Eigen

I started splitting mine out when I got more than about 7 of each type, mostly because it seemed to read easier. Else, while TakeruK is not me, I completely agree with their answer.

I guess I've just not personally run across many situations where a student would ask a professor for a letter of recommendation without being sure of the result. FWIW, I've read letters of my own from only two out of about 10 of the people I've gotten to write for me, and they were definitely not my strongest letters- both were faculty with language difficulty who wanted to make sure it read OK before submission. I do understand the desire to know what's in a recommendation, and make sure it's putting your best foot forward, but I really do feel like ensured confidentiality increases the strength of the letter and helps the system in the long run. To go back to your first point, I'm not arguing that we can't do things to avoid or reduce unconscious bias- I said we can't completely avoid it. I'm of the opinion that there will always be some remaining, and to remove it completely removes the human element from admissions decisions. I think the other point to bring up here, and we've discussed this in the past, is that especially in the US there's a legal quagmire to consider. I know professors that have been sued for not writing a letter of recommendation. I know faculty that have been sued (and lost) for not writing a positive enough letter of recommendation. I know schools that have been sued over admissions decisions. I definitely agree that there are cases where we need more oversight to ensure a reduction of systematic discrimination/bias, but I also think that we're too ready (not saying you two, in particular but rather us as a society) to break everything down to statistics and objective evaluations, when honest, truthful and subjective evaluations can be just as important.

Adding onto what TakeruK says, I have a section of my CV titled "Publications" and under that have sub-headings for peer reviewed publications, presentations, and posters. At some point, if items are "solid" you never really prune them off of a CV- you just get longer and longer. If what you're asking is should you list the abstract as a "publication" when you're already listing the presentation, I would say no, even when the abstract is published in proceedings (as is common in my field).

Not this far out of area, but I specifically approached letter writers outside of my major for exactly this reason. Depending on the school and what area I was leaning towards, I included a math and physics professor along with recommendations from the chemistry department. Even who I got to write recommendations within my department differed, depending on what subfield my application was written around.

I think it's different to say that it's a student's right to ask to see a letter than to say that the professor does not have the right to not let them see it. The two are not mutually exclusive. The student definitely has the right to ask, but it is also very much in the professors area to decline. I tend to fall fairly strongly on the side that says students manipulating writers (prodding for a "strong" letter, pushing to see drafts/the final letter) is ethically shady. There are always cases where it's wise to do some of those things (ie, you're asking someone that's a non-native english speaker) but I've always declined when I've been asked to write/draft my own letters, and instead suggested they confer with a senior faculty member if they would like someone to read over it. I do realize that there's always the chance of unconscious bias, but there's no way to completely avoid unconscious bias without removing the humanity and subjectivity from the system- something that I think is generally quite beneficial, overall. I think a lot of current measures help avoid this. We, as students, get to choose who writes our letters (rather than the admissions committee being able to ask anyone they want). We get to select multiple letter writers, so we if there is an effect, it should not be seen in all of our recommendations. And finally, while an important part of the package, LoRs are only one piece of a much larger application. I would hope that we know our letter writers well enough to know what they think of us before we ask them. Similarly, I would hope that if, say, a writer had a tendency to use gender biased language, it would have been noticeable in circumstances prior to the letter being written. I do understand, to some degree, the intense desire for equitability in graduate admissions decisions, but really that's not what the system (especially in STEM) is about. It's people hiring individuals they feel will best fit into a larger research team, as well as a community. And past grad school, that becomes even a bigger issue. Faculty need to be excellent in their area of expertise, but they also need to fit in well with the department that hires them. You can't make such subjective decisions in a completely objective fashion.

Lots of good recommendations here already. I'll suggest McQuarrie for QM, I do like Atkins for general PChem though. Not a fan of Levine, personally.

Side not here, but that's really cool. We've been pushing for something more cohesive at my school, and finally have an "all graduate student orientation" this year, instead of it being entirely left up to each program.

I cannot disagree with this more. It is absolutely the right of the professor to submit an honest and truthful evaluation without you seeing it. In fact, this is what schools expect them to do. Your application is your own, letters are not. They are sent to the school *not* through you as the applicant for a reason. The whole point of a recommendation is for that recommendation is for that recommendation to be an honest assessment of your abilities from someone who is familiar with you. I'd hate to see this go the direction of industry where no recommendations are ever given, including good ones, over worries of lawsuits. Most professors I know would flat out refuse to write a letter for anyone that required me to show them a final draft, and I would consider it unethical of a student to ask me to do so. I feel that people who are serious about graduate school are also serious about professional ethics regarding confidential letters of recommendation between peers, and the importance of such confidential letters in choosing the best people for a program.

I would seriously urge you to re-think not attending yourself. I'm sure your parents will understand, and this is usually one of your best chances to get to meet your new colleagues. I think the expectation that it would be rude to not devote all your time to someone visiting isn't the best one to take into grad school either. I've had a lot of times I've had family & friends in town, and given them a day/half day to go explore without me because I had work to do- it's quite common as you get older. You also might be reading a bit too much into some of the comments here if you're getting offended by what eteshoe said. They didn't imply that you were those things, just stated what the case would be. I'm a bit surprised at your description of the events, I've never heard of any school doing receptions, lunches and dinners for incoming graduate students and families, that sounds a lot more like what I'd expect for undergrad. Maybe one event to get to know your new department, but it seems like your school is doing a lot more than that.

My experience is the same as rising_star. I guess it depends what exactly you mean by orientation, but ours aren't geared to any guests, and I'd think parents would be out of place. We haven't previously had a university wide orientation- we have orientations for new TAs, orientations by department, and some school-wide orientations. Most of them are more in the vein of employee orientations (how do you get paid, how health insurance works, etc.), you seem to be referring to something in conjunction with moving in to on campus housing, or a welcome reception?

Depends on you and the courses. I took this many (sometimes more) a couple of semesters and did fine.

Or you plan on applying for external grants during your PhD program, or you plan on applying for competitive post-doctoral fellowships. You should pretty much always aim for a 4.0, and most warnings don't contradict that. Faculty (and older graduate students) warning new graduate students not to spend too much time on coursework is to help them put the priorities in line. I tell this to our incoming students that spend hours a day studying for classes, when they should be spending much less time on coursework and much more time in the lab. So does my advisor. That doesn't mean he doesn't expect them to make an A in his class. Keeping a 4.0 while not making good research progress is bad. That doesn't mean that having a 4.0 is bad, it just means you shouldn't have to put in so much time that you detract from other areas. On the flip side, making good research progress while maintaining a 4.0 is good- it shows that you can excel in multiple areas at once. It's not an either-or thing. It's like the "Do GRE scores matter" that comes up here all the time. In the relative ranking of importance, they're low. But if you're aiming to be a very competitive applicant, you should still shoot for high scores. In the overall ranking, your graduate grades aren't the most important thing. That doesn't mean you shouldn't aim for having very good grades throughout graduate school, as having those grades will always help, even if only a little bit.

I think some of this is field specific, too. For a typical STEM PhD graduate (with the usual exception of Math), you will not have taught any classes, at all, when you graduate. You might have graded for someone, you might have taught a section of a lab, but you have never taught a lecture course solo. What hiring committees at any teaching focused college are interested in seeing then (from what I've been told in response to my CV) is that you can (a) actually put together and teach a class, and ( that you know what it's like to teach a full load, and are still interested in it. Adjuncting is highly recommended to combat the first issue, but for the second you really need a full time teaching position, because ideally you show that you can keep up with research and service along with that teaching load. I think it also depends on the field, but teaching load in my discipline at most R2s is 4/4 , 4/5 or 5/5. Usually large lectures, with some small topical classes in the mix. It's definitely a mixed bag, but I've been told that while I look like a great fit for the position, and my research history/publications are good, they aren't willing to take the risk on someone without substantially more teaching experience, and as such usually applications without it get cut in the first round. All of this of course completely off topic from the OP's question about Comp programs, specifically.

I'm classifying teaching focused as non R1. The admissions committees I've talked to are everything from good R2s down to CCs. Basically, anywhere that the primary mission is the education of undergraduates. Also, to add, there's a huge difference between adjuncting 1-3 years to gain teaching experience, and longer periods. Generally when people talk about it as the kiss of death, they're talking about long term adjuncts, those that run the risk of being stereotyped as a "career adjunct".

I'd be interested in citations showing that people with adjunct experience have a much harder time obtaining full time employment, as this goes directly against all advice (and data) that I'm aware of. The only time it would have a negative impact is if the rest of your scholarship falls off during that period, or if you're not targeting primarily teaching institutions. The other time I see it being a detriment is if you're targeting a full time position at the same institution at which you're adjuncting- rarely do part time positions turn into full, most places prefer to hire from outside. That said, finding a VAP or instructor position is far preferable to adjuncting from all perspectives. Talking to admissions committees at teaching-focused universities, I've been told flat out that there's very little chance of even being considered without 1-3 years of full time (3/3, 4/4 load) teaching experience. They've been burned too many times by people who weren't ready for that work load.

Very different than my impressions. The vast majority have close to 4.0 or 4.0 GPAs, anything under 3.5 is pretty rare. A is the standard, expected grade for a "good" student. B is a grad that indicates you're not doing too well, B-/C+ is just above failing.

You're overthinking strategy. Apply to schools where you have a good fit for your research interests, and where you realistically have a good shot at getting in. Ideally these are also in places you would be OK living. Trying to "game" where would be more likely to accept you because they might/might not have more applications isn't a good idea, imo.

I think to some extent, your expectations were over the top. You've come out of your first year with two good friends- that's about as many as I've mad win 7 years at my program. Having a ton of people that are acquaintances isn't all it's cracked up to be. As to studying together- we did a bit my first year, but it was maybe one evening a month, or half an hour in the morning before a test. Most people in grad school know how they study best, and it's rarely as a group. One thing I did find (that I'm sure you've experienced) was that coming in to grad school married did close off one major avenue people connected through: roommates. I already had one (and a great one, to be sure), but I noticed lots of the other people in my cohort (and others since) have gotten a house with 1-3 other graduate students. Sometimes it makes them hate each other, but a lot of time they end up pretty tight. I'll also echo not limiting yourself to people in your program for friendships- while I lucked out and have two great friends from my cohort, most of my other friends are from other programs, some in the sciences and some in the humanities and other applied areas. I got involved in the graduate student government early on, and met a lot of people that way. That said, it sounds like you're mainly transferring for other reasons (research interests), so I'd take the suggestions here as a guide to your next school. For transferring, you need to be a bit careful, as it's rarely a "transfer", and more of a "leave and re-apply elsewhere" situation. Chances are, you won't find a program that will allow you to get credit for much, if any, of the last years work and you need to be OK with that. Additionally, you will probably be spending at least another year either at your current school or working somewhere, since the next opening for applications will likely be Fall 2016. For your case, you have an easier time with leaving amicably- there aren't good matches for your developing research interests. You still need to decide how you want to go about leaving and applying elsewhere, however. The cleanest break would be to give notice at your current school and leave now, then find work for the next year while you apply again. Alternatively, if your current school offers a MS route, you could swap to that, finish the MS in the next year while applying elsewhere for a PhD. Less clean is applying (quietly, secretly) while staying at your current school. This has it's own hazards, as you really need letters of recommendation from your current school to move on. Especially since you're saying the reason you are leaving is changing interests, which means a new school will want to see that you've done well, and ideally hear from the school that they don't think your research interests match well. Some programs might be fine with you TAing and taking classes while you apply out, and some will not- none of us can judge that for you.

Contact current students, sure, but I would strongly advice against asking them what their GRE scores or average GRE scores are. They either won't know, estimates will be off, or they will think you're worried about/interested in the wrong things.

My university doesn't have just "funded/fail" options in the sciences. Basically, if you're funded by the PI as an RA, there's also the option to get "demoted" back to TAing if you're not making sufficient research progress/funds aren't available. There's also a slow lowering of funding for people who've been around too long as an encouragement to leave- half funding for a semester, say, when the person should just be writing up and not be in the lab finishing. But generally, yes- if the department/PI aren't willing to fund you, you're on your way out rather than staying around on your own dime.

You'll also find less information (and less useful information) because GRE scores are a much less important part of graduate admissions than, say, ACT/SAT scores are for undergraduate admission. The primary importance is your statement/letters of rec, followed by transcript/CV followed by GRE scores.

To digress further, since this field-specific difference interest me: at my small, regional, land-grant institution, in STEM fields, for junior+ level courses any mistake (including grammar & spelling) was half a grade-level off of a report. Been that way in my field (and many engineering fields) for several generations. This is down a bit from earlier generations- when my mother was in school studying engineering, any spelling or grammar mistake was a grade level off, 3 such mistakes was an automatic failure. The idea being that any mistake, even minor ones, distracts the reader severely from the content of the sentence. It's still the case as well that you're very likely to get rejections/heavy criticism from any journal you submit to with any grammar & spelling issues- we go through papers with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they're all out before submission. It's amazing how many reviewers will completely miss the intent of a paragraph because they're focusing on a typo in one of the lines, or something that doesn't quite read correctly. So from that standpoint I'm used to it just being assumed that your grammar and spelling are correct- so rather than 10th on the list, I'm used to it being first. It's not the most important points of the paper, but if it is not correct, the rest suffers immensely. For most of our non-native english speakers in grad school, they're strongly encouraged (or required) to have a native speaker/graduate student in the group check over their writing for structural problems before a lot of the faculty will even look at it. And this is definitely not an "ivy elite" connotation in my field, it's assumed in even quite low-ranked programs.

To be fair, only one person suggested graduate school might not be the right path (ED). It was nowhere in Telkanuru's post. I also don't see anyone suggesting they drop out of their current program, but perhaps I missed something.

Your belief shows through in your post. If you felt it wasn't the direction you needed help with (your original post gives no hint as to what area of writing you're having difficulty with), you could have responded to the last paragraph that suggests that if the problems are indeed not structural, than a writing center would be far more helpful. But instead, you chose to attack both the post and the writer.

In general, I find people who respond like this to a very well written, thoughtful and helpful post tend to invite more responses in kind. I'm not sure why Telkanuru's message would be considere asinine- it was sympathetically written, and even started acknowledging that it was an informal setting.