Eigen

Definitely talk to your profs. Also keep in mind that some of the different camps you may be hearing from are likely field and subfield dependent. In the sciences, publications are much more expected and necessary than elsewhere. For example, in my research group we're required to have 5 first author pubs by the time we finish our PhD, but even other subfields in our department vary wildly, from some where 1 publication by graduation is excellent, and other where more than 10 is the norm.

Pretty sure it isn't graded significantly based on length. If you have sufficiently approached the issue from all readily available angles in a logical and reasonably concise fashion, it's long enough.

Sorry, I missed this earlier. I was the one that mentioned the teaching based tenure track my undergrad university had. I'm sadly not up on the details so well as I am on research based tenure, but I know it was based off of a (usually) increased teaching load relative to research, and involvement in student based activities outside of class- ie, scholarship appeals committees, curriculum oversight committees, undergraduate advising, etc. One of my favorite math teachers got tenure through this, and she was doing next to no research- she had no grad students of her own, but was on almost everyone's committee. She's assistant department chair now, and is expected to be chair in a few years after the current one retires.

I think we really need more information to help you. What area of study are you interested in? Masters or PhD? Could you fund yourself, or do you need funding from the school? Do you have any publications/research experience? These are the largest components of most applications. They can certainly counter low grades/scores. What about possible professors for letters of recommendations? If you can get 3 glowing letters of recommendations from people with decent reputations, low scores/grades don't matter nearly as much.

There are only a few offices in our building that have windows- most of our labs are interior rooms, with faculty offices being around the edges.

From my experience, you will end up paying out of pocket for a masters in those areas, predominately. Not only are stipends rare, tuition isn't as routinely waived for a masters as it is for a PhD. It's all a tradeoff.... A PhD is more commitment, but they fund you accordingly.

If you look at the bottom, it gives the number of schools, and I think it may break them down further if you follow the link. There was quite a discussion on the PhD forums when this first came out.... I'm not sure exactly as to the variance, but it seemed like the salaries were applicable to many of the posters there. From what I can tell, a lot of it (assuming we stay in the US) is geographical as well, with public universities in the northeast paying more than corresponding schools elsewhere. I'm relatively certain that in most states, the "state schools" professors are considered state employees to a degree, and as such, pay is relatively constant across the smaller and larger universities. In Louisiana, for instance, the base pay is purely a function of degree and experience. The major difference that I could see between the big research university (LSU) and some of the smaller programs (ULM, Southeastern) is in the "research stipend" that is given to nearly every professor at LSU, and more sparingly to those at other schools. Still, we're talking about minor variance among the state universities. I'm not sure how much that changes in other states. Sadly, consulting in many of the sciences has died to a large degree- there are still some opportunities, but they are not common.

Our offices are are at the front of our lab- each room is about 15x25, with a large floor-to-ceiling bench/shelving setup in the middle. I'm on one side, our post-doc is on the other. But he usually works late (not in until 11 most days) so I have nice quiet mornings to myself. Although, he'll be leaving soon, and I'm not sure if anyone will replace him in our room or not.

Wow, it's nice that they changed this. When I took it a bit over a year ago, the experimental section was not identified (to encourage uniform effort), and was not always last. I ended up with my experimental quant section before my "real" quant section. I was finally able to guess because of the question types I hadn't seen before.

Our school requires us to have 275k minimum policies, or enroll in the school policy. Personally, I keep up only a relatively robust major medical policy- it's simple, and does what insurance is supposed to, and pays for the costs that I could possibly incur that I could not pay for. Mine has a straight up 1900 deductible- everything I do in a year (including prescription drugs) counts towards that. Anything under 1900 I pay, anything over 1900 and up to 5 mil, my insurance company pays. I chose to keep it over a more complicated plan my school offered. The school plan had more small benefits- co-pays on prescription drugs and treatments with no deductible.... But, the co-pays kept going for long after the deductible on my major medical would have capped. Unless you have consistently large yearly healthcare bills, all you're looking for in insurance is something to act as a safety net in case something big happens. Hence my continuing recommendation for major medical plans for most younger people. Just save up your deductible at the start of the year, and then you won't have to worry about healthcare costs being more than you can manage at any point in the year.

Generally, in the sciences (moreso in physical than biological), masters programs are mostly unfunded, and PhD programs are mostly funded. Most programs should have a portion where they mention what funding they offer.

It should be noted that some schools already have this. Our math department, with an established and well recognized PhD program, had two tracks to tenure: a teaching track, and a research track. And they weren't the only department at the school. The teaching track required not only teaching, but also involvement in committees (scholarship appeal, student based things), as well as advising. I think such a system makes a stronger department by supporting both the teaching faculty and research faculty in their areas of expertise.

There was a thread within the past couple of weeks on this very topic that might have additional advice for you. Personally, I would recommend trying to get all 3 references from academic sources, and then supply an additional letter from the Peace Corps. Extra letters don't hurt, but these letters are usually predominantly (as the previous poster said) to attest to your ability to do well in an academic setting.

Research experience is research experience. 6 years of research experience in a university based research lab will always look better than 3 or 4 years. There's no reason (that I've heard) to discount it because it was during high school rather than while an undergrad, assuming the caliber of the lab worked in was equitable. Same goes for publications. It does all depend on how it's headed- I wouldn't put any of this under a specific "High School" heading, but papers, presentations at decent conferences, and research experience from while you are still in high school is definitely applicable to grad school applications, imo.

http://3.bp.blogspot...00-h/cupahr.jpg Here's a recent chart showing average university salaries in the US (4 year institutions). It's quite enlightening. Private universities pay much, much more than state universities. My adviser (undergrad) got payed iirc, around 50k as an assistant professor after 34 years. It's been bumped up slightly now that he's department head, but not much. To compare, he could be making an easy 100k in industry, likely considerably more with his years of experience. The department had two endowed professorships available, I think they made around 70k? But neither was close to retiring. The average (from the above chart) in physical sciences starts at around 56k, with instructors making around 43k. Compare this to graduate stipends around 25-30k and post-doc salaries of around 40-50k, and industry starting salaries of 80-120k, depending on the field and experience. I should add that the adjunct positions that were unfilled were often passed off to graduate students, so I guess you could say they were filled- but they were not filled as per the requirements advertised (an actual degree).

Perhaps it's just location, but the majority of the adjunct positions at my undergraduate institution/local community college would remain unfilled for semesters at a time. The lack of demand didn't make the compensation increase, at all. Accordingly, I'm not familiar with disciplines with no industry route (sciences and engineering are what I know best), and the situation is still no better in those, even though an industry position can earn 2-4 times that of a corresponding academic position. This has even led to the almost complete die-off of some subfields (say, analytical chemistry), as an entry level industry job makes well over 100k per year, as opposed to the 40-60k starting salary in academia.

We have a department softball team, that helps somewhat... I used to love running or biking, but those are out for a majority of 4-5 months of the year here, the last month it hasn't dropped below a heat index of 93 even in the middle of the night, with heats of 110+ far too common during the day. Our gym alternates between empty and crowded, but is on the complete opposite side of campus from me. Most of the people in the department that seem to have the best routines are those that do it for some sport- martial arts, fencing, competitive running (marathons), etc. It gives a motivation, as well as a group of like-minded individuals to work out with.

Exactly. I think there are definitely things that need to be done to improve the current system, especially (as was pointed out) in the area of adjunct professors and instructors. But I think job security as a whole needs to remain. It's awfully hard to commit to a multi-year research project if you're not sure how long you're going to be at an institution.

It also depends on what kind of space you're working with. Setting up my lab/office was a lot more difficult than setting up my apartment, mostly because of the restrictions on what I could have, and what went where. Having a few personal things around can drastically change how something feels. To me, having my books out was the biggest difference- transferring my shelves of important books to my office really made it start to feel like home. Hanging a bulletin board with schedules, quotes, etc on it also helped. Replacing the crappy ancient office chair with one from home was a nice improvement as well. It all depends on what space you have to work with- but making things comfortable and familiar are the first things you should aim for. Also, if you're on a budget: Check out craigslist and garage sales for cheap, interesting stuff.

This is not strictly true. We have high school juniors and seniors come to work in our labs every summer, and most of them do excellent work. That kind of high school experience is certainly worth putting on a resume, as is anything else that directly highlights skills relevant to your graduate program.

One of the hardest things for me in moving to graduate school was finding a new place to study. I had two coffee shops around my undergrad institution that were great- one more secluded than the other- and studying at the tables there, with lots of coffee, was where I got like 75% of my thesis written. Moving to my grad program, I had an office (in itself, a step up), meaning I could come work any time of the day or night where all my stuff was. But working without other people around seemed really weird to me. Recently, I've been able to bring in more of my furniture and stuff to the office, play music, etc, to make it a better study environment. Breaking the university policies and bringing in coffee helps (drinks and food in labs aren't really allowed).

I have problems with several points in that article, but one of the most significant was the point about universities paying tenured professors out of their endowments thus "freezing up otherwise liquid endowment funds". From my experience, most full professorships are endowed professorships- the monies in them are not liquid, but rather specifically earmarked for the hiring of a faculty member meeting specific requirements, usually including tenure. Whether you fill that faculty position or not, the endowment money cannot legally be used for any other means. As to the end of Tenure, I personally like the tenure track/tenure system very much. I view it as paying my dues up front for long term job security down the road. In many cases, it's very similar to graduate school as a whole- you take 4-7 (+1-4 post doc) years of pay that is much lower than you would have been making straight out of undergrad to get a much more secure, desirable job position. Tenure track is then a repeat of the same type of system. Unlike the premise in the article, it's not that different from most other jobs, except for the fact that in many other fields it's an unwritten assurance of job security, while in academia it's contracted. If you enter a large company on the management track, you'll work much harder starting off to rise through the ranks, at which point you will receive greater benefits and job security. The other point the article fails to illuminate sufficiently, in my opinion, is that even tenured professors often take large cuts in pay (relative to industry jobs) for the corresponding increase in job security that tenure brings. Most professors I know (sciences, primarily) could easily be making twice their current salaries in industry- but without the long term job security that tenure brings.

Exactly. Take a test, see how you do. Most people will need a review of the basic math, because they will not have seen it in 5-8 years. After you take a test, you can see how much you remember, and what you need to work on.

Even if you want to take a specialized GRE, you'll almost certainly need to take the general as well. Personally, I think people spend too much time studying for the GRE that could be put to better use improving their resume in other ways. I scheduled my GRE a month in advance, and then studied when I could over that time frame. Another option is to take a practice GRE now, see how well you do (remember that the Princeton Review and other such practice tests will net you a lower score than you will make on the real GRE) and go from there. If your scores are decent (1200+ is fine, or even 1000+ if you're using the PR test), then schedule the GRE about a month in advance, and use that as an opportunity to shore up the weak points from your practice test. I think I've mentioned this on the board before, but none of the grad students I've met studied more than a few days of review to familiarlize themselves with the general questions. Scores were varied, but except for really low scores (300-400 in each area) I've yet to meet someone turned down because of their GRE scores.

I would say that since your Peace Corps job is totally unrelated to your chosen field, you should stick with other references. That said, I've never seen a school that wouldn't let you submit extra LoRs. So perhaps submit the three from professors, and then get one from your country director as an extra. It can't hurt, imo, and that way you don't cut out one of the LoRs related to your field.