sierra918

I'm unsure of how much methodology you share with dry-land archaeology, or if maritime archaeology graduate students really do have to be supervised by maritime archaeologists? If you could work with a non-maritime archaeologist, Laura Wilkie (Berkeley) came to mind, and there are a few people at UNC and William and Mary you should perhaps also investigate. (I wonder if you'd find smaller groups of interesting people in schools throughout the south and mid-Atlantic, beyond bioarch_fan's suggestion for where the largest groups of relevant faculty are hiding?) For maritime archaeology more generally, although I have no idea about its Caribbean strengths, I second that TAMU has a reputation for being tops.
Your profile seems competitive enough that I advise you not to refuse to apply anywhere because it's too difficult to get accepted there. Nobody's likely to get into the most competitive "tier" of schools, so be sure to apply to a broad range of places, but I'd bet that you'd have about an average shot at "top" programs. 
PS Extra advice for somebody early in their admissions research. Spend lots of time on your SOP! In graduate admissions, having good vs. excellent grades is kind of a "who cares." (Although you're doing great, so keep it up.) Instead, the statement of purpose is where it's at. If you can, I also always advise undergraduate students to apply to the NSF GRFP, a fellowship program with a great stipend that lasts for three years, which is due in September of the year you apply to graduate school. My application got handed back with a "trololol" stamped on top (approximately), but it was still an excellent exercise for clarifying my mind and figuring out my research ideas before I wrote my admissions essays.

Honestly my paper that I submitted with my applications was a paper written for my history department in undergrad. So just as long as it's your strongest writing sample that's all that really matters.

Just in case he never submitted it, this year's RFP stated that you would not be disqualified of one of your recommendations didn't make it on time. So, as long as your other two made it, you should be fine. Good luck!

You know what?  Because you can't do anything and you did your best, you need to repeat after me:
Fuck that guy.  Fuck that class.  Fuck that rotation.
I know we're supposed to use professional language, but sometimes you just have to drop a few F bombs.  There is nothing you can do to change it other than move on.  Work hard to do well in your other classes, choose a different rotation.  Identify what you could have changed and make it a point to work on those things in the future.  Do you need to learn better study habits?  Do you need more of a work-lab balance?  One failure doesn't constitute an entire career of failure.

I agree with everything fuzzylogician said and recommended.
Just wanted to also emphasize that your graduate transcripts will not be very important in the long run. I am applying to postdoc positions right now (just submitted three today!) and out of the ~14 positions I plan to apply to (for this fall), only one of them even want to see transcripts. So, while one failing grade might mean academic probation or some extra measures within your department in the short term, in a year or two it will be pretty much meaningless. And everyone will leave with the same degree, no matter their GPA! The only thing that will differentiate you (and the only thing that really matters) is your research record.

Listen, this sucks but it's not the end of the world. I think that there are two levels you want to deal with this on.
On the practical side, failing by 1% is a pretty cruel thing to do to a student. Maybe there is a way to make up that extra point. I would start by talking to the professor and expressing the desire to do whatever possible to get a passing grade. You may get a no for an answer, but you will have lost nothing, so it's worth a try. Especially if you had no prior indication that you were failing, even if you did know you weren't doing great, that is something to mention. Students shouldn't be caught off guard like that, they should know and be given the opportunity to improve their work. 
On the emotional side, two things: first, it's ok to feel bad about this, and you should allow yourself time to be upset and to recover. But at the same time, you should also put this in perspective. It's just one course, and not even a required one. You are doing well in your rotations and it sounds like you did well in your other classes. One failing grade doesn't define you -- your work and track record do, and they are positive. So while I am not expecting this to make you feel good about yourself, you should not let it bring you down more than it should. It's nothing more than a temporary setback that you can recover from. Your professors don't think you're a joke, you are not the first or only person to ever struggle with a class, and it doesn't mean you can't be successful. The skills that make a person a good researcher are actually quite distinct from the skills that make someone good at coursework. Don't give this more importance than it has, and don't assume facts not in evidence.

You are definitely not out of the race just because a POI doesn't get back to you.  Professors are generally pretty busy and a lot of them aren't great at responding to emails.  I would focus on polishing up your SoP/writing sample/personal history and get your other documents in order.  At this point in the application process I think it's important to hone in on factors that you can control - stressing over things that are out of your hands is only going to serve as a detriment.

Oh, bummer! Yes, this is totally a real thing that happens. I have not been in exactly this situation, but I've seen rumblings at the edge of it. What follows are a couple sets of ideas, some better than others; I've also included some of the most obvious cons of each idea, and I'm speaking from experience on few of them. I am not sure how much traction you are going to get if these professors aren't comfortable talking to you—any of the female students—at the official holiday party (!). They should be managing this themselves, so I'm cynical about how much things will improve, but hopefully one or two of these ideas will help you shift the dynamic in a positive direction, even if you don't eliminate the problem. The organizing principle is, these are all ways to break up the current (bad) group dynamic in ways that are cheerful, non-threatening (specifically in a way that will reduce your professors' resistance to your interventions), and difficult for them to avoid.
First, where is the male student in this? It sounds like he isn't be in your cohort, so this may not be for you to do, but somebody with whom he is on speaking terms and has studied or worked with him for at least half an hour in the past should try to get his help fixing this. He should never ever ever—excuse my emphasis—be standing with a group of male faculty at an academic-social event without any other students in it. If he sees this happening, he should call some of the female students over (1-3), or, if he's too 'shy', he should (outside of such gatherings) encourage female students to interrupt the all male-groups and (in the moment) make sure to welcome the entering students into the conversation. Another good strategy would be for him, next time he gets a beer with one of the professors, to say, "hey, you know it would be really great if Jane and Maria came too," so that a pattern of group happy hour beers starts to emerge.
If he is an avowed non-feminist and you know this about him, a couple of his friend students might ask to be invited along to the next beer without mentioning any gender equity reasons for this intervention. If he is sufficiently greedy for attention that even this does not fly....I'm sorry for you, that's very selfish of him. Or, just do it yourselves. "Hey professor so-and-so, are you going to that talk? Do you want to get a beer afterwards with me and Kat?" Or, "Hey my supervisor so-and-so, do you want to come out with me and all your other three advisees?"
Another one I've heard of, in more business settings, is for people to bring their partners, and that afterwards, that gesture proves the relationship is on a trustworthy footing even when the partners stop coming. I think this would not apply as well to academia, unless their partner works in a closely related field, or how you could suggest it, but I did hear people saying it had worked for them.
A final point: do not lead by fixating on having beers alone with anybody, or trying to deny that to the male student. ("If they won't have beers alone with us, they shouldn't do it with anybody!" No! Danger!) I worry that this is obvious and I'm overreacting to you just venting, but that's a horrible idea. Because you're at the beginning of the more social side of these relationships, the word for the semester is equity, not equality. It takes time to develop the relationship to the point that you're hanging out alone with a faculty member. The male student has that, and you don't, yet—it sounds true that the reason you don't have it yet is sexism, but do not start off with a crusade to get the faculty to refuse to have drinks with anyone alone. First, you have to develop the groundwork out of which hanging out alone might more naturally come. Once you've seen how that goes—if the faculty are generally receptive, but there's a lingering pattern where many of the faculty are still hanging out with the male student, and only the male student, very frequently—it might be a policy worth suggesting. (Or if more male students enter and the pattern extends that way.) In most departments, that would be a cutting off your nose to spite your face kind of situation, but I'm willing to the admit that a few departments exist where maybe this way of achieving a particular facet of equality is the best of a bunch of bad options. If one male student continues to get a one-on-one beer once a month with one faculty member, or twice a semester with maybe two faculty members, write it off as them having clicked particularly.
In general, although I have great, supportive relationships with several older male professors, it is disappointing that I don't have any close female mentors in the same way. Some of this disappointment, however, is global for our demographic cohort of young, professional women. I end with this article because your situation is very bad and I didn't want to be interpreted as fatalistic at the beginning: you can absolutely do a lot to make this better. However, I think milder forms of this problem will persist for us as long as we're early career: I liked how this article captured my mix of frustration about this and optimism about changing those dynamics myself someday, so I wonder if you might like it, too. http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/cant-find-a-mentor-look-to-your-peers.html

The fellowship specifically says this in the eligibility section:
Membership in one or more of the following groups whose underrepresentation in the American professoriate has been severe and longstanding:
• Alaska Natives (Aleut, Eskimo or other Indigenous People of Alaska)
• Black/African Americans
• Mexican Americans/Chicanas/Chicanos
• Native American Indians
• Native Pacific Islanders (Hawaiian/Polynesian/Micronesian)
• Puerto Ricans
 

I wish I were more patient... Waiting for GRFP results AND grad school results makes me anxious when I remember them!

Hi,
I am writing this since I have been in your shoes. I found this site back in 2007 when I was applying for my master degree and then I revisited it when I was applying for my phd and now I am an assistant professor at a major university so I have done the full circle and finally found the time to post some advice to you all. As a professor taking graduate students, normally 2 a year, I never take a student who doesn't email me. Then I encourage visiting the school if at all possible. This shows me the student is serious about the school. However, I understand money can be tight but I look kindly on students who take the initiative to set up phone conservation which also proves they want to study under me. And then once I have my short list of 5 applicates, I set up Skype interviews with them. I do this mainly because I personally fund all my students and will be working closely with them. Our personality cant clash. When looking at the applicates, applicates with less than 300 on the gre goes directly into the rejection pile since my university will not approve them. Next I look at their research interest/statement of purpose. Their research interest must fit my research interest since I fund all my students to work on my research so it would be an injustice to that student if I accepted them. Once they make that cut, I look at letters of rec's. Most professors are completely honest. I am in the Bioarch/physical anthro field and it is really a very small field and every time we do a rec it is our reputation on the line. And then if it is from my former phd advisor I will call mainly to say hi and then check on the applicate. I hope this helps. I do email the students I accept by march since I know the grad school can be slow and sometimes it takes up to a month for them to send out the letters. Feel free to private message me, however I am busy so it may take up to a week for me to respond. And I wish you all the best luck in this application season and who knows one of you may be my future student. 

Yeah, it's definitely a crapshoot. :/ My reviews were glowing, but I probably got reviewers who overall gave high scores, so that lessened the impact of my all Es.

I don't see any problem with that. I'm starting my first year and doing my first rotation; I probably spent about 1/3 page talking about that, but I looped it into my new interests as pertaining to my proposal. 
Also, that you can get E/E * 3 and still get HM is testament to the crapshoot that we are applying to.

Who are these professors? They are doing you a disservice. You will not have time to write books in a PhD program. It is also completely untrue that the only way you will have time to write and publish is in a PhD program. There are many jobs that will give you enough time and flexibility to write what you want. (It kind of depends on what you want to write - if you need lots of research funding to do archival research or fieldwork in faraway places, that can be hard to do without institutional backing, but you won't get that much money to do that in a PhD program, either.)
If you don't know what you want out of a career, don't get a PhD. If a PhD doesn't make sense to you, definitely don't get one.

I think you're severely overestimating how many people had some traditional middle/high school "typical" relationship. And how impactful that experience is on the rest of us.
 

I guess I'll be the person that speaks up about this, but...all your posts seem really off (for lack of a better word). 
It seems really condescending..like everything you're saying seems really condescending. Before branching into relationships, I think you should work on just basic social interaction with people first because you kind of lack a little bit of empathy, respect, and tact.
Just my two cents. 
P.S. why even hook up with people you find repulsive? A pity fuck? Cause that's pretty gross on your part.

Hi Visualizer,
I am a little confused about what you want. In the first post, you ask "what is the best way" forward and your post title mentions "catching up", but then in recent posts, you say that you don't want to grow quickly. I think it's important for you to consider what the others have said so far, especially the parts that you disagree with. I'm not saying that you have to change everything about yourself suddenly or do a whole bunch of things you are not comfortable with. 
But, growing does mean that you have to be willing and ready to get a little uncomfortable. I think you can and should decide which parts can be uncomfortable. The reason why I said I was confused is not because I don't understand the difference between wanting to grow and "not wanting to grow too quickly". I do see the difference. However, you asked for advice on the "best" way forward and as I said above, growing requires a little bit of discomfort. "Not wanting to grow too quickly" is a subjective term that could mean something different for you than it does for me or another person reading.
I think you have mentioned that you are working with someone to help guide your development. This is good. Have you talked to them about your desire to grow and venture outside of your comfort area? Maybe you could work with your counselor to discuss your worries and concerns about growing and between the two of you, you can identify some specific areas you may be okay with getting uncomfortable. It might even help to come up with some strategies to deal with your discomfort when it comes up. And maybe you want to also come up with an "emergency escape plan" on what to do if you get really uncomfortable. 
The reason I say this is because in your posts here, you have mentioned a lot of things that you must specifically have in order to be happy. It's fine to know what you are happy with. However, it's not realistic or practical or possible to have all of it at once, immediately. So, out of all of these things, what are you most willing to give up, temporarily? Maybe you can then build your next social or romantic relationship without worrying about that one factor and see where it goes. You're not committed to giving up that thing forever. After all, I think most people aged 18-20 also aren't necessarily looking for friends or romantic partners for life, so starting a friendship or romantic relationship with someone doesn't mean that you are compromising your identity or that you have to change your own life forever. I encourage you to continue talking and working with your counselor to find the best strategies moving forward (after all, most of us here aren't properly trained for this!)
P.S. Just to address your comment on "respect". I think that you have that part wrong. You say that there isn't lack of respect, however, you immediately described your former partners in extremely negative ways right after saying you "respected" them. This shows me that you do not really respect your former partners.

I never had to 'catch up' in this particular way, but when I had my project of 'catch-up' in a couple other social dimensions, here's what I did.
Read a lot of advice columns, e.g. Savage Love. It helps you realize other people are having the same issue...or are having other issues that you now might understand a little better! I don't know how it is in computational biology, but my field requires a couple really hard (from an English background) languages. So I've spent a lot of time in language classes. One thing that everybody always talks about in language class is how it is much better to be the worst speaker of the language in the class than it is to be the best student. The way learning works, as long as you start out able to keep up at all, you will progress much more rapidly than the others. Usually at the end of the class, all the speakers are about the same level, so the more advanced ones were occasionally bored, but the lowest-level student will have rocketed up to match them. I wonder if this might be a helpful way to think about your social relationships, per St Andrews Lynx. You will likely do better to find people who are bringing something cool to the relationship, even if sometimes you're out of your depth, than somebody whose only positive traits for you are that they're about at your "social level." If that's all you needed to have in common, you might have been friends with the other kindergarteners in kindergarten. But relationships need more than that, so find the meetups suggestions and work on finding the 'more than that.' Because this seems to be a source of anxiety for you, I'd try to find a biweekly or monthly therapist, because you're embarking on a big project and it will make the project nicer if you can check in occasionally with somebody about how it's going. Try not to have sexual relations with people you actively look down on. Getting physical with someone you not just don't respect, but who 'repulses' you, is both a shitty thing to do and, if you keep doing it, will make developing a healthy attitude about sex and/or romance much harder in the long run.

Use the internet. Meetup is great for meeting people who share your interests, and the gatherings are already structured (e.g. going out on a hike, having a game night) which makes them easier to navigate. For dating, set up profiles and try OKCupid, Match, etc. You can try looking through the archives of Dan Savage's "Savage Love" - there is advice for everyone everywhere on the dating experience/sexuality spectrum. 
I'd also encourage you not to look at this as a rigid scientific process. If you say to yourself now "I can only obtain a meaningful relationship with a person who has had 0-2 serious relationships"... (i) you limit your dating pool (ii) you stay in incompatible relationships longer because you think this "should" be working (iii) cutesy-newness is overrated. Same with friendship. If you start saying to yourself that only friendships with "mentally-underdeveloped" undergrads could possibly work out...you're going to struggle to find any friends. Some undergrads are fiercely intelligent and will be able to contribute meaningfully to discussions about your research. Some grad students have plenty of friends who are undergrads. Wouldn't it be more useful to have friendships with sociable and emotionally-mature folk, so you could learn somethings from them? Part of having friends in the first place is to enjoy their company: why deliberately seek out "friends" who are awkward to be around?
I think that all good things involve plenty of trial and error to get to. You need to go on lots of dates with a variety of people to figure out who you're attracted to and what is important for you in a relationship. You need to take the initiative when it comes to making friends and be prepared for cool people to blow you off/forget to invite you to their parties. Don't assume that you are too different or inexperienced to form friendships/relationships the way that "normal people" do. Don't expect everything to be perfect the first time you attempt it. 

I tried that way first, but it looked pretty jumbled. I finally settled on an abbreviated reference style, seen in journals with very little space to spare. I've attached an image as an example.

I think you should definitely have separate IM and BI headings in both statements for two reasons. First, as was pointed out previously, the solicitation "recommends" it. Second, I think some reviewers use these headings to determine where they should pay extra close attention. At least one of my reviewers just regurgitated (almost verbatim) what I had written in my IM/BI sections in his/her reviews. I would recommend using these sections to convey the most important pieces of information that you can about you/your proposal that fulfills the IM/BI criteria.
For the research statement in particular, I was more general in the Introduction and very specific in the IM section. After all, how can you be specific about IM in the Introduction when the reviewer doesn't yet know what you're proposing to do?

One thing to remember is that faculty members are busy and aren't always great at responding to emails.  At this point in the application season I've sent out ~15 emails to POIs. About half of those faculty members have responded and of those that did most were lukewarm at best, encouraging me to apply but not showing much enthusiasm for my project. All in all I've gotten one really enthusiastic response from a POI which resulted in a rather productive phone call and some positive vibes about the program.  I also have a phone call with another POI set up for later this week but they seem a little more reserved.  
What I'm trying to say is don't get discouraged!  I used to do cold calls when I worked in non-profit development and the response rates are similar - one positive response for every 10 or so calls/emails you send out.  Another thing to consider - sometimes professors take a long time to get back to you.  The super enthusiastic POI I spoke to on the phone took 3 days to respond to my initial email; another faculty member took nearly 10 days to get back to me!  
As for faculty who don't respond, my plan is to ditch the program if it's one I was already on the fence about, and continue with my application if it's a program I feel strongly about attending.  In any case, most of the schools I plan on applying to have multiple faculty I can contact.  I think it's worth applying to a program you really like without hearing back from a POI, but that's just my personal preference.

Update:
The email to Professor A helped a lot.  We both cleared the air, and she has agreed to write my letter of recommendation!  So relieved.  Thanks for the feedback (though I know I should've come to these conclusions myself)!

Hey All! 
Since the fall semester for some of us is going to be starting up soon and I thought we could start this forum for the next round of applicants looking for help, advice, exchange ideas, and so forth. 
For my interests, primarily I study Andean Bioarchaeology and complement it with Forensic Anthropology - and will be applying to Vanderbilt, Brown, Harvard so far. I'm sure I will add more schools as the semester goes. 

Whenever I hit this point on any paper, I always put away my computer and take out my notebook and pen. I might write long form or I might outline, but I try to put down what I'm thinking, even if it's a mess. Somehow, it feels less formal and final than typing it in.
"Writer's block is a lot like constipation: sometimes, you just have to work it out with a pencil."