Eigen

Seriously, was it necessary to write a whole paragraph recalling your high school writing skills and how that's not reflected in the "subjectively graded portion" of your gre? Apparently, your AP English Composition teacher's subjective opinion of you differs from those of the people (and computer) who graded your AWA portion.

I'm not sure if you've worked with grad students before, but your attitude is going to get crushed in grad school.

From what I understand, that's not true at all. Just like a company can rescind a job offer at any time before a contract is signed, a school can rescind either the offer of admission, or simply the funding at any time before you accept and sign a contract with them.

An offer is just that, an offer. Unless you sign a contract with the school/employer holding them to their offer for a certain period of time, they can change or rescind that offer for whatever reason they want.

Once you accept, they can't rescind the offer... But until you accept, they are under no contractual obligation. It might hurt their PR a bit if they rescind offers too often, but I don't believe there is any legal barrier to them doing so.

DEFINITELY compare the cost of living with a cost of living calculator (google em) before you approach anyone about negotiating an offer.

the worst you'll hear is not "no." the worst is that they'll rescind your offer. you can negotiate, but do so with caution and armed with more facts. you're comparing a top program to a "safety." odds are your top program will ask what school made the offer, they'll see it's a "safety," and they'll risk you choosing a lower-ranked or worse-fit program over their own for the sake of $5000. if you have more funded offers from other "top" schools and even when considering cost-of-living this program would still be paying you way less, then you can try to negotiate.

1) check cost of living.
2) wait for funded offers from other comparable programs before you go angling for more money.
3) realize that "the worst" that can happen is way more than them saying "no."

I can't speak for the new versions, but the old ones worked like this:

they start you out at a 500 point (average) score, and give you a question. If you get it right, you go up 200 points, and get a 700 point question. If you get it wrong, you go down 200 points and get a 300 point question. The point swings slowly drop (200, to 150, to 100, to 50, etc), zeroing in on the "point range" where you can consistently answer questions.

For each question you get right, you move up in difficulty, for each question you get wrong you move down in difficulty. The highest level question you can consistently answer correctly determines your score (hence the adaptive part).

The earlier questions have a much larger impact on your score- if you get the first question right and the second one wrong, you would be sitting at around a 600, whereas if you get the first question wrong and the second right you'd be sitting at around a 400. You're better off spending the time on the earlier questions as opposed to the later questions. You can still end up with a high score getting the first question wrong, it just takes much longer strings of consecutive answers.

The point values/question numbers here are approximate- they don't release exactly how the algorithm works, but they give you a general idea. It's not a test like the ACT or SAT where there are sliding scales for questions answered right/wrong and scores- it relates to the difficulty of questions you answer correctly- each question has a score value attached as relates to its difficulty level.

It also lets you feel how your performance is going... If you're getting lots of hard questions (or the questions seem to be getting harder) that's a good thing! And usually, getting the easy questions right is more important than getting the really hard ones right.

This thread (and those like it) have been entertaining from the start.

I find the "Oh no! I got double 800s and only a 5.0 writing score! How can I possibly be competitive!" posts more amusing than the flames, honestly

Applicants make such a big deal out of the GRE (positive or negative), but I have yet to meet a fellow grad student that worried much about it, or thought it was worth worry about it.

All depends on how well you remember it, and how fast you usually pick up math-y things.

I had a 2 year break between finishing Calc 2 and starting Calc 3, and it wasn't much of a problem. And then I had to re-learn it all again 4 years later when I took my quantum mechanics class in grad school.

I'd get a book from the library, and refresh your memory on what these derivative and integral things are, and then just give it a shot.

haha at thinking you would be hanging out with cool people in grad school...it's full of nerds, social outcasts, and the socially awkward. Try to find a cooler department (psych, crim j, comm) to hang with - still dorks but at least they go out. i am in poli sci and it's a bunch of friggin' losers. 4 years of these clowns and i've had it. i have an undergrad GF too - good deal if you are good looking and cool enough to swing it - most grad students aren't. do your best to meet new people - join an intramural sports team or volunteer or something. and don't tell me you are too busy. if you have time to sit around and whine on here, you've got time to get out there and meet some new people.

Drop out. You obviously can't handle it.

I don't think it is appropriate to ask. Some writers will just give the letters to you (a few of mine have done that), but if they don't offer, I wouldn't ask. As for not checking the box, I've heard of recommenders who won't provide letters if that is done because they don't have the privacy to really express their opinions. I think LORs (as frustrating as it can be!) remain a mysterious, inscrutable part of the app package.

My dad is not a famous professor, but he's done a lot of collaborative work with a guy who is one of the Founding Fathers of his subfield. My oldest sister, on the other hand, is pretty darn famous in her field.

And though I have to admit that my eventual admission to a top-10 university (which I later turned down) may have been partially based on name dropping (though the prof asked first! really!), the best thing I did was to ask both my dad and my sister: "What should I do to make myself more attractive to adcomms?"

Their answers were not what I expected. For example, I was pretty darn pleased about my 800Q score on the GRE. But Chrissy was relatively blasé about it. "90% of the applicants I get have a 800Q," she said. "But your verbal score? That makes me raise my eyebrows. I almost never see applicants with a verbal score like that." (She's in engineering.)

Anyway...what I recommend is to do what you said you are already doing, namely to ask your dad, AND his friends, what they think you should do to get into top schools. You might even want to show them drafts of your SoP for their input. This will have two effects:

(1) They will give you some amazing advice.
(2) Your dad's friends (maybe your dad too, but probably not) will gossip with their friends..."Did you hear that Dr. X's son is applying for grad school?" Never underestimate the power of academic gossip. You will not see direct results from this, but it will have more impact than you possibly know. *Especially* if you send them your SoP so they have a good idea of what your research focus is.

You do not want to conspicuously name drop. Ever. You have to at least *pretend* you're trying to get in on your own merits.

For some CC jobs, all one needs is an AA (a BA will not cut it) (I assume this holds true for trade positions exclusively, rather than more traditional academic fields), but for Poli Sci positions, I assume an MA or higher is desired. Depending on where you are, CC jobs are almost as competitive as 4 year college positions, hence the need for a higher degree.

Undoubtedly, you can get a job. However, most likely you'll be trapped in adjunct hell, and you need a PhD to escape that, in this day and age. I live in a very rural, undesirable area, and know that this is a requirement for full time faculty even here.

As an adjunct, you could easily make less than $10,000 a year, even teaching 3 courses per semester. That's not something I would happily jump in to. Keep in mind that the ratio of adjuncts to full timers is even worse than 4 year colleges - a small handful of full timers for a veritable army of adjuncts schlepping between campuses is not unusual.

It may be difficult to get a position at a CC off the bat if you don't have experience at one and/or come from a very elite background, simply because CCs are so different than other colleges and worry (rightly) that those with champion pedigrees might jump ship for greener pastures (how's that for mixed metaphors?!).

I'd recommend looking at the Chronicle of Higher Education for further advice from professors - both the Chronicle itself and the fora (especially the job seekers and the non-tenure track, to get a sense of what you might get into). As someone who has adjunct experience at a CC, I'd recommend each resource, though of course take all information with a grain of salt.

Depending on where you are ABD, you might want to suck it up and get it over with. Not an easy thing to do, I concede, but I don't think that leaving at this point with hopes of landing a CC job will end up being a happy resolution.

To me, grad school is about developing your research skills. And I always learn more if I look it up/figure it out myself than if I ask.

If something is really time sensitive, I'll ask... Otherwise, it's better to take what notes I can, supplement them with a few hours (few days) of research, then go talk about it again.

Also depends if you want to stay in academia or not.

In the sciences, at least, ranking is important... But the ranking of your post-doc is much more important than your PhD. So go to that small friendly department (that's not too horribly ranked), make good connections, do good work, and do a post-doc or two with a big name boss at a big name university.

I'll also note that who you did your PhD with is often way more important than where you did it- if you happen to work for a lesser known prof at a really well known school, that can often put you behind someone who worked for a well known prof at a lesser known university.

And when it comes to industry, I think the school name matters, but not often so much by how they're ranked. Some schools are known for good collaborations with industry, and that's more important than being a "top 5" school. Similarly, it's more important that your research was noteworthy than that you went to a big school.

What I've been told is to not completely discount rankings, but go where you'll be happy. Do well, get lots of publications, and put in your time networking, and you'll probably do fine.

I went to the lowest ranked school of the three I was accepted to- it was the best fit. And my boss here is well connected to big names in our field, which means if I do really well, I can probably get a post-doc with some of the top names in the field. And that will go a lot farther than getting my degree from a "higher ranked" university.

please reply people! lol thanks.

Here's the deal.

You have less than a 3.0 GPA. If you've graduated, it is pretty much too late to improve that, except if you try to do a post-bac somewhere (and that would most likely be prohibitively expensive). Your best bet is to score high on the GREs right now. I suggest memorizing Barron's 5000 word list and doing an intensive math review to start.

Second, you can gain "work experience" in two ways: through an internship or through volunteer work. Build up that resume by doing things that are related to what you want to do with non-profit organizations who need volunteers.

I'm just wondering if this is too unusual, since I usually have to do this once or twice in each conversation.

It might just be me, but I think you guys are overthinking this. Just because you get a high percentile for the Verbal doesn't mean you should do well on the writing portion. I did well on the writing and decent on the Verbal, but for example, I have no 'formal' experience with analogies, so I basically sucked at that portion of the Verbal. The amount of vocab people know also varies widely and for the Verbal you need to know somewhat obscure terms, whereas for the writing portion, you could use basic english wording and get a good score. I think that maybe people try to make their essays seems superior, which actually hurts you in the end because either the comp or person grading can't follow with all the big words being used or maybe the sentence structure is too complex (multiple commas, semicolons etc). I just feel that these two sections are completely different and really can't reflect on each other. I remember reading the essays of my peers in undergrad and some were so hard to follow because of extremely long sentences or too much fancy wording that really didn't state a point.

I think if you follow the basic format of an intro stating your points + a thesis, each para with a topic sentence, an example + explanation why this example is relevant, a concluding sentence, a final conclusion summarizing the points and remention of your thesis and why/how you 'proved' it and the use of multiple transitional words throughout, you should do well on the writing portion.

Without any other information, I think higher ranked schools are more likely to give you a better education and job prospects (that's why they have that ranking, after all), but I also think there are a lot of exceptions and it really depends on your specific research area. Last year I had to choose between a #1 school and a #30 school and I went with the lower one because I honestly felt like I would have better opportunities there, and I still feel like that's true. There are a lot of factors to consider.

The advise I got from professors when I was making my decision was that the most important factor is who your advisor will be. If your advisor is well-connected, then having their recommendation can do more to get you a job than the name of your school. Keep in mind that there are dozens of extremely good professors in any research community, yet generally any one school will only have one or two of those professors, so there are certainly top professors at lower-ranked schools (but which schools depends on your field - I'm not saying every lower-ranked school is just as good).

I'm told that the most important qualification when applying for PhD-level jobs is your publication record, so it's important to go to the school where you think you'll be most productive. This means having a good advisor as well as being in a collaborative environment, the ability to push your own ideas forward, etc. Of course, one difference that the ranking can make in applying for jobs is that applicants from lesser-known schools might be filtered out before the application is even considered. As long as your school is well-regarded enough that people will look at your application, having an exceptionally strong CV should have a stronger impact than having an okay CV from a top school.

Someone mentioned that teaching experience is important for academic jobs, yet can be hard to get. That's another reason I chose the school I did - they let you teach your own courses, which is much better experience than being a TA. Try to find out what perks and opportunities are available at whatever schools you end up choosing between.

Also depends if you want to stay in academia or not.

In the sciences, at least, ranking is important... But the ranking of your post-doc is much more important than your PhD. So go to that small friendly department (that's not too horribly ranked), make good connections, do good work, and do a post-doc or two with a big name boss at a big name university.

I'll also note that who you did your PhD with is often way more important than where you did it- if you happen to work for a lesser known prof at a really well known school, that can often put you behind someone who worked for a well known prof at a lesser known university.

And when it comes to industry, I think the school name matters, but not often so much by how they're ranked. Some schools are known for good collaborations with industry, and that's more important than being a "top 5" school. Similarly, it's more important that your research was noteworthy than that you went to a big school.

What I've been told is to not completely discount rankings, but go where you'll be happy. Do well, get lots of publications, and put in your time networking, and you'll probably do fine.

I went to the lowest ranked school of the three I was accepted to- it was the best fit. And my boss here is well connected to big names in our field, which means if I do really well, I can probably get a post-doc with some of the top names in the field. And that will go a lot farther than getting my degree from a "higher ranked" university.

I've also learned (from getting passed down notebooks that make no sense whatsoever) that the notes you make in lab books need to be understandable to someone else, without you there to explain them. Hence, designating what reaction/sample you're working on, brief explanation of mechanisms/theories, etc.

Also helps a lot when you're going back to notes that are 3 years old and trying to write something detailed from them.

I'd just take the next 9-10 months to get a ton more research experience, and bring up the GPA.

If you had good research experience, the GPA wouldn't be so bad... But a 3.2 GPA is going to hurt, at least some. You'll need good GRE scores to counter it.

As for a Masters helping.... Terminal Masters programs are kind of looked down upon by most doctoral programs- they're not much of a stepping stone. You'd be better off postponing graduation and getting some research experience where you are.

Before I can advise you as to good target schools, what area of chemistry are you interested in? And what do you want to do with the degree?

A PhD comic for every occasion!

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1413

What you want is the PhDcomics forum (when it ever comes back online), or the Chronicle of Higher Education forum.

The Chronicle Forum is populated by PhD students through emeritus faculty, with nice sections devoted to post-docs- Job Searches, early TT positions, etc.

The PhDComics was mostly PhD students, post-docs and young faculty, with some older faculty mixed in.

What you want is the PhDcomics forum (when it ever comes back online), or the Chronicle of Higher Education forum.

The Chronicle Forum is populated by PhD students through emeritus faculty, with nice sections devoted to post-docs- Job Searches, early TT positions, etc.

The PhDComics was mostly PhD students, post-docs and young faculty, with some older faculty mixed in.

What you want is the PhDcomics forum (when it ever comes back online), or the Chronicle of Higher Education forum.

The Chronicle Forum is populated by PhD students through emeritus faculty, with nice sections devoted to post-docs- Job Searches, early TT positions, etc.

The PhDComics was mostly PhD students, post-docs and young faculty, with some older faculty mixed in.