Eigen

There's really no way to tell. You don't have any other options- you have to send in your application if you want it to succeed. You have a PI that's behind you and willing to fund you, and they say it won't be a problem. Take them at face value and move forward.

In general, I would suggest getting recommendations from full-time, tenure track faculty members rather than adjuncts/lecturers, as they will carry less weight. That said, if the person who knows you and your work the best is an adjunct, then ask them and shore it up with two other references who are TT/tenured.

You don't really give enough information here. That said, you mention doing a masters degree "again", leading me to think this would be your second MS? If so, it's generally a bad idea to do more than one MS, except in specific cases. Why are you thinking you should do a second MS instead of going for a PhD? What are your goals?

It can be a good experience, or it can not, depending on the school, the summer program, and your alternatives. While getting a feel for other labs can be great, it can also disrupt the continuity of your research at your own institution, and I find the most important research skills people have (or lack) starting grad school are the very basics. Learning how to direct a project, and being extremely competent with very basic lab skills will get you a lot farther (imo) than a high-powered summer research program that you spend as much time catching up as learning.

I dunno, I really like being informed about department (and University) politics. There's a careful line of learning a *lot* but not offering so much in the way of opinions (early on) that you put yourself in jeopardy. It's good especially if you plan on going into academia, and even if not, it helps learn things like which faculty can't personally stand one another. I have friends that ended up with two bitter enemies on their dissertation committee, and that didn't go well for anyone involved.

Also, to add, you never know if what you do might effect this new professor. You say you mentioned in your email that it would be a shame to lose him, which implies that he's thinking about leaving, something he might not have told any other department faculty. You were just trying to help, but I'd be very careful about interceding like this on anyone's behalf- sometimes you do more harm than good, especially if they are playing things a particular way.

Let me clarify for PhD programs then.Engineering masters programs are a completely different boat. Most of them are cash cows for the school. Other than some really low cut-offs, I don't know of any PhD programs that consider the GRE "important". At best, it's a moderately useful ranking. I'm not largely a fan of generalizing, but this is something I feel is pretty consistent.

I wouldn't want you to under-study, but I actually see more doom and gloom about how hard the GRE is. It's anecdote, sure, but I don't have any peers in graduate school that did extensive prep. In fact, I'd say that for your overall application, time is much better spent on things other than the GRE. Spending a ton of time on it rather than readings, working on writing samples, building relationships with PIs is time not spent as well as it could be. GRE scores will sometimes break, but will seldom "make" an application. I find a lot of prospective graduate students over-emphasize the GRE because it's concrete, and has scores, but it's honestly probably the least important part of your entire application package.

Think of your entire packet, and then figure someone will take around 5 minutes to read it all. Write accordingly. Use of bolding and underlining to highlight important sections is highly suggested, and can be quite beneficial towards drawing attention to what you really want the reviewers to see.

I think the vast majority of people just need a book and not a prep course. In fact, until I found theses boards, I'd never heard of anyone doing a course for the GRE. Most of it is general knowledge, some basic test-taking skills help. The practice tests you get when you register for the GRE can also be quite good to get a feel for the timing & questions. I recommend, if you can, checking out a couple of different books (most public libraries have some as well as the University libraries) to get some different material.

Ok, maybe I'm misreading your posts. If you can take them simultaneously, why would you be 1-2 semesters longer in coursework than the program stipulates?

This is an area in which I'd say there is no "normal". It all depends on both the advisor and the student. For some pairs, weekly (or more frequent) meetings are common. For some, meetings on the 6 mo to year scale are more common. It also depends on where you are in the program. So as Fuzzy suggests, take the time to think about what you want in an advisor, and look for someone who fits that bill.

The question I have, and there may be a reason for this, is why take the courses for credit instead of auditing them/asking if you can sit in? It will still help you learn the material, but won't cut so much into your time/cost the school/increase your time in classes. It's very common in my program for people to sit in on classes outside their field for personal/future interests, but very few of them do it for credit or in place of the courses they're taking for a degree.

Just to second the other replies, the research proposal is mostly to show that you have good, coherent ideas. If you change projects, there's no issue. As long as it's within the same general field.

There's no one size-fits all option for this. Since all your kids are in school, that can help- you can study during the day without taking time away from them. There's also studying at night after they go to bed. My wife and I try to keep pretty "normal" working hours- 9-5 is for school, after that and weekends is for home. It doesn't always work, and things can get busy, but it's a nice goal. Not sure where in the state you are, but in my experience, you not being invited out at 36 is unusual. I've got a number of friends in grad school that age with kids. It may be that the age group in your program in particular is younger, in which case I'd encourage you to see what is going on through the graduate school/graduate student organization, as you may be more likely to find people in similar situations in PhD programs in other disciplines.

Angle AOB does not = angle ADB. ABO is 90, so AOB is 50. AOB + BOD = 180, so BOD = 130. OB and OD are both the same length (radii of circle), so OBD = ODB = 180-130/2 = 25. OBC = 90, so OBD + DBC = 90, or DBC = 65. ::edit:: Just realized my solution was the same as the video (didn't watch it). So what exactly are you asking?

Hmm, working fine for me. Is your browser catching the period after html in the link? If so, remove that.

There's also the formula (derived from the explanation) from the side angle side method. For any triangle that you have the length of two adjacent sides a and b, and the included angle c, the area A = (ab sin c)/2. For a better explanation (with figures) see http://www.mathopenref.com/triangleareasas.html. It also has a quick flow chart at the bottom for shortcut methods to finding areas for triangles with different bits of information. Basically, instead of "lengthening" the base you have, you bisect the largest angle to make two right triangles, then solve. You then know the largest side, b. And you know that a sin c is the side opposite the angle (sin c = h/a). So then area is bh/2, substitute for h and you get the above formula.

Also, see how common signatures are at your school/in your department. They're rare in mine, so it makes the students who use them seem pretentious. If you're primarily emailing your students, they likely know you're a TA, and how to get in touch with you. If you're emailing someone outside your department, they probably don't need to know you're a TA. I personally only add a signature when the message needs it (someone who doesn't know me) and make it appropriate to that contact. Else, everything gets signed "Cheers, Eigen".

This is the "easier" way, but requires some general knowledge/memory of trig. The "longer" way can be worked out with just a general knowledge of geometry (i.e., all angles in a triangle add up to 180 °, area of a triangle, etc.

I wouldn't worry about it being "uncool". But then I never worry about things being uncool. If the research interests you, I'd say that's great! That said, I would also worry that it might impact your daughters research if you're doing a lot of it as well. and in my opinion, there's not much more important in relation to preparation for graduate school than the research process and deciding where and how to apply. This is the first time most students are on their own, completely, and many of the first year graduate students I see have a really hard time with it, as they're used to quite a bit of assistance from parents. They don't know how to do taxes, they don't know how to research health insurance plans, negotiate with landlords, deal with the DMV in a new state, etc. I'm not implying that you're one of those parents, just a caution that it can inhibit individual growth to have too much assistance from outside.

I feel like you keep switching the field we're discussing. I originally came into this discussion when you brought up the example of someone in a Chemistry PhD program lying to get into grad school. SLP is a professional program, and as such tends to be much more focused on grades and GPA, sure. But I'll wager that without something else solid to back them up, they won't get you into a good school. Most professional programs have enough applicants they figure that they even if they cut off a large part of the pool, they'll still have enough applicants that meet the non-academic criteria. That doesn't make lying justified. As to graduate admissions, I'm intimately familiar with the process in at least my school, and quite familiar with others. It's rare that an application ever gets thrown out without looking at the rest of the package. Discussing the rest seems pointless, as you're confining the discussion to short professional programs, but most of your points only really apply to those, and not graduate admissions as a whole. Also, not a fan of the insinuation that I'm so out of reality I must be on mind altering substances.

IMO, I'd go with option 1. You seem to feel better about the advisor, it's work your familiar with, and they have good possibilities for publication/funding. If the PIs are hands off, you might be able to bend the project in a more nano-fab direction (there are lots of possibilities in the area) or even collaborate with lab 2.

You bring up grades and GRE scores, which in most fields are the least important parts of an application. By far. Sometimes they can serve as cut-offs, but while sub-par grades/scores might keep you out of a school, even amazing grades and GRE scores won't get you in. What will get you in is the ability to interview well, a good SoP, good research background, and great letters of recommendation. I'm not sure how familiar you are with graduate school applications (you say you haven't done much research on higher education, and I'm guessing you aren't currently in grad school?), but I'm not familiar with any program that has such hard cutoffs that many people would be tossed out completely. The ones that do are very low- say, sub 2.5 GPAs, and work on the assumption that you can find someone with average grades and excellent non-classroom credentials.

Why do you think the system is flawed just because it takes into account your background? Why should an admissions committee not take into account the bad parts of someones background? To flip it around, why should it not be a benefit to have had a rough time of things and persevered and done well? You're making statements about the state of the system without backing them up.