GeoDUDE!

For me, it's all what job offers I will get. To me, the departments environment, whatever type (teaching or research) is more important than the actual designation of what I'm doing. I could be happy at my current department, R1, for example, because everyone is so great to each other. Other departments i've visited clearly are less happy, and I think I'd rather be at a SLAC that has higher teaching load, some undergraduate researcher, but everyone gets along well. Since my type of research can be done on computers, rented or purchased, I think I will always be working 50-60 hours a week and publishing. I just want to like going into work, and the people are a big part of that.

I think you are approaching graduate school applications wrong. I gave you a list of schools so taht you could see what kind of research is going on out there. You should apply to places where you like the research. You shouldn't worry about GRE or GPA, unless your scores are completely bad (which they aren't). You need to make a strong case for you as a researcher and not as a student.

That is still pretty broad... if you are just interested in both general mantle convection and dynamo, UCSC has a top not research program in that department. University of Alaska Fairbanks also has a good dynamo program. I'm sure there are many others. Mantle convection(this is my field) is a bit easier to find: Berkeley, UCSC, UCSD and UC Davis all have strong mantle convection programs. Caltech and USC also. University of Arizona, CU Boulder, and Rice round out the western programs. In the midwest, Washington University in St Louis is a strong program along with University of Michigan. On the east coast, Columbia, WHOI/MIT, University of Rhode Island, Boston University, University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, and Brown are all good.

Shr.... that's a very broad topic. What about GFD are you interested in? Almost every good department has someone doing something with GFD.

They can't evaluate you on what you aren't giving them.

There is no way to know... certainly the content of the LOR will be more important than to who the letter is addressed to. I'm betting many letters say "To whom it may concern", which means the same exact letter for every school is used. That being said, I think there may be another issue. Did you waive your right to see the LOR? Perhaps you didn't for the ETH zurich, but if you did for the other schools, I'd consider that a grave breach of trust between professor and student if you read it. If you didn't waive your rights, then no big deal, but most places ask you to. You should have had him send the letter or place it in a sealed envelope. Maybe it is different in other countries, but this is pretty standard practice in academia for LOR. I'm no accusing you of anything, I'm just point out something you may have done. I.E, you shouldn't judge your professor for this nor should you bring this up with him unless you never waived these rights for any school. I hope you head this advice in the future.

Since you've done a masters, the obvious two fellowships, GRF and Hertz fellowships are out of contention. Your problem is that a lot of the fellowships available (NASA, for example) want you to be a current graduate student. Are you 2 years removed from your masters degree (or will be at the time of application?) You might be eligible for both the Hertz and NSF GRF. So I assume you are going to reapply next year (thats why you said you would take a class as a non degree student this spring). One option, is if this professor really wants you, you can spend the next months applying for research grants with him, focusing on what you want to do. I think your qualifications are fine for entering graduate school (obviously), but a 3.5 Graduate GPA isn't all that impressive. Not that a 4.0 is impressive, but from the people I talk to in Earth Sciences and at both my schools grades are kinda given out.... you have to do something wrong to get a B (like not work at all). I think what is more holding you back though, is if your undergraduate GPA is not impressive, that will make it difficult to win school wide fellowships. Raising your GRE might help you, but this is something I would ask your POI: if you were to score a 165/165/5.0, would this make you competitive for school wide fellowships? It depends on how they weight things there. It's not realistic to expect to get a perfect score, but maybe a 330 could get you there. I think that, even for qualified candidates like yourself, If you only apply to a few schools there is probably a greater chance that you will not get into graduate school than get in. This is because, if there are no TAs, NSF grants are between 10-20% funding rate, which means that already caps the amount of graduate students that can be on research funding. The honest truth is that unless your particular professor gets funding, you may not be able to go to graduate school there. I hate to bring bad news, but really the only way I can see you improving your application (besides maybe the GRE, or publishing a few papers) is applying to more places. And if you are serious about an academic career, it will probably take you away from military bases, even if you were fortunate enough to go to this particular school for your PhD, eventually you will have to go somewhere else to continue.

Almost none. The research I did in undergrad was observational and experimental .... and I wasn't even in the earth sciences. It wasn't a full blown research proposal... it was more like " I am interested in using methods x " to attack problems y and z . There was more connecting the department to that research than actually proposing a full blown problem. Another thing that worked well is I gave a specific example of how I solved a research problem. I didn't go through the entire history of my research experiences, that's what the CV is for. Your statement of purpose is a meant to be a compelling argument of why you want to attend a specific program.

I wrote my SoP like a research proposal: I stated what problems I was interested in, how the facilities and people in that department would help me tackle those problems, and how my background was suited to solve these problems. I think if you can do that you are golden.

I don't think you are giving enough information for us to help you. You are clearly not telling us what you know \.

If the department/application asks for it, it is important. You should do the best you can on everything. This isn't just for graduate school, but life. People don't ask for what they don't want.

Those schools won't have trouble with funding.... if they want you they will find money for you.

How could someone outside of admissions committee of those schools help you ?

Fwiw, my lowest grades in grad school have been in my field of study (earth sciences you study many things, so I've had to take non geophysics courses), I tend to get Bs in my advisor's classes. It might be different in physics programs, but no one really cares about class grades unless you are hovering around the 3.0 mark.... even a 3.2 is not really reason to be concerned.

You are being so cryptic it's impossible to form an opinion. I can only conclude that you posted this in order to get everyone to agree with you and not actually get insight on your situation.

and all of them say you are plagiarizing ?

You've obviously done nothing wrong (mistakenly or not) and your professors are crazy.

He's really a fun guy: I'm a solid earth guy but I actually was a research assistant in his lab for a summer. He's also wicked smart (and, right or wrong, I don't say that about many people). It's good to have multiple labs to be interested in when applying to LDEO, lemme know if you have any specific questions (in a pm). Good luck with your apps

Perhaps you are doing something similiar, or building off someone elses ideas (even though it hasn't been done before) and you are not giving proper credit. Just because you haven't READ a paper that you need to cite doesn't mean you don't need to cite it. We all miss papers we should cite (when your citing 50-100 papers that happens) but perhaps you haven't done enough research and thus are being caught with plagiarism. To give you an example, my prospectus, which is a pre-dissertation proposal paper we write in my program after our first year was only 8 pages double spaced, but had 45 citations. I'm not saying your paper has to have a reference density like mine, but what you do have to do is convince the readers that you have properly researched your topic and failure to do so is risking looking like you have copied someone elses ideas when someone has done it before.

Perhaps the professor doesn't believe you have the ability to produce the work you have turned in.

Percentiles don't tend to be represented by the sum of all your "percentiles". Anyway, those are bad, but those are on the edge of what I think most cutoffs seem to be (around 310-315). If you have someone you've contacted at each palce your applying to, I'm sure someone will look at your application. Your SoP and letters will probably do more to determine where you do your PhD. There are certainly people with worse GRE scores than you doing PhD programs in Earth Sciences, with and without masters degrees. I would ask your MSc advisor what he/she thought, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Though, the GRE shouldn't be a big deal to take, with the exception that its a little expensive.

Are you looking to work with Chris Zappa at Columbia? He's a really cool dude.

I think what is encouraging is most people do better the second time just on the virtue that they have done it before: I had a friend who took it, did miserable, then didn't study and took it I think a month later (or whatever the minimum is, this was a while ago) and did 15 points better. Your milage may vary, but a significant portion of the test is knowing how to take it. getting close are beyond 310 won't make you a shoo in: but I think its strong enough that the GRE won't weight you down. And another thing is people rarely get into graduate school because they aced the general GRE, so beyond a certain point its all about your letters and SOP.

I'm not really sure.... I suspect you can get into colleges with that low of a GRE on any given year, but I think it might be more likely that you are going to be rejected or not given funding. This might be especially true if you are applying for a masters degree where funding is much harder to secure even with good stats. Even getting 155/155 would greatly help you... I think. Is it possible for you to retake it?

I think this is faulty logic: money and time no object.... it does not make sense to wait until next cycle. The worst case senario is that you get completely rejected, you retool with your publications, and reapply next year. Why miss out on opportunities? If the people you want to work with have funding now, they will get a student, and there may not be an open spot next year. Don't apply to places you don't want to go to, because if your argument is you would get into a better graduate school... applications don't work like that. The biggest hurdle for student acceptance is funding. If they have funding, you should apply now.