GeoDUDE!

It takes less than a year to establish residency.

Congratz. I'd shoot your POI/Department head an email, I think its weird to hear from the graduate school before the department. I always got tentative offers from departments before I heard from the school (sometimes months later)

Thats a good point, but other countries educational system before college is a lot stronger than the US, and you have to account for that: there are a lot of students in the US who get good grades despite not developing basic math, reading and writing skills. What I'm more shocked by is how heavily the GRE is used to weed out international applicants, and how it seems less important (just by my perception) for domestic students. You would think it would be the opposite. How much are they weighed? Do you know? I don't think unless your on an adcomm you really know. We definitely know that a low GRE isn't insurmountable, and we also know a low GPA isn't as well. But when applying to hyper competitive schools, why wouldn't you take the person with a lot of research experience, high gpa and high GREs ?There are more candidates like that then there are spots at these schools. Also, I think there is a misunderstanding in statistics. Just because a minority of people who have bad GREs can be successful in graduate school does not mean that it does not hold any predictive value: There will always be outliers vs larger polarities and majorities. Are you really willing to make the claim that the best graduate students are more likely to come from people who bomb the GRE vs people who do mediocre or great? Perhaps you are an exception (I certainly hope you are) and the point of this isn't to make anyone feel bad, but honesty. If you don't evaluate yourself objectively as possible it will be much harder to learn how you can improve. This is important for many aspects of life, and really important for graduate school! Before every week I make a list of goals. I then at the end of the week see how many I have achieved. I then evaluate if these goals were realistic, unachievable, or if the ones I never got to were because I was working inefficiently or being lazy. Some weeks I'm lazy, and so its important for me not to have two of those weeks in a a row so I don't get in a hole. Anyway, I'll shut up about this now

ETS studies reveal that the GRE is misued (as a cutoff, against their advisement), but to say that GRE is unreliable is a harsh. That being said... Lets think about your statement here, "GRE scores have been proven". What does that mean? Show me the study where a majority of students who score below 50% do better in graduate school than those who score higher than 50%. You won't find it. If you actually do a literature search on these studies, what you will probably find is 1 study at yale that shows a ~5% variance in grades with correlation to GRE scores, but the problem is they only sampled Yale students, who all did very well on the GRE! Another thing you will find is that the GRE is a stronger predictor than any of us want to admit. While there is some selection bias, as mostly people with high GREs get into gradaute school, GRE actually serves as a better predictor than GPA. This should make intuitive sense, there are many reasons why a very smart student could get a low GPA, as GPA is evaluated over a long period of time where both the intelligence and quality of the student is malleable. Think of the GPA like a time series of performance. GRE on the other hand is more like instantaneous (derivative) performance. The shorter amount of time makes it more draconian in its average, meaning it leaves less room to mess up, but it also leaves less ways to mess up by corollary. So while its good and all to shoot down the GRE, certainly I don't care if its there either way, lets not pretend that its useless. Thinking like that will only make it harder on yourself. In graduate school there are times where you just have to get stuff done, no matter how much aptitude or boring it is. Think of the GRE like your first graduate school assignment... how do you want to do on it?

A few schools accepted me in march, so fear not.

One positive, if you feel that your GRE is really that terrible (forgot what it is) you have a really easy improvement for next year. A lot of people don't have it so easy (undergrad gpa is set in stone once you graduate), getting research experience after UG is also difficult. So there is the bright side!

Honestly, I think it means whatever. If you like wearing your gym clothes while traveling (i've been known to wear basketball shorts on planes, but i fly at least 5 times a year) then I think thats ok. I don't think they will hold it against you. Another thing you can do is bring a change of clothes in your carry on and then change in the bathroom so they are fresh.

This is a post by Jeff Erikson:http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2005/03/re_phd_with_low.htmlon the matter. Jeff Erikson had a low undergraduate gpa (2.4 I think) and is now a tenured full professor at a top 5 CS department and half his graduate students now have tenure. He's proof it happens. One thing I'll probably say is that he probably was much above average in intellectual ability in terms of students going to graduate school, so while he was lazy he was able to articulate that he had much more potential than his stats suggested. Another thing is graduate school is much more competitive now. Anyway, I totally forgot about his post, so I hope it helps you.

The nationwide boy is da real mvp imo. bwahahahaha.

I hope you all get into Rice.

You'd be hard pressed to find any graduate program that doesn't have a 3.0 minimum requirement or close to it. That being said, a lot of programs late into their admissions game bend on this in favor for getting more people. You see, while there are more people applying for graduate school than there are spots, the bulk of those applications go to select schools.

you program? Go work for google!

I think your probably going to want to find some sort of carry on roller bag (incase,crumpler,timbuk2) are good brands. I honestly think that the "roller backpacks" are ugly, but there are some pretty clean looking roller bags that don't function as backpacks. I'm not sure how much you want to spend, but on bags I think you get what you pay for. Anyway. Also, feel free to PM me questions about living in Carbondale(did my masters there) or Davis( doing PhD there) if you are accepted or interested. good luck.

I have a question for you. If both of them want you, don't you think they are going to figure it out regardless?

There is so much speculation in this thread: aren't we supposed to be scientists? I don't know how they adcoms would react, but I do know that is the norm for applicants to never see their letters. I have never seen any of mine. Doing something abnormal could be good or bad... but I think its a hardcase to sell that it's a GOOD thing to not waive your rights.

I think if you really want to go into academia your going to have to spend 32 - 110k on a masters degree (depending on the school). Hopefully the cost of that will help you buckle down and get the grades (for whatever reason) you never could. I'd also retake intro physics at a community college or something. A B- in an intro level course is pretty bad, considering even as a neuroscientist I'd think you need to learn E/M at beyond the intro level (perhaps not, but it seems highly relevant). You can get into research (in industry) without getting an advanced degree, and that might be something to also consider. For someone who is so stubborn about what he/she wants, you haven't really shown you want it with your actions. You really need to be honest with yourself because if you end up spending even as little as 50k on another degree, that is an insane amount of money that could be leveraged into a lot more money in the future.

Either or. TAs come from the department/school, Fellowships come from the department/school, RAs (research assistants) come directly from advisor grants (generally). This is all general.

Just because a professor wants you does not mean she can get you: funding is a consideration. I'd say most graduate schools in US are competitive, especially state schools as an international student because you are twice the cost of domestic applicants. That being said, perhaps UNR hasn't made their decisions? I know my school is lagging, last year I already knew I was in but this year they haven't even had their first meeting.

I never went for interivews, I went to post acceptance days. I met with a lot of people, and they of course, tried to intoxicate me at night. It was very casual and a lot of fun. Don't sweat it. Be yourself, and try and have fun.

I talk to the graduate students. They will tell you straight up.

This is the best advice i've seen. I'm assuming you had letters of recommendation from there (you said from your workplace), It might be more than your GPA. You should find out for sure.

I don't know about your field, but my masters was fully funded by 4 semesters of TAing. At my current program, all students are funded, including masters.

You need to do a research based program regardless. No one cares anymore if you can 4.0 just classes. They care if you can 4.0 classes while having teaching and research requirements. I'm not in your field, but I think the thought process is the same: can you take courses, do research, teach, study for quals, and not go insane or fail out? If you get into a masters program, and succeed, it will answer all of those questions (with the exception of quals). Another thing about your research, while its nice, and you've done a lot of it, one wonders why none of the research you've done (and been at it so long) has resulted in a first author paper. That would do a lot to offset your GPA. Perhaps you can work on that too, if its possible. My uGPA was basically 3.0, so I barely fit the minimum. I did a masters at a unranked school (with thesis) got near a 4.0 and did a great thesis and now am at a great program for my PhD. For me, grades were just a switch. A matter of me doing homework. You have to decide why you were failing and if its even possible for you to fix it. Not trying to be discouraging again, but you are making real life choices and you owe it to yourself to REALLY think this through. If you can't confront yourself like this (or perhaps you already have) you probably aren't cut out for academia to begin with. Like I said, your application is totally fixable, but just because its fixable doesn't mean its worth it (or that you can do it).

I think its a bit telling that you only got a 3.3 in your post bacc. Not to be discouraging on purpose, but its probably not your 2.3 thats killing you, but the 3.3. I don't know what courses you took, but unless they are all upper division courses OUTSIDE your field of interest, there really is no excuse to get such a low GPA. Most of the adcoms were probably worried that with teaching + research + courses you might fail out. I'm assuming you did a postbac to offset your 2.3 for graduate school admissions, what stopped you from getting close to a 4.0? If you do get into a masters program, your going to need to 4.0 it, or close, or I doubt you will get into the kind of program you want to.

great!