Crucial BBQ

When I recently met with the program director for a particular program at UC Davis, I was asked about my GPA. I responded with, "it's low". I was asked how low?, I hesitated, and then was asked if it was at least a 3.0? I said yes, to which the program director broke out laughing-saying I had absolutely nothing to worry about. It might be worth it to briefly mention an F or a D or two, perhaps a C- even, but I'd leave Cs and above alone.

Biology in general has been a popular subject to pursue at the graduate level for a really long time. Admittance into graduate schools peaked in 2010 or so iirc and have been on the decline since. Health care and business are on the rise, however, and humanities are down. Overall applications to graduate schools have increased, however. It's just that programs got smaller due to budget cuts, lack of funding, and so on.

On a side note: I hear that baked goods are generally appreciated.

In terms of etiquette, a hand-written, mailed, thank you note is proper however in this day and age a thank-you email would be sufficient. To add, if you are under the age of 25-or perhaps even 30-you might not fully understand just how effin' stoked the "older" crowd gets over a hand-written note or letter; especially if it were actually mailed to them. A thank you note is personal, something that you took the time out of your day to craft and mail off (hint, hint), and shows sincerity. Keep in mind that writing LORs is in their job description, it is something they are expected to do (at least from time-to-time), and something that they once required for themselves (and often times still do to this day). If you have a burning desire to still get them a gift, then it should be a small token and nothing more. Otherwise you run the risk of embarrassment or appearing to bribe. What if you were rejected from all programs this year (like I was last year) and you use the same recommenders next year (like I did this year)? You don't want to be known as the student who sent in a box of chocolates (what if they were allergic? Or diabetic? Or on a diet?) or a $50 gift card as a thank you. It is an entirely different matter to send a coffee mug, shot glass if you know them well enough, a t-shirt, or something university/program-centric after you have been accepted and have accepted the offer. This would be a creative way to tell them you were accepted, and accepted, but it is not a thank you: it's just you being fun. An actual gift should only be reserved for those you really know (you hung out during office hours to discuss last Sunday's football game) or they wrote an excessive amount of LORs on your behalf (~20 or so). By the way, do not students typically reserve the gift-giving for when after they defend? And also thank the LOR writers in their dissertation? To each their own. The gift could very well be appreciated, but it is never expected. Just keep in mind that you may appear to be giving a quid pro quo-a gift for a favor-when that favor is something they do anyways. *edit* The above is primarily for the U.S. It is my understanding that in some cultures it is appropriate to give gifts in exchange for LORs.

And to Wordsmith: About time; if you stop and think about it you more-than-likely have tons of free time. It is masked by your day-to-day trivial, mundane, tasks. It is sometimes hard to see ourselves for ourselves, so I will begin with my GF. My GF claims to "never have free time", yet she spends an awful lot of time watching TV or dorking around on Pinterest, Facebook, and so on. When she does laundry and is between loads, yup, she passes the time on Facebook instead of working on something else. I was the same way. It wasn't that I didn't have the time as much as it was that I didn't want to spend my time in ways that were more productive, initially. Here is an exercise you can do: keep track of time spent through the day for one week: wake up, getting ready in the morning, commuting, work, TV, cooking, eating, and so on. Be as honest as possible and at the end of the week review the timesheet. If you were honest you should see a lot of wasted time. What I did at first, and mind you this was for undergrad, was to make a schedule and stick to it as close as possible. After about six months my schedule, between working full time and being a student full time, became habit so I stopped with the planning. Since the school/work balance became habit I only noted certain dates in my calendar. I had to work full time, support myself, pay all of my own bills, rent, etc., but I did not have children. I I'm a firm believer in the idea that if we want something to happen we find the ways to make it happen. I am also a firm believer in that by being active it is easier to remain active (laziness breeds more laziness). I found that when I came home from work I was that much more energized to do homework/schoolwork/projects: I was already in the work/TCB mode, it was easy to feed from it.

Spoke too soon, one of my apps is asking if I had previously applied....

I am reapplying to three of the same programs. I did not (or will not) mention my previous application in my SOPs and I have not seen a "Have you previously applied to this program?" on any of my apps; only "Have you previously attended" or "Have you previously been accepted". One of the programs updated their online application system. I was told my application would be treated as 100% new. Another program is going to move my application from last year into the active application pool. I did not ask, but I imagine it will have last year's application date on it since this program stores the entire application as one .pdf. I am sending a new SOP (I have until Feb. 1), though. The other program, not sure.

I was only offering one idea to why there may be a lack of updates on the Results page is all.

The biology program at MIT gets a lot of applications. I don't remember the exact figure but it is over 3K iirc. With all grad programs combined, the total number of applications is ~25K (I added 1K to adjust for an increase, otherwise it was ~24K in the 2013-2014 cycle) with only 3,320 being offered admission. http://web.mit.edu/facts/admission.html There are only 1, 095 total doctoral students studying science at MIT and whopping 5 Master's students. That number is for all science Ph.D.s, not just biology. My guess is that the majority of MIT applicants are not members of Grad Cafe and of those who are most probably do not want to admit they were rejected (or in this case, not offered an interview). When it comes to things that are self-reported, it is more likely to self-report if one agrees with the outcome or receives a strong emotional response otherwise. I would also guess that many Grad Cafe members are not posting all of their results, if any at all, in particular if they may feel embarrassed by it. I only posted one result last year and that was only because I waited, without word either way, until mid-May for that decision. That ticked me off and I posted just to leave a snarky comment as a heads-up to future applicants.

My Maryland app said something similar, but that was with their old system. By the way, I did not receive my decision from them until mid-May. If you search the Results page you will many Maryland applicants who also received their decisions later in the year, too.

What are you putting in your subject line? I usually use something such as: Prospective Student; Hydrology Program at UC Awesome; Fall 2015. If your subject line appears to be at all spammy it will probably be treated as spam. Same with nonprofessional email addresses. I am not sure if your emails are too long or not. Frankly, I don't think anyone knows. It seems that for every number of POIs one contacts via email there are an equal number of proper protocol. Some want the initial contact email to be short and sweet, others do not mind novellas. Some want you to include your CV, others claim that soliciting your CV without prior agreement is bad, bad, bad. Some love emails from prospective students, others will raise holy hell if you even just think to email them. Last year I had mixed results; what I found to work better this year was something like: Dear Professor Cool Guy, I am a prospective applicant to the Marine Biology program at University by the Sea. I am searching for a potential mentor/advisor and pulled your name from the program's website. A review of your personal webpage/lab indicates you as a potential fit for my research interests. If you will be taking on students for the Fall of 2015, and if so inclined, I would like to continue this conversation at your convience. Attached you will find my most current CV which includes my email, home phone, and Skype. Sincerely, Crucial BBQ crucialbbq@bbq dot com I hit ten for ten. Some did take their sweet time with responding, though, and some did take the time to respond just to tell me "no" or to suggest who I may contact instead. The goal with my above example was to keep in short, suggest that I had did some research into the program/POI/lab, ask my question, and then to ultimately put the ball into the POIs court. I wanted to show serious intentions without being pushy, extensive, or brown-nosing. Hope this helps if it is not too late.

The generic answer: coastal processes. A more refined answer: the biological response to fluvial sediment transportation and deposition. The actual answer: not telling I'll just say that my intended research requires a certain geological feature and a type, or types, of benthic organism. I am not limiting myself in my SOPs but my actual research interests, if I end up pursing them, are limited to a particular coastal morphology and a particular ecological distribution of organism. That also limits the schools I can apply to. There are two other things relevant to my intended research interests that would make my intended research topic more flexible in terms of grad school, but for the sake of anonymity I remain hush hush. Really, my intended research is part physical oceanography, part geological oceanography, part biological oceanography, and part EEB. Or for simplicity, coastal processes.

Yeah, I was bummed for sure but am over it now. I do have that what if feeling and I imagine it will linger for a while yet my top two choices are still in the running. In a way it is a good thing: less money spent and less programs to worry about (and less potential bragging rights ). Something that I did not mention in the other thread is that I now also have the time to retake the GRE for my top two programs if I choose to do so. I am now feeling excited once again (y)

The schools in your sig were the same schools in my original list last year. Seven of my twelve programs had their due dates on Jan. 5 and Jan. 7. It was not until Jan. 4 before I realized I had yet to send them my transcripts and GRE scores. I got in touch with the programs ASAP to see what I could do and without repeating myself from the other thread, those programs are now off the table. One of my recommenders is totally flaking on LORs, but that is okay as I have four recommenders total. The rest of my applications are going good.

Even though this was for a different program, perhaps this would help; when I met with the program director of my intended program at UC Davis I was told that Skype was a great way to chat with prospective PIs/mentors/advisors and that this was something that professors encouraged perspective students to do.

The deadlines fell on Jan. 5th or Jan. 7th. I realized my error on the 4th.

Crud! I created and regularly updated a spreadsheet to track my application progress this season. I hung a huge dry erase board on my wall that I have been making regular use of: I use this board to remind myself of import things--it hangs right next to my office door and my desk even faces it. In addition have also been keeping a physical hardcopy (binder) of information relating to my applications. I thought about every component of each application on a sometimes hourly basis yet for what-ever reason I did not have transcripts sent to any program despite having written on my dry erase board in big 'ol bright red letters "-->Send Transcripts!!!<--" complete with the multiple underlines, exclamations points, arrows and stars. My brain never made the connection until two days ago. To add, I only managed to send my GRE scores to four programs, and that was months ago. This has effectively cut my applications from twelve programs down to four/five: one has a Jan. 15th deadline (so I'll be close with that one if not too late), two have Feb. 1st deadlines, and two have a final deadline of March 1st. The good news is that my top two programs are on that list of four/five and ironically, perhaps, those along with two of the other programs are the original four programs out of five (the 5th being MIT/Woods Hole) that I had put on my grad school dream list a few years. The fifth program (or fourth if the 1/15 app is not accepted) is my "safety" if I may call it such. The other piece of good news is that one of my top choices and still-able-to-apply-to-program is a program at UC Davis. Being from Sacramento, and having just been home for the Holidays, and having to have also just happened to be in Davis during one of those days, I cold-called the program director to see if I could swing by and check things out. I called so late in the early-evening that I assumed no one would answer, but someone did-and it was okay for me to stop in for a chat. We spoke for the better part of a 1/2 hour and I learned of how I can make my application as competitive as possible. No real insider information of any sort but I do feel more confident about that application than I had felt previously. Feeling glad that I still have my top programs to apply to, yet also, despondent.

I recently met with the graduate program coordinator of a program at UC Davis (recently as in two days ago). According to her, submitting an application at 11:59 pm of the due date was a very bad idea but submitting one day before was perfectly okay. I did not push too far into that but gathered that it had something to do with getting the application into the hands of readers by or on the due date, not after. Granted of course, not all programs function this way.

I am one as well. Hands down the best educational experience I have had to date.

There is Scientific Linux, which is similar to RHEL. I am most familiar with Fedora myself as it is the only distro that I have stuck with over the years and through a few versions. CentOS also seems to be popular amongst the STEM. For Windows I would stick with W7 if you can, but you can also get the W7 from Metro in W8. For OSX, you will get the latest OS, which is currently Yosemity (10.10). If you purchase a used Mac, Mavericks (10.9) or Mountain Lion (10.8) would be cool, too.

My personal opinion is that for any sort of serious computing tablets are not there yet. I'd also shy away from an ultrabook and get either a "real" laptop or a desktop. You can also build a decent Linux desktop for only a few hundred dollars. Linux and Windows will have everything you need and nearly all Linux programs/apps run in OSX. All three platforms have an office suite available to them however I have found the Linux versions lacking despite the widespread "knowledge" that Linux developers focus on functionality and not appearance. Apple stripped many, many features for iWork, so unless you can get your hands on an older version you will find it pretty much useless for grad school. You can get the student version of Office for Mac for $25 or so. There are a few office suites available for Linux--some are comparable with Windows and all work with OSX that I am aware of and pretty much everything can open and/or save a .doc/.docx file these days. On my Mac, I use Skim for PDFs--free and awesome. For simulations, modeling, etc., Linux wins hands down followed by Windows. OSX is no slouch, considering that Macs can run pretty much the same Linux apps, but keep in mind that for nearly 2 decades Macs were designed more-or-less for the creative fields. Things have improved over the last few years, however. Macs can natively run Windows and Linux. You can install multiple OSs on a Mac, each in their own partition. You can hack a PC to run OSX, but that might be more work than you are willing to do...I dunno. Honestly, If you have been using Linux I would suggest to continue to using Linux. I hang out in a math/physics forum as well. It seems that gnumeric is recommended spreadsheet for physics and most seem to favor lyx or LaTex for writing papers with the general consensus being that Linux is preferred for physics students. A quick Google search confirms this.

Would it even be possible to stay on for another year after you have met graduation requirements? I know that you have to apply/petition to graduate and that the diploma is not automatic, however there are students who postpone the "real world" for as long as possible for what-ever reason. At both of my universities (I transferred) students were required to meet with their respective advisors prior to enrolling in courses. At both universities the advisor had to unlock your account in order for you to register for courses. This gives the Registrar assurance that the student is not wasting anyone's time. To be frank I cannot imagine an advisor, let alone a "school" -no matter how much they may want your tuition dollars-to allow this. For one, the risk of you failing a course or two is a real possibility; which will not only ruin your GPA but also might "ruin" the universities stats. Now, with that, you have two options if you want to take more courses: petition for a minor in Math/Stats or petition to double-major in Math'Stats, now, before you graduate. The other option would be to be admitted on a provisional basis and take the necessary courses in concurrence if necessary. To my understanding it will be more about your ability to pass a comprehensive examination and not so much about having taken certain courses although you will need to take certain pre-reqs. Honestly, I think you have a decent shot at good programs. It might be to your benefit if you include in your SOP that you would be willing to take an undergrad pre-req or two as a condition of admittance.

Are you sure that you rechecked the same page or typed in the original instructions correctly? It seems really odd they would shorten the length during open applications.

Short and sweet: I worked on a significant research project as an undergrad. Outside of this university my PI (biochem) is unknown in the grand scheme of things yet his collaborator (biochem, orgo, bioinformatics) is fairly well known and respected. Locally in the least, as being "brilliant". This other guy has published textbooks, short stories, and even poetry. I worked directly for my PI and rarely saw this other guy yet I used techniques and protocol developed by other guy and my research is ultimately going to be to his benefit. A way to think about their relationship is to consider that of Steve Jobs and Woz; where my PI is Jobs and The Other Guy is Woz. In essence, The Other Guy did all of the heavy lifting and my PI sold the project to the school. My question is if it would be acceptable to mention my PIs collaborator and if so to what capacity. I am thinking something alone the lines of: For the Summer of '69 I participated in a research project developed by Prof X and Prof Other Guy, which set forth to.... Under Prof X, I investigated....using the algorithm developed by Prof Other Guy. The algorithm is critical to the research and the entire research is designed around it. Another way to think about it is that if I don't mention who wrote the algorithm it will allude to my PI as being the author, which is false. I could avoid mentioning the algorithm altogether, then the research just seems like I am doing nothing more than running routine lab tests. I would not mention that I worked under Prof Other Guy, just wondering if it would be ethical to include his name in my SOP. Thoughts?

One of the hallmarks of ADD is that those with it have a tendency to shoot for lofty goals. In a way it is a coping mechanism: when they go down in flames they can blame the difficulty of the task, masking the ADD. The contrary is that when they do achieve goals, the tendency is feel depressed, shrug it off as no big deal, instead of celebrating in their accomplishments. To those with ADD, trying too hard is their natural state and true selves.