two of directions, but of course most students skipped them. Students would come up to me with these elaborately marked sheets, it was interesting to see how different they looked, especially since the directions specifically stated "Write your name in the left hand corner of the paper and hand it in. Skip steps 1-20."

[hoppii]

this is brilliant. When I become a teacher, I'm going to do this

[fleaux]

I fell for that in elementary school.

[saralinds]

haha I remember this... it happened to me twice or three times by different teachers. Of course, after the first time, I never fell for it again.

[theeurophile]

Ugh, I know.

One of my schools won't send out the e-recommendations until I submit my online application. Luckily, nothing major (writing sample, CV, SoP) is necessary for that part of the application; it's just bare-bones address-GRE-grades stuff, so I was able to submit that one today. Hopefully my recommenders will have received them by this weekend.

Still, this is where I start freaking out. Eep.

[cosmicwonder]

Same here.

[quistyliz]

I just found out over the weekend that one of the school's I'm applying to requires a pre-application that, once reviewed, tells you if you're eligible to even apply at all. Of course, you need to be eligible in order to get the reference letter form, and naturally, they haven't let me know yet whether I'm worthy of their attention :( So yeah, last minute news items like these SUCK.

[shaydlip]

Last year, I didn't see that you had the option of sending in your LORs online- so I gave my LOR writers these fancy packets all with addresses, and one goes to me, "are you sure I can't do it online?" Me, confident as ever, said nope! Come to find out, I can, and I had to look like a horses a$$ saying, oh sorry, you can do it this easier way... and one had already sent them all out.

Le sigh. It was a mess.

Then there was the one that I thoguht didn't require a cover sheet, then did, so then that LOR writer had to resend again.

how did I get into graduate school? Why don't my LOR writers hate me?