idiochromatic

Just like this year, if oil prices tank (and oil prices, like all commodity prices, are volatile), people get laid off. What happened this year was not a surprise (in that it ever happened, just maybe when it happened)--the industry is very cyclic. If we get back to $100 oil, then hiring will come back, too.

Both SF and Cambridge are going to be queer-friendly, but I know Cambridge better. I'm a Wellesley grad and have tons of queer women friends still in the area. They are very happy with the queer scene, and there are plenty of bars/places to go/things to do where you will not be gawked at. If your goal is academia, the answer is Harvard.

Do you have a sense of why folks leave? I think grad students at different places generally fall on a bimodal distribution of happiness. Some are miserable and some are delighted. You have to determine if the miserable ones are unhappy for reasons that would also affect you. If people are leaving because the department doesn't support parents and you're a parent, that's a bad sign; if people leave after a long struggle with imposter syndrome and you also feel that, that's a bad sign; but lots of people might be leaving because of a single track or prof within the department. I think it's worth analyzing. You can also consider the attrition to be useful in some way. People who would not get academic jobs leave before they commit the full time to a PhD, so the attrition actually works in their favor.

I didn't do an honors thesis but got in plenty of places. As long as you have independent research experience--which it sounds like you are pursing--and can communicate clearly about it, I think you will be fine

Dangerous advice. You might not want to worry about reputation in terms of name recognition among lay people (although that doesn't hurt!), but you do want to look at the outcomes for recent graduates of the program--what postdocs they are getting, what jobs they are getting, etc., especially if your goal is to work as a faculty member.

Just to reiterate, the best way you can spend your time right now is actually going to these schools' websites, looking at the profiles of the geophysics faculty, and thinking about what projects you would find exciting. I know you are planning on doing geophysics research in the future, but getting a sense of what folks in the field are working on now will 1) help you think about what sort of research you'd want to do this summer and 2) help you whittle down your list of schools, and include other excellent programs that you've overlooked. Right now, you've just listed some of the top schools for earth science--which is great, but you may be surprised at how some of them simply will not match your needs. For example-- I really wanted to apply to UW Seattle, for example, because I love the area and the school is top-notch--no research match. The research fit is the most important (and it seems, overlooked) part of the school selection process and doing your due diligence on that will pay off with offers of admission.

fromchaos--I appreciate your point of view. When I decided last summer to apply to grad school, I had an inaccurate view of my credentials--thought I would get in nowhere, and that just wasn't the case. So what are your guys' perspectives on what makes a profile good or bad? I'm curious so I can give good advice to folks in the future. The thing with GRE/GPA is that... good scores do almost nothing for you (they won't get you in) while bad scores CAN be overcome but can also keep you out. Research experience, etc., means wildly different things different places. And ultimately, LOR mean more than probably most other things and it's hard to evaluate those over the internet.

Maybe they have funding for a PhD but not a master's student. It would be worth calling and asking.

http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/ You can live in Durham for probably half of what you would live on in Manhattan.

Friend was considering Buffalo. Cost of living is very cheap and grad students can live well there (some even buy houses, really, it's true).

Both of them have sent out acceptances and are having prospective student weekends right around now (Berkeley is next weekend I think, MIT is this weekend). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think the bulk of acceptances have already gone out.

It could conceivably help but being awarded funding and getting a department or prof to invest in you is part of what admission means. I think many departments would be reluctant to let a student self-fund if the student was taking on debt or anything less than a billionaire heir because of the risk that self-funding would cease halfway through the program.

I feel like my best advice for you is somewhat contradictory... 1) you should try to improve your GRE and 2) you should not blame everything that happens to you this application cycle on your GRE. I would take the comment about "fit" to heart (because I think he would have said "GRE" if he had to, the fact that he went with something as nebulous as "fit" is interesting). Are you communicating something you don't intend in your application materials? Based on your posts here, I think you may communicate well in person but have trouble signaling your intent in written materials.

With industry, it's less about name and more about industry connections, I think. I think it's important to be somewhat prestige-conscious--or at least realistic about your career prospects based on outcomes for other students who have been through the program you attend. Everybody wants to believe they are an outlier, but of course, most aren't.

Speaking of http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/02/university_hiring_if_you_didn_t_get_your_ph_d_at_an_elite_university_good.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

I think the difference that geoDUDE! is getting at is the difference between a rote SOP that describes what the applicant has done and an SOP that discusses what the applicant has learned from past experiences, and how the applicant's future plans and ideas have been informed by that. So it's taking the leap from "I did research for 2 years as an undergraduate, which culminated in a presentation I gave at GSA" and rather, "I was introduced to [area of interest] through two years of undergraduate research, in which I learned X, Y and Z. School A's program will give me the opportunity to do more of X while also integrating A, B and C to answer innovative new question S." Maybe your app did exactly that. None of us have seen it and this isn't a blast on you--this is most helpful for future applicants. Nobody is saying that you're wrong to be concerned or worried--you are only human--but the tone you take in an SOP and the maturity level there is really important.

You could consider GeoCorps or a range of other jobs. I worked in a field incredibly unrelated to geo after graduation and it only benefited my application. O&G are unlikely to be hiring right now. So if you are blocked from grad school this season, don't worry if you find yourself working in an unrelated field and gearing up for next year. For the GRE: if you consistently score poorly on standardized exams, it might be worth investigating an underlying cause. If there is an learning disability, you might qualify for some accommodations that would help you perform to the best of your ability.

Not true--for people who are not independently wealthy, student debt is usually the only way they can finance an unfunded PhD. Your perspective about finding funding is useful and appreciated here. Any conversation about going to grad school unfunded that ignores student debt is unrealistically optimistic. If we are talking about doing an unfunded PhD--we have to talk about student debt. Maybe you're willing to split the difference and say, "Don't do a PhD if you have to finance it with student debt."

It's great that you are enterprising and have a good chance of success. However, it's foolish for students to take on graduate debt without the likelihood of a job that will allow them to pay off their debt after their studies. That just isn't the case for very many PhD students outside of, I don't know, students studying things directly relevant to pharma or tech or finance.

MIT has some acceptances out for EAPS. There may be more to come as people decline. I know somebody has heard a no from Caltech but I don't know anything else about Caltech or Berkeley. I recommend emailing your POIs to inquire, if you've been in touch with them before.

Pretty sure it's a joke, though (and by somebody who didn't do their research... Harvard gives ABs and SBs, not BScs, and Harvard grads are usually fastidious about making the distinction, because for those in the know, it's a way of saying "I went to Harvard!" without having to say, "I went to Harvard."). But it yanked some chains, so good for the poster.

I don't think this happens, though. As GeoDUDE! and others have mentioned, once you have a GRFP in hand, you're likely to be welcomed by many schools, since you have your own funding.

Nobody here can tell you, unless we have a sneaky VT adcom member in our midst. You could call next week and ask for more details on the situation. General advice is to keep the contact with the admit office as low as possible; if the wording of an email or something is keeping you up at night and a phone call to the office will answer it for you, then I'm all for making the phone call.

I think they are probably saying that either 1) they haven't been able to get to your application yet, and so you shouldn't be discouraged by hearing nothing from them yet, since they are still working through a backlog or 2) you are on the waitlist right now. Probably the first. I don't think it indicates a rejection either way.

Yes, I think this sounds like a suggestion you should take seriously. Your POI knows a lot more about the internal dynamics of the university and if they are telling you to reconsider, you should listen.