BioBio

You should definitely contact him. In many fields it is the professor agreeing to work with you that is the determining factor in your acceptance.

My understanding is that the GRE is the least important part of the application. Research experience is probably the most important component and is tied with letters of recommendation though, so I would definitely work on that and be sure to just get a respectable score on the bio GRE.

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What's the procedure with accepting the award? Do you ever actually meet any people affiliated with NSF or is it all through the mail/email contacts?

a friend of mine got his interview email today. i have no knowledge of their admissions process though, so if they do invites in waves or stuff like that i'm not sure.

I am looking to apply to ecology/fisheries programs for the fall of 2011. All of the profs I have contacted have said that I need external funding to get into their lab (i.e., from fellowships). 1. How do schools make acceptance decisions based on ability to procure funding when fellowship announcements are in April, but many grad school rejection letters are sent in February to March? 2. Since I am applying to many programs and don't know which one I'll be going to, this means there are many different areas I could be studying in. Do I just write a research proposal on a hypothetical concept and use this for my fellowship application? If so, what if I'm studying something different than what was on my research proposal? Do I still get to keep the fellowship? Thanks

No, only a select few animal behavior, physiology, etc. studies involve unnatural animal suffering or death. These experiments require a permit that is only given "if the ends justify the means" and they are not given if a high level of overt pain is allowed. I cannot remember the name of the permit, but perhaps someone else can. Also, people that cause undue suffering to animals are basically thought of as jerks even within ethologists, and a paper that makes use of this kind of suffering is in all likelihood not going to be published or funding given in the first place. Simply put, there are an infinite number of life science experiments that do not involve animal suffering and within these, only a small number justify the use of mammals, as they are more difficult to care for and breed in relation to other animals (e.g. crickets) that are more tractably used for behavior studies. So no, one could easily progress up through doctoral and professional biology studies without causing any real harm to animal, especially a mammal. Remember that mammals comprise only an infinitesimal portion of the scope of life, even eukarya, and research can be performed in any of these fields. Hope this helps!

So here's my story: I graduated this Spring from Gonzaga University with a 3.4 and B.S. in Biology with 158 semester credits (all electives in math, bio, and chem), my GRE scores were Q 89th V 76th AW 92nd, I have three independent research projects completed and a semester of research in a professor's lab, and a job in environmental regulation for the government. This past fall I applied to 9 ecology programs (3 MS, 6 PhD: SIO at UCSD, UCSC, Hawaii, Oregon, UW, Western Washington, UC Davis, UCSB, and CSU LB) and was rejected by all 9 without so much as an interview at any of them; these schools ranged from some of the best in their field to honestly pretty bad ones. Throughout the process I had sent out over 100 emails to professors explaining how our research interests were similar, a few ideas for my own future research, and briefly mentioned my qualifications. Out of all of these emails, 2 professors responded that they were accepting students. (One told me how great the program was and how hard it was to get in along with a laundry list of additional qualifications that he required, including computer programming and boat captaining experience and the other revealed that his website didn't accurately portray his interests that were more at a micro level.) So I began calling professors; all of them but two acted like I was some aspiring actor trying to get a role in a big movie and repeatedly told me how great their program is and how hard it is to get accepted and completely blew me off. Of the remaining two, one told me to email him in a few weeks as he would know if he had funding then (I did, he ignored repeated emails and then I couldn't get him on the phone again), and the other (a University of Washington prof) told me to wait until my application was approved by the school. Here's where the situation came to a head: My application was approved by the University of Washington and I called the prof back. He told me to come to the school so we could meet. So I flew out to Seattle on a Tuesday night that week (huge plane ticket price) to meet with him. Wednesday morning I show up to his office ten minutes early just to be sure I'm on time and he shows up a full 27 minutes late. We meet for a grand total of 12 minutes. I give him my c.v. and a research proposal I had written specifically for research at his lab and he hardly looks at it. The next ten minutes are an ackward and forced question and answer session regarding "cool facts" about the organism he studies and finally our conversation slows. He smiles and tells me that he hopes I didn't come to Seattle (on a weekday, mid semester, with 2 days prior notice) just to see him. He then asks if I would like my research proposal back. He doesn't ask a single question about the research I've completed, any academics, or what I'd like to by getting my degree, and discussed nothing of working in his lab or any of his current research. At this point, as I'm walking away from his office and thinking about the money I spent on the dress pants and shirt I'm wearing along with the last minute plane ticket, I just about throw in the towel. In one last effort, I email every professor I'd contacted before and this time quite a few respond, but only to tell me that they've already picked their students. So I'll be doing a field research oriented post-bac at UW this year racking up some more undergrad credits. Awesome. Anyway, to those of you that got in, how did you contact your major professor and eventually get them to sponsor your application? It seems that everyone I contacted wouldn't give me the time of day and I wouldn't be surprised if my application didn't make it to a single prof's desk; I just feel pretty scammed by the whole process. (If I sound bitter, I'm sorry but it's because I am; this process sucked my life away for a solid 9 months just to end up out over a thousand dollars and throwing more money at a school next year).