Eigen

Most biotech companies are short lived, but don't necessarily have bad "job security" per se.... It's just how they operate. They work until you solve a problem, sell the company, and often the same or very similar core group of researchers will spin off another company. Big Pharma is letting people go, but it's mostly in the traditional therapeutic areas, less so in the biological therapeutic areas. Then there are also all of the consulting firms that are willing to hire PhD scientists in almost any field to act as investment advisors, etc. I have yet to know anyone in molecular biology, chemistry, biochemistry that's had trouble finding a decent position. I will add that a lot of it is building connections with industry as you're working your way through school- either local (if you live in the right places) through regional/local professional organizations, or at conferences, etc.

I wouldn't worry about yourself too much in Chemical Biology. I was laughing with some friends (from a number of departments) the other day that even though it might be really difficult to get a good academic position, that at least I could comfort myself with the huge piles of money I'd get from going into industry.

Wow... We're up to 11 negative ratings on the original post... Some people must reallllly not like it

Yup. It's usually really easy- most papers list the author affiliation, and you can google the corresponding author name + their affiliation. For you, I'd recommend doing a lot of reading in J Phys Chem A & B, J Chem Phys, JACS, and Angewandte Chime International Ed. Maybe Chem Rev and Chem Soc Rev as well. Most can be found via either the Royal Society of Chemistry or the American Chemical Society publication pages... Or you can use your institutional subscription to access them that way. If you're an ACS member (you should be) you can use that for easy access/searching of all the ACS journals. If you just have schools you're really interested in (location, reputation, someone recommended it, etc) I encourage you to check them out as well- go to the website for the Chem Department, and then look at faculty research. Most programs will have a page for each research group (usually linked off the faculty members page) with recent publications/research descriptions. I'd read the last 5-8 articles for each group you're interested in to get a good feel for the group- methods, areas, etc.

I had one school that included a formal rejection "form". I still sent e-mails to the Dept. Head (who I'd chatted with) and the PI's I'd met with to let them know that I was declining, and a short explanation of why. I think it really depends what level of correspondence you've had with the school. If you've talked to people, I'd let them know... I'd e-mail the DGS or someone as well as returning the formal rejection- it gives them a heads up faster so they can move to the next person in line.

Do your institutions not correlate the mark received in the class with the evaluation itself? My old school did this, and it really helped identify the "I got an F so the teacher was horrible" evaluations from the "I got an A, but I think the teacher was bad" reviews. Or the converse- people that get Fs saying the teacher was still quite good from people ranking the teacher highly because they got an A.

Usually two lairs of administration- the school, and then the graduate school. So in chemistry, the departmental decision would have to be approved by both the Dean of the Graduate School (and/or his minions) and the Dean of the School of Science (or Science and Engineering, or whatever the department falls under). And yes, either can "reject" the applicant for such reasons in many schools. There is often then a time for the department to request specific exemptions for that student to get them past the administration, but those can often be costly in terms of time and political capital for the department. It might happen for really strong applicants, but it really depends on who the department has wait-listed.All else being equal, they'd pick you... But if they're going to have to really stick their neck out for you, they might prefer to avoid the ensuing fight with the administration and take another student instead. It also may be a financial thing.... Tuition waivers are often funded at the Graduate School or College level, so it may be that if a department or program wants an exception, they'll have to fund the tuition for that student themselves.

The other obvious purpose of an external fellowship is the prestige. I know people that have ended up with slightly lower funding from an external fellowship, but taken it anyway. Things like the NSF fellowship open doors down the road- they make it more likely to get NSF post-doctoral fellowships, grants, career awards, etc.

You don't mention your discipline, but my understanding is that a transfer in itself is somewhat of a black mark on your record. Not impossible to get around, but something you really want to avoid if you can. It makes the new school wonder if you'll stick out the graduate program with them, or if something will make you leave/transfer again. There's also the difficulty in getting good LORs from your current institution when you transfer. Past the "mechanics" of a transfer, it's ethically really shaky to go one place intending to transfer out after a short period of time. In smaller fields, I would think this can hurt you down the road. The school is investing 4-6 years of funding in you, at the expense of another student that would stick around. If you leave after the first year, that doesn't mean they can easily reallocate the funding they were giving you and take on one more student the next year. You've essentially shorted them a grad student. ::edit:: To clarify: If you find yourself in a situation where you have to transfer (really can't stand your advisor, advisor left, etc) it is certainly possible- and you can often get the support of people from the school you are leaving in these situations. But you shouldn't put yourself in a position where you will need to transfer down the road.

The general adage I've heard repeated over and over is "if you don't have funding, you should go somewhere else". It varies some from discipline to discipline, but really- grad school without funding is very difficult, and depending on the discipline can give you a debt load that you will essentially carry the rest of your career.

My point is that even assuming both will write "good" letters... I think it is more important to pick an advisor that has worked with you a lot than to pick a famous advisor OR one known to the department where you're applying. It comes down to a question of who you pick. It's not about convincing them to write a good letter, it's about how much they can talk about you in the letter- how much time they've spent with you and in what different situations. A famous prof can write all the flowery compliments he wants, but if he hasn't actually spent 2 years working in a lab with you, he can't talk first hand about your research ability. And from what I've seen, it's the ability to give first hand accounts of your talents and skills in the research arena that's important in the letter. I've had people on adcom's tell me they'd prefer an honest, even appraisal of someone's skills from a professor that's seen them in a lot of different situations than a glowing but relatively non-specific letter. I've also had some tell me that unless a letter mentions some downsides to the applicant, they don't consider the letter honest and only put so much stock in it- either the writer doesn't know the student well enough, or is simply avoiding anything but the good parts of the student's work. ::edit:: Tagging onto fuzzlogician- I think too many people worry about how "positive" the letter will be, instead of worrying about how in depth the letter can be. Ideally, a strong letter is both very positive, and very specific/in depth. A weak letter can either be less positive OR less specific. "XXX is an excellent student, he got A's in all my classes and kept up with the work very well" from a famous professor is still a relatively weak letter. They can see how you did in the class from your transcripts- they want to know what you're like as an individual, and as a researcher. If the writer cannot speak to either of those things, it will be a weak letter, imo.

If they meet mid-Feb and take 2 weeks-60 days, the earliest you would have seen a decision would probably be the first week of March (realistically), and the decisions may take until mid-April. You're far too early to worry yet, imo.

I think you need another LOR category: LOR written by a professor that knows the student really well. LOR's from professors that have had long-term research based interactions with the student carry a lot of weight. LOR's from professors that had them in a couple of classes where they did well don't carry nearly as much.

If you're paying $250 per month for a plan, you're probably paying way too much. Unless you're older (premiums increase with age) or have some pre-existing conditions that put you into a higher risk-bracket. I pay about $150 per month, and could drop it from there- and I have what I consider decent coverage. You need to look for actual insurance, not a health plan- health plans are expensive, and unless you have frequent medical bills quite unnecessary. A "Major Medical" plan with around a 2k-3k deductible is probably what you should look for- most will pay for a check up per year, but other than that you cover your routine expenses. What insurance is there to cover are the extreme medical expenses- you get in a car accident, you need surgery (appendectomy, etc)- most of which will cost in the 10s of thousands of dollars- an amount that you really won't be able to come up with out of pocket. Insurance is a monthly expense, yes, but what it *should* mean is that you have a cap on the amount that you will ever have to pay for healthcare over the course of a year. Just some thoughts. It's not like routine visits are usually all that expensive here- it's often worth it to go out to a nearby rural area, but I can't remember the last time I've payed more than $100 for a visit and necessary tests... Unless I need x-rays, EKGs or something exceptionally large.

You shouldn't be looking at over 200 programs. You should be looking at the programs that have professors who are doing research in your particular area of interest. The mechanical details of a programs admissions process aren't what should be driving your interest in a school... The research is. Once you get several schools where you have research/a PI that interests you to work with, then you can look at that schools admissions process and decide if it's worth it for you to to apply. At this stage in your application, knowing which schools offer fee waivers/have GPA cutoffs really isn't important to you (or shouldn't be). Those criteria should only be used to narrow down your choices of schools with attractive research programs. ::edit:: In other words, you're going about this backwards. Find research that interests you, trace it back to a professor/group, and then look at their program. Then once you have a collection of these programs you've looked through, decide where to apply. I think you will have a lot more success that way.

The questions you are asking are completely school dependent. By and large, I'd say you either have an assistantship or a fellowship... The two don't usually combine. The case you propose (a 15k fellowship stipend) is quite unusual, due to the really low value of the fellowship. Usually, external fellowships are going to be around the same value (roughly) as the stipend from an assistantship, or maybe a little higher. In any case, you would probably take the fellowship (and maybe a small bit of money from the department). I know schools that have internal fellowships (small amounts) that stack with assistantships, but I don't think that's what you're talking about. I had one offer from a school that stacked several fellowships that were in the 1-5k range with an assistantship ::shrugs::

I'll tag onto this: If someone doesn't have the program they're attending in their profile, there's probably a reason. Some of us like to remain somewhat anonymous (though any of my peers could probably pick me out from my posts). Asking someone you've developed no real relationship with a lot of personal questions can be quite offputting.

I think going in with a sense of "graduate school will complete me" can in a lot of ways be unhealthy. It's good to keep the schooling in perspective, and realize that you can't let it consume your life. It depends on the advisor, of course, but most of the ones in my department are pretty understanding of long distance relationships, families (wife, kids, etc) and such. Personally, I wouldn't bring it up right off... If you only need to be in the lab during "peak collections" for a few hours on weekends, I'm betting you'll be able to figure out when those weekends are, and have your SO come visit you that weekend instead of you driving back.

Generally, both assistantships and fellowships have two parts- the tuition waiver (pays your tuition) and a stipend (salary), ranging from 10k-30k per year. The stipend can be used for whatever you want, and you pay taxes on it. I've never heard of anywhere doing figures based on "cost of attendance", but that's just me.

Be careful assuming that the student health plan is bare-bones. The one our school has is quite a bit more expensive than plans that you can get from other insurance companies.

Just get a regular health insurance plan? I know at least half of the grad students in our department have our own policies. It was far cheaper than the student plans for me, I know. Talk to current graduate students, and see what insurance companies offer good plans in that state.

I spent the cost of the GRE + 1 mailing (around $200). All the schools I applied to either had no app fee, or the department covered it once I'd been accepted.

They seem to like it. But then they enjoy teaching, so... I think a lot of it depends on the classes you're teaching- especially the number of students per class. I think it will also depend on the required course load, and how much you're expected to research in that time period. In the sciences, we're expected (most places) to be putting in 40ish hours per week in the lab doing research our first semester- so a 2-2 load and 12 hours of courses on top of that makes for 70-80 hour weeks. If you don't have to put that much research time in, then I'd think it would be a lot more manageable. The people I know (in several disciplines) who were able to take a light research workload the first semester (and focus on classes and TAing) didn't find it nearly as bad. I'm really not sure how first semester research works in English, though.

A 1-1 load sounds fine to me. I have friends in English that were started off on 2-2 loads, so yours sounds manageable. By and large, the first semester is really challenging- you have the most stuff to put together. After you move through your courses, get settled into research and teaching... It becomes a lot more manageable.

Horrible, horrible advice, imo. Lying to your advisor should be avoided- if you get caught in a lie, it will make everything much worse. I'd just be honest- you're in Geography, I can't imagine that there's a huge call for calculus and higher math (although I could be wrong). Just say the course pre-reqs were different than you'd thought, and you can't catch up this late in.