The Courage to Change the Things I Can

A couple little known facts, 2 points for honesty: my undergraduate GPA was crap at around a 3.2, and my philosophy major's GPA was worse at just barely 3.0. Ironically, my psychology GPA was somewhere around 3.8. The verbal section of my first round of GRE scores was not impressive; 520. The math and analytic portions, though, were my saving grace at 720 and 5.5, respectively. I've made one 'B' while doing my graduate work, bringing my current GPA to 3.83. And, whether it turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing, my personality and aptitude have never been hidden in this program, so those I will be asking for letters of recommendation know enough about me to write an accurate letter.

But you can't just go into an endeavor with no control. You have to pick out at least one thing and say, "Regardless of the rest, I can do something about this." Well, everything above exists and is true; nothing I can do about that now. So a couple days back I registered to retake the GRE. This time, I'm actually using those books SLC lent me a couple years back. I'll be learning about 75 words a day, if not a little more, and I've got just about 10 days worth till the test. The math section, though I will brush up on, shouldn't be a problem. I remember having one enigma on the last math portion that hung me up for a bit. Provided I can bust through a similar situation this time, I have full expectations of increasing that score. But the kicker will be the verbal. My goal is to walk out of that test with a 1450+...and with the rate I'm going right now, I might just have a chance at that. So my letter writers will be approached this week (if they haven't been already), the packets for the letter writers are just about finished (including nifty mailing labels so they can use official stationary), my writing sample is polished, my CV is in good shape, and my personal statement is coming along. My plan is to have everything done on my part by the first week of November. The first deadline is December 5th (Stanford), so that will put my application in their hands with plenty of time. Plus, that'll give me the entire month of November to actually be worried about my coursework, as I'll have quite a few papers, etc.

Anyways, you know how I write on themes for awhile with a borderline obsession? This is it for the next two weeks. I'm doing everything I can to change what I can to help my chances of getting into a top program. We'll see if this all pays off (unfortunately, we won't see till around March, but I can wait). Till the next bought of boredom...

Namaste'.