Monochrome Spring

Rice and beans in bulk. Cook enough for the week, and then add whichever meat and veggies were on sale for the week.

Living in a country where there isn't any clean water to drink, and you can't afford to buy filtered bottled water.

You should keep your comments to yourself. It's as simple as not clicking "post". Also, your "truth" is not truth. It is your opinion, because you don't know what the competition was for their programs, or if there were any extenuating circumstances. This is a thread to support each other through the process. If you can't do that, then don't post here.

Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Make sure that there are multiple professors at each program that you would be willing to work with. Your top choice may turn out to be a poor fit for you, move to another university, etc.

Some schools send them in waves. So maybe 20, then 10 accept. Send out another 20. Repeat. Some schools sends them all at once, so they will send out more invitations than they expect people to accept. They may send out 40 acceptances and expect only 30 to actually go to the school next year. I only know about my own programs, but the general consensus seems to be that, if you haven't gotten any notice yet, you could still be accepted.

Could also be someone who was nominated for a fellowship a while back and has just received the acceptance, which wouldn't necessarily be dependent on the admissions committee from your interview weekend.

When you get your practice booklet in the mail, definitely go through it and pay close attention. I noticed that there were multiple questions re-used in the actual test, and I was kicking myself for not paying more attention on the practice booklet. Also, when I got out of the test, I had never felt more stupid after an exam in my life. But I did okay (75th percentile). Not great, but definitely not horrible either So, don't stress out too much during the exam or immediately afterward.

Whatever your decision, you should ask the programs that rejected you why they rejected you. Ask what the strengths and weaknesses of your application were. You can focus on your strengths and minimize your weaknesses in the next application season, regardless of Masters or PhD.

So, admissions for a few of my programs was explained to me like this: Before interviews, some students may be nominated for prestigious fellowships by the department, college, or university. If a student wins one of these fellowships before the interview weekend - or even after the interview - then they are admitted to the program. Although, the student may not know if they have been awarded this fellowship, and the funding offer may come with the admissions letter later. I was offered fellowship pre-interview, pre-acceptance, and didn't get an official acceptance letter until during the interview weekend. After interviews, the professors get together and rank applicants. Some professors may have more pull, and be able to get students that they are really interested in. These students will get offers of admission, if there is adequate funding for that lab group. In groups with rotations, it seems more like there is a consensus ranking system by the admissions committee. The top-ranked applicants are sent offers first, according to how much funding there is. The rest are "wait-listed" but may not even be informed that they are waiting. This explains why some of you haven't heard from programs yet. Once those invitations start coming back with "no" responses, they begin to invite more people off of the wait-list, going down the rankings. They do this until they have maxed out their funding. Then, if professors still want students from lower down the rankings, they can offer up RA-ships from their own grants (if they have them). If you haven't heard yet, don't worry. You could be the next person on that list, or a professor could be scrounging up money to invite you in. If it's not a rejection, it's not final. Edit: For the programs that send out all notices at once, if you haven't heard anything yet, I think you're probably one of the ones that is waiting for funding. You may even be good for funding, but the professors are trying to identify which source they want to offer you to come in on.

My top three were: 1. Resources for project, including funding 2. Happiness of students 3. Ranking I didn't apply anywhere where I couldn't do the type of projects I want, so it was more about how well the uni will facilitate that research.

That's going to vary a lot between programs. You should email whomever is in charge of that funding allocation. You can also look online to see if they have listed average rates for each kind of position. To find an RA or TA, I assume that you need to ask your advisor at the university, or see if there are requirements (such as TA) for the university) which would allow you to pick from a university pool of money instead of your advisor's.

Mm. I don't know the exact context. I would maybe frame it as "So-and-so (Journal citation) investigated the broad issue of X, and identified aspect which is relevant to my research Y". But that's just one of many ways. Maybe skim through some literature reviews in your field and get an idea of how they generally frame their argument.

Might be a little different than what you're looking for, but here are some advice pages for literature reviews. You should also clarify what kind of literature review you're doing, as there are many. Ten simple rules for writing a literature review Tips for writing your first literature review

I went for the cheapest older edition I could get. The material is pretty basic and I don't think that much has changed. In all honesty, if you're going to use the Campbell book to study for the biology subject GRE, and if you think that the subject GRE is important for your applications, I would study the entire book. I don't think that you need any resource outside of the book, as long as you dedicate the time to mastering the Campbell materials. Goodluck!

I can tell you my experience with uni/college/dept fellowships. I got the college fellowship $27k + $6k summer for 1 year. Then I got the uni fellowship $25k for 5 years. The uni one looks smaller, but it's larger in terms of years of funding. Also, you can often get the uni fellowship to match the college fellowship you already won.

You can click the ignore user button under CorruptedInnocence's name and you won't see any of her content. your username (top right) -> manage ignore prefs -> add new user -> CorruptedInnocence

No news about the PSF's yet. My guess is that they're all out at this point, but who knows.

University Distinguished Fellowship.

Received a large fellowship from Michigan State University. 1st year $33k + no TA/RA 2nd year ~$25k 3rd year ~$25k 4th year ~$25k 5th year ~$25k (+ more for inflation) + no TA/RA edit: healthcare, tuition, and fees covered for all 5 years

My SO and I have been together for 3.5 years, 2.5 of which have been long distance, and it works for us. He has two more years of undergraduate work (we are the same age, just different programs and paces), so he's going to move in with me some time after completing that. He doesn't know if he wants to live with his parents to pay off his loan debt first, or move in with me first, and I respect his decision either way. He'll be in California and I'll (probably) be in Michigan, so he can fly in to see my a couple times each year. My PhD work is going to be very abroad field-work heavy, so we wouldn't see each other much anyway, but we understand that. If it really matters to you, you can have the relationship and the career.

I think you mature once you've experienced more of life, whether it be living on your own, traveling to other countries, dealing with tough personal relationships, etc. I definitely don't feel very mature, compared to the rest of the students that I've met during interview weekends. But I think that's expected, since I'm only 20. Don't worry about feeling young and immature. As long as you continue to grow, you'll be fine.

Congratulations to everyone who has made their choices. I'm currently at the airport, on m way to my last interview. I should have a final decision made within the next few weeks. Very exciting.

Here is a great paper on how to get into graduate school in ecology. Even if it's not helpful for you this season, I think it's worth having around to show future undergrad. assistants. https://docs.google.com/a/ucdavis.edu/file/d/0B7LF7hqKJtNiUnd6RjN5QVBRX0U/edit

Last interview this weekend. I'm pretty sure I know what my final decision is and I'll probably make the calls within two weeks. Getting excited.