ssynny

Oh yeah definitely. Thankfully my POI has worked with some students before and had some undergrads over the last two summers. Thanks for the tip on the forums. There was some really useful advice!

On the WHRC page, it says that he's an associate scientist but not if he was running his own lab. He listed about 30 publications on his page with about 10 being first author, so hopefully he doesn't feel a need to bump his students to second or third. If you have been to parties with this guy, that's actually pretty awesome haha. His profile pic is a little goofy so I'm looking forward to seeing how he is first hand.

Your experience is really what's going to help you the most in getting into a program. That being said, I would still take the GRE over again. It's expensive, but if you study and really improve your score, it would be worth it. Your program will want to see a significantly higher verbal score. Good luck!!

I read it on magoosh somewhere, but I apologize that I wrote the number wrong. It should have been 320+. http://magoosh.com/gre/2013/gre-scores-for-top-universities/ I hope this site helps. Honestly, your score is good! But that won't be the deciding factor on whether you get into grad school. I know someone who got into harvard with a combined of less than 310. They had a lot of publications and good rec letters to back them. I know lots of people with perfect math scores who also didn't get in. Your score will not exclude you from consideration, but no score can really guarantee you consideration either. Good luck!

I've read before that schools like harvard and yale like to see a combined of 330 or more. But obviously that's not all they look at.

Geographyrocks, I was not implying that you were being insulting or a jerk and I apologize for not saying upfront that I looked into the department a bunch already. I just assumed that everyone does that before asking such questions in grad cafe haha. The professor is not super young, but not old. He gave me his skype name and it has 1979 in it, so I'm assuming it's his date of birth. I never even considered that if accepted, I could be bumped down on authorship. I hope it's not common. GeoDUDE, thanks a bunch for the advice again. I'm feeling at lot better about the school and really look forward to working on my application. This may not be the most prestigious school, but it seems like it might be a really good fit for me. Thanks a bunch guys! I'll get to work on my app and hope the interview goes well

No need to assume that I didn't do research on my own before posting in grad cafe. This department is large and has broad research interests. I looked at professors that had research that was kind of similar to mine and read their papers, but honestly, I've read a lot of scientific papers and very few have ever been bad. I get that decent papers can indicate a decent department, but not always. I looked into how many grants they received in the past year and how many people still are actively writing grants in my area. I also looked at the retention rate of the grad students, which was around 70%. Most of me posting this thread was to see if anyone had any experience with this department. All the other schools that I applied to were schools that my department had collaborated with and schools that I knew fairly well. I wasn't applying to schools for the name, because I know that's not what's important for grad school. These schools were "well known" for providing excellent graduate education, especially in my interest area and endorsed by my boss. I posted here precisely because I looked into the school and their work and found some stats and data, but I not much on personal accounts with the school. Your explanation of how to interpret the information I found on the school was very helpful. About the rankings, does it matter if FSU is ranked significantly lower than my undergrad department? I apologize if it seems like I'm wasting your time and not doing enough research on my own. I looked a lot into this school, but I started not knowing anything about it and everything is happening very fast. He's potentially interested getting me to be one of his first grad students and mentioned starting in the spring, but that would mean sending in my app by September. I started talking to this guy 2 days ago.... And I guess you're right about the large department interactions thing. My department has like 6 people in it, so such a large one is crazy. But I guess that also means that they probably have a lot of different instruments and facilities?? Are you attending a large department?

What criteria do you use to determine if a school has a strong grad department? The other schools that I applied to/will apply to are well know and I've heard nothing about this one. And thanks for the help!

I visited that page before, but how am I supposed to gather how strong the department is from that? Yeah I can see what research they conduct and that there's over 50 people there, but the number of people doesn't necessarily correlate with quality.

That's the thing. They don't talk much about the program at all on the webpage. It's mostly undergrad stuff, how to apply and what's required, and one paragraph on graduate research. I've never seen a department page with so little useful information. I read some prof bios, but I don't really know what to gain from them :\

Hi all, So I'm in a tough spot. I work(ed) for one of the top researchers in my field of interest for about the last year. He was also my adviser during undergrad and taught many of the specialized classes for my major. He wrote me a nice recommendation letter for grad school this past app season, but in the end I didn't make the final cut. He offered me a joint position with him and another lab and I took it. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. We had a large field campaign where I came in as my boss was leaving, so a grad student was the field leader while I was there. A lot of pretty crappy things happened with some injuries and my relationship being soured with the grad student after he conducted some VERY inappropriate behavior. I should have reported him, but I didn't and instead kept my distance. Apparently for the field report he wrote, he said that my attitude was poor and that I resisted his orders and was not a good member of the team. I mean, yeah, I definitely tried not to work alone with him after the incident. Anyway, my boss was meeting with all of us after we got back from the field and started telling me that he was very disappointed in my performance and thought I was unsuited for field work. I tried to explain to him what happened, but he loves that grad student. My boss literally told me that he didn't believe what I was telling him and the said grad student was a nice kid. He then told me that he was firing me because he needs someone he can rely on in the field. He had already decided that I was being fired before even talking to me or asking me how I thought things went. I knew he was a cold person, but I didn't think he was that unreasonable. I did a great job in the field. I learned all of my tasks very fast and did them well and in a timely manner. But my boss then told me that he could no longer write me a positive recommendation letter for a new job. That really blows. He is really really well known in the field. I need a letter from him, but this is what he said: "I would be willing to write a recommendation, and I would have positive things to say about your performance in the lab, based on your work before the field season. I would add that I do not consider you to be a good candidate for remote fieldwork, however." So what should I do? This is a really important reference, one that could speak about my work related to my field. But what about that negative part? I have another person I would ask for a rec letter from last summer who could say that I did a great job in the field when I was working with her, but that doesn't change the fact that something was negative was said about me. What to do.....

Hi all, I applied to grad programs this past application season and unfortunately did not make the cut. I had started to work a new job as soon as I graduated from undergrad, but it wasn't a good fit. I decided to look at other places for employment and emailed someone at WHRC to see if they were looking for a lab tech/research assistant and told him a bit about my experience and research interests and attached my resume. He informed me that in a month he will no longer be working there, but will be taking a position at Florida State and would like to know if I was interested in attending grad school. I told him heck yeah and he told me more about his research goals and potential projects at the university and how he wants to take on grad students very soon. He had to leave for a field campaign, but scheduled a phone/skype call for early August when he gets back. His research is very similar to what I would like to do, but I know nothing about Florida State! I've looked online for reviews and rankings, but it's such a big school that all I found was stuff about undergrad and football. So does anyone here know about the graduate programs in the geological sciences department? I don't know if they're more computational, theoretical, analytical, or anything. Is this a strong department? I know you pick graduate schools for the adviser, not the school, but I don't want to lead this guy on if I feel I won't get a good education or support from the rest of the department. Thanks for the help! -Ssynny

There were acceptances and rejections on the results page a few weeks back. You're on the waitlist.

I got an 8 month old cat a little while ago, but I grew up with tons of cats. They're so cute! Start up can be pricy. Getting a litter box, litter, food, bowls, a collar, a carrier, a bed, and tons of toys ran a little over $100. But after that is fine. He goes through a $15 bag of food a month and litter ($18) every 3-4 weeks or so. Sirius also came from a local shelter with all his shots. He gets a vet visit once a year and that's it. He has not had any emergency visit (crossing fingers) but some of my other cats have. They can be stupid and eat things that are really bad for then. Lastly, I would suggest not getting a cat on your first visit. You may instantly fall in love with one, but don't forget you'll be staying with the cat for 15 years. Go back a few times and play with it. It's like a boyfriend/girlfriend! You don't marry the first one you see and think is cute (most of the time). Post pictures when you decide!!

If you have other offers with the April 15th deadline but are still set on going to UCSB, I would contact those other schools and see if you can get an extension on the deadline. Good luck!

ISTP. I'll take it! Any fellow felines? http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ISTP.html http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/whats-your-animal-personality-type?s=mobile

Have you tried calling the admissions committee to find out when you can expect to hear back. They're usually understanding with people who have other acceptance deadlines. It doesn't hurt to ask!

Stony Brook was the worst. They sent an email to check the website that was pretty much like "too bad so sad". The letter from Washington was kind UCI sent out a generic email, but my POI followed up with a nice one

That was a nice song

Yeah I didn't mention that. My major gpa especially after this last semester is a lot higher and my last 2 years have been good. I'll definitely take a second to mention that in my sop. Thanks for the advice!

Hahaha I'm glad you knew! And it's ok. I'll just apply again next time.

Oh wow that's tough. The only other thing I can think of is to actually call them. It's harder to ignore a phone call and they might give you valuable info.

I got rejected from my top choice school. I thought these lyrics were fitting: You think I'm an ignorant savage And you've been so many places I guess it must be so But still I cannot see If the savage one is me How can there be so much that you don't know? You don't know ... anyone else?? also, I pray someone knows where this is from

If there have been acceptances and rejections already, you're on some sort of unofficial waitlist. The list is usually pretty long so I wouldn't get your hopes up, but they probably saw something in your application that they liked. Have you tried emailing the schools to find out your status?