Reality Check?
I've been lurking around applyingtograd for the past two weeks now and trying desperately not to think too hard about all the applications I already sent off and let myself get neurotic about them. FAIL.
Anyway, I've been more than a bit naive about this whole grad school process and I was flying blind while applying, too. I received a great deal of help from my advisor and professors but, well, they've been only on the recommendations side of the process for well over twenty years. So, in a fit of pre-holiday insecurity, while I sit on my hands for the next several months to hear back from the schools, I figured I would ask everyone here for their advice/opinion.
My biggest concern is that I've just graduated from a small (but academically solid) college--it's not an Ivy or a faux-Ivy and it doesn't even have the name recognition of a state school. What kills me, of course, is that I wouldn't change my choice to go there for the world as it was an amazing experience and with wonderful professors. Then again, it seems like no one knows it.
Anyway, I'm looking at the film/media studies programs at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Southern California, Uni. of Chicago, and Brown. I've just graduated with a BA in English and Art History; my GPA is 3.79; GRE Verbal at 760 (Quant. at 560--not that it applies to my field); I've presented a paper at a large, regional academic conference on a topic within the media studies field; and I just finished writing a 70+ honors thesis over the course of the past three months. My recommender's are solid (though I've got no clue how solid they decided to be as they wrote them in a post-Thanksgiving turkey haze) and they can certainly speak to my academic passion and abilities.
The only other big thing I'm worried about is that two years ago I had to medically withdraw suddenly from my classes for a semester (lesson learned: always ask your doctor WHAT he's prescribing to you instead of trusting him and just popping the pills) and there's a semester's worth of Ws stretched across the middle--though it's surrounded by As on either side.
So, if any of you know about these schools or even their specific programs (or even if you don't) your feedback would be very much appreciated as I now realize (belatedly) that I was flying dark through this whole process and I'm definitely in need of a bit of a reality check, one way or the other.
Thanks!
P.S. Who else is caught in the current SNOWPOCALYPSE? (Which my spell-check desperately wants to correct to "soporifically.")
Anyway, I've been more than a bit naive about this whole grad school process and I was flying blind while applying, too. I received a great deal of help from my advisor and professors but, well, they've been only on the recommendations side of the process for well over twenty years. So, in a fit of pre-holiday insecurity, while I sit on my hands for the next several months to hear back from the schools, I figured I would ask everyone here for their advice/opinion.
My biggest concern is that I've just graduated from a small (but academically solid) college--it's not an Ivy or a faux-Ivy and it doesn't even have the name recognition of a state school. What kills me, of course, is that I wouldn't change my choice to go there for the world as it was an amazing experience and with wonderful professors. Then again, it seems like no one knows it.
Anyway, I'm looking at the film/media studies programs at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Southern California, Uni. of Chicago, and Brown. I've just graduated with a BA in English and Art History; my GPA is 3.79; GRE Verbal at 760 (Quant. at 560--not that it applies to my field); I've presented a paper at a large, regional academic conference on a topic within the media studies field; and I just finished writing a 70+ honors thesis over the course of the past three months. My recommender's are solid (though I've got no clue how solid they decided to be as they wrote them in a post-Thanksgiving turkey haze) and they can certainly speak to my academic passion and abilities.
The only other big thing I'm worried about is that two years ago I had to medically withdraw suddenly from my classes for a semester (lesson learned: always ask your doctor WHAT he's prescribing to you instead of trusting him and just popping the pills) and there's a semester's worth of Ws stretched across the middle--though it's surrounded by As on either side.
So, if any of you know about these schools or even their specific programs (or even if you don't) your feedback would be very much appreciated as I now realize (belatedly) that I was flying dark through this whole process and I'm definitely in need of a bit of a reality check, one way or the other.
Thanks!
P.S. Who else is caught in the current SNOWPOCALYPSE? (Which my spell-check desperately wants to correct to "soporifically.")