HYHY02

I'm currently in the process of finishing my masters (overdue...), so I've been a part-time student since September. Still unsure if I would do a PhD, I ended up taking a RA position with a professor, who we both agreed upon that if we both liked each other after some months working together, I could apply to his program as a PhD student. I'm now leaning more towards the PhD with him, which means I could get a head start right now till September on my graduate studies. Problem is (and I've posted such issues many times here before...), I did not like the masters, and honestly, just feel completely burned out with how things turned out with it. I kind of regret not taking any time off, or even just having a regular 9-5 job for a few months, just to have a break from it all, and come back recharged. So as it currently stands, I'll be a RA for the summer, but possibly with the work-load of a PhD student, but I'm hoping to sneak in one vacation in that time...

Just to reiterate what others have said, your PI is a big factor. One PI I'm currently working with (who most likely will be my PhD supervisor if I decide on a PhD) has explicitly told me he would try to get his students out before 4 years so they can get their "independence" (he himself finished his PhD in about 3.5 years in the same program I'm applying to). I've also spoken to students in another lab I was thinking of joining where no PhD student has finished before 5 years, both due to the type of work (time of experiments) and some not so great personal traits/beliefs of the PI.

thanks for the input everyone, I definitely could have gone about it in a better way. I did however wait from the initial email, in hope of replying once I got my schedule. I however got another following email a couple days after saying I hadn't responded and that they needed a response ASAP, which led to this whole exchange happening. I tried coming off as courteous as I could, but oh well, lesson learned I guess.

Hi everyone, so some events transpired over the past week, which the outcome of is giving me anxiety. So I applied to various programs at different schools, and for one of them, there was an upcoming open house of sort, where towards the end of it, professors could interview potential students. I received such an invite to this event, which is late next week. The invite itself came earlier this week. However, I am currently still wrapping up my masters, have a part time job since I'm currently a part time student, and am literally in the process of starting a new research related part time job, in a lab which I am hoping to secure a potential PhD placement (and which is in another department, but same school, as the one with the open house). I also had some personal issues in the past week, which required me to drive to another city on and off. Just a very hectic time. Anyways, back to the invite, the professor offered an interview and dinner invite, all of which would be next week. I was very happy to have received an invite but I initially replied saying that the dates offered wouldn't work due to me needing to be at my masters lab, due to helping out with another student's project, which I agreed to way before. The professor once again requested an interview on another day next week, offering two potential dates. The problem is my schedule is very busy, with my focus on devoting time to my new part time research job which started literally today. I thus asked if it would be okay to wait until Friday (tomorrow), after which I would have a better idea of my schedule for the research job (which I want to make a good impression with), and I would agree to one of the two interview dates the professor suggested. All up to this point, it was my intention to have an interview next week, I just needed a couple of days to figure out my schedule. This is where things got a bit unconformable for me. The professor replied saying something along the lines that "graduate school is serious stuff, that I should rearrange my schedule with this interview as the main priority, and they were confused as to why getting a meeting is so hard." To me it came off as being irritated, which I completely get, but at the same time, I thought I did nothing wrong by just requesting a couple of days until I would figure out my schedule, and then agree to one of the dates they suggested. At this time, I just felt an interview would be unconformable, and stated that with such a busy schedule, I'm going to wait for my schedule to clear, then I'll pursue PI interviews, and thanks for the time. I don't know...did I really do something wrong? This all happened within a couple of days, and like I said, it was my honest intention to have an interview, but I also wasn't going to flake out on previous commitments.

Hi everyone, so an application I'm currently working on requires a letter of intent, which should include a summary on academic achievements. I'm currently wrapping up a masters, with my current applications being to PhD programs, meaning for all my apps, I'm mainly drawing on my masters experience. I was curious as to whether TAing could be viewed as an academic achievement, or if it is better not to include it? Truth to be told, it was one of my favorite experiences, and I was lucky enough to receive excellent ratings feedback, but it's something that I feel as though doesn't really fit under what one normally thinks of as "academic achievements", things like awards, scholarships etc. Would it be best to leave that out? Thanks.

Hmm, the current application I'm working on requires something very similar to a SOP (they call it "academic interest form"). Although they provide no strict guidelines, they do request answering 3 different questions (but then do mention adding anything else you feel is relevant/helpful...). Taking advice from above, think I'll forgo any extra material that isn't directly related to the 3 questions/topics.

Hey everyone, I had an interview with a potential PhD supervisor about a month ago in person that I felt went well. I personally want to follow up that interview with another one, to ask a few more questions and get a better idea of the potential research. I know this reeks of paranoia, but do you guys think there is anything wrong with requesting to meet in person rather than speaking over the phone if the interview firsts suggest to talk over the phone? I mean to me, it's not a big deal, but you never know.

Fuzzylogician is right, sounds like you need a yes or no answer at this point (can one with a GPA below the stated minimum still be accepted), and the only way you'll find that answer is by directly asking the programs themselves which you are interested in applying to.

Well, finally wrote the damn thing today, and since this thread helped me so much, I'll post my general experiences. First of all, my scores from the various practice tests I've done. I should mention that all these were done within 2 weeks of my actual test day, so I covered most of the content I wanted to by the time I attempted these tests. I also never attempted the writing sections when doing these practice tests. In order of completion: Manhattan Prep Test 1: 161 V, (did not do the quantitative section) Manhattan Prep Test 2: 157 Q, 158 V Manhattan Prep Test 3: 153 Q, 156 V (I knew I did poorly on this one while writing it, was in a busy environment) ETS Powerprep 1: 164 Q, 163V Magoosh Practice Test 1: 159Q, 167V ETS Powerprep 2: 164 Q, 159 V Actual GRE: 161 Q, 161 V, AWA ?? Prep Material: Primarily Magoosh and the 8 section Manhattan Prep GRE material (only used the 6 math books, never touched the other 2) My reaction: When I started this whole GRE thing, I personally was aiming for a 160 in both Q and V, so I was happy I was able to achieve that goal. However, after all the hours spent, and going through hundreds upon hundreds of questions, I felt well prepared. It seems as though I fell somewhere in the middle of all my practice scores for my actual GRE Q and V. I felt a lot more confident about my Q after those PowerPrep tests, and really felt I could approach the 163-165 mark for both my Q and V with a bit of luck. My practice tests, particularly those from Manhattan, consisted of some dumb mistakes, and some misunderstanding of the questions (for whatever reason, I found the wording of data interpretation questions from Manhattan very confusing at times, which was never the case with Magoosh or the ETS guide). However, during the actual test, I thought I was absolutely bombing it, particularly during the first Q section. It wasn't the questions themselves, but rather the time constraints which led to some rushed work and a few guesses, which sent my confidence plummeting. Do practice under strict timed conditions! The math was definitely more difficult than I was expecting based on the Powerprep tests (I breezed through these with 5 mins to spare on both 1 and 2, which definitely wasn't the case on the actual test). I think the best way to sum my feelings is that if you told me that was my score before I wrote the test, I'd be okay and maybe slightly disappointed, but if you told me that would be my score right after I finished the test (thinking I bombed), I'd be very happy. I contemplated for a bit about potentially re-writing, but I don't think those grades are going to hurt my application. Maybe they are not up to par with some of the top programs I maybe was planning to apply to, but I'm currently in a masters that did not require a GRE, and am in the process of finishing that this semester, so getting the GRE off my back is a nice feeling. Planning to write it again will only take time away from my grad work. I did end up sending those scores to 4 schools I knew I'd be applying to, simply to save on the extra fees you have to pay if sending them after your test. I think at the end of the day, I'm OK with these scores, and like I said, it's a nice relief to put these books away and get back to other important work. Best of luck!

Hi everyone, I'm currently wrapping up my masters, and this fall I'd like to apply to PhD programs with a hopeful start date of Fall 2016. Most programs I'm interested in request 2 references, which I should be set for, since for my masters, I had both a supervisor and co-supervisor, and got to work with both extensively. However, I run into a problem for certain programs which request 3 letters. I'm really drawing a blank for a 3rd referee that can speak about me from a research orientated point of view. I've had committee meetings with other professors, but these were only a handful of times, and I doubt they would have much to add. I was thinking of asking a professor I TA'ed under to be a 3rd reference. Literally every TA section I was given was under this professor, meaning I worked with him for 2 years, and I did things that went well beyond the requested hours, assisting with other course related work. Basically, the relationship was great. However, knowing that this person doesn't know me in a research capacity, I don't know if having this person as a reference would be a sort of application "suicide"? As I get more desperate, I may just ask, but I thought I'd ask you guys before doing so. Thanks!

This is what currently has me concerned, which led to me stumbling upon this thread. I actually purchased the Magoosh prep way back in April, but due to some personal reasons, I rescheduled what was a June GRE test date to mid September. I'm essentially done the entire Magoosh verbal question bank, but quite a bit of it was done earlier on in my studying (April/May). I noticed that my estimated score has dipped in the last few weeks, due to getting wrong the majority of questions left, many of which fell under the "very hard" triple blank questions. Also, earlier on my vocab was much more limited than it is now; I'm presuming those questions are also dragging this score down. I've yet to actually write a full prep test, so I can't say how the estimated score compares, but I hope it's higher than the estimated Magoosh...

Thanks for the encouraging words TakeruK as well as the advice. I'll definitely have to be careful in discussing my masters experience, just because knowing me, I'll end up giving off a lot of negativity which I'd like to avoid at all costs. Thanks again.

Hi everyone, I was just curious if anyone strictly used Magoosh to expand their vocab (as in their 1000 words from either the vocab builder or flash cards), and if so, if they felt it prepared them well enough for the GRE. I'm probably 2/3s through memorizing the 1000 words, but with my test in about 1.5 months, I was unsure if I should be adding any other vocab resources. I know Magoosh has posted even a couple of blog posts about various vocab prep material, but for the ones they recommended, they also noted that there was quite a bit of overlap, so I was considering of just sticking with the 1000 words from Magoosh. Thanks.

Hi everyone, so I'm about to finish my masters (well trying to in the next few months), and at this point, the self-loathing is kicking in. For a little background, I went to a fairly average school, volunteered with some profs, and ended deciding I would like to try graduate school, at least for a masters, and depending on how it went, then decide whether to continue on to a PhD. I was very naive when it came to this whole grad school application thing, so I ended up applying to only 2 schools. One was my okay undergraduate school (which would further allow me to save by living with my parents), and the other was my dream school. I was in serious discussion with one professor from this dream school, and ultimately found out in June (while I was planning on starting the same September), that he didn't get the funding needed. In an attempt to not waste any more time and start my masters that fall, and what was in hindsight a bad move, I decided to go back to my undergraduate school and work with a prof who offered me a position, in a topic I was indifferent about. I ultimately feel like I got very little supervision, and ended up learning everything on my own which was often frustrating (his students end up teaching him about techniques/methods that he should be familiar with). Worse was that there ended up being next to zero funding. My project ultimately ended up being based on an incomplete data set that was collected before I came into the lab, with many issues. It felt as though I was trying to squeeze blood out of a stone with this data, and what was most frustrating was that I never got to spend a nickel on improving this dataset, because of the zero funding. What bothers me most is that the PI seems to not have a care in the world about it. Multiple grad students are drowning, both due to the lack of supervision (never on campus/responding to emails) and a lack of initiative on his part (I know for a fact multiple students have gone to the department heads to complain about him). The worse part is that now I see other students from the same cohort, finishing up their masters, and doing so on great terms, some even publishing their papers in high impact journals! Of course, these students were in some of the more prominent labs at this school, while I sit here with nothing to show for 2 years of work. As I've been told before, comparing yourself to others is a game you'll often lose. I'm also going to end up finishing this masters in 2.5 years instead of the 2, since I waited for potential funding to complete the data set, which never came. I'm not saying I deserve success, but I feel like I ended up putting myself in a position more so to fail than to succeed. That came down to being naive when first applying. Knowing what I know now, I feel much more confident in how I should go about applying to work with various PIs, and getting a sense if it'd be a good fit. Now at this point, I know what type of research I want to be involved in, and how to go about getting a better idea if a potential school/PI is a good fit for me. I enjoyed research, but I also hated the whole grad school thing in general at times due to the other issues mentioned. I feel strongly about continuing a PhD, but hopefully in a school/field of my liking, but with how this masters went and comparing myself with others, I really feel like I'm not competitive at this point. I feel like I shot myself in the foot, and where as others can build of their masters, I can't. Sorry for the rambling, but I guess my question really is, to what extent can a masters, with no publications, negatively impact a PhD application? I'm hoping the skills I learned would mean something, but I've been also told that finishing a masters with no publication can hurt you quite a bit if you plan on then applying to separate PhD programs. Any opinions on this would be great.

I actually started studying for the GRE back in March, but I'm currently trying to finish up my masters as well (GRE was not required for my current program but is for PhD programs I'd like to apply to), so things got a bit sidetracked. I ended up doing a bit of vocab throughout that time, but never touched the math until early June (with me finally booking a mid Sept write date around the same time). In regards to the math, I've been using both Magoosh and Manhattan prep (the entire book series). I kind of followed my own schedule, and although probably not the best method, I would plough through specific sectional Magoosh videos, then follow that up with the related Manhattan prep book. What I quickly realized when going through both materials is that Manhattan prep was much better for going over the basics, and reinforcing them with many practice problems/drills. Magoosh on the other hand I felt didn't provide as solid of a foundation, mainly due to not providing many practice problems while learning each section, due to the main practice coming in the form of quizes at the end of each section. However, Magoosh I found was providing more difficult questions. So what did I do? I switched my study habits, where I would go through the Manhattan books first, along with the questions, and then after that was done, go through Magoosh as a review of the material again, as well as to learn more difficult questions that weren't addressed in the Manhattan books. So just based on my experience, I would say if you're struggling with more of the foundational material, Manhattan prep may be a good resource to look into due to their simple explanations of the basics while providing numerous questions throughout to drill them in. Just my 2 cents, and I haven't even written the GRE yet, so who knows, maybe I'm not one to talk about what strategies work...