Physics GRE Discussion Forums

So I'm not doing this yet, I'm trying to be as patient as possible, but i've been advised that if i don't hear something from anywhere in another week or two to email the departments and check on my status. But I don't know which schools or if I should for all? And more importantly I don't know exactly what to say, like how to word the email. I've noticed on here several others have said they've sent email inquiries to schools, so do any of you have any advice on how to word these so as to not come off impatient and to hopefully get a response (one thats hopefully not full of disdain because I annoyed them)

When I contacted Harvard I said something like:

Dear [name],
I submitted a Fall 09 PhD application and was wondering what my status is, and if you haven't made decisions yet when you think you'll do so. I'm starting to schedule travel for visiting weekends and it would be helpful for me to know when I'll hear from you.

Thank you,
Sterculus

sterculus wrote:When I contacted Harvard I said something like:

Dear [name],
I submitted a Fall 09 PhD application and was wondering what my status is, and if you haven't made decisions yet when you think you'll do so. I'm starting to schedule travel for visiting weekends and it would be helpful for me to know when I'll hear from you.

Thank you,
Sterculus

So many contractions! Whenever I write to a professor/someone my future rides on I try to use as few contractions as possible. I used to get yelled at for this back in high school when I was preparing speeches and such.

Did you write to the department secretary?

Yes, I wrote the the department secretary, and my future does not ride on the department secretary's opinion of my written style.

coreycwgriffin wrote:

sterculus wrote:When I contacted Harvard I said something like:

Dear [name],
I submitted a Fall 09 PhD application and was wondering what my status is, and if you haven't made decisions yet when you think you'll do so. I'm starting to schedule travel for visiting weekends and it would be helpful for me to know when I'll hear from you.

Thank you,
Sterculus

So many contractions! Whenever I write to a professor/someone my future rides on I try to use as few contractions as possible. I used to get yelled at for this back in high school when I was preparing speeches and such.

Contraction-less writing is dumb -- it's the arbitrary preference of grammarians and English teachers, without a logical leg to stand on (<-- very similar in that respect to ending sentences in prepositions). I can't stand academic papers whose writers go to such great lengths to reproduce "correct" grammar that the writing becomes stilted and awkward. It's almost always best to write in the clearest and most direct way.

abeboparebop wrote:Contraction-less writing is dumb -- it's the arbitrary preference of grammarians and English teachers, without a logical leg to stand on (<-- very similar in that respect to ending sentences in prepositions). I can't stand academic papers whose writers go to such great lengths to reproduce "correct" grammar that the writing becomes stilted and awkward. It's almost always best to write in the clearest and most direct way.

I don't know. Part of me thinks that saying things like "you'll" to people who may decide your future just sounds impolite. But hey, man. You can do whatever you want.

coreycwgriffin wrote:

abeboparebop wrote:Contraction-less writing is dumb -- it's the arbitrary preference of grammarians and English teachers, without a logical leg to stand on (<-- very similar in that respect to ending sentences in prepositions). I can't stand academic papers whose writers go to such great lengths to reproduce "correct" grammar that the writing becomes stilted and awkward. It's almost always best to write in the clearest and most direct way.

I don't know. Part of me thinks that saying things like "you'll" so people who may decide your future just sounds impolite. But hey, man. You can do whatever you want.

Do you avoid contractions when you're talking to people too?

abeboparebop wrote:

coreycwgriffin wrote:

abeboparebop wrote:Contraction-less writing is dumb -- it's the arbitrary preference of grammarians and English teachers, without a logical leg to stand on (<-- very similar in that respect to ending sentences in prepositions). I can't stand academic papers whose writers go to such great lengths to reproduce "correct" grammar that the writing becomes stilted and awkward. It's almost always best to write in the clearest and most direct way.

I don't know. Part of me thinks that saying things like "you'll" to people who may decide your future just sounds impolite. But hey, man. You can do whatever you want.

Do you avoid contractions when you're talking to people too?

It depends on who I'm talking to, but yeah.

Number one rule about writing: all the rules are made to be broken.

(Thanks for posting this topic btw, I was wondering about this myself!)