GeoDUDE!

You can look at my profile in last year's thread: I got into 3 schools and my numbers were very mediocre. Its also luck. This year my advisor is unfortunately not taking any students because our department had 2 very big recruitment years in a row and all her grants are tied up to me and her other student. If I had applied this year, I would have been rejected. Don't lose faith!

Is he/ she paying for you to come out? Then its a formal interview. Your POI might want to meet you in person before devoting thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of dollars on you. Thats all! As for the name of the institution, I think it matters, but I think it doesn't make up for deficiencies in your application. Some schools are known for grade inflation/depression, so that might come up. Chances are if you are in the USA your school is known for grade inflation. But why worry about something that you cannot change? If you have already applied, put your mind to other things. That being said, most of the people in my department (students and professors) come from well known schools.

I want to expand on my point a little. I assumed that the professor thought about what the student/s were doing and made the decision that although the students are using past notes, they are still learning what they need to and the "soul" of the class is still preserved. I do not think that the most important point of a class is evaluating students, but providing them context in which they find interesting things to think about. In my mind, cheating is an act that undermines this context. If I felt that the students were clearly not thinking about the things they were supposed to, ie not putting together ideas, not redoing experiments, then I would consider that cheating. On the other hand, a lot of lab work is busy work, and I personally see no problem with expediting that. I agree its a grey issue, but I also think a student's education is up to them: they are clearly degrading the quality of their education by choice. If education is a glass of water, you can provide the glass, and the water, but they must drink. They aren't children.

I applied to work in Taiwan! and we are both geodynamics! which uni do you wanna work at?

She's not cheating because the professor said its ok, and its up to his discretion. What you consider cheating isn't important, as you do not define the rules of the class. I personally find this ok, as long as they are learning the things they need to.

Email... no one uses mail these days.

Getting a TA spot is always super competitive, no matter the rank of the school. You are not only competing against new students, but students already admitted who are coming off grants (and already promised funding). So don't feel so down that you got rejected by schools whom your POI does not have grant funding: the acceptance rate of TAs is super low!

I worked in high energy physics and ended up doing an REU in physical volcanology. Doesn't get more different than that.

Offical letters (from the graduate school not department) often come in the mail, but usually unoffical is email.

A few things. Why would you worry about something that you cannot change? Can you say you went to a different school? Will the possibility that your background can be seen as a negative stop you from applying at all? Why did you really ask this question? REUs are more competitive than graduate school, in general. I went to a high ranked SLAC, had 2 years of research, and got into an REU at a top 5 dept in my field (and ivy league). Its certainly possible. My friend came from a top 5 dept (and ivy league) and got an REU at MIT. You probably need to apply to 10-20 of them to actually get one unless you come from an under represented group in sciences. We had ~30 people in my REU, most of them came from a high ranking research school or high ranking liberal arts school. Another thing to consider is that there are more people from large state schools, obscure liberal arts schools than there are at high ranking institutions. Also, at research institutions, a lot of students don't apply to REUs because they are already in a lab and want to push a publication at home instead of doing a short term project that will probably end up in nothing special.

Masters programs probably decide later than PhD, since most people want funded PhD students and not funded masters.

I don't know what he/she means by "got almost full stipend". I really doubt Princeton accepts someone without full funding.

I never did this, I'm not sure I would do it unless they asked me to.

I often read this thread for some amusement (I probably shouldn't, have to have a program up and running by tomorrow), but I have a general comment: if you are playing a game of inches you are stressing out too much. Don't change who you are just to try and get into a graduate program. If a thank you note stops you from getting into graduate school, you aren't missing anything from that program. I know thats easy to say from the inside looking out, and much harder to feel that way from the outside looking in. Remember, PI's are human. Graduate coordinators are human. Heads of departments are human. They have personalities they like, and don't like, but its hard to know what those are. Its important to be yourself no matter what, because gaming your way into a program could set you up for failure, which will have far more consequences for your life than simply being rejected from a program or two (or all). Failing in graduate school is often the kiss of death for your academic career. TLDR: Be yourself, get into the program that is right for you, not the other way around.

Do you have a reason for contacting your POIs ? Obviously not if you are asking this question. Just be patient unless you have a change in your application or have something important to say.

It really depends on the department. I imagine that most departments (especially in your field) don't fund MA students unless they don't have a PhD student to accept the funding. Even then, you might think they would wait a year instead of funding the MA student because they tend to be bad investments compared to PhD students. Even in the sciences its much harder to get funding as a MS student. I'd imagine that admissions are decided at similar time, but funding offers are done as they run out of options at PhD, as that what makes most sense to me. But I'd also imagine that everyone does it differently.

I would say that I do not have a top choice, and that my evaluations will be made after programs interview/accept me.

I look for any excuse to miss classes. Graduate classes are often boring and useless (in my field) and are only there to satisfy archaic graduate school requirements.

22 when i started my MS, 24 when I started my PhD.

Its still not the 15th, which is the most popular deadline for Earth Sciences. Another thing is my depts deadline was 9 days ago and they probably wont have an adcomm meeting until next friday. No news at this point means nothing at this point.

Sorry. Not biology here, but if you consider funding a touchy subject then be prepared to talk about a touchy subject an awful lot in graduate school. Any advisor who gets offended if you ask about their open or grants about to be submitted should be ceremoniously marked off your list. Run, don't walk away.

Cruical BBQ has the right idea: I have never met a grad student who hasn't had any free time. I personally work 10 hours Mon-Fri, and 5 hours Sat/Sun. I sleep ~ 6 hours a day. so if we are adding all that up thats 102 hours of work + sleep. That leaves 66 hours a week to eat, socalize, commute, hobby, extra sleep, errands. Thats almost 10 hours a day total on average ! Thats a ton of time.

No

Feeling like you have worked hard and actually working hard are the same thing, but the definition of hard is completely relative, in science and in life.

you should actually find out where he eats lunch and just show up unannounced.