Crucial BBQ

What is the word limit? I don't think that going over by 100 words is that big of a deal and not a reason to 'reject' an SOP. Your SOP should be dedicated to prior research, what you want out of grad school, and future plans, briefly. That is your purpose, your intent. A personal statement is just that, it is about you, how you came to like research, and so on. If you are being asked to submit both then there is likely to be some overlap between the two.

Sounds like too much work. If it is expected something fishy, they will contact the writer to clarify.

If it is sent electronically, I do not think that they can go back in to make changes. However, they can always just email or call the program with their corrections/concerns.

I am a stickler for etiquette. Sending a quick thank-you email now is appropriate and best but if you wait until after you finish your applications is not a big deal, either.

In reality, the opposite. Trying to decide on multiple offers is not as easy as it seems. Those who receive only one offer are the lucky ones in my opinion.

For better or worse, it is out of your hands. Not sure what else to say other than if a professor agrees to write an LOR on your behalf they truly have the intention to do so. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets submitted at the last minute. Unless the deadline was December 1, I would send a final reminder a day or two before the deadline and then hope for the best.

It wouldn't hurt to shoot the program director an email about the correction but in general I wouldn't worry about. It is more common than you may think.

Yes, because it is not relevant. Ideally your SOP will be structured in such a way that readers are given the sense it was intended for them and should they extend an offer you would accept.

My ex went to Bloomberg. I wrote about this previously, but can't find it at the moment. She applied for Ph.D. yet was offered admissions into their MS program. I forget the reasoning, it was either because her GRE quant score was a little too low or she didn't have enough of a math background. What ever the case I do remember the program had reservation about her math skills. Her application was otherwise stellar.

A Masters might be in order for you before moving on to a Ph.D. program. I applied three years in a row before doing an MS as well and now I am better positioned for a Ph.D. Even if I flop this cycle I still have my MS.

Comes and goes. Some years are more active than others. Covid likely put the damper on things, too. All of my programs have January deadlines except for two and a possible third: for the two are rolling and the potential third has a February deadline.

It is best to not have gaps in your CV even if the experiences are not related. Yes, addressing this in your SOP is the place to do so, but I wouldn't devote much space to it. Depends on the program. Some may not look at applications until after the deadline, others begin to process them as they come in. In general, the earlier you submit the better it looks on you. If able, apply by the priority deadline. I have met with POIs, cold call. That is to say I simply stopped by the department and asked if they were available to speak. I have also emailed a number of professors that led to phone calls. You might be surprised how many are willing to talk with you. For questions, I always ask about that specific program and not about the field in general. Not to be a downer on you and you likely have your decision by now, but sometimes a PI can really like you and you still do not get into the program. Focusing on biostats and epidemiology will give you a legs-up towards a degree in immunology. Statistics is statistics and you can very easily pick up on how it is used in other disciplines. Not having prior research in cancer-related immunology would not be a deterrent. The point of the Ph.D. program is to train you such and it sounds like you have a solid background to begin with.

The nature of GradCafe, things get mixed. Examples of this include those interested in marine biology posting to Earth Sciences and those interested in bioinformatics or computational biology posting to Computer Science or even Medical. Those interested in ecology may be at a lost. As most will likely know, bioinformatics programs may be housed in a variety of schools/departments, and sometimes even within the same university (school of medicine, CS department, biology department, cell/molecular, etc.). Bioinformatics cast a wide umbrella over 10 or subject areas and with most things turning to 'informatics and 'omics these days, likely more. As someone with an MS in bioinformatics I strongly encourage you to know what type of bioinformatics you want to study before you apply anywhere. My background is marine biology with a solid mix of Interdisciplinary studies thrown in (chemistry and biology). I have an MS in bioinformatics. My interest, as you may guess, is to combine the two for a Ph.D. Where I am applying/applied: University of Maine. University of Maryland, MEES. University of Rhode Island. University of New Hampshire. Brown. Maybe University of Delaware.

For the marketplace, this is likely to be dependent on the degree. MBAs, most likely. Ph.D. in marine biology, not so much. I am a bit older (much older, perhaps?) and saw this tendency towards graduate school hit full-force around 2010 as a consequence of the recession during that time. This was the first time in my life when I saw people older than myself going back to school for MS degrees and the occasional Ph.D. in large numbers. The reason, it seemed, was a combination of the desire to earn more money and achieve the type of job security it was believed could only come from a higher degree. This time also saw undergrads deciding to stay in school by pursuing graduate degrees to either stave of repayment of loans and/or to put some distance between their graduation date and an improved economy. Certainly there are those out there who believe that the degree combined with the name of the school is the path to a comfy life, but some also believed the same with undergraduate institutions during the 2000s.

Whether you are applying to one program or 100, each application is a unique submission. It is not necessary to mention that you are only applying to the one program. Whether it is detrimental to your chances or not, I dunno. But why risk it?

Five years ago I was faced with a similar decision. Since I had yet to began courses, I could not take a leave of absence and was put into the position of fully withdrawing from the program. I was told by both the Dean of Graduate Studies and the program director of this particular program that, since, I had been previously accepted that the likelihood of being accepted again was high. Of course, I was told, it would also depend on the applicant pool. My would-have-been PI was not happy at all; certainly I burned that bridge. I did reapply the following cycle and got rejected. I wrote all about this here on Grad Cafe, so I am not going to rehash the story here. I had my reasons. Yet, now I wish that I haddn't. Perhaps I should not have reapplied with the same lab/PI in mind, I dunno. There is really no polite way to do it, and the best thing to do is to just be upfront about it. Like the OP, I only had this one program so I was not faced with competing offers. It begs the question, though: why accept an offer if you are still waiting on other decisions? If a program demands you turn around a decision ASAP, I would tell them "no", personally.

Unless things have changed, I thought ETS allowed you to send the best score from different tests? You could also send both sets. Both sets total 327, so it's a wash in my opinion. Both sections, verbal and quant, are really testing your ability to understand and analyze the question being asked above anything else. Quant is not testing your ability to do math and yet I understand the appeal of sending in the 169 score. Yet, 158 in verbal is a little low although being above average.

I have been associated with higher education in the U.S. in one way or another for a decade and it is in my experience that no professor (or anyone, really) who agrees to write an LOR does so with the intention of written a bad LOR. If they feel they cannot recommend you for any reason they will simply decline. If a potential letter-writer does not remember you, or does not remember you well, it is common for them to ask for additional information from you to help them write their letter. Grad school is about doing research. Ironically, your work ethic has nothing to do with that as it says nothing inherent about your ability to do research let alone if you actually like doing research. People skills also ranks fairly low. I would look at your program(s), or if in doubt, call the program coordinator and ask. From my experiences it is okay to have at least one LOR from a non-academic source. However, those sources should still be able to speak on your potential ability to do research. I suggest that you contact past professors first before using one of your managers. However, if one of your managers has also attended grad school that could be a plus.

I don't think it will matter, in particular as it is school-wide and will be easy to verify. If needed, you could most likely ask your current profs to calculate a grade for you.

Well, chances are if you do move away for grad school you'll be in a program full of students who are also from away. Your department may have some social events along the way and the school itself most likely has support services on campus. Truth is, wherever you go you are very likely to isolate yourself from friends and family as you go deeper into studies and research. It's also a bit awkward to seek support from friends and family who do not know what you [will be] going through. The thing with staying local is familiarity. If you want to get out of your hometown, grad school is as good of a time as any to do so.

I find it odd they would send you an email without telling you why they had to rescind on decisions. Did you at least contact this school? Perhaps not what you want to hear, but if you were admitted to 5 programs you stand a decent chance of doing so again next cycle.

Not exactly partying with or befriending.... but I've had a few professors who hung out with myself and others in a lab/building associated with a particular department. If we walk past the office of so-and-so and the door is open, we just might walk in and shoot the breeze for a minute. But, this is marine biology so pretty relaxed. When this department hosts speakers it is customary to invite the speaker out to dinner afterwards off campus and any student associated with this department who was over the age of 21 was allowed to tag along, if they knew it was an option. The age requirement was because dinner also meant drinking. As far as giving insider information to a select few, it happens across the board both inside and outside of academia. Just how the World is. If you were one to receive such information, would you think differently about it? ***not sure what is up with the strike-out?

I think it is just as shocking for everyone leaving their parents' plans and getting their own. Or those monthly bills that come every month, month after month. Certainly lends a new appreciation to how much support we truly get from our parents. I have been suffering from GAD and panic attacks since about 2002 or so. Ironically, I am at my most calm right now, although I had my first panic in a week and a half yesterday morning.

I am old (well, one of the older members of this forum) and remember 2008 very well. In 2008 I had decided to go back to school. I had already went to school earlier in life for Film, then switching to Screenwriting... only to have dropped out right before my senior year because I felt I had learned enough. And that despite being in a Screenwriting program we still had film some of our projects, which back then was at a cost of about $300/minute. Yes, film. The cost did include developing the film and of course sometimes the lab messed up and your footage was ruined, or you didn't get the shot. The capstone project was to be a 30 minute screenplay and short. In 2008 things were not that bad. In 2009 things started to get hectic which lasted until around 2013. Undergraduate institutions received more applications and competition increased, sure, but it was grad schools that had become flooded. This was also around the time when it became really popular to apply to MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and so on, both for undergrad and grad. It was mostly with MS programs and in part because graduating undergrads wanted to stave off student loan repayment as they were graduating into a weak economy but it was mostly older adults hoping that an MS would give them job security and/or more earning potential. Ph.D. programs, too, saw an uptick in applications although I remember acceptances had dropped. Universities had put a halt on hiring and professors looking to retire stayed around a little bit longer. Community colleges, on the other hand, were hiring and many it seemed to even expand. Public schools lost a lot of funding but private institutions fared fairly well, iirc. Tuition also started to go up dramatically around this time, I believe. For academic research I want to say that it was the Humanities hit the hardest. However, there was no world-wide pandemic. It's still too early to tell how the 2020/2021 admissions cycle, funding, or job outlook will be affected.

I am not sure how it works with a Sociology program, or with the program you are applying to in general, yet it is typical for a Master's program to admit more students than a Ph.D. program. If you haven't already, before you submit two separate applications it would be wise to check with this program and be sure that a Ph.D. application may also be considered for the MA program. If so, why send two separate applications? At any rate, if you do submit two separate applications you certainly should write two, unique, SOPs.