GeoDUDE!

Pinkster, we should go out. I'm in a graduate program looking for a wife but I haven't found anyone. You will have to convert to Judaism, as my kids must be Jewish. I love this thread.

The most important thing you can do is sound knowledgeable in what you want to do and be very likeable/not awkward. Look clean cut, but not too formal. Basically, look like a nice person and sound like you know what you are doing. Try to be funny. It's a lot like a first date but instead of trying to get lucky you are trying to get into graduate school. Good luck... I just did about 10 of these at a conference last week.... they are stressful at first but really comes easy.

Your going to need to have your work experience do the talking since your GPA is also low. After that is there isn't much you can do. If you are expecting to get funding, you might have some trouble since the GPA + GRE is used for funding purposes. If you have money, or a company paying for your education, it is much easier to get in graduate school

yes

I would never pay for any graduate schooling, Period.

Loric, inductive reasoning is very natural. You are guilty of it all the time........ be it right or wrong assumptions. Since most people on here are a form of scientist, its natural to assume the highest probability. Yay logic.

We have different definitions of what facts are. Just sayin.

I'm not in an MSW program, but a geophysics one. I'll just say this, IF i didn't have a thesis i could probably coast buy doing almost no work and get mostly A's. Graduate classes I've found are substantially easier than undergraduate classes.

While I want to agree with the sentiment, as it seems it would give hope to many people on this forum, I can't help but wonder If you have ever experienced the research environment at a top tier university AND the research environment at a lower ranked university? I certainly have, and going from an IVY league to a lower ranked public institution was night and day. Prestige itself does not get your paper published in nature, that prestige often brings money to conduct an experiment or project that is of higher quality than ones at lesser universities. Obviously, I am speaking in generalities. With regards to applications, there is a larger point; Does doing better on the GRE make you any less likely to conduct great research? If there is no correlation between research and GRE, which I think there probably is a stronger one than many would like to admit, because there is a large correlation between competency and GRE scores. Why should a grad school take someone with a lower GRE score ? Is that person with a lower GRE score really that much more special? How can someone call them self a scientist yet not be able to do high school level math ? Maybe you can get through graduate classes if you did poorly on the GRE, as many people in my program did, but graduate level classes aren't supposed to be hard or take up a lot of time. Research is. And if you have to struggle with high school level math in your classes, it's going to eat up all your research time. Graduate Schools want students to be healthy. If you have to work 80 hours a week to get all your work done, you aren't going to be healthy. There will be weeks where you work a ton, but if every week you are not sleeping and every week you are working all the time you will not be happy. I would bet my left nut that there is a correlation between strong research and happiness. With poor stats, there is a case to be made. I had barley above a 3.0 GPA in physics with a few conference presentations / REUs and found myself in a fully funded masters program. But don't kid yourself and think that prestigious schools are all smoke and mirrors; Funding can deliver stability, along with many other things. Fusion needs lasers to heat up atoms. It is difficult to find out we are not who we someone think we are; We all can't be great. Somewhat depressing, to confront yourself.

I think its a bit soon to be worried over this; you haven't got in

I do not think that is correct.

Yes. As long as its on your transcripts it will be helpful. Though, my feeling a A in real analysis (not an easy feat if its given the upper division care that many math departments love to pour on unsuspecting undergraduates) would carry significant weight. I would take it none the less, as it was one of the most interesting and frustrating math classes I ever took.

Ask yourself the fundamental differences between the Ideal PhD candidate and an MS candidate. Do you know what subfield you want to study ? Do you know what the contemporary problems are in your subfield? Do you know what types of methods are used to solve these problems? Do you know what journals are currently publishing projects based on solving these problems. Could you put down in words what these problems are, what methods are used to solve them, and how those methods have the ability to solve them? If you can't do all of the above, that doesn't mean you aren't ready for a PhD; but seeing as you don't have any teaching or research experience you might find answering those questions daunting. I think going for a funded MS, especially if you have good stats, is the right way to go. If you are successful in your MS it probably makes you a much stronger candidate than applying directly to undergrad.

My stipend at SIU after taxes is ~ 13k a year... and i end up saving ~5k of it. Its very livable.

I agree, I don't want to make it seem like i'm siding with the graduate student, i'm just proposing solution and logic behind it. Like I said, I am prone to snapping, but I do apologize after I do it (maybe like once a semester when people start asking me too many matlab questions). Anyway, a person like that isn't a good mentor if you are feeling abused.

This is really an easy answer. Look at all the art faculty (you say you want to be faculty). Where did they come from? My advisor recently head a search for a new physics professor. Of the finalists, 2 of the 3 came from a top 10 school. The guy from the lower ranked school did not get hired. So its certainly possible; but you have to prove more. People want to hire people from top programs, so they can say, look where our faculty were trained. I am inclined to say take the second offer, because my feeling is getting a facutly position is no guarantee and going into massive debt for graduate school (not including professional school) tends to be a bad idea in general.

Look at where the publications that you cite in your MA thesis come from. Apply there.

I guess what I was really trying to say is nobody is perfect. Just like every other relationship in life, you need to evaluate if the pros outweigh the cons. I'm willing to be if she went to her advisor and said, man I have all this work, I have no time to teach this UG or help this UG, the advisor would tell her to get her own work done. That's how grad school is. my first semester I complained about my teaching load, and they told me to stop spending as much time teaching and essentially do a shitty job. This is why small liberal art schools can get away with costing so much; they don't have any of these problems. Research universities will always focus on research and teaching 2nd. Thats just the way it is. There are some distinct advantages to your situation; not everyone has them. Remember, what you have here is truly a "first world" problem. Have you ever thought about talking to her about it? It probably won't change anything though.

graduate students have deadlines that undergraduates do not have. she might be unloading her stress in a mature way, but you should just get out of her way. It isn't a graduate students role to be friends with you, or mentor you. I've been known to snap at people close to deadlines.... its just something that happens.

if you are worrying about grad school this early, you aren't having enough fun in college..... and geology graduate programs want to accept people... not robots. Are you working for David Marchant by any chance ? He's a great guy... and a good scientist. make sure to take his classes

Absolutely, its often why many refer to telescopes as time machines. And by many, meaning only me.

The speed of light = 3 * 10^ 8 m/s. Since Time = Distance/speed, we get on the order of 10^-7 seconds. which would make it on the order of a 10 millionth of a second. Though, the speed of light is different on earth than it is out in space; light moves faster or slower in different mediums. This really isn't a big deal though.

How are you going to fare when you are in graduate school and you fail at something difficult? Dealing with failure is pretty much key to getting through any program. Every graduate student fails at some point in their career, some just start early by sucking on the GRE.

I think the lack of science courses will make you a tough sell, but i'm not really too sure. I went into grad school with no geology classes, but I was a Physics major. I've only met one or two people that weren't science majors, and they ended up in geography. Those are very competitive schools, perhaps it would be wise to also apply to lower ranked programs.

Statement of Purpose; Ie the statement of what you want to do during and with your graduate education. This includes the problems you want to solve, how you want to solve them, and the evidence that you are capable of doing this. A well written SOP with supporting Letters of Recommendation can make up for poor grades or poor GRE, but I think you will find it difficult to get past a poor GRE and poor grades. Many programs just cut off the bottom 50-60% of scores in GRE/GPA. So you really need to find a way to get past the automatic rejections.