moochie

I am definitively on a waitlist for the last school I'm waiting to hear from. At this point I'm more anxious to hear back about the NSF GRFP and NDSEG since winning one of them might get me off the waitlist. I work full time in an office environment and am getting restless in these last few weeks. Anyone have suggestions for productive ways to spend down time at work so I stop mindlessly refreshing my email every minute? I read literally every article on google news each day already. If nothing else, I've become a very informed citizen.

I've been waiting so long to hear about the NSF GRFP (and NDSEG) that they don't even feel real anymore. They are just these abstract concepts that I mention in conversation and say I will hear about "eventually." But now eventually is two weeks away! It's going to be the longest couple of weeks ever.

Anyone know how Scripps COA and Geoscience do their offers? I know some people have been invited to Open House Weekend and some have been accepted, but on their website it says most offers go out in Feb/Mar, and continue into April? It also says that the Open House invites don't necessarily go to all the top candidates (seems hard to believe....)? They're the only school I'm still waiting on and it'd be nice to know if I'm still a legit candidate, am on a waitlist, or am just in a reject pile so I can move on with my life and start making decisions (and freeing up spots at the schools I don't choose.) I'm assuming waitlist or reject pile, but that little nagging uncertainty about my status makes it hard to let go of the idea that UCSD is a possibility. It's weird knowing that in a month and a half, April 15th will have passed and I'll be done with this whole process and have chosen where I'll be spending the next 5 years of my life. April 15th is so close, but still feels so far away.

Also, I think this chart is kind of interesting when talking about GRE scores between disciplines. http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table4.pdf It breaks scoring trends down by academic major. Physics majors actually score on average a combine 317, while psychology majors score on average a combined 301. You could argue that implies that for a physics major to score 300 shows that they are seriously below average compared to other physics majors, while for a psych major to score 300 it shows they are approximately average when compared to other psych majors. Obviously that doesn't account for gender, socioeconomic, race, etc but I still find it fascinating none the less.

You're right. UCLA's graduate psychology department says on their website that have actually have no minimum required GRE score for the general GRE or the subject GRE. 300 is just a number I've seen on a number of admissions pages in my own grad school searching (for both PhD geoscience and PhD engineering programs) that is indicated as a baseline, much like a 3.0 GPA. The topic asked for opinions on what the GRE is predictive of, and I shared my opinion. Maybe psychology PhD programs are actually super concerned with the GRE and expect everyone to score 90th percentile. I wouldn't know, I'm not a psych PhD hopeful. Even if that was the case, it doesn't change or influence my opinion that everyone should be able to score 300 with a little effort, and that the GRE is mostly predictive of a persons ability to put forth effort to complete a required task.

Pointing out my gender and score was simply to show that I had personal experience with the issue I was speaking about. As a woman in STEM who studied for and then took the GRE and did well, these are my opinions. I don't see how stating my own background with the topic being discussed is at all related to racism and Obama. I gave context to my post, and at no point said that because I scored what I did, then all women in STEM and other minorities should be following suit. I also never said that I was the norm for GRE scores. I don't think it's easy or normal for anyone to score in the 90th+ percentile on everything. That's the definition of 90th percentile. I did say that anyone should be able to pull at least a 300 combined if they put a little effort in. 300 is the baseline for most schools, so as long as you can score above it you often means your application gets some sort of holistic review where other things like GPA, past research, LOR, etc are considered. If you need to study three months full time to be able to get 300+ on the GRE then I honestly would have doubts about that persons ability to learn material efficiently. Your friend at UCLA may be the exception to that, but as you said exceptional cases do not discredit the overall trend. I took a number of psych classes in undergrad too. I know test bias is real and self fulfilling stereotypes are a serious issue with standardized testing. I don't believe it's a strong enough effect to force an otherwise totally capable potential grad student to score below 300.

I also went to a liberal arts college like GeoDUDE! and double majored in physics and chemistry, and yes, there was a language requirement (I took German and Spanish). There are also about a million other distribution requirements. That's how liberal arts colleges work. You get a well rounded degree, and wind up being required to take a lot of classes outside your major(s). It pulled my GPA down a little too, but I still got a top notch education from a top-10 liberal arts school so I consider it worth it. MIT is not a liberal arts college, so they would not have that requirement for their physics students. MIT is a technology oriented school, and they may very well be the best in physics, but that doesn't mean they have the most requirements of their physics majors. Your points that MIT's physics program doesn't have a language requirement and that GeoDUDE!'s difficult language classes are unrelated to his GPA and degree just seem misguided and misinformed to me. Also, I'm a woman and scored 330+ combined. I hadn't done the kind of math on the GRE since 10th grade in high school, so I studied for about a month beforehand because I knew I needed a refresher. I don't really believe there is an excuse for someone with a bachelor's degree to not be able to score 300+ unless they have a documented testing disability. The test is high school material. Even if you did not have a good high school education due to your circumstances, you still have plenty of time and opportunities in college to learn the basic math and vocab required to perform reasonably well on a standardized test. If you aren't self-aware enough to know if you need to study, or if you can't be bothered to put forth the time or effort to study a bit for a test (that you may or may not agree with the purpose of), then I'd argue that's indicative that you won't be willing to put forth time and effort into other things that may be required of you in grad school. I don't think the GRE tests your academic knowledge or abilities, but I do think it tests your ability to suck it up and put in enough time to do well on a fairly basic task. Just my take on the matter.

Yeah that's when it is. I said last week (not weekend) in feb cause it runs like saturday-tuesday. When I requested time off work, I requested it in the last week of feb so that's just how I have the visit labeled in my mind. Sorry for any confusion! As far as I know there is only one weekend for the official open house.

The visit weekend for top candidates (who have not yet been accepted) and already accepted students isn't until the last week of February so I wouldn't expect to hear much until after that's over and students start accepting/turning down their offers. Also, just for some perspective: in 2012 the geo program at UT had 487 applicants and only 92 were accepted. That's an acceptance rate of <19% so statistically speaking it's entirely possible that none of the three people from your school get accepted. Grad acceptances come down to research fit and available funding and a million other factors. Well qualified candidates get wait listed or rejected all the time even if they look great on paper. The seemingly random and unfair nature of it all can make the whole process extremely stressful, but it is what it is. At this point in time it's just a waiting game, and worrying about it won't change the outcome. Sit back, relax, and try to stay busy with other things!

I got all my letter writers a card with photos of puppies on the front. Once I decide where I'm going I'll mail each LOR write a card with a personalized note thanking them for their time and letting them know that I'll be attending X school and could not have done it without their support and guidance.

That's awesome. My boyfriend has also been excellent about helping me de-stress when I get myself all worked up. It makes this whole process so much easier. Hopefully you'll hear back soon and it will be all acceptances! Then your boyfriend can bring you hot cocoa to celebrate.

Thanks for the congrats! I'm not entirely sure where my first choice is yet. I applied to 6 very different schools, and I'm hoping that the visit weekends will help me figure out which is the best fit for me. If I'm gonna live/work/study somewhere for 5 years, I wanna make sure it's somewhere I feel like I fit in! My stats are fairly unique/identifying, so I don't want to post them until I have gotten responses from the rest of my schools. However I can tell you that my GPA was significantly lower (sub 3.5) and my GRE was approximately the same as the person who posted about getting into geophysics, and I still managed to get admitted with a generous funding package. I really do think the grad schools evaluate applications as a whole and don't judge test scores and GPA as much as undergrad programs do.

I heard from UT Austin (acceptance into PhD program) as well today via email, but haven't posted to the results search yet. The email included information about funding and the dates of admitted students days.

I bet either the system for uploading the rec letters was having issues, or more likely there were so many applicants with missing rec letters that they thought it'd be best to extend by a day so they didn't have to DQ thousands of people. The NSF application process can seem cruel sometimes (DQ for margins, font, 3 min late, etc), but I don't think they want a ton of people who had their applications complete and in on time to be DQ'ed because the rec letter writers are struggling.