Vene

I keep trying to think of a reason why I wouldn't give myself 30/30, but I just can't do it.

Before you do that do you have anything in writing stipulating that if you fulfill the course requirement that you'll get an offer? It's be a shame if you were to spend your money and time on the courses and then they say no to you.

Nobody else has responded so I will. I have a hard time recommending you apply for a graduate program. I could maybe see you trying for a MS, but those grades are going to hurt you and your GRE score isn't anything special. I can certainly see an adcom overlooking your grades during the war, but your recent GPA still doesn't hit what they're after. Network well with St Jude's, that'll help your career a lot.

As long as your finances are in order, leave. He's being a dick.

I don't think what universities look for with a SoP changes from year to year. I looked at Stanford's CS website and found their requirements. I'm sure other universities have similar pages on their departments' websites. When I applied, which was admittedly not in CS, they all had it listed separately from their application form. The actual application typically just had a space for me to upload a document.

I'm far from an expert on this, but I don't know a good reason why a genetics department would have a problem with a veterinary science PhD as long as your work is in animal genetics and they want an expert in animal genetics. You'd still publish in various genetics journals and attend genetics conferences, correct?

That's a lot of very personal information, why would it be public record?

Too add to this, I can't figure out why one would conclude that the diversity of the PhDs at their own university is automatically less diverse than the PhDs given at other universities. What if the department is actually statistically more diverse than the general population? Wouldn't that mean the university should favor hiring its former students?

I highly, highly doubt English and literature programs care one bit about quantitive GRE scores. Verbal, sure, Analytical writing, makes sense to me. But quantitative? No way.

Is there some way you can see where alumni of the program have gone to after completing their PhD? I think that will tell you how it is viewed.

If I was you, I wouldn't bother with the subject GRE. You've shown you can handle graduate level courses in the field.

Military surplus is also an option. The best boots I ever got were for paratroopers, completely waterproof. Those things are seriously amazing.

I imagine it's for when you don't have access to a WiFi connection.

Somebody can't handle others being successful. I kind of pity you.

You know, I have never had an employer actually question if I had a bachelors degree.

I think it took my alma mater a week or two to send out my offical diploma and transcripts. But don't let not having the offical document stop you from job hunting, you've completed the courses and have the grads, you have a bachelors degree now and it's perfectly legitimate to say such on a resume, although if you don't have one already you're going to have a hell of a time finding one you can work at for more than a couple weeks before you need to leave for grad school. I can't say I have experience with the bit about sending your final transcript to the graduate college, seeing as I applied after graduating, but I imagine they know full well it's going to take some time to get the official documents from the class of 2014.

Here's a question, how much debt would you have to take and what can you expect for a paycheck afterwards? Can you bear the burden from the more expensive university? If you can't, it's a really easy decision.

Personally, I'm doing grad school for career reasons. I have no desire to be an academic, but my experience so far tells me that to move up in the corporate world I need graduate school. At least, if I want to be involved in any sort of research or development role. I like applied science, while basic research is nice, I'd really rather point to some therapy being used in clinics and say I designed that.

Most biology PhDs are funded, but what you can do is start looking at the websites of different programs and most of them will have the stats of the incoming grad students from various years. That should give you some guide for how you compare. The same websites will include information on if they guarantee funding or if it's competitive. Personally, I only applied to programs which stated both that they provided funding and how much they gave, but I also applied to pharmacology departments.

I included all classes required for the major. So, as a biology major I included all biology courses as well as chemistry, math, and physics.

Some disjointed thoughts I have from growing up in the upper midwest: Layers are your friend, as is making sure everything you wear in winter is waterproof. Especially boots, you want then waterproof and with good traction, especially when spring is coming in and after the snow melts in the day it refreezes at night leaving you with a sheet of ice. For truly terrible temperatures (-40 F, for example) you avoid cold, don't go outside unless you absolutely have to. If you have a car, change the oil before winter, I don't care what the mileage is or when it's scheduled you want it to be able to start if it's sitting outside all night at -10 degrees. You'll also want an emergency kit, even just a blanket will help a lot if it dies on you in the dead of winter. If in doubt, follow the lead of the people around you.

I think you should retake.

From what I've seen in my field education can count as work experience if and only if you have a higher degree than the posting requires. So, if you have a MS and the posting wants a BS, you have 2-3 years of experience.

Congratulations and good luck this fall.

My grandparents live on the far outskirts of a town of <2000 people, they've had their house broken into. Shit happens everywhere.