Eigen

Honestly, in my field it's considered something nice to do for your graduate students. It gets you experience refereeing papers, and a chance to get familiar with the publishing field from the other side.

Yah, no way to help without at least some details.

Each school is different in terms of starting courses, and taking/retaking courses. Since we have people from a huge range of backgrounds, everyone in my program has to take entrance exams- if you pass, you go straight into the normal curriculum, if not, you take undergrad courses first and then move in. It's not ideal to do the latter, just because it significantly increases the time you're taking classes without decreasing the research obligations. That said, teaching yourself background is pretty standard- we had a number of people in our first semester quantum mechanics class without much of a background, and they had to do a ton of math and physics review. We were all in the library constantly looking up background texts and review materials to bring ourselves up to speed.

So then you would, ideally, want to look specifically for groups focusing on synthesis of amino acid derivatives, and talk up how your skills would be beneficial to working in that lab.

Considering anything out of the top-50 schools low ranked might not be the best way to approach things. A lot of schools in the 50-130 range (depending on the ranking system you're using) are still very solid schools, some with excellent research programs in specific areas. What matters, primarily, is your scholastic productivity during a PhD- number of papers, or for industry, number of patents, coupled with good letters of reference from well-regarded scholars. Similarly, your ability to make a good network, in and out of industry, also matters a lot.

My guess is the statement is intended to mean that it's not really bushing boundaries if you know what will happen. And in general, I'd expect that to be the case. If you know what will happen, either someone else has done it or it's a derivative of known work, in which case it's not truly interesting research. You might have ideas of what you'll find, or you might be going in mostly blind and trying to figure out something very new in your field. That said, you should absolutely be familiar with the techniques, or able to learn them quite fast. Classes are far less important than research, and you shouldn't be in a position of being in danger of failing due to research. In our group, it's suggested (strongly) that you be in lab working about 8 hours a day when you're done with courses, or about 6 hours a day when you're in courses. I found that to be a fairly good guideline- classes didn't detract much from my research. That said, if your background is weak or you're transitioning into a different area, that might be different. It sounds to me like you might not have a lot of prior research experience, from undergrad? If so, a lot of what you're experiencing in terms of frustrations narrowing down or defining the question come more easily with experience, and some of the senior grad students can probably help you quite a bit.

A lot of your chance depends on your fit with the program- so you need to find a program with research that really interests you, and write your SoP showing how you fit with that research group.

I would think if you want to tell him you no longer want to be an author on the paper, he would probably accept it and move on, but that seems like a poor idea for many reasons. It's very common to keep working on projects after you've moved institutions- things like publications aren't really tied to employment, it's your scholarship and you should want to get it out. If you co-authored a paper and it got rejected, you can either choose to completely drop yourself off of the project, or help with the revisions.

I think program is important, but I think ranking is not necessarily as important. Getting a PhD from an influential/well known/respected PI at a small school will go a lot farther than a less well known PI at a top-10 school. Most of your contacts, your network, and your job options will come from specific people in your program, not the name of the program itself. Hence, it's important to get a well placed PI (many of these are indeed at top schools) more-so than a well-named school. Also, there are a lot of rankings out there, I think the Times ranking is probably one of the last I would follow, along with USNWR.

Please do not double (or in your case, triple) post the same topic. It's not any more likely to get you answers. Closing all but this thread.

If you were applying with a BS, I would say you would be OK with the broader interest base, but applying with an MS, I think most schools are going to want you to have a pretty specific research group and focus in mind. Rotations are meant less to let you see different fields, and more to let you get a feel for different lab cultures, PIs, and let them see if they're OK with having you work with them. For more advanced/experienced applicants, they're also more a way to get specific experiences/skills that you can bring back to the lab you are intending to work in. You should have at least 2-3 PIs that work in the specific area of cog neuro that you are most interested in, and ideally your SOP will be focussed on that area. While you can find 1 or 2 people working in most areas of the field at most graduate programs, when we talk about fit we're talking about a large portion of the department leaning in that direction. I'm more familiar with molecular neuroscience, but people are intended to be exceptionally specific there- it's not just about, say, hormones and development, but you need to look for someone that looks for the hormone you're interested in, and also with the specific techniques and on the particularly organism. There might be someone who works, say, with testosterone in mouse development, but you wouldn't fit in there at all if you were more interested in estrogen from a rat model, or a cell model.

Just because the general work is being done everywhere doesn't mean your particular interests and skill set will fit everywhere. Outside of STEM fields, I think fit is less well defined- although in some fields it can be an even greater consideration. Hence, applications tend to be broader. Funding is also more of a consideration in non-STEM fields, as the vast majority of STEM PhD programs are fully funded. Accordingly, you'd want a wider net not just for acceptance, but also to increase your funding options. It doesn't matter if what you're currently working on is specific enough, but you need to narrow down what you want to work on for your PhD to a very specific area (or several very specific areas) and then apply to programs who have faculty who are well known in that specific research field.

You don't say what area you're in, which makes it hard to advise you. In general, applying to schools for prestige over research fit isn't a great way to go. Personally, I'm also of the opinion (STEM) that applying to more than 4-5 schools is overkill. Be realistic, apply to places that you would fit, well, stand a good chance of getting into, and would attend if accepted.

Give them as much warning as you can. I would say at least a month lead time, and preferably more like 2-3 months.

I think there's also a large possibility that you took it differently than he meant it. You said in your original post that he did it "jokingly", so perhaps he meant it more lightly than you took it. It's possible that explaining to him that you felt it was very insulting would make him realize his mistake, or it's possible he's just an asshole who will think you have too thin of a skin and don't have a good sense of humor.

I wouldn't think that most faculty would treat graduate students as colleagues from the start- you're still a student. By the end of your degree you'll be a colleague, but you usually have to earn that respect and treatment. That said, I'm not as familiar with the behavioral norms in MFA programs with respect to ripping up your printed artwork, so no good ideas there.

I would say that letters are probably the most important part of your package. They are the support for almost everything else you're saying! You have to have a competitive transcript and research experience and a good CV, but your letter writers emphasizing that and giving a personal recommendation that you'll do well in graduate school/are heads and shoulders above everyone they've worked with in the last 5-10 years? You can have a bunch of research experience, but as time goes on and more and more people list "years" of research experience on their CV and then have very little practical functional experience, letters become the defining factor that says not just how much research experience you had, but how good it was, and how good of a researcher you are. A letter writer saying that you are perfectly capable of hitting the ground running and masterminding your own research project? That's a huge deal for a grad school, and can really help. That will get you in places you might otherwise not have a shot at. Unlike, say, GRE scores where a bad score (may) keep you out, but a good score won't get you in, letters are much more straightforward: A bad or limp letter can keep you out, and a good letter can get you in.

I've helped write one major (several million) and one minor (a bit under a million) grants. Lots of work on the latter, help here and there on the former. For senior graduate students with good ideas who can write well? I'd say it's pretty common. Sadly, without your PhD, you'll never be officially listed on the grant no matter how much you write, at least with most of the big (NSF, NIH, DOD, DOE) funding agencies. But you can list it on your CV, your letters will mention it, and it's good experience.

The book is good for all lab sciences, even if that's the general gearing. Any experimental (non-theoretical) chemistry is pretty much the same, including chemical physics, materials science, etc. Having a fellowship will give you some freedom, but I'm assuming at some point you'll want to move from a TA to an RA (as soon as possible, ideally) so then you'll be paid off the grant. Either way, the grant is paying for all of your research expenses, so what you do needs to be covered under the aims of said grant.

I think you're conflating "some leeway" with "running your own experiments". In most lab sciences, I'd say there's a large part of paying in your dues- you spend at least a few years learning the ropes and putting time in working on already (mostly) designed projects. Then you can start branching off and proposing/running experiments of your own. Most labs I know will slot new grad students in on an existing project/portion of a project with a post-doc or senior PI for the first year-part of a year, and then start asking for more independence from that grad student- giving them less designed projects, or just a goal and letting them design the idea. For lab sciences, the major "goals/ideas" of the lab are set when you join- they're the goals stated on the funding that runs the lab. There are deliverables that have to be met to keep the place running, and everyone paid. As you spend more time in the lab, you'll either get to start coming up with ideas that will be used in the next set of grant proposals, or for things you can do that don't cost much or are tangentially related. But most of your time, if you're paid off a grant and using grant funds, has to be spent doing things that can be detailed in the yearly progress reports for the granting agency, and likely in areas that work towards one or more specific aims for that grant. Most of your early side projects will likely, in my experience, be "spare time" projects- things you design and run that don't take away from what you're working on for the grant, but you spend some extra time working on. If those turn out to be fruitful, you're more likely to be able to continue them once you have preliminary data. Especially for something like your setup (instrument development) you can do a lot of side projects in your spare time, as supplies are cheap. This is much different than something that requires, say, live animals- those require a lot of cost and IRB approval for projects, so things "on the side" are much more difficult. I've recommended this book before, and will recommend it again here: http://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/B0074303Q2/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid= Is a great read for anyone in the lab sciences, as an intro to lab politics, organization, etc. It's not one size fits all, but it helps.

Attend as many as you can. We've had several whole cohorts that didn't come to a lot of things, and have had a really hard time shaking the label of "anti-social". A lot of the general grad school/career advice you'll get will probably be given in social situations, as well. It's usually when we're unwinding around a keg of beer at a BBQ, or at happy hour at one of the local bars that we're most likely to give frank & pointed advice about research, PIs, cumes, etc.

You go to school B. And file a change of school request with NSF. There is no requirement that you do anything you propose to do, other than go to graduate school in the field you specify.

There's a thread for this cycle in The Bank forum that will give you more information, but: It needs to be an in depth proposal, and specific for a project- time frame, aims, etc. You're writing it based around a specific proposal and a specific school, but you can change school before you start, and you can swap projects as well. No cutoff GPA, but they do take it seriously from my experience.

This seems suspiciously like either spam, or someone trying to get help with homework. Neither is what this site is for.

I've never heard that. I know our program uses them initially, and very high scores can be impressive, but GRE scores pale in importance compared to your CV, research experience, SOP and letters. For international students, depending on the country, they can be mildly useful to completely disregarded.