Hello, everyone! I hope that you’re all doing well!
I decided to create this thread after briefly perusing “can more graduated seniors do ‘actual results’ threads?” (located within the “What Are My Chances?” forum) as well as “2014 Bioscience Admission and Interviews” and finding both threads to be quite interesting (not so much helpful, but then again, neither applies to me in particular). And I think (hope that) other people would find a similar thread, especially a broader one (where majors are concerned) to be both very helpful and intriguing. Hence, as aforementioned, the idea for this thread was born!
Also, as a quick side note, I placed 2015 in parentheses because I hope that this thread will be used both by students who applied to graduate schools for 2015 (e.g., I applied to schools for the Fall 2015 semester) and by students who will apply to graduate schools in the future (similarly to “can more graduated seniors do ‘actual results’ threads?”).
With all of that said, I’ll start all of us off with this generic form that I’ve included in case people might find it helpful when organizing their information:
[Undergraduate / Graduate University]:
[Undergraduate / Graduate Major(s)]:
[Concentration / Track]:
[Undergraduate / Graduate Cumulative GPA]:
[Position in Class]:
[GRE Scores (revised version)]:
[Research Experience]:
[Pertinent Activities and/or Jobs]:
[Pertinent Memberships (list any leadership positions in parentheses)]:
[Awards / Honors / Recognitions]:
[Letters of Recommendation]:
[Personal Statements]:
[Type of Student]:
[Miscellaneous]:
[Prospective Major(s)]:
[Prospective Concentration(s) / Tracks(s)]:
[Application Season]:
[Interviews]:
[Accepted Schools and Programs]:
[Financial Aid Offered]:
Waitlisted Schools and Programs:
[Rejected Schools and Programs]:
[General Comments]:
Here’s a more tailored version of the form (geared towards my experiences, stats, and the like):
[Undergraduate University]: Florida International University, a large public research university
[Undergraduate Major(s)]: Liberal Studies
[Position in Class]: I think that I was in the top 10% of my class (as I was invited to join my school’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter during my last semester of undergrad.), but my school doesn’t technically calculate rank.
[GRE Scores (revised version)]
- V: 161
- Q: 144
- W: 4.5
[Research Experience]: Writing a 42-page research paper in its entirety (although my group members did, for the most part, do their fair share of research - it’s a long story), heavily editing a survey about the Everglades for a class which we were doing an infographic for (again, kind of a long story), and creating a survey about Writing Consultants’ experiences with and feelings towards L2 learners as part of my training to become a Consultant (see the “[Pertinent Activities and/or Jobs]” section for more info.)
[Pertinent Activities and Jobs]: Conducting an interview with my high school’s College Counselor (something that I would recommend that all students do if they can before applying to grad. schools), volunteering with my school’s Office of Pre-Collegiate Programs (because I want to help students find and be able to enroll in pre-collegiate programs relevant to them), possibly being a Writing Consultant (i.e., tutor) at my school’s Writing Center, and possibly being a Writing Tutor at my school’s Student Athlete Academic Center
[Pertinent Memberships]: Phi Beta Kappa, Golden Key International Honour Society, Phi Kappa Phi, and Delta Epsilon Iota Academic Honor Society
[Awards / Honors / Recognitions] - Dean’s List (for every semester that I was a full-time student)
- The FIU Presidential Scholarship (for every semester save one summer semester because the scholarship doesn’t cover summer courses; awarded and re-awarded to students who take 30 credits every academic year and maintain a 3.0 GPA)
- The Florida Academic Scholars (FAS) Scholarship (for every semester save one summer semester because the scholarship doesn’t cover summer courses; awarded to students who receive an ACT score of 29 or a certain SAT score as well as who have completed at least 100 hours of community service and re-awarded to students who maintain a 3.0 GPA as of the 2011-2012 school year)
- The FIU Excellence in Civic Engagement Medallion of Distinction (awarded to non-transfer students who have completed at least 200 hours of community service and who maintain a 3.0 GPA)
- The Office of Pre-Collegiate Programs Certificate of Appreciation (for volunteering with them for ~170 hours for one summer)
[Letters of Recommendation] - Letter #1 (from my ENC 1101 and 1102 professor): 10/10 (almost made me want to cry and request a copy of it so that I could frame it)
- Letter #2 (from one of my former supervisors): 9/10 (from what I remember, this one was almost as amazing as the first one, but it had grammatical errors)
- Letter #3 (from one of my professors, who’s also one of my former supervisors): 8.5/10 (this one was also awesome, but it also had grammatical errors, and the last paragraph didn’t really flow well with the rest of the paragraphs)
[Personal Statements] - UF: 10/10 (I worked on this one for months, and it showed. I stuck to the topic, what I wrote was compelling, and what I wrote showed why I wanted to attend UF [that I’d done my research].)
- UCF: 9/10 (I also worked on this one for months. The only difference, really, between this one and my UF one was that I talked about a research paper that I hadn’t actually read. Which was definitely something I shouldn’t have done. [Seriously, don’t. They might ask you questions that you can’t answer unless you have. I just got lucky that no one did that to me.])
[Type of Student]: Domestic Hispanic female
[Miscellaneous]: At the suggestion of a good friend, I created a wix.com website in order to showcase my resume, some academic writing samples, some creative writing samples, and my computer skills (kind of a long story). It took a very long time for me to make it up to snuff, but if you have the free time to, I’d try to make a personal website! At the very least, you learn a lot from it, and it’s a lot of fun!
[Prospective Major]: Counselor Education
[Prospective Track]: School Counseling
[Application Season]: I was applying to schools for entry during the Fall 2015 semester.
[Interviews]: I received an invitation on 1/28/2015 to interview with the University of Florida (UF) on 2/20/2015. I also received an invitation on 2/16/2015 to interview with the University of Central Florida (UCF) on 3/20/2015.
[Accepted Schools and Programs]: I was accepted to UCF’s Master of Arts in Counselor Education - School Counseling Track Program on 3/25/2015 (I was told that it would take two weeks after my interview with them to hear back from them). I will be attending UCF.
[Financial Aid Offered]: Just loans (sigh)
[Rejected Schools and Programs]: I was rejected from UF’s MEd/Eds Counselor Education Program sometime between 2/28/2015 - 3/2/2015 (I was told that it would take two weeks after my interview with them for them to get back to me).