BlueRose

I had never tallied it up before. Roughly $1200. Ouch. For nine schools over two years. Breakdown: App fees: $745 Transcripts: $110 GRE+reports: $345

I'm so sorry. Happened to me too. If it helps, this worked for me: 1) Repeat after me: it's not you, it's him. 2) Can you find anyone else to write a letter? I do mean anyone - the letter doesn't have to be good, it just has to exist. Did you get an A in someone's class? Does the guy three cubicles over think you're swell? Does your favorite high school teacher still remember you? Seriously, get creative. Often, incomplete applications get automatically screened out. If you've got two good letters and one vague and/or non-academic one, at least you'll get considered. (It's a good sign for you that at least one school will consider you as-is.) 3) It's not you, it's him. Curse, drink, cry, resolve to interrogate ex-students of future advisor in order to avoid similar events in the future. Whatever helps. 4) Continue the campaign of merciless badgering. If he won't do it out of concern for your future, then he'll do it just to make you go away. If you've done #2, this becomes far less soul-crushing. 5) See #3. 6) If you don't make it this year, you can try again. Last year, I had two professors go AWOL on me - both people I'd worked with for years - and I was absolutely devastated. The one letter I did get was from a first-year grad student. (Heck, I would have rejected me too.) So I went back to my job, scraped up two additional letters, and tried again. Yes, I'd like that year of my life back, not to mention those application fees. But in the long run, it doesn't matter. 7) See #1.

I think it would be fairly unusual to have more than a few months' worth of data, even as a second year. Everyone has coursework, qualifiers, rotations, etc - from what I understand, the first year of grad school goes by with little/no research progress, even if you're good. Some of the sample proposals I've seen did have data - at the extreme, I remember one which actually had a data plot. But even then, I don't think there was more than a few months' work represented. What did seem to be important was a sense that the project was "shovel ready" - that you could actually go out and start working on it tomorrow, because you'd planned it so well. Data just means you're so ready that you've already started. It's an interesting balance. The proposals are supposed to be a test of your ability to design a convincing research project - you don't actually have to do what you say, and the NSF doesn't care if you do or not, so it doesn't matter if your idea is wrong (as long as it's not so wrong that the judges notice). On the other hand, it's easier to be convincing if you have some data to support your claims. Also, if you did have a non-trivial amount of data, where would you put it? Two pages is nothing. I have only the slightest bit of preliminary data, which I mentioned in a paragraph addressing potential problems - and I had to cut the whole thing, because there was just no space. On a completely different note, I wonder how they match proposals to reviewers. What little I've heard implies that they grab a folder at random and have a go at it. That seems plausible, but I kind of hope it's not true. I applied in Computational Biology, which is shoehorned in with the rest of molecular biology. And I have a really computational project - seriously, I've got about half an Aim (out of four) that requires a wet-lab. This makes me nervous. I tried to make it as clear as possible...I imagined writing it for my boss, an excellent cell biologist who doesn't do computers. But there's only so much WTF-mitigation one can do.

I think they've phased out using an explicit pre-reading score - maybe they still give it to panelists, but I know they don't use it to make cuts. The GRE has been optional for years, but I was still surprised that they cut it entirely. I'm another one whose GRE is significantly better than my undergrad record...sigh. At least it meant I didn't have to take the Subject GRE. As for the state-based selection, I don't think it's as big of a deal as people make it out to be. As I understand it, this only comes into play if nobody from a state has made the top 7%, and somebody from that state is in the top 15%. Given ~10,000 applicants, the top 7% is 700 people...there are only 50 states. It's probably only a handful of people who get bumped up, and it gives all the Senators the chance to support their state (or at least one person from it) by supporting NSF.

I can excerpt the first article, if it helps. (My tolerance is fairly high - I came within a course of majoring in anthropology.) The good part starts on p. 26, "Into the Panopticon: Application Reading at the NRC". The author served on one of the Social Science panels, and describes the mechanics. On the statistics: "In the three years in which I was involved, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, linguistics, and "social studies" constituted the Social Sciences B (Soc- SciB) panel. There were between 18 and 20 of us on the panel, our disciplinary representation roughly proportional to the distribution of applicants' fields. In 1991...510 applications were assigned to SocSciB." Then there's some stuff about a derived score, which I don't think is still in effect; now everyone gets at least two readers before the cut is made. There is still a cut, however; if you're below some cutoff after two reviewers (<70%?) then you don't get a third. Then it discusses how the results are tweaked before being finalized: "The computer also notes all cases where there is a difference of more than 1.5 points (on the 6-point scale) among panelists for any particular folder. We are told that the computer will not accept as final any score with that degree of disagreement. NRC's concern here is not panelist amity. It derives from the underlying assumption that, as an objective phenomenon, applicant quality should be represented by more closely clustered scores. The outlying readers have to negotiate their differences and come up with a final score that can be accepted as sufficiently close to consensual. Only rarely are these negotiations lengthy, and even less frequently are they contentious. It is also critical to note that, while there has been a great deal of sociable talk around the table throughout the preceding days, only rarely have applicants been discussed. Only on the last morning and only when our aggregate evaluations are signaled as impermissible, do we talk directly about particular cases. The computer not only makes critical cuts in the applicant pool along the way and provides us with information for self-monitoring; it also tells us when to get down to brass tacks. Our final task is to make fine adjustments in the ranked list of candidates. While only members of Quality Groups I and II are eligible for awards, there are six quality groups altogether. Those candidates in QGII who do not receive awards and all in QGIII will receive honorable mentions. The 35 candidates with the highest average scores constitute QGI; they are guaranteed awards. Approximately half of the 42 applicants in QGII (the next cluster of averaged scores) will be Fellows, although the decision is not in our hands but in those of NSF. Here panelists' anticipation of those criteria that NSF will use in making these decisions becomes significant. Particularly for those of us on SocSciB, a concern that our QGII candidates stand up well vis-a-vis applicants in the sciences was critical. It led at times to slight adjustments at the lower end of the Quality Group II ranking to favor those applicants with somewhat better quantitative profiles. We anticipate our subsequent audience in determining the final membership of QGII." Then it goes into the process for choosing the people in QGII who will receive awards: "The computer first surveys all the QGI members to determine if each state is represented among the awardees. If, for example, no one who has graduated from high school in Alabama is in QGI and one is available in QGII, he or she will be chosen. ... If the state search does not fill the available slots, a second pass is done for gender balance, followed by disciplinary balance and proportional equivalence between [pre-grad school] and [current grad student] applicants." Afterwards, there is a section on what this means: "the number of proposals and the expected degree of attention and response to them always come close to exceeding readers' capacities...frequently we are working close to the limits of wit and energy." "The certainty of a subsequent and powerful audience has a real effect on one's conduct in the panel: What do you think will fly with later readers? What might not? How much of your panel-member credit will you expend on the unlikely candidate, however intriguing? And how many times can you go out on a limb?" "a concern for fairness and something like due process in treating the proposals...places such textual aspects of the proposals themselves as clarity and comparability at a premium..." "The highly innovative project or, more particularly, the proposal that changes the terms of research formulation and design, is often, even if engaging and provocative, difficult to fit into such a common comparative language. Here lies one of the costs of what I think of as the "fairness-through-apparent-clarity" model of proposal review. This apparent clarity approach is inherently biased toward an understanding of scholarly progress as incremental and therefore often leads to the favoring of more or less "normal" social-science features that are clearly linked to a sense of how "science" works. ... Proposals that promise to break new conceptual ground... are viewed not so much as "bad" proposals but as difficult to evaluate and compare with other contenders." "in each panel, some means of monitoring and calibrating one's conduct is provided. ...our initial conversational partner is a computer-generated score for each applicant, the derived score. ... The score sheet further allows us to anticipate, think about, and revise our own evaluations before getting to the discussion of particular cases." "feedback makes self-monitoring not only possible but almost inescapable. ... Few participants are comfortable as consistent outliers, those who are repeatedly more positive or negative than the middling evaluation. A set of expectations as to socially feasible disagreement... are central to panel dynamics, as well as to the criteria by which program officers select those panelists who will be invited to serve again." Basically, this is why you have to explicitly address all the criteria on the score sheet, even if you think you are totes awesome at one or two of the things and should therefore get full credit. They are trying to compare hundreds of proposals "fairly", and have to mechanically go down the list of things they grade on.

Let's quit beating the poor dead thread from last year (173 pages?!?) and start a new one. Who's with me? I'll start the proceedings with a collection of links. First, I have one of the best descriptions of the NSF process that I have found. It's a bit dated (1991) and written in the style / jargon of an anthropology journal article, but if you can get past that, there's some good insight on how they make decisions. Discourse and Discipline at the National Research Council: A Bureaucratic Bildungsroman Next, I have a sample essay that...well, I'm fairly sure it wasn't funded. But you might like it anyway. Harnessing Geothermal Energy for the Eradication of the Energy Crisis, Global Warming, and Zombies while Defeating Social Injustice in Education and Providing Free Heath Care to All Americans Finally, I have posted my own essays for posterity. I think they're pretty good...but we shall see. As the Demotivators poster says, perhaps their purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. Simulated Evolution for Synthetic Biology: A Case Study on Biological Counters Enjoy. And then quit refreshing Fastlane every ten minutes...it's not April yet!

For a person without much academic experience, there isn't much difference between a CV and a resume - and I think schools expect that. I second the suggestion of looking for grad student CVs; that's what I did when I was making mine for the first time. On mine, I have: Name and contact information Research Interests: the two sentence version Education: school, degree, year, brief summary of coursework Research Experience: who, where, when*, and a few bullet points of what Publications: okay, the plural is ambitious, I've only got one... Posters: more than one! page 1 over. Invited Talks: this is unusual, I had a project go viral on me Teaching Experience: where, when, who, and what subject Awards and Honors: not my strong suit, so it hides on page 2 Selected Media Features: also not usual, but I'll run with it Skills: this is a resume thing, but hey I had space * I went to my undergrad career center and they told me to leave off dates. I ended up compromising and putting in the year only. That way it's less cluttered, less obvious that I only spent a semester at a couple of those jobs, and more obvious where I was in my career at the time (before/during/after undergrad). Also, I paid the bills teaching, but I'd still put down a job that wasn't academic (maybe add an "Other Experience" section). If you spent 20 hrs/week waitressing to pay tuition, that would be impressive, even if it's not going to be mentioned on a grownup CV.

I wrote the first paragraph as a brief summary of my interests: how I got there, where I was, and where I was going. Then I had subheadings for the same, but in professional language (and with previous research last). I can post my first paragraph; it ain't Shakespeare, but I think it works. <quoting self> After years of research in synthetic biology, I have only one tangible result: a healthy respect for the challenges of designing biological systems. My research interests are now focused on making it easier to do so. In particular, I am interested in computational methods for revealing effective design principles in biology – systems biology for synthetic biology. Ultimately I hope to lead a research group in this area, either in academia or industry.

You might make it clear that you know you won't be working with this person directly. Something like: ...I am attracted to Blah U because of its long tradition in whatsitology...With Dr. Young and Dr. New, I hope to study...guidance from senior figures such as Dr. Emeritus would enrich my studies...blah blah accept me.

Princeton was the same way, only requiring a scanned transcript. They were also the only school that allowed me to upload a real CV (as a PDF). No attempting to reproduce a CV in plaintext, or worse, having to copy-paste each entry into some stupid web form. More schools should do this.

I'll post mine. I'm a re-applicant, switching from synthetic biology to systems biology / bioinformatics. GPA: 3.5 from top school, Bioengineering major (less than a 3.3 in-major, though). GRE: 800 Q, 800 V, 5.0 AW Lots of research experience. Worked in labs throughout undergrad and since graduating in 2008. One paper, 4th author in mediocre journal, in chemistry, from my first lab job in high school. One real poster (2nd author, in aerospace, so also not related) and two retreat posters (sole author, somewhat related). LORs: Unfortunately I made the mistake of working for raging procrastinator PIs, so I have a few letters conspicuously absent. The letters I actually have: one from my current PI (not in my field, but a big name), a former boss in industry (in my field, but now a second-year grad student), and one from the head of a biology outreach program (not a scientist at all, but she likes me). American student, with no diversity elements to speak of. I have more red flags than a Communist soccer game. Was planning to re-apply after doing another year of school, but decided at the last minute to give it a shot this year. (It costs HOW much to do a postbac?!? Do not want. Not unless I absolutely have to.)

I do think there is some field-to-field variation. My sense is that it depends on how cohesive a research group usually is in that field. In the experimental sciences, groups tend to be highly cohesive. (When you have an array of specialized, expensive, difficult to use techniques at your disposal, it is very much in your interest to keep using them.) Therefore you see generic SOPs in the vein of "I want to study explosions. With Prof. Coyote in fuse dynamics and Prof. Nofingers in grenade construction, Boom U is a great place. My research experience is..." If somebody likes your background, then it's a question of whether they have a project to match; it's not in your interest to pretend your interests are more defined than they are, because then it's harder to match you. For the humanities, and to some extent in theoretical science, I get the impression that groups are looser. There might be a shared theoretical approach; maybe the advisor is doing Marxist histories, but the topics range from 16th-century basket weaving to 20th century theme parks. In that case, you really do have to come in with a project idea, because nobody's going to hand it to you. They don't want you to sit around for half a decade trying to come up with something. I'm closer to experimental sciences, so I kept it fairly generic. Of course, I still had to convey that I knew what I wanted, and that I had enough exposure to know what a good research question looks like. I mentioned some ongoing projects as examples. But I didn't come close to writing a thesis proposal. What I did do was include my NSF fellowship proposal as a writing sample. It had a cover note saying what it was, and that it was intended as a sample of my ability to design a research project. Maybe that would help split the difference?

Prof. Uberleet is a known procrastinator - as in, didn't get tenure because of it, it's that bad. But he's still at Top University decades later because, well, he's Uberleet. I think he's still planning to turn it in one of these days - I gave up pestering him after two months. Prof. Famous is just busy. Last year, he was getting married and setting up a new research institute, so it just never got done. After six weeks of long-distance stalking, I sent him an email more or less telling him to go fuck himself, and to his credit he apologized and wrangled me an interview at his new university. Wasn't enough though, particularly since he knew I wasn't going to work for him (although it wasn't just that, my interests had shifted a bit). And I'd already been rejected everywhere else. Prof. Famous is back this year, but I had the sense to get a fourth letter for the schools which would allow it (3/5 did). And sure enough, it's a week past the deadline for most of them. The letter exists; he submitted it for NSF, by some miracle. And I worked for him for years, and he apparently thinks I'm brilliant (has said this to third parties), so I really want that letter! Argh. I'm currently trying to think of a professional way to remind him that I'm bigger than he is and I know where he lives.

Story of my life too. Adcom 1: *reads SOP* Hey, this is pretty good. She's got a plan, she's got experience...oh wow, she worked with Profs. Famous and Uberleet at Top University. I bet Prof. Smith could use this one for his new grant, which she even knows about. Adcom 2: *reads GRE* Damn. A perfect score? Adcom 3: *reads transcript* Hm. Have you seen these grades? Not a whole lot of A's. And the only math class is a C. Adcom 2: Well, I guess if Famous and Uberleet liked her, that's good enough. Where are those LORs? *rummages through folder* Adcom 4: They're over here. One is from a second-year grad student, and another from some admin on an outreach project...positive, but what do they really know? This third guy is faculty, but it doesn't sound like he knows her at all. Adcom 1: Meh. I guess she wasn't any good. Glad we dodged that bullet. *checks box marked 'REJECT'* (Frankly, after last year, I'll be happy to be discussed - my apps were incomplete, thanks to Profs. Famous and Uberleet not sending letters, so I got the auto-reject. I want to fail on my own merits, TYVM! )

hungry hippo

I second the nomination of Stanford, for its 15-step form with no option to skip between steps, and its desire for multiple transcripts. You asked me for a scan too (which I don't mind), so if you want N extra copies, why is it so hard to print N instead of N-1? You can put my $125 (!!!) app fee towards buying another piece of paper. I also nominate Berkeley (from last year), which refused to send LOR emails until the rest of the app was submitted. I had already asked my references and submitted other schools' requests before realizing this, and then had to explain "where's Berkeley?" as I scrambled to finish my app. But I think the winner was MIT (also from last year), which not only wanted an itemized list of courses I had taken in each discipline, but also wanted the textbooks used in each. Dude, that was a while ago - you think I remember what book I used in freshman calc?

This happens, particularly if someone is interested in you and knows someone you've worked with. Not just the references you give them, either. Last year my boss got a phone call from his friend at My Top Choice U...which took him by surprise, because he didn't know I was applying. (Oops. And no, I didn't get in. But I didn't get fired!)

What program did you use to scan your transcripts? I would be surprised if it didn't have a way to specify image quality / file size. I don't think free Acrobat reader does it, nor does the basic Windows picture editor. But I'm pretty sure there's freeware out there that will.

Happened to me too. Decrease the fidelity of the source image until it's small enough (no, don't shrink it; you need to save it as a jpeg or something else with lossy compression) and then resave it as a PDF, which will be basically the same amount of memory.

I will do yours if you do mine! I'm on the biology end of bioengineering. Yes, it starts with "As a child...". I apologize in advance.

The "good fit" thing...I got that too. And I don't even have a specific project (but I do have fairly strong opinions about where my field is going and what will be useful ten years from now). Remember, they want minions to work on whatever project is heating up right now. They want to know you have the ability to focus and drill down to the details of a specific projects (see: NSF proposal)...they just don't want you to have actually done that yet. For practice is OK. "No really, X is my thesis topic" is not. Seems like a kabuki dance, but there's rational behavior under there...they want good minions to build their research empire and get *their* NSF grants done.

I've heard that too. I have also heard that they will give the recommender a couple extra days if they call and ask, but I wouldn't count on it. I just submitted my app this morning - four references listed, eight hours before the deadline, and not a single one has turned it in. Is it too early to start drinking?

Add me to the list. I applied to only four schools - I was testing the waters. I graduated in 2008, with one of those uneven profiles: rocked everything else, but my GPA was mediocre at best. (I can only blame late-stage adolescent rebellion...100% my fault, unfortunately.) With that GPA, plus a missing letter (argh!), it just wasn't going to happen. I've got potential - but nobody cares. Scratch that, my mom cares. But she's not on the admissions committee. Therefore, I need actual data to support my argument that I do not, in fact, suck at life. I'm still debating what the heck to do. It's clear that what I need are references - not having enough killed me. And it's also clear that I'm not going to cough up $50K/year to do a terminal masters. (I'd like to pay off my student loans before I retire, dammit!) So here's my tentative plan: 1] Stay in my job for the upcoming school year. I'm in an academic lab, which does stuff that can be spun (with effort) to be relevant to my interests. I was hired to do grunt work, but there are a lot of resources here. Should be more aggressive in using them. a] During (1), take a math course per semester to beef up my background. And take the Subject GRE. And take a practice run at NSF, maybe. 2] Starting in the summer of 2011, take graduate-level courses (part-time). Not enough to get a degree, but at least two should be done and graded by the time applications go in. a] With the rest of my time, I will get a relevant job - working for free, if I have to. Need another reference. b] And apply to a whole lot more than 4 schools. A dozen should do. It goes without saying that I will need to kick ass in all of the above. But if I do...2012 is my year!...and if it isn't, I'll finish the masters, get a reasonable job, and have a good enough life. But I'm not done yet. Bring it on baby!