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Mechengr: From my understanding, no one cares about GRE scores, and GPA is of marginal importance. The largest importance of GPA is being eligible and competitive for fellowships and such through grad school- so indirectly important more than directly. Eco: I'll echo Mechengr's points about getting a good post-doc, and add that networking never hurts. I got to have lunch with Martin Chalfie (Nobel Prize for GFP) last semester, and he was talking about how he told his grad students to apply for post-docs, and it was to have a really good proposal showing what they would want to do in the lab they're applying to. How they'd build off of the labs previous work and facilities as well as their own work to make a project, and exactly how they'd lay it out. He said he has yet to have any of his grad students "miss" with that approach. Networking is always worthwhile- whether it's meeting with seminar speakers when they come through your department, or talking to people at conferences. A good PI will really help you get out and meet people, but you can also do it on your own if you have to. Knowing someone (or your PI knowing someone) won't get you the position, but it will get you a chance to be considered for the position (usually).

Hey, sorry it took me so long to respond- classes started today for us, so I'd been getting my sylabus and such ready. I've found it very confusing to decide what activities and such to highlight to make myself the most attractive candidate- and part of the difficulty is also the huge disparity in what seems to be important between R1 and R2, research heavy SLACS and lower tier SLACS, etc. You say you're primarily aiming at R1s, which is fine, but given how few positions they have and how ultra-competitive they are, I'm assuming you'll be applying elsewhere as well? At least in my field, the most important things (as you've highlighted) are (a) publications and ( ability to get funding; both of these coupled with good ideas (strong research proposal) when you're actually applying (4 on your list). From what I can tell, the prestige of the degree matters much less- for us, what's important is how well known the PI from the PhD was, but more-so how well known the PI(s) are that you did your post-doc(s) with. It's pretty much mandatory to do at least one post-doc in my field (about a year-18 mos), but most people do several to round out their publications as well as move up the ladder. So, for instance, you could have done your PhD at a mid-tier institution, but if your post-doc is at a top-5 place, that will more than likely be what people care about. As you go down the ranks (R2, SLACs, etc), teaching experience is more and more important. And even at R1s, where it's not of "stated" importance, given two relatively equal candidates, the one who has teaching experience will probably edge ahead. Aside from teaching experience, I think evidence of leadership is importance- leading projects. Whether it's heading a team of undergrads as a grad student, or of graduate students as a post-doc, it shows that you have the organization to run a lab and direct others. Additionally, I think evidence of mentoring ability (outside of teaching) has some importance. The last component that I think is worthwhile is "service". It's one of the three major components for tenure most places, and so showing that you can hack it early is good. This isn't usually so much community service as institutional service- sitting on committees, designing programs and curricula, advising, etc. I'm going about this by sitting on a couple of university senate committees as the graduate student member, and it's been quite eye-opening. Not only has it given me a chance to make contacts in the administration, but to see how people go about setting criteria for graduate programs, program reviews, etc. Those are my disorganized thoughts. My last suggestion would be to hang out on the CHE forums a lot- especially the "job market" threads. Looking at the advice being given to people applying for a range of positions is really helpful to organizing your approach before you get to that stage.

Assuming you're above the minimums set, GPA and GRE scores probably rank lower than anything else in your app, IMO. If you're instead talking about a score that's way below average but fantastic all around, it's a bit harder. But between a 700 and an 800? Its going to come down to the rest of your app, from my experience. Both scores are sufficient. Also, the point I was trying to make is that in this market, top schools often have applicants that are quite supperlative all around to choose from.

I know our adcom would consider it 4.0/4.333. Whatever the maximum GPA you can get is what the score is out of. As has been said, a 4.0 on a 4.0 scale is perfect, if you can get a 4.33, then you'd be looking at a 4.33 average as perfect.

I actually am curious, how do you go from a 3.98 to a 4.0?

I would say yes, it is inappropriate. I'm sure you expressed in your SoP how interested you were, and that they have an ideal program for you. Pushing it again at this point would be over the top, imo. You still probably have a shot, based on the fact that you didn't get a first round rejection, but they probably want to bring in the first round of interviewees first.

It's what I was told about the general GRE, but then I opted not to take the subject test, I'm sure the subject is a better showing. That said, your GRE scores back up your GPA very well, in my opinion- I wouldn't really worry about it. 72% isn't great, but it isn't horrible either- and you have a very good verbal score. Additionally, you're not in one of the very heavy math disciplines.

Well, that depends on the rest of how your program is organized. Do you have enough work to do, or do you need his input to continue any further? Do these faculty teach classes at all, even if you aren't required to take them? If so, has this past month or so been from final exam season last year through any sort of a winter break? If so, I'd say you should try to find them in their offices/after classes when they resume this spring. Also, were your committee being more responsive prior to this? You said you've been there 8 months, but that they haven't been responding the last month or so. Is this a new thing?

Are the two you are trying to get in touch with your chair, or the others? It sounds like your set-up is kind of like a US dissertation committee. If it's similar, the person you'll be most in touch with is your chair, with the others more towards the end of your work. Past that, I think the setup you're talking about is different enough from what most of us have seen or experienced that we'd be hard pressed to give advice. Would you mind telling what country you're in?

The one thing I got told applying from a small school was that the GRE helps "legitimize" your high GPA, if the school isn't well known. Other than that, the advice you've been given is good. GPA and GRE numbers are mostly used as for cutoffs, and really high GPA/scores can be helpful. Other than that, the difference between a 1250 and 1350, say, really probably isn't that big of a deal. What really sells your application is your CV/transcript, your letters of recommendation, and your statement of purpose. Those tell more about who you are and the quality of your work than the rest.

Haha, I hadn't even considered fraud. I just know how hard it is to get any useful and exact data from graphs. Sadly, I have nothing else to add- manually digitizing is the only way I know to get a graphic (I'm assuming these are from PDFs) into any sort of data format. The graphic itself really doesn't distinguish the line as a separate item, so most computational-based methods would have a problem breaking it into cohesive data points.

Just a question, but what is your source for these plots and graphs? It seems to me you're trying to get the original data from a graph to then use or re-work, but that's rarely an effective or accurate method. You might have more luck trying to contact the corresponding author (if these are published) to get the actual original data.

I'm also a bit confused- in your last paragraph you mention being her teaching and research assistant- are you assigned to her class as a TA, or to her personally as an RA? These are two different situations to deal with, imo.

The interviews I've seen can go in a ton of directions, but only two really need in depth preparation: Your past research, and their current research. For the former, (as was mentioned) you want to be able to sum it up briefly as well as expound on it. Some professors I met with just wanted the general version of what I've worked on, while one handed me a pad of paper and a pen and wanted me to diagram all of the reactions I'd done and their mechanisms. You want to be able to do either. For the latter, be knowledgeable about what research they've done (what they've published), but more-so you want to be able to ask insightful questions about future directions, and especially what you would be interested in doing if you went to work for them. You need to look for ways to weave your interests into the framework of their past research (and current projects). For questions to ask- you want to have questions about the program, but also about the research group(s) you're most interested in. How many grad students, how do they do group meetings, what are the facilities available, how is lab space divided up, etc.

Wait, you have 3 supervisors? How exactly does that work- are they all on your committee? Who's your committee chair, then? Also, why have you been calling and e-mailing them instead of meeting them in person- are they out of state/out of country? Your situation sounds unusual, maybe a little more explanation would be helpful. I've never heard of a PhD with no coursework or teaching, since a standard and accredited PhD in the US requires at least 48 hours of coursework of some stripe- but that assumes you're in the US. Are you perhaps in the UK? I know doctoral programs there are quite differently organized. Either way, a bit more of an explanation would be really helpful before we give you advice.

We have to fill out several additional forms if we want to use scanned receipts- they go under the category of lost receipts affidavits. For us, we can copy/scan the reimbursement application as a whole, and use that in case the original is lost, but that's a different process than not having the receipts originally, strangely enough.

The programs in which it's contraindicated aren't as common, but I've run across faculty on the CHE forums complaining about students trying to get a leg up by sending their CV to individual faculty. Most of the time, however, I wouldn't recommend sending a CV just because it has a really low chance of being read. You want to e-mail the PI and establish yourself with a (fairly) short e-mail with intelligent questions about their research. Work in some of your more impressive stats from your CV. After you've made contact/gotten a response, you can elaborate on yourself. The number of faculty who simply won't take the time to open an attachment is huge- by putting the things you most want them to see in the body of the e-mail, it's much more likely to make an impression. That said, however, in the sciences what PIs want to see most is a solid understanding of research as well as someone who has ideas. I got to have lunch with Martin Chalfie last semester, and he said he gives both undergrads applying for grad school and grad students applying for postdocs one piece of advice: send a prospective PI ideas. Read their research, come up with an intelligent, well thought out proposal of what you would like to do that would fit well in their lab, and send them that. He said from what he's seen the success rate is huge with that. PIs want to bring in people (by and large) who will be able to take the ball and run with it, and they get lots of CVs- but far fewer proposals. Especially when applying to grad school, the risks of this approach are much less, especially since you're tailoring it to a potential group. As you move up the ranks, it's a bit more risky as you're trying to guard your ideas, since they're a lot more personal. That said, I completely agree that students obsess about applications *way* more than faculty. Most of them are reading through applications quickly, and won't notice the minor things that I see lots of applicants worrying about. You're also right in that most faculty have really short memories when it comes to something that they don't like- most of the time they move on and forget it happened at all. If I recall, you're a non-traditional applicant and that usually puts you in a lot better stead when it comes to being relaxed about the application process, at least from what I've seen.

Yeah, scanning is nice, but my University won't accept scanned copies. I got a wallet that has two "cash" sections, and use one for receipts and the other for cash.

IMO, your GPA is not going to be the deciding factor holding you back. GPA and GRE are more important as general cutoffs- separating out people who are too low in either category. Other than that, a really high GPA or GRE scores can be beneficial, but mid-range numbers shouldn't hold you back. The important deciding factors in admissions are more often your letters of recommendation, your statement of purpose, and your past research experiences.

Lack of capitalization and/or paragraph breaks. That and improper/nonexistent punctuation.

I'm going to echo the previous two points, and say apply for everything. If nothing else, you have applications you can refine next year if you're still eligible. Especially down the road when it comes time to look for jobs, the ability to secure external funding, even if it's not one of the "big" fellowships is often seen positively. Being able to bring in money is something that everyone wants to see. You really were asking two questions in your post- the first about applying for funding, and the second about whether or not to go somewhere that isn't going to fund you. The general rule I've heard is that if a school isn't going to fund you, you should not go there- however, this can be highly discipline specific. It's a very good rule to follow in the sciences, but from what I gather, less helpful in the humanities. In the humanities, you have to balance the name of the school and job prospects with how much it will cost, imo.

I cant direct my comment specifically to IR programs, but by and large, programs want to see all three- someone with interesting ideas, sufficient technical potential *and* a good background in the areas pertinent to your discipline. I think oftentimes people focus way too much on which part of the application is most important, when in reality admissions committees are by and large looking for applicants that have the whole package. There are enough people applying relative to spots that its often a false dilemma to wonder whether a program will take someone with (for instance) a good background and low scores, or a worse background and high scores. Chances are, they will have a third option- to take someone with both a good background and high scores.

Mine looks the same way even a couple of years in. I figure it would be weird having several sections for just a few papers (2 out, 2 in press). Most of those that I've seen do a separate section have enough either place to make them look significant.I have been making sure I bold the (in press) portion at the end to make sure it's visible.

Schools don't always wait until the deadline to flip through apps- if someone noticed an application (or had been corresponding with someone) that they really wanted early on, they might have offered an acceptance as soon as the committee got together, or passed their application around to the others. It depends on the school, but not all schools keep their applications locked away from the adcom until they're all in.

It's an old thread, but yeah- good students get offers from most of their applications, and have to choose. Schools know this, and can either make a round of offers, wait to hear back, and then make more offers- or just make the number of offers that usually get the number of students they want. The latter method can result in too many students, but has the benefit of putting all the offers out early. If you wait until the deadline to move on to your next choices, most of them will have already accepted an offer elsewhere.