burgundywave

Not an admission offer, but I received a request for interview at my top choice school 1 month earlier than expected the morning of my birthday! Best birthday gift ever.

Hey there! I'm going to visit 3 schools in the same area all at once. They are my top 3 choices so I don't think I'll go visit the other 3 I applied to in order to save everyone's time and money. Plus I'm already missing a lot of important school stuff (still an undergrad trying to graduate) to go to these visits so I don't want to miss any more days of school!

Hey y'all, I was lucky enough to be accepted to UCSD (Scripps) and Caltech and invited to visit Stanford for a prospective student weekend . I haven't been officially accepted to Stanford yet but if I am I want to be prepared to make my decision! I will be visiting all 3 schools in February. If I could I would attend all of them as they are all very good research fit, I could see myself living in each city and they are offering similarly generous funding packages (assuming Stanford would offer me a similar package). So, in your opinion, which school offers the best overall grad school experience? I'm applying to geophysics PhD programs. Thanks

@Miner 49er Also applied to the Geo curricular group and the Scripps Open House is Feb 18-19. Good luck

Yes, same here! So far my two acceptances came under the form of informal emails from POI. I wish they would still send nice letters like in the movies.

@magnetite I had the same issue as you and I just got accepted to their geophysics program so it doesn't matter. I think they do have it, it just doesn't update on their checklist.

Thanks for the advice! My interview was yesterday and I initially thought it went ok. But the more I think about it, the more I think I screwed up. I shouldn't have answered that, I should have mentionned that, etc, etc. Hopefully it wasn't as bad as I remember it!

Any suggestions of good questions to ask the POI at the end of the interview?

Glad to hear that! Hopefully mine will be similar!

Yes, having specific papers to discuss sounds like a good idea. Thanks

So I just found out that I will be having a skype interview with a POI at Stanford for a PhD in Geophysics. I'm pretty stressed out about it and don't really feel prepared for it. Do you guys have any advice, tips and experience with this kind of interview? Any help is appreciated! THX

I'm glad to hear that. Thanks for your help!

Alright, I think I'll stick with 3 LORs then. Thanks @fuzzylogician: no, he knows me pretty well. At first he said he didn't have time and when I insisted that a letter from him would really mean a lot he said that I should have told him that I didn't want to do grad school with him. If he had known he wouldn't have given me the research position. He never asked what my future plans were when he interviewed me. Anyway, we're in pretty bad terms now so I can't really ask him to co-sign the letter. How bad does it look though to have a postdoc writing your letter without the prof co-signing it?

My original plan for my recommenders was as follows: Recommender #1: Current research supervisor & professor (pretty well-known in my area of research) Recommender #2: Summer research supervisor & professor (famous in his area) Recommender #3: Professor & Dean of my program. However, I just asked recommender #2 for the LOR and he said no. It was a definitive no, there is no way I'm getting a LOR from him. In substitution of Recommender #2 I will ask a post-doc I was working with in that research group. It's a good thing because he's in a way better position to evaluate my abilities than the prof. However, he is not a prof. Because Letter #2 will be perceived as a LOR of "lesser" quality by the admission committee, I'm thinking of submitting a 4th letter to compensate for that. The 4th letter would be from a prof I've been TAing for for nearly a year. However, his area of expertise (finance) and the course I'm TAing has nothing to do with what I want to research/study. I know for a fact that he would ask me to draft the letter for him because my friend asked him for one before. So, what do you guys think? Does anyone have experience with submitting a 4th letter? Thanks!

Alright, super! Thanks

Hi all, I'm a Canadian student and up to now I was intending to apply for the Fulbright scholarship. However, the deadline is fast approaching and I don't think I can have all my material ready by then. I could if I were to dedicate most of my energy to this particular application but I would rather focus on my PhD applications. On the positive side, I do intend to apply for NSERC funding (the Canadian equivalent of NSF) once I become eligible (applicants going directly to PhD from undergrad only become eligible once officially accepted in the program (so I will be applying for funding for Fall 2017)). I will mention that in my application so that they don't think that I haven't considered applying for external funding. My question is whether not applying to the Fulbright scholarship can affect my chances of getting admitted to PhD programs in any way? Do schools really consider this in their admissions criteria? What would you recommend? Thanks

Thanks for your input! And yes, I'm currently taking a foundation design class but it's still too structural for my taste :/. I really enjoyed the geomechanics class though, that's what led me to want to study geophysics. I definitely expect my final semester (I'm doing my undergrad in 3.5 years) to be hectic between engineering design courses, a design project, a technical paper, a finance class for my minor, TAing a finance class and possibly a research project in addition to the whole PhD application process! On the bright side though, I will have 6 months to relax between this crazy semester and grad school. Also, my school allows me to replace an engineering design class with a research project, so I can do a bit of research while (hopefully) still maintaining my grades.

Also, I was wondering, when applying for a PhD, will I automatically be considered for a MS if they don't think I'm good enough for a PhD just yet? (Assuming the school does offer a MS)

Glad to hear that! I do know how to code in C/C++, so I'll make sure to point that out in my application.

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately, doing an honours thesis is not a possibility in my program (civil engineering) :/

Super I will do that! And what about the fact that I don't have a BA in Earth Sciences, does that reduce my chances significantly or it doesn't really matter?

Great, I will do that ! Thanks again, that was really helpful.

Yes, that makes a lots of sense, I will definitely try to approach POIs as soon as I figure out my exact area of interest. Since you seem to know a lot about the application process, do you know how long in advance I should contact these POIs if I am applying for Fall 2016 ? I feel like right now is too early because they are still in the process of admitting Fall 2015 students. Thanks for your input!

Hey there, I have indeed looked at what the professors are doing at each university but the problem is that I haven't had any real research experience (or class for that matter) in geophysics yet (hopefully this will happen over the summer and after). Thus, my research interests are still very broad within geophysics and that is why I can't identify exactly which supervisors I would like to work with yet. The universities I have listed there are just the ones I would like to attend in general but that will most likely change when I know exactly what I want to research. The fact that I still don't know what I want to research and that I will have to start applying in less than a year makes me think that I might not be a good enough candidate for a PhD just yet and that I should rather focus on a MS for starters. Anyway, Thanks for your answer!

Hey everyone, I'm currently completing a civil engineering bachelor degree with a focus in geotechnical engineering at a top Canadian university. During the first 2.5 years of my undergrad, I was intending to pursue grad school studies in structural engineering for high seismicity zones. Turns out structural engineering is not my thing and what I really want to study is seismicity itself and not its effect on structures. Course-wise, I have taken 1 general geology class, 1 geomechanics class, 1 geotechnical engineering class and will try to integrate 1 geophysics class in my curriculum in my last semester. Studying engineering, I also have a strong background in math, physics and programming. I have two main questions: (1) Considering that I do not have a BA in Geophysics, what are my chances of being admitted in a top university in this field? (2) Should I be applying for a MS or directly for a PhD if a PhD is ultimately my goal? Here is my profile: Undergrad Institution: Top Canadian university Major(s): Civil Engineering (Specialization in geotechnical engineering) Minor(s): Finance GPA in Major: - Overall GPA: 3.95 Position in Class: Top Type of Student: Canadian female (French is my first language) GRE Scores (revised/old version): Q: 162 V:168 W: 4.5 (predicted scores) Research Experience: At university: - Summer research in seismic structural engineering with famous professor in this area - Summer research in environmental geomechanics with famous professor in this area - Summer and Fall research in geophysics/seismicity (this one is not certain yet) No publication Awards/Honors/Recognitions: (Within your school or outside?) 2 x NSERC-USRA awards (Canadian government undergrad research assistantships) A 3-years scholarship that paid for my undergrad tuition Dean's honour list Pertinent Activities or Jobs: TA for an engineering economy class (3 semesters) Applying to Where: Stanford UC Berkeley UCLA Caltech MIT Harvard Any comments/advices/experiences would be really helpful! Thank you!