<p>I also just realized that I should mention that, even though I didn’t go to the writing center, I mainly drove over there to meet with my professors. I hadn’t seen one of them since fall 2007! Well, last May, only very briefly… but I made a longer appointment with him just to talk about graduate school and get some guidance about his subfield. I didn’t really expect much from him as he wasn’t one of my LOR writers. But after looking at my list and statement, he offered to make suggestions on my statement if I could e-mail everything to him. I was very surprised but happy to have another pair of eyes.</p>
<p>Meeting professors, face-to-face, after a long absence is not the same as e-mailing back and forth. You get a lot more done because of the conversation speed. There’s also that spontaneity. You will come up with some things you had wondered but don’t want to bother to put in those thoughts in an e-mail. For example, my undergrad adviser wanted to know if I had submitted anything for publication and I said, “yeah, like six weeks ago,” and then she said, “and they haven’t said no yet?” I shook my head and she smiled and suggested that it was good news. Oh, I didn’t know that. </p>
<p>So, OP, there you have it. It’s always worth making time to talk to them face-to-face, especially if you’re serious about graduate school and pursuing similar fields where everyone’s going to know someone. So when you visit, just bring your laptop/netbook/whatever with you in your backpack and power it up if someone asks to look at it.</p>