Crucial BBQ

Not sure about neuroscience, but for my field it seems that it is okay to send updates as needed as long as the updates are important to your application and have occurred after you hit submit (final semester grades for those graduating in December, new GRE scores, for example).

I labeled it as a academic probation because the poster in question said he was placed on probation and that the resulting incident had something to do with asking/posting a homework-related question through social media. In case I was not previously clear, I am in agreement with your second paragraph. If it is not reported on the transcript, then yes they can ask. However, if it is not reported on the transcript then the school has to inform you of the request. You can say yes, or you can say no, to the request. The school cannot not move forward until you sign off or deny access. They probably would not ask unless they have suspicion to do so.

As part of my job when I was vice president of student government, I had the pleasure to remind parents of FERPA and what it meant. FERPA is to protect student identities by blocking their identities and locations from unauthorized access. Like when a parent claims their child has not called home in three days and wants to know if they are okay. We couldn't even acknowledge that a student was at that school with that name. My undergrad reports academic probation and dismissal on transcripts-- and doing so does not violate FERPA. Not all schools do this, though, and some also include other disciplinary actions not related to academics. What you are thinking of might be AACRAO, which is the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. According to the AACRAO it is suggested that probations are to be left off transcripts. Also, what a university publishes on the transcript can change periodically. @chibimolinero: you need to oder an official copy of your transcript for yourself to see if it is listed or not.

Interesting. I worked on a similar project during undergrad. If you are talking about what I think you are talking about then there is currently no known possible solution, only hypothetical. If I were the prof/advisor, I would have done the same thing. If you feel you got a great idea, just write your own proposal on this subject and publish it.

Vehicle inspections are State-dependent. If you are not driving on Penn. roads, you do not need the inspection. I cannot think of one Midwest or West Coast State that requires inspections. I could be wrong, but I don't think that registration is dependent upon passing a vehicle inspection in Penn. Realistically, you don't need to do it. Of course, if you were to drive back home with an expired inspection sticker... Another possibility would to just sell the car and purchase a used vehicle once you settle in. People on the West Coast and in the MidWest don't seem to drive as much as those on the East Coast do, so depending on where you end up you might not even need it (although if you grew up in Penn. you might think that you do). To the insurance: your rates are determined by your location, amongst other things: not the State the vehicle is registered in. If your insurance provider thinks you live in Penn., and you get into an accident in Oregon; if they find out you live in Oregon they can legally refuse your claim. It is illegal to live in one State while holding insurance from another. The reason being that insurance rates and laws vary State-to-State. The minimum policy requirement might not be the same in Oregon as it is in Penn. If your grad program does not require you to claim residency then you can legally keep the Penn. registration and insurance while simultaneously being a resident of the State in which you are attending school as long as the only reason you are in that State-as far as anyone else knows- is because of school.

That totally sucks. I was curious so I checked their website and found only one pharma program stating they were at capacity. If that is the one, and what you write is true, I would file a formal complaint. I'd also request a refund.

If your CV is thin with experience it is okay to expand on what you have done. I would avoid bullet points as bullet points are more of a resume thing. Otherwise, I would keep the descriptions to one or two sentences in the CV-in particular since you are already at two pages.

I will second that it seems to vary by program. I have called a few programs of interest and was told that it may help your application but that ultimately it is not required for admissions. One program, however, specifically stated that it is an absolute must. The way it was explained to me by one person in admissions was that a prof might agree to advise a handful of students but that ultimately it was up to the adcoms to decide on the one or two applications to admit. The prof's have no idea what the applicant pool looks like, so it is not really fair for one prof to tell the adcoms to admit that one applicant solely because that one applicant just happened to contact that prof. It was also explained to me that it is a way for students to familiarize themselves with the program, to see what types of research are being done. The bottom line being that a stellar applicant will be rejected if no one in the program is doing research in their area of interests. And finally I was told that contacting profs was the best way to see if they are still there and still doing research. Sometimes profs are still listed as faculty even though they have long since retired. Some prof's could be on sabbatical, and of course keeping personal bios and websites up-to-date is obviously not a part of their jobs. If there are six profs in the program you are interested in, I would contact all six. Whether you ask them if they are taking on students or not is up to you.

Generally when you show your transcript it is to show that you have the minimal background required to participate. My GPA in my second year was lower than yours and I had no problem. I have a persistent personality, though, and did hear no a lot. A professor tells me no, I move on to the next. I heard "no" from every biology prof at my first university. I then went to the Chemistry Department, where I got an RA position. I cold-called on most of my experiences. I basically went to office hours, mentioned I had an interest in their research, said I wanted experiences for graduate school, and that I was willing to volunteer if need be. I didn't wait for positions to be posted. I didn't say anything about my GPA, I focused on my enthusiasm to help with research.

The Graduate Student Council of MIT is trying to persuade MIT from accepting endowments from Fossil Fuel Companies.

I would not mind teaching; some of my favorite professors taught at community colleges. Those were people who were very approachable, always made time for students, had mad love for the subjects they taught, and ultimately seemed to have a better understanding of what was going on in the real world and in the broader scope of their disciplines. They were not pinned down by rules of academia and were free to read, do, and pursue various topics as they pleased. There is a joke: Ph.D. students are full of hopes, dreams, and ambitions of the future; academics have no hopes or dreams of the future. Of course it is not funny, it's not supposed to be. But it is a joke none-the-less. I had great profs at university, don't get me wrong. The younger ones, mostly adjuncts who also still worked in industry, were the best. Same with those who were only lecturers. Of the full-time and tenured, it was those who were not in STEM that were also very cool. The rest, the tenured and the tenure-track in STEM, seemed to be bogged down by office politics, seemed to have little concern for the rest of the school, seemed to look down on students who were into their non-science courses, seemed to look down on students who worked, and seemed to have zero sense of what was going on outside of not only their own departments but also outside of the niche area they studied. Those are the impressions I got. I could be wrong but it does not matter as I am not interested in academia. The bottom line is that I do not want my "job promotions" to be based on how many papers my advisees publish. I do not want to use students as a means to acquire funding of my own. I come from a solid blue-collar working class family (a clue to how my CV is three pages long cut and why my GPA totally blows). Living the life of an academic would frustrate me to no end. I do not believe that Master's degrees are "for those who can't hack it" or are consolation prizes. I do not believe that getting a job in industry is selling out. I do not believe that adjuncts or lecturers hold lowly positions. Of course my perspective could change in a few years. I could revisit this thread and say If I knew then what I know now I would not have written that post. It wouldn't be the first time I had to eat crow.

Here is something else to consider: I've often heard that it is a good idea to do undergrad, Master's, and Ph.D. in different locations. Nepotism is a reason normally stated followed by it is good to experience different academic cultures. However when you look at the state of academia and the very high probability of having to relocate across the country, numerous times, or perhaps even out of the country for those academic positions I think the "ability" to pick up and go--if the reasoning is sound--looks pretty good to academics. And of course the adcoms are academics. To them, no matter what your true desires may be, your Ph.D. is conditioning for the life of an academic.

One of my profs mentioned having attended seven different undergraduate institutions before going on to a Ph.D. Not sure where she did her Ph.D., or if she had a Master's as well, but she was fairly young, in her early 30s, so I would guess she did not do a Master's first. I believe it depends on why you transferred to be honest. I went from a community college to a university, which is an obvious step. However, I left that university because although some of the profs were awesome, the biology department itself sucked hardcore. Of course I would never tell that to anyone in graduate school admissions and there were other legit reasons for why I left (including financial and better opportunities).

Not sure about your selected schools, my rejections all came in the form of email. One was direct from the program director and to-the-point. The others were notices directing me to check my status online, where I found very generic, form, rejection letters.

Don't do this to yourself. The work will always be there-there will always be more work to do, more work that *could've* been done, and so on; the time to spend with family and friends will not be. Take it from me, I've been there (albeit not with grad school). The less morbid version: ten years from now you will hate yourself for putting the paper before family; take the time to visit family and ten years from now you would have forgotten about that paper. You think you feel guilt now? That is nothing compared to the guilt you will feel if you didn't go.

I prefer pencils but a good pen just glides over the page in a way that pencils do not. If you write a lot by hand that smoothness can be appreciated. As a student of biology, I was "trained" to use pens in labs. For whatever reasons, writing in your lab notebooks with pencil is frowned upon to the point of simply not being acceptable. Turning in a biology (or chemistry based on experiences) lab notebook written in pencil is worst than not turning one in at all. I believe the logic is that pen provides a permanent record of your notes. If someone were to look at your original notes, with pen, it is more difficult to alter what you originally wrote.

I feel the same, but with other experiences than the GRE. It is simply "the calculus". I got an RA job with a chemistry prof during a time when I only had Gen Chem I & II under my belt. I was taking Orgo I that semester. I was a biology major and this was a "real" job in that it was paid, not a part of work-study, not required for my degree, etc. I had to interview for the position and to be frank when I got the position I thought the prof had to be verifiably stupid. I guess I was a good bullsquater. It was tough, that research. I didn't help that I worked alone, either. I did meet with the PI once a week, but she had a Ph.D., and explained things to me as if I had a Ph.D., too. I don't know how I got through the first semester, but I did read...a lot. Tons of literature, reference manuals-I bought a Handbook of Chemistry and Physics that's like four inches thick. It ended well, though. No papers or presentations or anything from it but I learned a lot about working alone, trouble shooting, referencing things, searching literature, and so on. I was asked to continue working on the project for another year. I accepted the offer only to later transfer out of that school. The PI was going to start bringing in students (seniors, thesis) during what was to have been my second year with the project.

Last year my SOPs averaged 1400 words. Not one program that I applied to specified length and based on the feed back I got from those programs Your SOP was too effin' long! was not one of them. Your SOP should be as long as necessary without being extraneous. Unless there is a pre-defined length, I would not want to attend a program that would deny me because I made a few professors read two minutes longer than they had hoped to.

Ugh. Looking at my transcript (from the university I earned my BS) is quite depression. Feeling *why bother*

It seems like things were more active around here last year....Then again I don't think I really started using GradCafe until December/January of 2013/2014. With a 4.0, great GRE scores, and great experience, why are applying to only Master's programs? I have looked into many marine bio/biological oceanography programs and Maine is the only one that requires a solid commitment from a potential advisor as far as I know. UNE: you will get into this program. The school itself is better than it seems (I used to live in Maine, did some schooling up there) and the marine science there is geared more towards marine mammal rehabilitation, which is a very big deal for UNE (wounded marine mammals get taken there over other locations). Considering applying myself. VIMS: for the Master's, you will get in. I have been talking to them, I'm sure you stand a great chance for the Ph.D., program, too.

It looks like you have made some significant changes since your last application. Go for it.

To be frank, I have no idea. Perhaps you can ask this in the Art or Humanities forums? My best guess is that it would solely rely on how competitive admissions to something such art administration/management is in the first place. In biology for example there are simply way more applicants than available spots. As such there is more of a need to apply to more programs just to increase that chance of only one admit (although there are some applicants who only apply to, say, five programs and get into all five).

The question is in the title. While I am not there yet, the likelihood of me "having" to attend a Master's program first is high. One thing that concerns me is that I have found some programs of interest (Ph.D.) that indicate in their FAQs or About the Program that the undergraduate GPA is still held to a higher standard than the Master's. One program in particular specifically states that the Master's GPA can help with consideration of the Ph.D. application, but that the emphasis will still be on the uGPA. This topic has been mentioned a few times here on GradCafe, but one thing still remains a mystery: why? Perhaps there is something I am not realizing here other than that is just the way it is, but it does not make any sense. This is confounded even more by the realization that the first year or two of a Ph.D. program is essentially the Master's program, right? For the record, I do not mind attending a Master's program. My #1 choice program out of them all only offers a Master's in Marine Science. I am asking out of curiosity because as of right now it seems so absurd. If anyone can shed some light onto this subject I would greatly appreciate it.

Competitive scores do not mean absolute scores, even at MIT. GRE scores are only a portion of your application packet; in and of themselves they do not make your application as a whole competitive or not, although they may be used as a tie-breaker. I mean, what if someone applied with 170,170, 6; 4.0 GPA from a top school; great LORs (academic only); a rather lame SOP because the applicant is only applying to MIT for the prestige, and it shows; and "research experience" that is the equivalent of cleaning out rat cages for a summer. Doesn't sound too competitive now, does it? The problem with your reasoning is that the adcoms are going think you are desperately grasping at straws because you felt the need to explain a Quant score of 160 with having the common cold. Or that you are a perfectionist, which I know MIT does not want.

I am not sure if you can manipulate your ETS score page to only show the sores that you want. I ran into the same dilemma last year....they got to see everything.