Mr. Wonton

I've unofficially decided on a thesis lab, but my other rotation advisors were awesome people, I had a great time in their lab, and I want to stay in touch with them. How do you tell your other rotation advisors that you're not joining? In person? By e-mail? A thank you card?

Just curious. Do you, or do you find it too awkward? I was lucky to be hosted by some great students during interviews last application cycle, and even though I decided not to attend their program (or any program for that matter... reapplying this year), I'd still like to stay in touch with them. This probably goes for professors at those programs, too.

jelly shoes

I've always heard that a legitimate question you can (and perhaps should?) ask is whether the professors you're interested in are taking students. If, for some unfortunate reason, none of your three favorite potential advisors are taking new students from your cohort, it doesn't make sense to apply, so you can cross that school off your list.

Applying to 7, all PhD. I was tempted to apply to more, but the application fees were a bit much... crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!

loose seal

Novels don't go out of date, so I keep those - but I try to sell my life science textbooks as soon as I'm done using them because information in the life sciences can become outdated very quickly (math textbooks, not so much). It's difficult, since I get very attached to my books too! I tell myself that if I tried to sell them down the road to make more room in my apartment, nobody would want to take my old editions. For a lack of a better analogy, it's like... passing a hot potato.

bad romance

Your publication and conference presentations will definitely be a plus for you when you apply, as they're a better indicator of your research ability than standardized tests. Depending on your field, grad programs will look more closely at your quant or verbal. Remember, too, that it's the percentile that matters - since verbal is so tough (at least for me, anyway ), a score in the 600s is actually really good. Good luck!

It's definitely doable, and seniors at my undergrad often took grad classes as electives to fulfill their major requirements. I took a grad level class every semester starting from my junior year - my grades in intro-level courses were erratic, so I wanted to assure grad schools that I was perfectly capable of handling grad-level classes and would be able to pass my quals. However, my research project always came first (and my grades in grad classes still turned out ok!).

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Grad programs usually require that universities send transcripts directly to them. However, some online application systems list what materials they have received so far, so it makes keeping track of your transcripts easier. If it's close to the deadline (or past it), grad programs often call you to ask for missing materials. Remember that if you're not sending something directly (GRE scores, transcripts, recommendation letters), they'll understand it's out of your control, so they'll be a little more lenient on the deadlines.

good riddance

Most professors will write one letter for each student and make slight changes as they see fit (for example, if you're applying to X University and they got their MBA there, they might throw in a few words about how you're a good fit for the program). It's your responsibility to provide your recommenders with the deadlines and letter submission guidelines for each school. As for your second question, it looks like you've already answered it - if your supervisor can't provide a meaningful assessment of your potential as a graduate/business student, he/she shouldn't write you one.

Most competitive grad school applicants in quantitative fields, especially engineering, have perfect quantitative scores - remember, it's the percentile that's more important than the actual score. While your essays are the most important parts of your application, you certainly don't want to give your review panel any reason to reject you. I would spend the $160 and try to bring up that score (with an emphasis on the quant).

I assume you're asking about the general GRE; since it has more flexible testing dates than the subject GREs, I don't know if grad programs would be as forgiving about the deadline. To be absolutely sure, you should contact that department and ask them. If your friend is really cutting it close, one option is for her to list that particular grad program as a score recipient when she registers for the GRE. That way, ETS will directly send out her score report as soon as it becomes available (so she can avoid having to wait for her score report to arrive, then ordering one score report for that grad program, and waiting a few additional weeks for the scores to reach that program). The catch is that even if she doesn't like her score, she won't be able to decide whether or not she wants that program to see it.

Not at all - professors do this all the time. Besides, it's unrealistic for anyone to apply to only one school and expect to get in. The number of recs you're limited to probably depends on the professor (or, in some cases, his/her secretary who's doing the actual submission), so it's always best to ask when you get together with them in person and discuss grad school and rec letters with them. Most people I know applied to no more than 10, however. To make their jobs easier, I would give them a list of your schools along with their respective deadlines and instructions for submission (for example, give them the URL where they should submit the letter).

I don't see why not - more recent evaluations of you would probably describe your potential more accurately, and if they're glowing, even better! By "multiple recs," do you mean you're applying to more than one school and want the same professors to send a letter to each one? For each candidate applying to multiple schools, recommenders routinely write one letter and tweak it to fit each school. All you have to give them is your list of schools and the deadlines/requirements for each letter.

The Quant section also looks like it's going to become annoying. I can imagine that the new multiple choice questions that can have more than one right answer - and makes you select all of them to get the question correct - will lead to a lot of messy second-guessing.

tough love

I second everything you said about MOO cards! - and no, I don't work for them, either. I just received my order of business cards a few months ago, and I'm just itching to use them. They're offering a free sample pack of 10 business cards until who knows when, so I suggest you go try them out!

Yup, we almost always use letter-sized paper over here. A friend of mine from Japan once got me a nice display folder with plastic sleeves. It was for A4 sized paper, so I had to trim the sides of all my (letter) sheets to fit them into the folder.

rubber chicken

Right, I forgot to mention that my quant score still turned out ok in the end. Didn't mean to scare the OP there! I just didn't expect the perceived trickiness/convolutedness

Ha, I'd also be too scared to trust them with my entire paper! What I do is I write each paragraph in a single WoD session - when I'm done, I copy-paste it to an existing Word document with all my other paragraphs. I also Ctrl+A Ctrl+C my text as I'm typing to make sure I don't lose everything I've written in the text box.