Comments | applyingtograd: Berkeley Anthropology -- Technical Information & Reqs

zhukora1 in applyingtograd

Berkeley Anthropology -- Technical Information & Reqs

Dec 03, 2008 16:05

I tried calling in to Berkeley to ask them about this, but since their grad admissions office is so jammed up, all I got was a recorded message thanking me for my call and letting me know they were having major technical difficulties. I don't know when they'll be up and running and answering the phones again, so I'll go ahead and ask here ( Read more... )

writing sample, berkeley, anthropology

Comments 5

caziques December 4 2008, 01:05:25 UTC

Hooray Berkeley! My impression was that they wanted you to upload the documents twice. I wonder if it takes time to process through the Grad Admissions office, and the department wants that material right away?

The writing sample limit is six pages, but the personal statement limit is three. Also, apparently, they want all the files in PDF form? Yikes.

Oh grad school. How thoroughly good you are at making us run around in ridiculous circles. Good luck!

zhukora1 December 4 2008, 01:31:17 UTC

Hahaha, I'm almost certain that half of the requirements and badly written website information is done purposely so the adcom can all sit back and watch us run around like idiots. It's like a hazing ritual. xD

I managed to get through to the admissions advisor finally, and updated the post with the "real deal" for uploading stuff. Yay!

That said, the way they describe their requirements on the website is sooo confusing. Up at the uploading part of the list it does say the writing sample should be six pages, but down in the paragraph about the SOP it (randomly) says If the applicant wishes to submit a sample of his or her written work, the sample should be brief (no more than three pages), which is the only indication of whether the sample is required or optional. Bleh ( ... )

caziques December 4 2008, 01:41:35 UTC

Murder, isn't it?

Thanks for the update--that definitely saves me a panicked call tomorrow.

Academic Interests anonymous December 13 2008, 22:20:27 UTC

In the "academic interests" section of the application, they give you the option of ranking faculty in the order that you are interested in working with them. But they give very little space for you to describe as to why you want to work with these professors in this order.

Do you have any idea if this section is a required for Anthropology? Thanks!

Re: Academic Interests zhukora1 December 14 2008, 03:11:17 UTC

I think the department website asks for you to list 2 faculty. They've changed some stuff on there since the deadline is coming up, though, so you might want to double check. And since there's so little space to talk about the "why", I don't think you should feel obligated to use full sentences or anything. A list of one- or two-word phrases should let you fit in more.