GeoDUDE!

If i recall, each question in each section is worth the same, but as the section difficulty increases/decreases (depending on how well you did in the previous section) the points are worth more/less.

Yes

Now that you think of it... I think Devon Energy is based out of OKC, so it might be a good option as well.

if you want to be in energy geophysics almost all roads lead to houston. I would suggest going to houston.

I disagree; letting the people know who want you to be successful that you have a problem can do wonders! Let your department and advisor fight for you .

Its super hard; You might have to start over, as the grant funding you might get will require you to work on a different project. Its a lot easier if you go to a top 20ish program ect. You might want to talk to your advisor about this; ultimately your ability to transfer will be on his/her word and the departments. If they dont write you Stellar reccomendations (because you have to reapply to new department) then you are out of luck.

Again, this is highly department and maybe even cohort dependent: You should be talking to your advisor and maybe the graduate program coordinator.

This isn't a good question for the forum, this is something that should be discussed with your graduate advisor. Only he/she knows what you should take.

3. Email professors asking to work with them. That instruction email above told you not to do that. They will just forward me the email and tell me to deal with it. (I know this varies by department though.) I have always seen instruction emails telling to do the opposite..... 4. Ask if you can apply. How did you miss the "APPLY NOW" button on the website? Sure, many departments have an "Apply Now" button, but other departments have pre applications. In my field, USC and Virginia Tech come to mind. So yes, follow directions. Be polite.

This advice is so program dependent; the tone of the OP seems very disgruntled. I'm sorry you are having a tough time with repeated questions,it probably gets annoying and is one of the more tedious parts of your job. Thank you for this post.

Yeah, my lease starts sept 1st; I'll probably start working on my prospectus once I get there. Also my dept has a camping trip icebreaker in mid september, so thats another reason to go. Professors are around during the summer, nothing like getting your initial research organized before classes start: you will have less time than you think during the year! Personally I don't find doing 3-4 hours of work a day very stressful, and doing that for 1-2 weeks before it starts makes a big difference for the rest of the semester/quarter.

You ask the department.

You should apply to international programs; every department that requires the GRE will have to appeal the graduate school to admit you, and they need a good reason to do so. Those GRE scores are beyond any excuses, in my opinion.

I disagree; The student should work however much he/she feels comfortable. This is especially true if you feel like you are 'putting your life on hold' for graduate school: its the advisors job to best facilitate the needs of the student while upholding the standards of the department: once the student surpasses the standards set in the beginning, there should be nothing holding the student back. You might think it smarter to spend time in graduate school, but after a masters degree, a 5 years of PhD is a long time. Have you asked your advisor about this? Have you made it clear that you want to move on to a postdoc asap? Thats the first step.

I'll be doing WoW stuff, but I've never been a fan of graduate unions. got about ~1 month until i drive up from LA to davis. ganna be fun.

Most good programs won't accept a student without funding; You are going to need to make a compelling case in your statement of purpose/ LOR with such a low GRE. Furthermore, its a bit weird that your GPA went down significantly in your masters program, but that might be a symptom of going to non-American universities: in the US, graduate level classes tend to be easier than undergraduate classes because the grading is more lenient. What is your math level? Atmospheric Sciences like taking people who have Calc 1-3 + ODE + PDE + Linear Alegebra, and also tend to like students who have good programing skills. Its hard to suggest you a school without knowing what your research interests are: Atmospheric Sciences and Remote sensing is very broad. I am not sure you can get funding at any place with that GRE. You really need to get higher scores, around 310, especially since you are an international student.

I would heed against this advice, consider the following: Octopus could have things in his statement that resonate with the adcomm. He might even be a better writer than you! Hardly the same application. Another thing are letters, which everyone has immaculate, but again something could resonate. Perhaps Octopus would only be happy at these schools, why not apply? You shouldn't be trying to get into graduate school, you should be trying to get into the right graduate school. Furthermore, he is a post masters student. I don't know much about biology applications, but having a masters degree tends to ease the minds of many adcoms in general. Who are we to tell people how they should spend their money, or how they want to go to grad school. A graduate education is singular, no two degrees the same from student to student let alone from department to department. In my opinion, no school should be crossed off unless you do not meet the minimum requirements and you can afford the application fee. Too many people pick the wrong department, advisor, program: GPA is never the reason. (yes its monday night, im bored, and responding to a thread I don't know much about).

My dissertation is met in the middle between my advisor and me: I am researching the attributes that I have chosen, laid out, and find interesting and in return I am developing the methods and software that she wanted her new graduate student to work on. We matched very well, so it wasn't much of a compromise, by my statement of purpose was 75% research proposal. One thing you must realize is that your PhD work is your work. This isn't your advisors work, your advisor will not be an "expert" necessarily in your field. What your advisor should be able to do is advise you through the pitfalls of this research, help you brain storm and help you get through the degree. Other things like publishing and conferences are your advisors job as well. A lot of people get RA money, and use the work that they are doing from their RA in their dissertation; this is fine, but it isn't the only way. Either way, its important to communicate; the work you do should be mostly your ideas and not your advisors !

I wouldn't choose any: The application process (interviews ect) changed where I wanted to go to school. If I had to do something like an ED when I applied, it would have been Brown, but I didn't end up filling the application.

skeletons

Enjoy:http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/63380-the-easy-option-for-a-computer-desk/

Depends: some schools i added a week before the deadline !

I think you are making a big deal of this.... why not email the grad coordinator and say you are uncomfortable and don't want a picture ? Why are you making this out to be such a big deal?

On a related note: it doesn't matter what subfield you are in, chances are you are going to take that breadth course with that that professor who doesn't want you to use excel and wants you to use R,Matlab, Python ect to solve the problems. This happened when my MSc advisor taught a class: Statistics for Earth Scientists (which I am sure there will be a biology equivalent) which included some basic programming a probably intermediate level statistics (writing own code to bootstrap, markov chains ect). The students (all the ones who weren't in my advisors lab) who weren't comfortable with at least a high level programming language and some linear algebra (row-reduction, pretty easy to learn) had a lot of trouble with assignments that took the ones who were comfortable less than an hour. So while they didn't need previous experience, it certainly made their semester a lot rough than it had to be: you don't need to be a mathematician or a computer scientist, but going slightly beyond the requirements when you have some free time might payoff in a big way.

I would try to reason with them: Giving them a bullet point list of things they may want to highlight is a lot different then writing the letter itself. But, I think mostly the faculty is at fault and not the student. Its just wise to know what you are getting into: I personally would find another person (and have).