GeoDUDE!

It depends on how much the internship pays; Oil industry internships pay around 10k a summer + room and board allowances. Many of the good ones have room and board allowances so you only have to pay for your home back at school. You probably want to start looking in october, depending on what you want to do. Ask your advisor. I'd imagine moving your family during the summer is about as hard as moving to another city normally.... I would look for fully furnished living situations. Its really easy moving alone because you can take someones room in a house for the summer, but since you have a family you will need your own unit.

I went out of pocket the year I applied and I thought it was worth it; Its probably going to cost you ~1000 dollars. I ended up going to a school whom i couldnt meet the POI, but I made a lot of contacts. It also helped that I knew what to expect since I presented there twice when I was an ugrad. I didn't present last year, but found it fun anyway! If shared a room last year and had about 1 mile walk to moscone every day and it cost ~ 30 dollars a night. The real kicker is food: SF is super expensive, but luckly there are ways of getting past it. Its somewhat unhealthy, but I would get the subway breakfast sandwich every day which was 2 dollars. it was generally sausage or egg or bacon and eggs, cheese and all the veggies you want. I felt ok about it because i had a really healthy lunch: food from Whole foods. You can get a really hearty meal from whole foods for less than or about 10 dollars as long as you avoid a lot of heavy items, their food is sold by weight. There is free beer at the end of the day at AGU, and there are "parties" that departments host that often give away free drinks. Its usually the bigger programs that do it, and if you can find a friend that has once been affiliated with them then you can go. If you want drinks at dinner, and if you are going with people who aren't paying out of hand, its going to be expensive. Its pretty hard to get dinner under 20-25 dollars in the city. If you go with more frugal people, then again its going to be more like 10 dollars. Since I go to SF a lot (I have family there) and am from california, I often convince people going to dinner with me to go to the mission district on the bart and get a 5 dollar mission burrito that blows their mind. Mission burritos are literally the best thing ever invented. So thats another way to eat cheaply, eat a ton of mexican food that isn't chipotle, though there is one near there. so if you are doing a tally, thats about 70 dollars a day i spent on room and board, which makes 350 dollars for the week. Registration for the week ~250 dollars, and tickets were ~300 (flying from St. Louis) because I bought the tickets ahead of time. So I did it for probably a little under 1k. Thats a lot of money, but its also pretty cheap for 5 days in SF and AGU is a lot of fun, you can think of it as sort of a vacation. Of course, its probably during your finals week (as it is mine). I'll be presenting there this year, should be a lot of fun.

Just remember to present the virgin's flow when you tell your advisor about the marriage. But in all seriousness, its a misconception that many first years make that their advisor expects them to put their life on hold in order to work! I think they will all be very happy for you. I would just mention it casually, especially if you are inviting your advisor; if you do some sort of save the date or invitation months in advance that would be one way to do it. Think of it this way, how would you tell your boss and coworkers?

Yes, often times lesser schools are forced to settle for less productive candidates. Undergraduate research is a big deal to a lot of small colleges, who sell prospective students on their ability to leverage personalized education (and research) into admissions into a "brand name" graduate degree. The world of academia is complex, where pretty much all tenured professors are going to have large publishing expectations. I think it really comes down to, do you want graduate students and less lecturing or do you want more lecturing and no graduate students. Research is the job of a scholar and your publications will determine your time at any school.

SLAC (no graduate school) often has rigid publishing/grant requirements. What is expected of a tenure-track (or tenured) professor often has to do with the rank and production of the people around him/her and less of what "type" of school he/she is at. My UG physics department( at a SLAC) has professors with H-index higher than many tenured professors at high ranking universities. Its not black and white.

I didn't have that kind of time, after a few hours I found it was diminishing returns: how much better could it be? I am pretty sure most fields take it seriously. Writing a Thesis >>>>> SOP imo. Are you sure its a good use of your time? could you spend that time doing other work that would ultimately help your application (like research).

I took me about 4 hours to write the template of my SOP; and about 15 - 20 minutes for each program. It all depends on your writing style, ability, and what you want to include.

I think your case is similar to many who transfer; the core group of friends I had through college I met freshman year, and the others came and left as time went on. Graduate school is really no different, except there is no greek life. I'm suprised you sound cynical of greek life, they are usually really open to new people if you have at least one friend in the frat ect. Anyway, it really depends on the type of program and the people in the program. I think the biggest differences is you have to work to find people outside of your program; its very easy to just talk to people in your program. Your going to have to do the same things you did as a transfer student, join clubs and activities. Talk to people before/after/sometimes during class. Talk to people at bars. Basically, social life in graduate school is the same as anything, except, you are surrounded by thousands of potential friends!

Yes.

You most certainly should let her know if you do apply elsewhere. Not letting her know, even if you don't ask for her recommendation, isn't polite at least. You cannot think of academia that same way as professional job; its very small and one person who has sour grapes can hurt you a great deal. The best thing to do is cover as many bases as possible. People may call your advisor to ask about you, even if you don't get an official recommendation! For example, I had a flaky internship advisor, and while I listed the internship on my resume they still called him despite not being one my 3 LOR! Anything you list on your CV is fair game and the absolute worst thing you can do is lie on your applications (I know you weren't going to, but its an important enough point to say it anyway). That being said, your advisor sounds like a dipshit. I hope that language doesn't get me a warning, because the word I would have probably used in real life starts with a c and no one likes.

Your Purpose. So many people make the mistake of reflecting on their CV: a SOP is a vision of the future where as a CV is historical. What do you want to do, why do you want to do it, who do you want to work with, and how does this particular department help you achieve your goals. These are all that is necessary in any SOP, let alone one that is shorter. Don't waste their time rehashing your CV.

I doubt you will get into any new program for a few reasons: 1) your advisor's recommendation is key. If you can't get a recommendation from your advisor, and are going behind your advisors back so to speak, thats bad form 2) A PhD in history, in my opinion, should be enough to start a career in another subject like classics or literature. Maybe they are totally different, but most of what a PhD is learning how to research. Researching across the humanities cant be all that different; It would be like me going for my PhD in mathematics after my PhD in Geophysics. 3) If you are worried about your Dissertation work now, then what makes them think that you can do better in another program? So after those addressed, I will offer what I think is the best way to do things: Talk to your advisor about your problems. Perhaps your relationship with your advisor really isn't that bad! My advisor (masters) and I had a good relationship, but we only talked about once every few weeks until it came time to defend my thesis, then there were more meetings. Perhaps this is normal. Does your advisor have a better relationship with other students? If your advisor is really that bad, then its really good that you passed qualifiers. But switching programs is a lot of trouble. I think the first step is trying to repair your relationship with your advisor, and if that can't happen, ask your advisor to write you a strong recommendation to another program. PS, the name of the degree doesnt matter, its what you did your dissertation on. My research could be done in any number of departments from Earth Science, to Physics, to Applied math, to even computer science or Engineering. Its all where the faculty fall!

If your program is anything like the others i've seen, you won't need peliminary results for your prospectus. Matlab is a breeze, especially if you have programmed before. I learned matlab myself, but its great there is a class on it. You should be fine, no one expects a dissertation in a semester, year, or even two. Graduate school is 90% effort. Don't compare yourself to others. Just put your head down, work as many hours as you need (40-60 weekly), and relax. Remember, the USA is a PhD mill, many others graduate, you all can do it to!

When I first started my masters program 2 years ago I worried a bit; I was a physics major teaching intro to geology without ever have taken any earth science/geology except 1 geophysics and 1 ocean physics course that no real mention of geology. That was relieved the first day when I saw how stupid 95% of college freshman and sophomores are. They really know so little, so its very easy to teach them a lot, and that makes the job so much easier than you think. Imagine being a professor and teaching some advanced methods course to 3rd year graduate students! Now that's when you have to be prepared. I wasn't really worried about class; while I hadn't taken any earth science classes, I came from a SLAC, where I took many classes outside my major all the time, even as a jr and sr, so I knew I would be able to adapt. And listen, its really really hard to get less than a B in graduate school. Its not as if the professors don't know that giving you a C would hurt you as a graduate student much more than it would hurt an undergrad (straight Cs get you kicked out). And if you suck at teaching, they probably wont fire you. They might assign someone to help you learn how to teach better, observe you ect, but they wont fire you after 1 semester or 2 of bad teaching. And again, its not even that hard; I'm pretty sure the first class I thought, "The World's Ocean" for the first few weeks was the worst class ever. But eventually, the students start giving you feedback, telling you what they need, and you start adapting your lesson plans to help them. No one expects you to be Richard Feynman on your first day.

I think it depends on the program; my program funds ALL students through RA/TA/Fellowships. No student is allowed to pay their way in a degree program. But it makes sense: if a school knows you can pay for it, they should be more likely to accept you. They want that money.

Its a high school level material, and they are asking you to get 7/10 questions correct.

Its true, I didn't get a 4.0. I ended up with a 3.8 in my program. It all depends if that extray .2-.5 is worth it to you or not. For some people it might be: I chose to spend no more than 10 hours a week outside of class on classes and it paid of pretty well.

It depends on how confident you are in these classes; I took 12 credits my first semester and found myself spending ~8 hours total outside of classes. Often times, graduate classes are much easier than their undergraduate counterparts. Sure they go over more advanced material, but you go over less material, so if you understand it faster its as if you have very little work. I had enough time to do the class, teach, and get enough research done for my thesis proposal.

The reality is no one is asking you to get a prefect score, they tend to ask you to answer 60-75% of the questions correctly. Our education system is seriously failing if the GRE becomes some insurmountable task for many students.

Most people who do poorly on the GRE say they test badly: maybe thats true, but what is probably also true is they didn't study correctly or as hard as they should have. There are plenty of reasons why an adcom should care about a decent Q/V in any subject: are you competent? The GRE isnt designed to push you intellectually, its designed to see if you can perform on a simple test while knowing about it ahead of time. Sure, you have work, other classes, and real life to deal with, so many people do not have time to study. But thats also what grad school is about, finding a way to get it all done well. While the correlation between GRE scores and student success isn't as strong as ETS probably wants it to be, its a lot stronger than most make it out to be. The truth is, the GRE doesn't great candidates out as often as it removes bad ones. Some have a much harder time figuring that out, mirrors are harsh. There are a lot of fallacies in your post: 6- GRE plays a huge role in admitting grad prospective students. Why is a 4 hours exam overweighs a 4 years undergrad GPA, years of extracurricular activities , additional graduate classes in prior colleges and a satisfying score of TOEFL/IELTS? It doesn't outweigh the 4 years, but its something that everyone else has! If everyone has a score of 20 as a baseline, and then someone does better on the GRE, their score is going to be higher (ie 25 vs 24). Note these are just made up numbers, the idea is in the logic.

For what its worth, outreach is probably the biggest reason I missed out on the GRF. It is important not to make light of it, so include all you can given the short format. The right balance is needed.

IN reality, if you do stellar on the pGRE, and have most of the relevant courses (class mech, stat therm, quantum, Electric/Mag) then I don't see why you couldn't get into a top school; especially if you are publishing is a good journal.

That also isn't completely true; a lot of school/departmental fellowships are highly GPA + GRE dependent, departments would like to admit students who are competitive for those fellowships. If you can compete for that fellowship, they are more likely to accept you. So while its not HUGE, a stellar GRE could be the difference between close applicants, for sure.

You tend to be sorted by a combination of both; but GRE tends to be better to sort because its objective. People who come from caltech notoriously have lower GPAs but higher GRE scores; Since GPA can be weighted high or low depending on the strength of your school GRE is a tool often used. Its also important to note that the minimum GRE changes from year to year in many departments; While 300 might be a cutoff for the graduate school, if 50% of the departments applicants score over 310 why would they look at anyone under 310 ?

Honestly, you would have been wise to take that position. FSU is a good program in my opinion. My degree is going to be in geology but I mostly study fluid dynmaics: whats important is if the research you study interests you, not what the degree says. Having a paper under review and doing research is fine, but it really depends on the impact of that paper; If its high impact then great, you've really helped your application (this means in a top 5ish journal in your field). If its a mediocre publication, thats also good, but it might not be enough to offset your scores. Something to ponder, the adcomm might not have even seen your application at those 3 places! Your scores are definitely low enough to warrant automatic rejection at strong programs considering your GRE scores are under 310 (an unoffical cutoff for many graduate schools). I think it would definately be worth applying if you could get a combined 310 on the GRE; You aren't that far, but far enough that a computer wouldn't know the difference. Then you could make the argument to the adcoms, hey my gpa is low, but my GRE is decent and I have all this research and a publication. I might be mediocre in my classes, but the thesis I'll ace because I'm good at research. Thats the argument I made, but it took me getting a high GPA in a masters program to get into a top 20 school. good luck!