Crucial BBQ

You can tighten it up a little, but in general this good as it is.

Everyone feels that it is needed, that is why it is cliche and should be avoided. If you feel that this information is absolutely critical to your SOP, then include deeper in the SOP, such as in Paragraph 3. To be frank it really does not matter where or when your desire stemmed, only that you have that desire now. No one gets brownie points for having the longest standing interests in Subject X.

For these reasons... seems to be the typical ending. I ended mine with a period. In retrospect, an exclamation point would have eloquently indicated my desires, too. In all seriousness I restated my thesis, thanked them for their time, and wrote that I look forward to hearing from them.

I have worked in private and public sector labs; you are correct in that no one works solely on one project at a time. There is always something on the side. There are moments when you simply have to let things run their course, and what are you going to do in the meantime? Twiddle your thumbs? I would assume as a Ph.D. student that downtime would be spent researching literature or working on the dissertation. I would think the real question to ask is if taking on the second project would interfere with your dissertation or not. Fuzzylogician has Linguistics listed as major; I would imagine tons of writing experience and ability to do so. Science majors, in particular those who study biology, on the other hand, are rather weak in the area of written communications. At least for most it seems. I have yet to experience graduate school so this is only my thought.

My deadlines are mostly between Jan. 5th and Jan. 15th. I do have one for Feb. 1st and one for Feb. 15th, though. Ironically, the Feb. 15th application is the only one I have submitted so far. I hope I get an invite. I'd love to have an excuse to visit New England in the dead of winter (not being sarcastic, I really do love New England winters).

I get up early (alarm set for 5:15 am), but don't feel comfortable doing work until 5 or 6 pm. And by work I mean school work. Even if I had the entire day off I would not feel in my zone until later in the evening. My (former) school has two libraries. The main campus library closes at 10 or 11 pm and the other, the law and business school library, is open 24/7 except for a few hours on Sundays. I have pulled a few all-nighters in there.

I think that you can make into a Top 50 program, sure.

Yeah, I can definitely understand the coursework might be difficult to handle if one has been out of college for many years. I just don't think that many undergrads are prepared for the daily grind of research/dissertation. I agree that 1 -2 years of full-time work between undergrad and grad school would be ideal. For most students, anyways.

Interesting. For those not familiar with my story, I did not begin college until the age of 23. Every year I was in school I came across students who were anticipating "the real world". All I could think was You are in for a rude awakening. 8 - 4, M - F, week in and week out. No three month summer vacations, no month long winter break, no Spring Break, only one day off for Thanksgiving, maybe if they were lucky their vacation time would be approved.... It was a tough transition coming straight out of high school, I fought tooth and nail. Now I am glad that I experienced it earlier rather than later, though. It is no wander why many who go straight from high school to university to graduate school have a tough time in grad school--there was no transition period and grad school was the first time in their lives when they were expected to do real work. These days I could not imagine taking an entire summer off, let alone three weeks. It now feels like such a foreign concept.

Are you applying directly to your POI/lab? If not I would contact the program director as they are the ones who generally handle and disperse the applications...at least the U.S., anyways. Since the 10th was on a Wednesday, it could be possible the apps have already been dispersed for review over this weekend. If you app, app fee, and LORs were in by the deadline you may be alright if Dec. 10 is not a hard deadline (a few of my programs have a deadline of Month Day but allow up to an additional month for GRE scores, LORs, etc. to come in).

In general, those who suffer from imposter syndrome feel as if their acceptance into a program was by mistake, someone sneezed as they were reaching for the reject button and accidentally hit accept as a result. They feel inadequate; not like they don't belong but more like they shouldn't belong. You sound like an overachiever.

^^ that is awesome ^^ I would call the program director and ask if it could be removed from your file. I did the same. Only one program said that it was absolutely fricking necessary and another suggested that it would be a good idea regardless of grades earned (something about showing an interest in breadth, which some adcoms really like to see). The general consensus amongst the rest was that if the school was not listed as having been attended then the adcoms would not know to look for the transcript.

If I remember correctly, political science majors score the highest on average with the GRE. I would imagine a decent background in math would be a good thing for your application. I am not sure how pass/fail reflects on your GPA, but I would suggest retaking it for grade. You can move onto another math course and attempt to argue that you were only auditing the trig course. Another math course to look into would be something along the lines of a calculus for business/social science majors if your school offers it, which is essentially an easier version of calc I (calc I is easier than trig, in my opinion) and more-than-likely will be a terminal course if you choose not to retake. You can also post this question here, as I am sure they will be more knowledgeable than I: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/36-political-science/

When I transferred from community college into university, I had to take a freshman course to fulfill university requirements before moving on. Then I transferred again and once again I was required to take lower division courses to fulfill university requirements. As a senior I had to take a freshmen seminar course and a 200-level bio course before I could move on to 300-400 level bio courses even though I had more bio, and science, credits under my belt than was required. So for the first year at this school I could not take any bio course above the 200-level. But that was their rules so I had to play their game. To add, there is also the possibility that I might have to take some leveling courses myself: namely Chem I and Calc II--despite having taken chemistry and math courses through upper division. It is not a good feeling. Honestly, once I got past those requirements from my second university I felt pretty good as I was then free to take the courses I needed/wanted. I would imagine that now that you are done with the leveling courses the same will hold true for you, too. One piece of advice is that since you have already paid for one year out-of-pocket it might make more sense to continue on with at least one more semester before you decide to quit or not. It seems kind of silly to quit now considering you have yet to actually participate in the program. Give it a semester and see how it goes.

For sake of clarification in the U.S. we have 2-year public vo-tech schools, 2-3 year private vo-tech schools (although not that common), and community college--which can be either vo-tech, "college" or usually a combination of the two. In some States community college is known as jr. college. I don't think one community college in the State of California has the word "community" in its name. I believe that a main difference between community college professors and university professors is that the CC profs are more tied into what is going on in the community and in broader world of their fields in terms of private industry. The university profs don't really seem to have a clue. At the small community college were I received my A.S. (Applied Marine Biology), we had all sorts of people hanging out--buddies with the faculty. There were people from NOAA, Woods Hole, DNR, various aquariums, fisherman, Coasties, independent researchers, and so on. Not one professor from a university ever stopped by as far as I recall. Profs were doing basic research, sometimes known as pure research. One guy was doing gene sequencing on a type of fish. He was sampling fish from two locations, 100 miles apart from each other. He was looking for a genetic marker in sample B that should only be found in sample A but was showing up periodically in sample B. He also raised alewife to later be released. There were also two other projects he was doing: one involved developing a new type of lobster trap and the other was developing a synthetic lobster bait. He is a fisheries guy. A chemistry prof was looking into pollutants in the water column (ocean/near shore); another science prof was developing an improvement to a piece of oceanic equipment; another prof was using coastal drifters to track coastal currents. There were a few others. Other profs either worked in their fields outside of the classroom, or were retired from it before they began teaching. I think coming from industry made/makes them better teachers, in my opinion, than those who only know academia. The fisheries guy mentioned above hired a former student to work on the synthetic lobster bait project. This student was paid by the community college, not him, and I believe she was considered an official employee of the CC. The program had an independent research course where students could choose to work on various projects. He often used students enrolled in that course to work on his gene sequencing project. The guy who was working on the piece of oceanic equipment also used student labor who were paid for by the CC. Another "trick" they used was to coincide lab assignments with their research projects when applicable. I am not sure about teaching load; I thought it was four courses per semester to be considered full-time. Part-time facility either still had their "day jobs" or taught at multiple colleges to make full-time. Community colleges are hiring Ph.D.s more-and-more; to my knowledge the requirement is still a Master's to teach transferable courses and "expertise" to teach non-transferable courses. Based on what I saw at this CC it seems that it could be possible to teach at a CC and do research at the CC -or off campus- as long as you put teaching first.

MIT claims to have received 24K total grad school applications in 2013 and only offered admissions to 3,300. I have heard that the Biology Department as a whole admits something like 24% of their applicants with some individual programs being as low as 4%, but I cannot find any factual data on that one. http://web.mit.edu/facts/admission.html

I opened an academia dot account a few years ago. Occasionally I get an email stating that someone looked for me. I don't have any real information up in my profile outside of my name/school. My profile pic is not me, but it would be hard to tell because "I" am fully zipped up in an ocean survival "gumby suit". According to the analytics, I was found through a google search.

Yeah, I get two or three emails from Columbia per week it seems--and have been since I took the GRE last year. Dartmouth, USC, and Nebraska really took me by surprise as those emails "randomly" appeared recently. I googled the topic to see what was up. Apparently there has been a downward trend in graduate school applications/attendance--coming down from a ten-year high-- and these types of emails are part of a larger recruitment campaign for the individual "graduate schools". What I have gathered so far is that the recruitment strategies are aimed more towards Master's degrees/programs. Still, I cannot imagine those programs who have emailed me being desperate enough to do such a thing as all three, including Columbia, American, and George Washington should not have a problem attracting talented applicants. Graduate programs are getting contact information from the GRE and GMAT, which Noel Levitz (higher education consulting firm) cites as "GRE/GMAT name buys".

It is an ego boost for sure but these programs know nothing about me. I don't know who would be more embarrassed if I applied; them or I. Your program sent me an email encouraging my application. You obviously got my email address from ETS. As that may be, surely you also saw my really low GPA and horrible GRE scores. So here I am applying to your program. Surprise.

We can all read and write the same for the most part but when it comes to speech we can totally be lost with each other. Accents aside, there are differing mannerisms of speech, word usages, tonalities, and so on. Take someone native to each from Minnesota, Maine, California, and Lousianna and all four would have a hard time understanding each other. And they are all Americans. There were a a lot of native Spanish speakers taking Spanish to fulfill the language requirement at my high school (California). I thought that was cheating for a long time until I realized they took Spanish for Spanish Speakers (that is, they were mostly Mexicans who spoke Mexican Spanish). A good friend of mine growing up is from Mexico. We have a mutual friend in high school who was from Guatemala. The two would spend a lot of time filling in each other how to say this or that in their own versions of Spanish. Right, of course. I mean we can't have some English dude running a class saying things like "maths" and "you will write your exams tomorrow" and "tootle pip".

My ex-GF went through the MPH at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She was accepted into that program and the one at University of Washington. Both had a price tag of ~$80K/year but John's Hopkins offered a 75% reduction in tuition for the second year. The program condensed two years of schooling into one, so she did four "quarters" of full time course load. Insane if you ask me. During the second year MPH students get an internship or straight-up job placement which they need to hold for I believe 6 months, 9 months, or a full year if I remember correctly in order to fulfill graduation/program requirements. She took out a PLUS loan to pay for the first year AND living expenses. She also came into the program with roughly $80K of student loan debt from graduation from a Top 20 and then later on from a BSN program. She ended up doing an internship out-of-state, which because she was full on adult and had many years of real-life work experience, she was able to get a real job instead of an internship. So that paid for the second year. Since then she has gotten a job with a hospital and makes good money. She has also become a single mother, which based on my understanding was her choice. Despite having $160K or so in student loan debt and being a single mom she is far from living in the poor house. It is all in what your priorities are and how you live that makes the costs worth it or not. If you want to buy a new car every five years, take on additional credit card debt to pay for all of your 55" TVs or thumping sound system, or travel extensively, then no-it will not be worth it. If you are the type who is has a few nice things but is generally content with what you do have, then you'll be fine. If you want to keep up with the Jones', then don't do it.

I think the 300 to 500 word counts are to keep the essays to the point. Otherwise more of them would begin Ever since the age of three... It is a pain, though. Thankfully only one of my programs explicitly requests no more than 500 words. I agree that it sounds rather robotic. As fuzzy logician mentioned in different thread, it really makes you focus on what it important. One of the schools I applied to last year is also the same school the Missus graduated from. Occasionally, this school sends her items in the mail that come in large envelopes. Not very funny if you ask me. I don't think men have it easier (according to that blog). Let's see: there are sports coats, blazers, and suit jackets. Of course that is leaving out the dinner jacket, which is sometimes called a tuxedo and sometimes not. The tux that everyone knows aside, to the uninitiated the rest may look to be the same jacket. Sometimes there is a leisure coat, which can look similar to the rest, or it could look like it is a part of a track suit. What about vents? One? Two? Side? None? Then the lapel: should it be thin? Broad? Rounded? Pointed? How many buttons? One? Two? Three? Four? Okay, four button jackets are not that common. Double breasted? How many buttons on the cuff? Three? Five? Would seven be overkill, or one not enough? Do shoes match the belt? Do socks match the shirt? What does the tie match? pants? Should the shoulders be sloped or broad? Should it be fitted? Yes. Should it be bespoke? If you can afford it. Should it be worn off the rack? Never, unless you want to look like a detective. What about cufflinks? Okay, I'm being a dork.

NIH moved away from the GS pay scale for awhile and experimented with a different pay scale --I believe they tried what the Health Services uses--in order to compete with and attract scientists from the private sector. For those not familiar with the GS scale, the way to get promoted upward through the GS ladder is through certifications and qualifications and not necessarily experiences. You can move up the GS scale based on years of service but eventually will hit a ceiling. The Fed Gov being the Fed Gov, your promotions are automatic and do not necessarily have to do with experiences or actual expertise. Anyone who can hobble their way through a Master's or Ph.D. program will automatically start at a high GS level no matter how bad they did in grad school or how much their research/thesis/dissertation sucked. By simple fact that someone got the Ph.D. the Fed Gov says they are guaranteed to make $X. The thing with the GS scale is that everyone eventually hits a ceiling, which is why the Fed Gov is not very attractive to STEM. No matter how good you are at your job or how many years you have in you will never move up in GS scale until you move into a new/different position. And in order to do that requires more certification and/or qualifications. Of course you can move laterally with yearly step increases (COL increases) and bonuses. But if your certs and/or qualifications places your ceiling at say GS 6, you will never move into the higher pay rate of GS 7. Never. Unless of course you pay to get the certs, degrees, etc.. Anyways, what NIH did was experiment with hiring and paying employees based on job performance, experiences, years of experience, and so on like the private sector does. In essence, pay rates and increases became based on performance and not simply because you put in X number of years and it was you turn up the ladder no matter how lazy you were. It was during this experimental phase when my GF applied for, and got, a lab management position. When the experiment was over and NIH went back to using the GS scale she bumped up the GS ladder like crazy, because of her new position, and got that pay. She is at her ceiling, though, and will never move up the GS ladder in her current position. The irony is that under the GS scale she does not qualify for her current position even though she applied to and got that position under the experimental system based on her experiences and years in that lab. If she went to the FDA or USDA or Reed or where-ever she would not be hired at the same GS level she is at now. She would take a dramatic reduction in pay. So that is it. She got lucky. The good thing is that she runs the lab, writes the training syllabi, and trains new hires/fellows/etc. and wrote the manual and protocol for a particular piece of new equipment that is now being adopted by other labs and universities. Complacency...no comment.

I have prof that I really want to write LORs for me who has yet to respond to my emails. He wrote them for me last year and only sent me two emails during the entire process: once to confirm that he would indeed write them, and once to tell me that he had submitted them all. The second email was about three months after the first. This guy will definitely write me a strong LOR, but I have three others lined up for this exact reason. I knew full well that even with a Ph.D. I won't get paid squat. I'm not pursuing it for the love of money. On the other hand my GF works in a bio lab at NIH and makes more money than anyone I know of my age group/friends. She only has a BS.

Yes, I would list both and indicate why both fit my bill. I would also mention that I had met with both in person and discussed what-ever that is relevant to my application.