Bohme88

I applied to Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences for PhD program. I have talked with PI before submitting the application. I have 3.9 GPA from Master , 2 publications and one paper as the lead author under review in a great journal and plenty of research experiences. I think PI really likes me but, he said he doesn't have funding right now. He still asked me to apply for it and is willing to seek out funding options for me. I may be a very strong candidate as the program fits me, my background and future goals like a glove plus competitive academic profile. I am scared that I will get rejected because PI cannot show the funding this year. He recently got hired so, he is very active academically and applying for funding actively as well. What is the likelihood that I will get rejected? Any advice on anything that I can do?

Thank you very much for the thoughtful response! This is very very helpful. I think I still need to seek grant writing experience.

Thank you very much for your kind response. I am not exactly sure what you meant by "funding". Would you elaborate on that?

I am preparing to apply to Stanford's Bio sciences and Earth System Science for PhD program. Did people who got admitted talk to the professors first before they submitted the applications? They must get dozens of emails from desperate students every day. Do Stanford professors even respond to the emails even when the candidate has the possibility of getting in ? Do they wait the admission committee sieve the applicants first and talk to those who get shortlisted or admitted? Let me know if anyone of you have luck getting response back from Stanford professors?

I am planning to apply to Stanford's Earth System Science for PhD program next year. I am an international student but, I received both my Bachelor and Master degrees from the United States. My undergrad college was a small college from Midwest but, relatively well known. I did my Master at the OSU. My GPA was below 3 during undergrad due to medical conditions I was going through. I took 2 years off after graduation and worked as lab technician for those years. I worked my butt off during Master degree and finished it with GPA 3.95. I will have four 2 peer review papers as first author and 2 extension publications (one as first author and one as second author) which will be published or at the stage of being reviewed by the time I apply the school. There is another public policy paper that I will be writing in collaboration with an developmental organization from Asia but, I don't know it will be published by that time. My previous GRE score was 305 for verbal and quantitative but, I am retaking it again soon. Do you guys think my very low undergrad GPA will be a problem for Stanford when I have 3.95 from OSU? Please let me know if there is anything I can improve my stat.