Mmm, downloads.

[brigdh]

Ganked from kessie: Anonymous music meme.


ETA: On another topic entirely, there's a girl I went to undergrad with who is applying to graduate school this fall, and she's been emailing me for the last few months to ask questions and for advice and so on; I think one of the professors must have given her my name, because I doubt I've spoken to her three times ever. Anyway, she's just taken the GRE and wanted to know what I scored when I took it, which I only managed to provide her with after writing three entire paragraphs of "well, it's really more about the percentiles than the actual score, and no one gives these sorts of tests much weight anyway, your GPA and letters of recommendation count for much more, blah blah blah", all sorts of wordy things so that I could bury my score in the last sentence like an afterthought. Not because I'm ashamed of it, but because it's high enough that I know there's nowhere for the discussion to go after that, and I hate the thought of making her even more worried about her applications, if that's possible.

Clearly this says all sorts of revealing things about my relationship with my own grades, but I have to say that my very favorite thing about grad school so far is that there isn't any real competition for grades, because everyone's getting an A or B anyway, and it's rarely even broken down into the actual percentages. It's very relaxing to not have to do the sorts of hiding and bizarre comparisions I'm used to.

Comments

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the Dance of the Standardized Test Scores. How well I remember it, and how little I miss it now. I was as relieved as you are now when I got to college and suddenly nobody gave a damn about your SATs, or your grades, or any of that stuff.

Why do people go and ask these things? No, I'm being unfair: I can see why your correspondent is asking. But it's still awkward, for anybody who has any sensitivity at all to other people's feelings. When you finally find yourself in a place that just assumes that everybody did very nicely, thank you, it's like having a years-long headache melt away.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I feel her pain, because there are absolutely no resources for finding the range of scores that schools are looking for (at least not for Anthropology programs), so it's rather frustrating to be left looking at a number without having any context for it.

Still. I had been very nicely not thinking about it for a year now! I wish she hadn't gone and reminded me.

[drmoonpants.livejournal.com]

See, I love the grad school 'grades don't really matter' for pretty much the opposite reason, because I often got kinda mediocre grades on things in college and downright lousy ones in high school. It's, uh, homework, you see, I did not so much do it? ...However, once I got to grad school, I found I was actually doing all the reading and keeping up with my work better than pretty much anyone in my entering class with me, because I was actually /challenged/ and that made me excited and in game face and therefore, you know, working.

...there's no real point to this comment except that I think, for all that I love school, I've pretty much always hated school. Until now!

Also that asking someone their GRE scores is like asking their weight. Whether they are overweight OR underweight OR just right and beautiful, you just don't do it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

because I was actually /challenged/ and that made me excited and in game face and therefore, you know, working.

Ahahaha, I know exactly what you mean. I used to put up with classes that were entirely boring busywork in high school, because I was used to it, but in the last few years I have been so spoiled that anything that isn't challenging turns me into the bitter goth kid who sits in the back of the classroom and doesn't speak and glares at the teacher over the top of a comic book. Except with me it comes with the weird need to prove that I know too much to be in the class, so I actually have to continue doing the work and studying for tests and whatever.

Also that asking someone their GRE scores is like asking their weight

...BEST METAPHOR EVER.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

When people ask me which university I go to I find myself embarrassed to say Oxford. Which is not how it should be at all. -_-

[lucifrix.livejournal.com]

I hope she put around her request something like "I know this is none of my business, but..."--that's a very sensitive question. Sometimes I wish people would ask me about my SAT scores because it's the last academic achievement I was really proud of, but OTOH I'm also proof that those don't mean anything.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Dude, seriously. It's this weirdly bizarre reverse embarrassment, and I never know quite how to deal with the emotion. Good to hear I'm not the only one, though!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

She was very polite about it, and I completely understand why she would ask- there's no real way to find out what sort of scores you want to aim for with the GRE, because schools don't publish any information on their acceptated range.

And hee. It is nice to be able to brag about achievements, sometimes.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

It's awkward, sometimes, for me to say that I'm doing a masters in Triniy because a) people assume I'm a snob, and b) they assume I have sufficiently wealthy parents when I started saving at 5 to go to college ¬_¬ (yes, I was the ambitious child). Of course, that has more of the overall reputation Trinity has. I'm starting to wonder what people will think if I tell them I'm starting to ponder about trying Cambridge for a PhD. (Or, for that matter, what my family will think.)

In secondary school, it was assumed I would do well in everything except Maths and Irish, because I will the girl who actually did her homework and such, and it was a small enough class that no one really cared. Except that no one believed me when I used to say I hadn't studied because, nine times out of ten, my version of studying was to read over what I needed to know five minutes before te exam (and still is). It took me years to realise that it was because my short-term memory far outweighs my long-term one.

College was all about the unspoken grades (apart from close friends) because it just wasn't standardised testing and there was really no measuring bar to say why one person did worse than another. One of my friends always had a chip on their shoulder that I did better than him despite the fact he studied more (again, short-term memory), except than we both got into the postgrad courses we needed, and I'm finally in a group where everyone is expected to do well. Finally.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, do I sympathize with the studying thing. That was all I used to do too, but I just didn't tell anyone, because I got tired of the weird looks it would get me. Plus I felt kinda ashamed of it; it didn't feel fair that I'd spend five minutes on it and do as well as the person who spent three days.

Isn't it so nice now?