GeoDUDE!

Publication quality > Quantity. Focus on not just high impact journals, but publications that will yield you a large amount of citations. Use hard hitting publications to leverage yourself into a strong postdoc. Use that postdoc to get a TT or Lab position. Prestige is important, but publication quality and connections are more so. Usually, the higher ranked schools place better because they get better students, its a self fulfilling paradigm.

Do nothing until you make it through the Graduate school; let the department know that you haven't received your official acceptance

I've heard there is a bit of drama going on in the department in regards to faculty; I havent heard yet and I had a very good interview at AGU.

Interesting (I just accepted their offer a few days ago). When I was there they pretty much had everything, and were expanding. That reasoning is quite surprising unless your proposed project was very specific. I'm sure you will have better luck elsewhere.

Did you contact a POI at davis ?

I've committed to davis... good to be moving back to cali after 6 years of exile.

Thats interesting because I have never had to use apples tech support; 3 iphones 1 ipod nano 1 ipad and 1 macbook pro later. Seems like you just got a bad apple (hahahaha). Though I think if there was something wrong with my computer, I would probably try to fix it myself (and did with the fan) if I could. I guess I've just been fortunate to never have any major computer problems in my ~18 years of using a computer.

Nope your right; my mistake.

It could have also been that your POI at the school you were rejected from already had someone in mind for the position, and they just needed an excuse to reject you without being truthful. Which in my mind is super unethical: people should always tell the truth.

I think apple care is a waste of money. The 1 problem i've had with my macbook pro (3 years old now) is one of the fans started making weird noises, so i went to ifixit.com and bought one for ~60 bucks and changed it out. It was super easy. IMO, if you want a laptop, the 13 inch macbook air is the best on the market. Powerful, amazing battery life. The only bad thing about it is the screen resolution is from the stone age; its a decent TN panel but i think its like 1440x900 when most people on a 13 inch screen would want 1920 x 1080. With computers, I'm a firm believer in you get what you pay for; I had very expensive windows laptops before my mac and they worked out OK. If you can, spend at least 1k on a computer, for something you want to use day in and day out, build quality matters almost as much as battery life. For most people, power shouldn't be a concern. Even most computer science majors dont need a powerful laptop. The only thing you need a powerful laptop for is Gaming, Data Analysis (and really thats just ram for most people), Photoshop/Illustrator (to make posters). Everything else is easy enough run on an i3 and 2gb of ram. Look for battery life, look for build quality. The better the track pad the better the usability of the computer is, which is why apples got so popular in the first place. Keyboards are also important, and it seems windows computers have some good ones. I am skeptical of the new lenovo laptops; They aren't the same bastions of build quality they used to be. If I were to buy a windows laptop today, it would be an Asus Zenbook I think.

Linear algebra looks to be the biggest deficiency; If you are on the physical side of things, its pretty hard to teach someone any type of physics without a linear algebra class. People tend to even want you to have taken an advanced treatment of calculus (proving calc 3 theorems using linear algebra, similar to real analysis). Its sad to say, but not having linear algebra as an atmospheric scientist might be possibly the worst possible thing to have missing, How could you have really done PDE without it? That being said, I still think your background would qualify as a strong math background, relative to geology and even chemistry majors. It's a bit weird. My feeling is that you actually just forgot to put linear algebra on the list, because some of your classes would have required it at my school, in which case they really don't have a valid argument to chastise your math background.

I think thats right. I think engineers can get through the mathematical rigor of an atmosphereic science degree ( I mean, you at least have to take linear alegebra / calc 3, and probably go up to PDEs.) I'm sure you will find a good home.

I mean it depends. Almost all the people in atmospheric sciences that I know either are straight physicists, mathematicians or chemists.

There are a lot of options in terms of funding; Most people think that RA/TA/Fellowship is the only way to get funded but there tends to be GAships that are open to students of all departments. For example my good friend works for the waste removal department getting rid of all lab waste (because they are toxic). That pays him the same as my TAship, including tuition waiver. Typically you email these people to see if they have openings, more or less like you would find a job.

My impression of davis is its just about the easiest place to get around without a car; bike lanes everywhere!

budget ?

Did they offer you a GA/TA/RA/Fellowship? If so, they have to release you. if there is no financial compensation in your agreement, you can just change your mind.

Is it possible to have a fulltime job and still need loans, or extra support? Yes. Why would graduate school be any different? Many people can get by on very little if they are willing to back. My living costs ~8-9k a year including rent ect.

I think this is highly field dependent; In any program where an offer tuition + stipend is expect there is no such thing as a safety. Academia is to fickle by nature. What is a saftey? TBH, any field where you are paying for the degree ( except maybe medical, vet, and law schools) are reasonably easy to get into. There are some very difficult MBAs, but there are a handfull of programs that take on students for money. If there were "safties" you would see the same people get into all of their schools; while this happens to a very select few of elite prospects, the 98% or so of us dont do quite as well no matter the spread. That is why people apply to many schools.

It's actually a bit more complex than that, even if I want to agree with the sentiment.

If you don't have free time you are doing something wrong.

If you are admitted they arent there to quiz you; Quite the opposite.

Now you just need to decide where you want to live.

I feel like this thread is full of people who just hear stories about PBR instead of actually experiencing PBR. It won a blue ribbon for christ's sake! That being said, I don't think that pbr is a "hipster" thing since most people call anyone with thick dark glasses a hipster. I enjoy it because its 1 dollar. it's really hard to complain for 1 dollar.

He lived with 2 other people, they each paid ~500 a month. That's the way to go. I do not own a car (I do drive though) so I will be living in Davis if i do attend. Living with roomates isnt so bad. I've mostly lived with other people my adult life (with the exception of 2 years in ugrad) so.... idk.