shadowclaw

I have definitely experienced a mixture of feedback levels from professors. For one professor that I took two courses with, we had to write research proposals as part of the requirement. Both were evolution courses, so I wasn't really able to reuse the work for my research or anything, but I did make one of them loosely related to my thesis so that I would be at educating myself about something related to my project. I got a grade but zero feedback on both of these papers. I received full points on them, but I'm sure there were improvements that could had been suggested. In another course that was field-oriented, we did two lab papers plus a manuscript for a research project. For the lab papers (which were glorified lab reports), I got a comment or two. For the manuscript, no feedback. For one class, I actually got great feedback. We wrote literature reviews related to our thesis work, and ended up doing a proposal, annotated bibliography, and finally the paper. I received plenty of feedback on the proposal and final paper. However, I think the professor may have regretted having 18 people write literature reviews with a two week window to grade them. I do agree that the level of feedback may have to do with how the professor perceives that you will use the comments. For those first two papers I mentioned, I'm sure the professor was aware that for most people, they were indeed throw away papers. In contrast, the professor who assigned the literature reviews encouraged us to create publishable material, so we were more likely to actually read and use her comments. As an undergrad, I read and commented on a lot of papers, and there was one that really made me angry. It was an animal physiology class, and we had to peer review a classmate's paper. I spent over an hour and a half writing all kinds of comments (both on grammar and content - it was a very rough draft), and the girl didn't show up to class the week we had to hand them back. When she finally did come to class, she ran out afterwards and I had to chase her down to give it to her. I doubt she even read it and it really aggravated me.

My last course for my masters program is a stat course. I never was very interested in the course, as I've been learning the stats I need for research either from my professors or books, and to be honest, the class isn't likely to transfer into a PhD program and I'll have to take a few other stat classes anyway. My graduate coordinator told me I didn't have to take it, but really pushed me to. It's a required course but due to scheduling conflicts, no one in the bio department was able to take it last spring and he let us off the hook in case there was a scheduling problem this spring. However, since there isn't a conflict this time, he's been pressuring us to take it anyway. R is really big with ecologists, and several of my POI's indicated that they wanted a student with R experience. I don't know how to use it, but indicated to them that I would be taking this course and learning some R. Several students and professors said that the course heavily used R. I got to class on Tuesday, and found out that the professor will be focusing on SAS, because evidently we won't get jobs in the biomedical sciences without knowing it. Maybe it's a valid argument, but only 2 students are pursuing that track. The other 8 of us are ecologists. I am annoyed. Not only am I taking a class that I'm really not interested in, but I won't even get the experience in the stat program I need.

I feel like this depends on the school. I've seen programs that they want a specific undergrad gpa (such as 3.0 or greater). I've also seen programs that want a certain gpa in your last 60 credits. Sometimes they explicitly say last 60 of undergrad, and sometimes they don't. A third thing I've seen is requiring a certain undergrad gpa OR a masters degree. However, those are minimum requirements and don't really let you know how an admissions committee is going to consider and evaluate your grades. Even if a school wants to see a 3.0 or better in your last 60 credits of coursework (grad and undergrad combined), they could still judge you more heavily on your undergrad gpa. I've seen this debated a few times. Some people claim that a great masters gpa effectively erases a poor undergrad gpa. Others claim that a good masters gpa will have little impact and only the research experience gained from the program can be helpful. Reality is probably somewhere in between. While your undergrad gpa may not be stellar, it's certainly not low enough to drop you below the minimum requirements. Your masters gpa also shows a good improvement, which I think is important. Ultimately, I think if you have solid research experience (which you should since you're doing a thesis) and apply to programs that are a good match for your research, you should be ok.

I feel like this is the week for several programs. I was really hoping that last week would be the week, but it's hard to guess for some programs because they have limited reports in the results search and some of them are all over the place. I really wish there were more EEB applicants on here so I wouldn't have to guess when invites go out based on two results!

This. You must be my personality twin. I don't know if it's a motivation issue or if I have some disorder where I become obsessive with a project for a short period of time, but I have periods where I crank out a lot of good work. I basically sit in my room for a week or two, spend all of my time working on my project, and produce a bunch of quality work. Then I immediately find something that I can lazily consume for a little while, like binge-watching episodes of a Sci-fi show or binge-reading a series of books. When I've conquered that, I often find a creative project to focus on (like writing, painting, cake decorating) and then return to a burst of scientific productivity. Maybe there is a binge personality type. We binge on various activities and rotate through them.

I don't really hate Dr. Who and I'm sure it's probably a cool show (I've watched only a handful of episodes), but it really seems like Dr. Who has become very fashionable and commercialized in recent years, and it has a lot of rabid fans. Maybe it's a local thing, but I first heard of Dr. Who maybe 10 years ago from someone who really enjoyed the show and had been watching it since he was a kid in the 80s. I didn't know anyone else who even heard of Dr. Who until maybe 4 years ago when it suddenly became really cool to like Dr. Who. Maybe that's when the newer version of the show really started to take off. Whatever the reason, since then, Dr. Who has been taking over and I feel like it's at a point where a lot of people don't like the show as much as they like being a fan of the show, if that makes sense. I also find out strange that nobody seems to be into the older episodes from the 60s to the 80s. Maybe the new version is just that much better, but I feel like people who are such die hard fans and walk around dressed like the doctor should have a greater interest in what came before.

This is an interesting post, because my POI at one of my programs mentioned to me that they invite some applicants get invited to come down to the school. He didn't use the word interview, and he definitely stressed that it was a big maybe about being invited. So I've been wondering if it's an actual interview weekend or some kind of weekend for students that they really want to convince to attend. I guess I'll find out.

And yet another fake out... my school email lit up and I saw the word "graduate." Invites to two of my programs should be going out this week or next, and Friday seems like a great day to send them out. Got excited for a split second, then realized it was a confirmation email for one of my LORs for the last program I applied to. Darn it. On the bright side, I went 2 days without thinking about applications. I spent Wednesday and Thursday making measurements of museum specimens, which was oddly soothing and satisfying. Plus I got to see behind the scenes at a huge museum. I even got a name badge and employee discount at the cafeteria.

Speaking of conferences, I was planning to submit an abstract to an upcoming conference. I kept putting off writing it, and it was due January 15. I ended up going to NYC to collect some data from AMNH and remembered on the way there that the abstract was due. When I got home tonight, I put together my abstract and went to submit... only to find that the submission page was closed and I still had half an hour until midnight. Either the page closed at some predetermined time during the day, or submissions we actually due before midnight on January 15 (instead of before midnight Jan 16 as I interpreted it). Sigh.

I got married just this past May! I originally planned on having a traditional wedding and I did start planning it... I came up with a guest list (over 150 people... yikes), looked at different reception sites with my mom, tried to find an outdoor ceremony spot for that many people but couldn't close to home, looked around for dresses and centerpiece ideas, etc. However, I did all of this during my last semester of undergrad. We quickly changed our minds on the type of wedding we wanted and put it off for a little while, not sure if we wanted to get married while I was pursuing my M.S. or after. In January of 2014 we started thinking about getting married again, but wanted to do a destination wedding with our closest family members and friends. So my planning changed to researching flights, cruises, hotel packages, beach ceremony sites, etc. I ended up hiring what was essentially a wedding planner to take care of ordering flowers, setting up our ceremony site, catering, booking transportation from our cruise ship (we did our wedding and honeymoon in one), getting a wedding officiate, etc. I basically told her what I wanted (based on the wedding packages available), and she made it happen. So most of the planning on my end was choosing options from a list (kind of like a reception hall works). I also had to book the cruise and flights, plus get a dress. I actually planned to sew my dress, but I just didn't have enough time. I bought my dress off the rack 2 days before we left LoL but it was beautiful! We left for the trip the day after the semester was over, and I planned it so I could get started on field work as soon as I got back. I actually ended up leaving the county for 3 weeks about 2.5 weeks after we got back (more field work). So the trip fit nicely with my schedule, and planning was reasonable since I didn't have to personally book an officiate, caterer, etc. I think I could have managed to plan the traditional wedding while in grad school, too. I was just as busy in undergrad because I worked full time and took 20 credits a semester. I still found time to plan a wedding. It's mostly about making sure you get your work done as well as plan your wedding. I doubt your PI and/or professors would object to you taking the weekend or extended weekend off for your wedding (and it may be that your lab doesn't do weekends anyway). I do think they might be a little irritated if you took a week+ off for a honeymoon in the middle of the semester. Something like an illness or a conference wouldn't likely bother them, but something that you have complete control over might not fly. Especially if you have any exams that week. Do keep in mind that lots of people wait to go on their honeymoon for a few weeks or even a few months. You could wait until the semester is over and spend early January someplace warm.

There are a bunch of us in the the ecology/evolution/marine bio thread in the biology subforum. Feel free to join us! I just remembered something from the last application cycle. I was thinking about applying to UC Riverside and made an account in the application system. I ended up not being able to find a POI so I didn't apply. Sometime during the spring semester, I got an email welcoming me to the school and telling me how to log into my new email. It wasn't exactly a fake out, but I was very confused.

I was 28, but I did go straight out of undergrad (took a loooong time to get my B.S.). Most of the students in my program are 24 or over, but there are a couple who are 22. However, many of us did come here straight from undergrad.

Way lame. I don't feel too bad since they were at the bottom of my list, but I really want some good news already! Yay! Congrats!

Didn't apply to those programs, wizzyfizzy, but it looks like everyone on your list but Emory sends out invites later this month (or early Feb). Emory should have sent out invites already based on the results search, but I obviously can't confirm that. I find it weird that in the past Columbia offered interviews/campus visits only a week ahead of time.

Yeah, that particular school uses id numbers to log into the system to check my status. All of the others use an email address or username to login and generally use an application number to refer to applications when communicating with the department. I still find it odd... there are only so many id numbers you can have before you have to increase the number of digits, so it seems like a waste of numbers to give every applicant a number.

Even though the topic of student id numbers just came up, I totally had a fake out this morning. The last school I applied to over the weekend sent me an acknowledgement email about my application and told me my id number plus gave instructions on how to check the status of my application. The deadline isn't until Thursday, and my POI told me that the adcomm wouldn't be meeting until the end of the month, but I still got excited when I saw an email from admissions.

I got rejections from two of my schools with the earliest deadlines (Dec 1), but nothing from the rest. The majority of my programs had later deadlines, although I do expect invites to be sent from two of them (UT and UNC) in the next week or two, based on the limited results posted and limited info from my POIs. I know Oregon State doesn't do interviews, so I won't hear back until March or even April. Basically, my top programs shouldn't have sent out invites yet, so while I'm anxious, I don't have a sense of doom yet.

sfrie - Darn, I was really hoping you had better information than me so I can focus my anxiety on specific applications this week. Oh well. I don't even know if the website will show any updated status about my application. Right now it just says submitted, and I feel like it's going to stay that way until final decisions are made. I keep checking anyway My UTK application at least told me when it was sent to the department for review. That made me feel a little better!

Glad I'm not the only one who finds it weird that some schools issue id numbers to applicants. One of my schools gave me an id number as soon as I applied... it was printed on my confirmation page after submitting!

I'm getting excited and anxious. This should be the week that a few of my schools start sending out invites! Eeeee! sfrie - I just realized that we both applied to UNC. Did your POI(s) happen to mention when invites would be sent out? Mine just said towards the end of the month... there isn't much in the results section to work with. One person said they were accepted on Jan 19 (which might have been an accident and they meant interview), and another put Jan 30 for the interview.

This is why I'm hesitant to try to get myself off these lists. Once they find out I'm actually reading my email, the spam might go through the roof! Most of the spam should dissipate in a few months, although I've been getting the same emails from RUSM every few months for 3 years.

I've read a few articles that mention having children is viewed negatively for women but positively for men. Somewhere on this forum, someone posted some links to some nice blog posts about the challenges of women in academia, but the search isn't working right for me and I can't find it. In any event, a quick Google search shows several articles about it, but they really don't go into detail about men. There's usually just a brief note that children are good for a man's career. So I don't know if that's helpful. I don't think the issue of children or significant others should come up at all in an interview (since it's not relevant to your qualifications), but I suppose it could. I feel like they would be more likely to directly ask a woman about it than a man. However, since you mentioned it your SOP, they might. I don't think I would try to hide it, but I don't think I would volunteer the information out of the blue.

Oops. I actually skipped over the part of your post that said "credit towards another fight" and just read it as keeping the remaining money after the cancellation fee. My bad. At least we know that booking a new flight might still need to be in your name, though.