shadowclaw

When I applied to Penn State two years ago, I got my rejection email at exactly midnight on a Friday evening. So maybe some good news can come on the weekend, too.

Speaking of portfolios, I was wondering a few things about them. I know generally what to include, but should there be multiple copies of the items in the portfolio (so they can be given out)? I'm not positive how the interviewers use the portfolio... do they just look through it, or do they keep parts of it for future reference?

I have e-mailed a professor before about a grade. When I was an undergraduate, I received an A- for my senior seminar course, when I got perfect scores on everything that was given back to us. This meant I had to have screwed up either my presentation or my paper for the course, both of which I thought I did fantastic on. I ended up e-mailing her, she said she's look into it, and never got back to me. Then one day during the next semester I saw that she changed the grade. I am really tempted to e-mail this professor because the online quizzes really weren't entirely fair. The whole concept of an online quiz is a bit silly to me since it's open book, and on top of that he allowed multiple attempts at the quizzes (and the system would tell us what questions we got wrong after we took it). So for two quizzes, neither the grade nor any questions we got wrong showed up. We asked him to fix it, he said he did, and that he'd take the situation into account when calculating final grades. I got a 90 on one and an 84 on the other... had I actually been able to see my wrong answers from the first try, I would have changed them and I would have an A right now. However, at the same time, I am hesitant, because we got full credit for a class project that we didn't do. Our plants died before we could finish and there wasn't enough time to start over, and rather than eliminate the project from the grade, he just gave us full credit (which I'm sure boosted several final grades in the class). Since the project was worth a lot of points, I think that if he hadn't included it, I may have ended up with an A- even with a perfect quiz score. So I feel that if I complain about quizzes not being fair, then I should also be complaining about the project not being fair, either. I don't know. The grade truly does not matter. My transcripts have already been sent out (not that an A- would make a difference anyway), so potential PhD programs aren't going to know that I got an A- in a course. It really just annoys me because I needed just a few points to bump me up to an A. My average was 92.7%

Errrg. Got an A- in a class and missed an A by a few measly points. It wouldn't bother me so much if the online quizzes weren't screwed up. Everyone in the class lots several points because the grading system wasn't set up right... some right answers were marked wrong, some quizzes didn't even show the grade after we took them, some just plain had the wrong grade. Ugh. I realize there isn't much difference between an A and an A-, but it still aggravates me because it's not my fault.

I had a Skype interview back in October. Most of the interview was asking me about where I went to school, research experiences, my experience in gis, stats, and programming (which were skills the POI was specifically looking for), what kinds of questions I'd like to pursue, and a little bit about coursework and how I got into biology and birds. The rest was spent listening to him describe through different projects going on in the lab, plus time at the end for questions. Oh, and at the end he told me to apply and gave me an overview of the application timeline. So basically, you can expect to be asked about some relevant coursework, research experience, and ideas for research in the lab. I found that it was more of an expanded discussion of my CV and things we had already went over in emails rather than unexpected questions.

I wonder what exactly they look for. Somebody looked at my ResearchGate profile the other day, but it doesn't say anything more than what's on my CV. Of course, I believe there may have been a program or two that didn't require a CV, so I guess it could be useful after all!

I don't understand why it's so difficult to fix an online quiz so that it actually gives you a grade. Took a quiz twice, and my grade is still listed as "--/33." I also discovered that there was a bag of potatoes on my backseat under a sweatshirt... from the first week of the semester. I tried to gently pick up the bag, but they were mush and squirted rotten potato juice all over my seat.

I'm starting to get antsy! All of my apps are done except for one (Utah State), although I'm waiting on two of my LOR writers to submit for the applications with January due dates. I just wish they would take care of it... the letters are already written. I hope after semester grades are in they will get cracking! Now that the semester is officially over aside from proctoring an exam on Thursday, I have lots of time to lose my mind over when I'll hear back from schools. I discovered that the University of Tennessee's application system gives updates on where the application is (with admissions, under review in the department, etc). Now I have an application I can keep checking on as part of the insanity!

I know I'm repeating the frustrations of many others, but why can't my LOR writers just upload all of their letters now instead of waiting until the due date? Only one has done this. He uploads within a day or two of receiving the emails. The other two just wait. I know they have the letters written, and all they have to do is check some boxes, upload the file, and hit submit. It can't take that long. Some of these schools start reviewing applications as they come in.

Congrats to everyone who had interviews so far! Most of my schools won't send out any invites until January or even later, so once I finish my last few applications, I'll be doing a whole lot of waiting! Although two of my schools do start sending out invites the week before Christmas. Hopefully I don't end up with any overlapping weekends.

Be polite. Just let him know that a deadline has passed for one, and you wanted to make sure he was aware of the deadlines.

Well, I had an archaeology professor who got all of her degrees from Ohio State. Since then, she's done lots of exciting things like analyze the gut contents of frozen mastodons and gone digging in Egypt. She has lots of publications and her work has been featured in National Geographic. Currently, she's a tenured professor, and she spends the first half of every summer working on a dig in Ohio with undergraduate students for their field experience (plus finding out some really cool stuff about the mound builders) and spends the second half in Egypt. I don't think having all of her degrees from the same place hurt her at all.

And I just lost my whole post... stupid internet... You are correct that sending off some specific research interests could get you turned down. It happened to me with a POI who wanted to go in a somewhat different direction than I did. I'm thinking that sort of thing really depends on the POI and their advising style. Some say that they are really flexible with the projects going on in their labs and don't mind students exploring other organism/questions outside of their expertise but are still related to the research themes of the lab. Others have very specific projects that they want students working on. Then there's the POI I just mentioned. I thought I'd be a great fit because my research questions and interests fit well with the lab's themes, but he told me that he wanted to "be the best advisor possible" and therefore he only wanted students with the same exact interests that he had doing the exact projects he wanted to do, otherwise he wouldn't be able to properly advise them. Oh well. At some point, however, you will need to send your specific research interests to POIs, even without finding out everything that's going on in their lab. For example, I recently asked for more information about the current projects going on a the lab (there weren't any pubs associated with some of the projects yet), and the POI sort of shoved my question to the side and straight up asked me what specific questions I wanted to pursue. When applying for my master's, my current advisor pulled the same sort of thing. He hadn't updated his website in a while, so I asked him about projects he was working on, and he basically said, "Nevermind about my projects. I want to learn about YOU. What types of things would you like to research?" Turns out we both had an idea for the same project and he had a grant proposal written up to fund it and was just waiting for the right student. I also think it's a good thing to be turned down based on the questions and interests that you really want to pursue. Those are the projects that you are going to be excited about and will see through to the end. If you pick a project that sounds interesting but doesn't really light your fire, you might regret it down the road. However, seeing that you are applying for a master's (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read that in another post you made), you will only be married to this topic for about 2 years, so if you hate it, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. When applying for a PhD (especially in environmental science and ecology), be prepared to provide specific interests to your POIs. Many programs in those fields require you to be accepted into a lab for admission, and lots of people with varying interests will be e-mailing those POIs.

My condolences. I haven't done this for an application, but I have done this for important assignments before, and sometimes lost points because of it. This happened for a midterm in an undergrad course, too. I swore the professor said in class that our midterm was on on a certain day, but it was actually a week earlier. Thankfully I review material as I go and aced it. You could always ask if you can submit a late application. I don't know anything about Columbia, but I have seen different schools and programs that mention you can submit after the due date but won't be considered with the first round of applicants. Things are looking better in my arena. After trading some e-mails and writing samples with a POI at the University of Tennessee, she's told me to apply. The research opportunities are super exciting! The POI at Yale finally got back to me, but had some questions for me. Hopefully he doesn't take as long to write back this time, because the Yale deadline is coming up fast.

I can certainly commiserate! One of my writers (my undergrad advisor) has be awesome writing these letters. He basically got them done within a day or two of receiving the e-mails from the application system. My current advisor gave me a scare with the NSF GRFP and submitted a few hours before the deadline, but he's been on time for grad school apps. I've been occasionally sending him reminders just in case. Now my third writer, who I personally think will write the strongest letter for me (I took many classes with him and worked on several research and service projects with him), has been sucking really bad. I also send him occasional reminders, but he still waited until the day applications were due to submit. He actually had to call me on Monday (when 3 of my apps were due) at like 10:00 pm to tell me that he couldn't find the e-mails for the letters. I also discovered today that the application for WUSTL says he never submitted, even though he told me he did. I e-mailed them to make sure it wasn't a mistake, but thankfully they don't mind slightly late application materials.

I have also followed the same general approach that you have, although perhaps with a little more detail for my research experience. I'm not sure if you mentioned any of your research interests, but I always include a statement of some somewhat specific interests (e.g. impacts of plant invasions on bird diversity, effects of climate change on migratory phenology). I have also had a number of professors not reply, which probably means they aren't looking for a student. However, my general experience so far has been that many professors just take a really long time to get back to you. Like me, you're probably used to writing an e-mail to one of your professors about something and getting a reply the next day. That has happened during the hunt for grad schools, but more often, professors have taken between 1 and 2 weeks to reply to my initial e-mail. I even had some who wrote back 3 months later, although all of those were negative responses (i.e. "sorry, my lab is full" or "I'm out of funding right now, but I'll keep your CV on file in case something happens"). So if you're still in that 1-2 week range, fear not. You may still get a reply. Thanksgiving also just happened, and I get the feeling that many professors ignore their e-mail during the break. I also sent my CV along with my initial e-mails, which I think a lot of professors liked because it saves them the trouble of asking for things like GPA, GRE scores, relevant experiences, etc.

*GROAN* I decided to look at the application status for my submitted applications. I looked at the WUSTL app just now, and it says one of my LORs are missing. It would be the one I was waiting for Monday night at 9:00 PM. He sent me an e-mail after completing each letter, but I didn't actually check to make sure they were there. I hope he didn't try to do University of Washington twice or something weird like that. I e-mailed the department to make sure it really isn't there. Luckily, the application says right on it that materials will be accepted for a few days after the due date.

I haven't googled myself in ages! A search of my (new) married name (with middle initial) just turns up a few pages on ResearchGate, a blog entry from my department discussing a project that one of my committee members is doing (which I helped collect data for), and a facebook review for my favorite pizza place. Searching without my middle initial is a bit more informative, with results for ResearchGate, my facebook, my wedding registry, and several department blog posts with my name in them for projects I worked on. Now my maiden name (with middle initial) turns up my ResearchGate profile, plus facebook profiles that aren't me, some grave records, and then some whitepages-type results for people that aren't me. If I google my maiden name without middle initial, I basically get all hits for someone who is into white lion conservation. I wonder how detailed the adcomms would get when searching. Would they try adding my school names? There aren't too many results when you add my grad school, since I recently changed my name. There are some nice results with my maiden name and undergrad college.

You know, I can understand really believing what your religion tells you and sticking to it (even though the Bible doesn't actually say anything about how old the earth is... some guy thought this stuff up sometime in the 20th century I think). What I don't get is where this idea about the earth replenishing its resources came from. It was a new concept to me, and to be honest, I really don't see the logic, even if the earth really was 6,000 years old.

Haha during my last application cycle, I was definitely annoying to this particular writer. I routinely e-mailed, texted, and popped into his office harassing him to get it done... but he told me to be a pest to make sure he didn't slack off and forget. I backed off on the annoying reminders this time, and this is what happened. He did get them all in. At about 10:00 pm he submitted two of them, and then called me to tell me he couldn't find the e-mail with the link to the application system for the third school plus one that's due tomorrow. I resent both e-mails, and he got the third one due today done. Turns out he did have the e-mail (which was for WUSTL), but thought it was for U of W because Washington was in both subjects. As of 10:45, all 3 were done, but he still didn't have the e-mail for UNC yet (which is due tomorrow). I resent the e-mail yet again, so hopefully I won't be sitting here tomorrow night going through this again.

Interview and conference clothes. Meh. I used to have a really nice pair of black pants that fit me perfectly, were super comfortable, and pet hair never stuck to them. Plus they were 20 bucks. I wore them to every presentation I did for 2 years, but they ended up falling apart because I also wore them to work (waiting tables) and washed them twice a week. Between the excessive washing and dripping sauce all over them, they didn't make it. So now I have no nice pants. I did recently buy two skirts. One is ankle length and really smooth and comfy. I love it, and it goes great with the only pair of dressy boots I own (the others are hiking boots, and besides that I have sneakers and crocs). It's black, too, so it goes with just about everything. The other is a little past knee length and it's comfortable, but everything sticks to it. It really annoys me. Other than that, I really don't own anything nice for my lower body. I have several plain 3/4 sleeve shirts and a sweater or two that look somewhat dressy. It's enough to get me by so far. My main problem is that I really don't ever dress up at all... I wear jeans and t-shirts all the time, and I usually only wear skirts when I forget to do laundry and don't have any pants. So I usually feel funny when I get dressed up. I'm also not sure how I'm supposed to dress for conferences. I've been to a few, and most of them were targeted towards field biologists (and even had field trips!) so dressing up meant wearing a nice shirt with your hiking boots and jeans...

This reminds me of my last job. Early on in my biology program, I was thinking about going into some kind of environmental consulting job when I graduated. One day at work, the husband of one of my co-workers came in for dinner and was talking to me about school and what I wanted to do with my degree. I told him, and the conversation moved to the natural gas companies that moved into northeast Pennsylvania and potential environmental issues related to the industry. Then he said to me, "Don't believe all the bullshit they say about oil and gas only lasting for another 100 years or so. God designed the earth so that our natural resources replenish themselves. It's not like this stuff took millions of years to form. The earth's only around 6,000 years old, so the oil and gas replenishes probably every 100 years."

This.

It's 8:50 PM on the east coast. Three of my applications are due tonight. One recommender still hasn't submitted. I reminded him yesterday. I think he's working down to the wire.

If you asked my sometime during my first year of my M.S. program, I would have definitely said undergrad without hesitation. My tiny undergraduate college in the woods was a wonderful place to study biology and the perfect place to get exposed to ecology and conservation. I had so many hands-on experiences there (we were always going out into the field), plus some great research and work opportunities. It was also the place where I turned myself around. I had been struggling at different schools and in different majors, trying to deal with some personal problems and trying to find a major I was actually passionate about. One I got into biology, everything changed for me, and as a result I have strong feelings about the program and the school. Plus the faculty were all tight-knit and extremely caring and supportive, and they treated us like colleagues by the time we were seniors. I can't imagine sharing my lunch with any of my professors at my grad school, or eating Cap'n Crunch with them in their kitchen before heading out into the field to do research. Hell, my one of my undergrad professors even let me drive his car. I really felt like family there, and I wouldn't trade it for any Top 25 university. For my first year in grad school, however, I felt like I was just there to take classes. I didn't really talk to the other grad students much since I didn't live in town and I spent my study time alone. It wasn't until I was preparing to defend my thesis proposal that I really started to connect with other grad students (who were defending as well). When I came back after a summer of solo research, I had a graduate assistantship and I ended up spending way more time on campus and interacting with other students. I also managed to get involved with some research one of my committee members is doing and I had a blast doing weekend fieldwork for the first month of school. Over the course of the semester, I've really gotten to know all of my peers, and the faculty members seem more warm and friendly, too. Maybe it's because I went from a scared newbie adjusting to new styles of classes to an M.S. candidate with research under her belt. So I really feel more at home now, but nowhere near as at home at I did back in undergrad. That place will always be home. The department chair keeps joking with me that I'll have to come back after I get my PhD and take over the position of a professor that will likely be retiring by then. And you know what? I'd love it. So I'm not sure if I really have more pride in my undergraduate college, but I certainly do love it more. I'm hoping that when I get to a PhD program, I'll be able to really integrate myself into the school's culture and really get to know everyone in the department well. Maybe then I'll have some school pride.