johndiligent

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

Well, this is going nowhere good.

Saying that early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism share a common ancestry and that looking at the origins of Christianity can instruct about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism is saying something quite a bit different than Rabbinic Judaism has a Christian context. They emerge from the same context and influence one another, but one does not emerge from the other. It's a significant difference in wording. For what it's worth, I ran your statement by my best friend, who is a Rabbinic Judaism scholar, and he was just as disturbed as I was.This isn't just me, and I think it's a bit offensive to say 'But Jews like this' when I was just speaking to you as a Jew.

Also, my field is late Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins and nothing in your phrase about, as you put it, Jesus' "Judaism" and the "Jewishness" of the New Testament required quotation marks, except maybe around the "New". There's nothing particularly "new" about the New Testament. There's plenty that's Jewish about it, though.

You're right. It is a minefield. Kaboom.

Well, this is going nowhere good.

Saying that early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism share a common ancestry and that looking at the origins of Christianity can instruct about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism is saying something quite a bit different than Rabbinic Judaism has a Christian context. They emerge from the same context and influence one another, but one does not emerge from the other. It's a significant difference in wording. For what it's worth, I ran your statement by my best friend, who is a Rabbinic Judaism scholar, and he was just as disturbed as I was.This isn't just me, and I think it's a bit offensive to say 'But Jews like this' when I was just speaking to you as a Jew.

Also, my field is late Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins and nothing in your phrase about, as you put it, Jesus' "Judaism" and the "Jewishness" of the New Testament required quotation marks, except maybe around the "New". There's nothing particularly "new" about the New Testament. There's plenty that's Jewish about it, though.

You're right. It is a minefield. Kaboom.

Well, this is going nowhere good.

Saying that early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism share a common ancestry and that looking at the origins of Christianity can instruct about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism is saying something quite a bit different than Rabbinic Judaism has a Christian context. They emerge from the same context and influence one another, but one does not emerge from the other. It's a significant difference in wording. For what it's worth, I ran your statement by my best friend, who is a Rabbinic Judaism scholar, and he was just as disturbed as I was.This isn't just me, and I think it's a bit offensive to say 'But Jews like this' when I was just speaking to you as a Jew.

Also, my field is late Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins and nothing in your phrase about, as you put it, Jesus' "Judaism" and the "Jewishness" of the New Testament required quotation marks, except maybe around the "New". There's nothing particularly "new" about the New Testament. There's plenty that's Jewish about it, though.

You're right. It is a minefield. Kaboom.

Well, this is going nowhere good.

Saying that early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism share a common ancestry and that looking at the origins of Christianity can instruct about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism is saying something quite a bit different than Rabbinic Judaism has a Christian context. They emerge from the same context and influence one another, but one does not emerge from the other. It's a significant difference in wording. For what it's worth, I ran your statement by my best friend, who is a Rabbinic Judaism scholar, and he was just as disturbed as I was.This isn't just me, and I think it's a bit offensive to say 'But Jews like this' when I was just speaking to you as a Jew.

Also, my field is late Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins and nothing in your phrase about, as you put it, Jesus' "Judaism" and the "Jewishness" of the New Testament required quotation marks, except maybe around the "New". There's nothing particularly "new" about the New Testament. There's plenty that's Jewish about it, though.

You're right. It is a minefield. Kaboom.

Well, this is going nowhere good.

Saying that early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism share a common ancestry and that looking at the origins of Christianity can instruct about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism is saying something quite a bit different than Rabbinic Judaism has a Christian context. They emerge from the same context and influence one another, but one does not emerge from the other. It's a significant difference in wording. For what it's worth, I ran your statement by my best friend, who is a Rabbinic Judaism scholar, and he was just as disturbed as I was.This isn't just me, and I think it's a bit offensive to say 'But Jews like this' when I was just speaking to you as a Jew.

Also, my field is late Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins and nothing in your phrase about, as you put it, Jesus' "Judaism" and the "Jewishness" of the New Testament required quotation marks, except maybe around the "New". There's nothing particularly "new" about the New Testament. There's plenty that's Jewish about it, though.

You're right. It is a minefield. Kaboom.

This isn't meant to be antagonistic but, as a Jewish woman, my alarm bells ring out with the phrase "rabbinic literature in the context of early Christianity", just so you know. If you've phrased it that way in your SOP, I wouldn't. It sounds a bit too much like trying to understand Judaism through the framework of Christianity or, worse, Rabbinic Judaism as emergent from Christianity. I am sure this is not what you mean.

This isn't meant to be antagonistic but, as a Jewish woman, my alarm bells ring out with the phrase "rabbinic literature in the context of early Christianity", just so you know. If you've phrased it that way in your SOP, I wouldn't. It sounds a bit too much like trying to understand Judaism through the framework of Christianity or, worse, Rabbinic Judaism as emergent from Christianity. I am sure this is not what you mean.

Due respect, I don't think this is good advice. Calling attention to low GRE scores in the SOP will just detract from the strength of the SOP. The SOP shouldn't include negatives or excuses. If the OP had an excellent explanation for the low GRE scores (say, ze had been in a car accident on the way to the exam or something) then I still wouldn't include it in the SOP, I'd add a short addendum somewhere in the application. In this case, the excuse seems to be that the OP didn't know that there would be so much geometry on the test. Honestly, I think the explanation would just make the scores stand out more and make the matter worse. Really, most profs know the GRE is useless and will focus on the more important aspects of the application. Don't use those more important parts to remind them about the GRE.

Well, I bombed the quant GRE as far as engineering is concerned (didn't get an 800), and was quite a bit below all the schools' average GRE scores (i.e. 800). I got a 620 verbal, 730 math, 5.5 writing. Took it again, did much worse, said screw it.

I'm at Stanford now.

GRE doesn't matter, it's only ONE part of the whole application. I was below the averages at ALL the schools I applied to, and I got accepted to every single one (Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan, Ga Tech, CU) except UCSB; some even offered me funding.

Don't sweat it too much.

You have a hilarious definition of flunking. You did OK if not stellar on the least important part of your application. If you're worried, work on your SOP.

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

You have a hilarious definition of flunking. You did OK if not stellar on the least important part of your application. If you're worried, work on your SOP.

It's bad enough to warrant concern if you have at least a few of the following:

- a poor to middling GPA
- a poorly written SOP with no clear research goals
- indifferent letters of recommendation
- little to no research experience
- a poor fit with your departments of interest
- applications going out to a small number of highly competitive schools

As it stands, if you don't have any of those, you're worrying about nothing. Your combined score will be over 1200 no matter what, so you'll miss most of the Throw Out Before Reading Cut-Offs.

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

It's bad enough to warrant concern if you have at least a few of the following:

- a poor to middling GPA
- a poorly written SOP with no clear research goals
- indifferent letters of recommendation
- little to no research experience
- a poor fit with your departments of interest
- applications going out to a small number of highly competitive schools

As it stands, if you don't have any of those, you're worrying about nothing. Your combined score will be over 1200 no matter what, so you'll miss most of the Throw Out Before Reading Cut-Offs.

I suggest a longer T-shirt:

Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.

You have a hilarious definition of flunking. You did OK if not stellar on the least important part of your application. If you're worried, work on your SOP.

It's bad enough to warrant concern if you have at least a few of the following:

- a poor to middling GPA
- a poorly written SOP with no clear research goals
- indifferent letters of recommendation
- little to no research experience
- a poor fit with your departments of interest
- applications going out to a small number of highly competitive schools

As it stands, if you don't have any of those, you're worrying about nothing. Your combined score will be over 1200 no matter what, so you'll miss most of the Throw Out Before Reading Cut-Offs.

Also, I'll note that you asked them to "contact you if they had any questions". While it may have been implied by the rest of your e-mail that you wanted a response, you didn't really ask for one- you didn't ask if they had room in your lab, etc.

As to your other questions about their research- answering research questions posed by unknown potential grad students falls pretty low on the priority list for most PIs, and as has been noted it's a very busy time of the semester for most.

Also, it's only been a week. I'd wait another week or so, and then just send a simple follow up e-mail-

Something like "I'm sure you've been busy, I just wanted to make sure my last e-mail didn't get lost in the system."

I think lots of people (from what I've seen here) expect way too snappy of replies from professors in general.

I have to politely disagree, I don't think that stating that one is transgender is akin to stating sexual orientation. It is why the poster wants to study this field, so why not mention it? If he had cancer, and it inspired him to study oncology or diabetes and it inspired him to study that, it would be worth mentioning and not tacky. I think it is the same animal.

The conventional wisdom that I've heard is that anyone with a specific, activism-related interest is a flight risk. The standard case is someone who lost a relative to a particular disease and comes in hell-bent to cure it...but I think it would apply here too.

If you're interested in helping a particular group, science is a really round-about way to do that. You could get the MD and do sex reassignment surgeries or open a queer-friendly primary clinic. You could fundraise for charities helping people fund their surgeries, or you could lobby for better laws that would make transitioning easier. All this would benefit real people, directly. Instead you're proposing to park yourself in a lab, where you will spend your days growing the bacteria that express the protein that binds to the other protein that [blah blah, 12 steps later] may or may not have something to do with what's happening in the people you're interested in. In this case, will you get disillusioned and drop out, or are you prepared for the "just another brick in the wall" nature of basic science?

I think it's OK to mention that your experiences got you interested in particular topics, but I'd be careful to situate that in the context of your own broader interests (as well as the broader interests of the faculty you'd be working with at a particular school).