Eigen

I'll add that I've yet to find any journal or database that wasn't directly exportable to Endnote... I've done nearly a thousand papers that way.

I agree with the above replies, but I'll also add that it can come across like you're trying to sway the decisions. The general rule of thumb that I've heard is to contact them before you apply, and then only e-mail after if they initiate the conversation.

I personally liked using legal pads because I can keep one with me, and then subdivide my notes out into different classes later. I kept a set of good 3-ring binders to use for each class (now recycled to use for current research projects), as well as a set of slightly less good binders for archives that I label and shelve. Personally, I also like to use a leather folio to keep everything in, and those are commonly just for legal-style pads, two cover binders don't fit in them very well. Also, I find I can get good, heavyweight paper on legal pads that I can't usually find in 3-ring notebooks, outside of special orders. Even now that I'm done with classes, I still always keep a letter or legal pad on my desk for quick notes, calculations, etc- if they're something I want to keep, it's easy to slot them into the appropriate notebook. That and a set of several moleskines keeps me organized and happy.

Technically, work funded by NIH, and soon NSF has to be open access. The funding agency pays the fee per paper to keep access to the work unrestricted, no matter what journal it's in.

Not that I've ever seen. Our registration works just like undergrads, same dates etc.

If you plan to re-take the exam, I would focus on the low Q rather than the 3.5 in writing.

Whew... Just barely slipped by! I was sure I wasn't going to make it this go-round. It does seem like there are a lot more humanities (and lit) posters lately relative to the sciences.

Well, for one thing, don't leave it up to the grad student to contact you when he has time. Don't be too pushy, but keep reminding him. When my undergrads leave things too open or up to me, there's a good chance that it will drop completely off my radar/I won't realize that it's been two weeks already since they told me that. I'll also add this: Undergrads are a lot of work. Having one work with me probably doubles the time it takes to do anything, conservatively. Additionally, they're not an "official" part of our job responsibilities- so a lot of times PIs don't see them as an excuse for work going slower, even though they're taking up a lot of time. And this is even with top-shelf undergrads. Having to think through and explain everything that you'd normally do almost by reflex takes a lot of time and preparation, especially if you want to give the background and help them understand why and how it works so they can apply it on their own in the future. Different PIs handle this different ways- mine will queue interested undergrads, and then ask our group if any of the grad students have the time or inclination to take them on. I like this approach, since it insures that we're ready and willing to take on undergrads when we do... But not all PIs do it this way. Some others in our department just dump them on already overloaded grad students with no warning and really vague directions, and that's a lot more hit or miss. As to thesis vs. non-thesis- all of the grad students I know much prefer to work with undergrads doing theses. The reason being, we know they're in it for a while, and really want to get into research. We also have a ton of pre-med students that people really dislike working with- you end up spending a lot of time training them, knowing that they'll never use any of it down the road. It just seems like a near-complete waste of time. Sometimes its not, but it's much harder to see the value in it. In my experience, it takes somewhere between 12-18 months of training before the average undergrad can be working mostly independently- basically, it's a long time before they're more help than distraction to you. If you end up with an undergrad researcher that's going to spend less than that time with you, you're basically just doing a service with no return on investment. As to your other point (that you were referred by grad students to another lab)- sometimes two labs work in an area, but for one it's a main thrust with lots of places to work yourself in, and in another it's a side project with very little to do. In that case, the grad student might be recommending a lab to you that would be a better fit long term. To sum up, I think the best things you can do are: read a lot and be really prepared so you slide into the research easily, and make sure they know you're in it for the long haul. Both of these will probably make you a lot more attractive and easy to work with. That said, at least the attitude that you're giving off in your post really would rub me the wrong way if you were supposed to be working for me.... Try to keep in mind that the grad students are taking time (a lot of time) out of a very busy schedule to not just spend a little time training you, but also to think through and design experiments and projects for you to work on- it's a big commitment from them, and the more you come across like you appreciate it and their time (and the less like you think it's owed to you) the better experience you'll have.

For the original article: I mostly agree. I would add that creativity of some sort is important as well- and as similar as Tenacity and Perseverance are, I'd rank it as follows: Tenacity/Perseverance. Ability to communicate Creativity/Originality I think that last little bit of creativity and originality is really important- if you want to push past the edge of what's been done, you have to have ideas on how to do so- it's a combination of being able to analyze what's been done and see the holes, and being able to come up with ideas to fill the void. I'm going to completely agree with this. What you describe, Juliet, seems fairly typical in the social sciences, but not the sciences. We have funded labs and equipment, but my experiments are usually my own... As are my ideas on what directions will eventually be publishable, and where, and how I want to wrap my work up into a dissertation. We've got a different sandbox to play in, but what we make with it is still ours. My advisor doesn't give me any data, doesn't analyze any of my data, and really doesn't have any protocols prepared for me to follow. That's up to me to go find out from the literature. If I'm lucky and it's something he worked on during his PhD or Postdoc he'll have some good ideas on how to proceed if I approach him- but by and large, it's left up to me.

I keep hearing this mentioned, but not sourced. I would say that a fairly common structure and spelling/grammar are very important for it. That said, your AW score is fine. As long as you're not getting something under a 3, I don't think it will set off any warning lights for adcoms. Especially with a good verbal, which you certainly have.

I personally find the only thing that works for me is picking a reasonable wake up time and sticking to it. I've never been able to make myself get tired/go to sleep early, but eventually my schedule evens out if I get up early enough. Some nights it means I get half an hour or a couple of hours of sleep, but that usually means I'm tired enough the next night to hit the sack at around 10pm and get a good nights sleep. This idea really only works if you can function well on a few hours of sleep, however. I may be a bit tired with an hour nap before my next day, but I can still pretty easily put in a solid 8-10 hours of work... My wife, on the other hand, really can't manage the next day without a solid nights sleep.

Wow, that part about Tulane really sucks. If this was a couple of years ago, was it not too long after Katrina? I know we went through a lot of reorganization then, and it took a few years to get things back on track- they got rid of the "graduate school" as an entity, and dumped all the admissions process on the departments/deans with almost no warning and no additional staff.

Illustrator is what we use. There are a lot of vector drawing programs that will do the same type of job, however, not to mention all the specialized and field-specific programs that are out there.

If you're still affiliated with your undergraduate university, you can use their resources to search. I'm actually surprised you didn't have a class at some point covering how to find articles- we had a sophomore class called "Introduction to Chemical Literature" that we all were required to take. For Chemistry, SciFinder is probably the gold standard for journal searches. Web of Knowledge isn't bad, but it definitely isn't where I'd start. Pubmed is also decent, although more slanted towards the biomedical fields. You can also use searches on the pages of several of the major publishers- the ACS lets you search all of their journals from the ACS Publications site, and the Royal Society of Chemistry lets you do the same. That should cover *most* of your major journals between those two. Angewandte Chimie is also a good one to try.

All schools that I've heard of admit at both the department level (initial review) followed by a graduate school approval process. This is not mutually exclusive with the second part of your question. If a professor really wants someone, they put pressure on the department's admission committee to admit them.

It's about your SoP as well as how you come across in emails a well as eventual campus's visits and interviews. You want, ideally, to know enough about prospective research groups to be able to insightfully talk about past works from their groups as well as suggest/discuss new directions you would be interested in exploring working in that group. Personally, I read all the papers from the last 5-10 years for each PI I was interested in working with. As was mentioned, my application got directly referred to the PIs I mentioned, and they asked me questions about my interest, etc. informal interviews s to speak.

It's not about publications- those are reasonably rare as an undergrad. It's about how well you can talk about your research and what skills you can lay claim to.

But will you have 6 mos of experience in a Chen research lab? 4 years? Can you walk into a lab in graduate school and run a project in your area of interest? How fluent are you in common techniques and instrumentation? Those are the kind of things that an adcom will want to know, and it's hard to rank competitiveness without them.

The main thing you don't mention is how much research experience you have- and that's really important.

Makes more sense :-D I was wondering if History was doing a heck of a lot better in placement than I thought it was! Thanks again for all the suggestions- I'm going to try to use them to modify what I used at the last conference into some document that might be actually useful to receive as a potential applicant.

Yes and no. Fit with the school is still really important. It's also important to remember that the NSF fellowship is only 3 years of funding, and the average PhD is 5-7 years. The fellowship funds about half of your graduate career. There's also the funding for lab space, project materials, etc. There have been cases on this board (you can probably find them searching) both of people having rejections turned around after winning an NSF, but also of not being able to get in anywhere with a fellowship and having to give up the fellowship.

You actually have a good many more than 3: A.T. Still University of Health Sciences American Indian College of the Assemblies of God Arizona State University Downtown Phoenix Campus Polytechnic Campus West Campus [*]Art Center Design College [*]DeVry University–Phoenix [*]Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University [*]Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture [*]Grand Canyon University [*]Midwestern University-Glendale campus [*]Northcentral University [*]Northern Arizona University [*]Prescott College [*]Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences [*]Southwestern College [*]Thunderbird School of Global Management [*]University of Advancing Technology [*]University of Arizona [*]University of Phoenix [*]Western International University You may dispute the validity of some of the above, but I didn't feel like picking through them. Certainly more than 3 legitimate institutions.

I really think you don't understand what grade inflation is, given how you're using it. Grade inflation isn't something that is "applied" or "used", it's a reference to a slow trend causing the average grades in class to rise over time, similar to monetary inflation. It's not a practice that a teacher, by and large, chooses to "participate in" or a program "participates in". Those are explained by individuals being easy graders, or programs being easy on grading. Additionally, grade inflation (as it's typically referred to) is something that is an almost exclusively undergraduate phenomenon. The fact that most graduate courses give As and Bs is a different (but I'd argue unrelated) subject.

I may be missing it on there, but I don't see either a placement percentage (although I'm assuming it's high) or a timescale. I'd think that's probably one of the program areas (econ) that has the best job market at the moment, as well. But are there any english/history PhD programs that have a 100% TT rate within two years of graduation? In the sciences, it's not the TT placement rate that's an issue so much as the time. Most biological sciences are pretty much strapped into ~4 year postdocs following graduation, so within two years very few people have TT positions. In chemistry, you'd just be coming on the market in two years. I completely agree that giving placement stats is good, especially if they're good- but to my mind, a blanket "unless you're placing all graduates in TT positions within two years of graduation, don't mention placement" is a bit off.

Places traveled could be quite relevant depending on the area of research.Being widely traveled can imply interactions with other cultures, governments, climates, etc. The quote you mentioned- is this from a school you're applying to? If so, then it doesn't really matter what the rest of us think- they wouldn't have mentioned it if they didn't think it held some importance.