Grad school stuff

[cherrytop]

So I spent all of last Thursday driving around doing grad school admission stuff.  WAS SO TIRED BY THE END.  And I hate parking in San Francisco.  And especially Berkeley.  The Bay Bridge being closed did not help either.

Anyway, it looks like I'm going to apply to Masters of Social Work programs at both San Francisco State University and University

Comments

[educatedmonkey]

Good luck with applications. I think having to write your own letters of recommendation is weird, but have heard of it before. Including specific examples is important.

[pgchan]

It seems that I'm hearing more and more about people writing their own letters of recommendation. I wonder how long it is before this knowledge is widespread and letters of rec start being considered useless. I had a hard time writing mine too, but asking around for advice was dicey too. Mainly, don't mention anything negative about yourself - if you're tooting your own horn, no need being painfully truthful. If it helps, pretend the letter is about someone else when you read over it. Since your person will be looking it over, I guess don't put anything wildly innappropriate, like rescuing those orphan babies from that fire, but PFFF.

... AND GOOD LUCK ;o;///

[sunsetscreamer]

Yah, someone asked me to do that too. I didn't know it was a widespread practice to do that so I declined, and he wrote it and asked me to reread it and give him my opinion on it so I did. As for gpa, they count abroad. My program reconfigured my gpa to include my time in Prague. I know because it says our college gpas online.

Is there some way you can try meeting more officials from the various organizations in the bay area now? A lot of ppl in my program now got their internships by knowing ppl.

[aneguet]

I had to do this for one of my law school recs, and was told that it's a really bad idea but increasingly common.
My solution was to have another friend write the letter for me and then turn it in to the professor. This way I a) don't make it utterly blatant by having the style of my personal statement and rec letter match, and b) avoid the awkwardness of trying to evaluate myself. You only hurt yourself when you can't have a comparative recommendation.

[pgchan]

I never thought of asking a friend to do it, but that's a good idea! I just would wonder if any of my friends would have the time and appropriate writing experience.

[cazadora_fosil]

Yay, working on grad school. Whoo. Welcome to the first of many hazing exercises in higher education, the pinnacle of the academic industrial complex.