Kitkat

I would have to say that you will probably be fine. Many schools give less weight to the first two years, then the final two years, based on the fact that the last two years tend to be harder (as your course work shows). Therefore, that you improved so much is a good thing. They will probably take that into account. All I have to add to that is maybe mention your improvement in your SoP, and if there was a good reason for it mention that as well.

Straight razor

I think that all rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, both the NRC and the US News & World report. With the NRC it does seem to be missing some important information and doesn't include all of the universities in the US. But the same sort of thing can be said of the US News ones. The US News ones just tell you which ones have the biggest name recognition, which isn't always the best thing when looking at grad schools. In my field the name of the institution isn't as important as who I am working with and what I am doing. So I guess what I am saying is, it depends on what you are going for really.

As waddle said before, geosciences is a small field. To waddle, I still plan on trying to get my credentials up anyway. And I plan to talk to a lot of people in the departments that I am looking at. But for example, with UChicago, since they can vary so much in acceptance rate from 10-35% from year to year, and I am assuming other programs might vary this much as well, and just not letting it be so obvious, is it something to not look at so much? I am starting to wondering what I would need to do to get into these programs, and what the chances are (Wish I could be psychic). As for "safety" schools, they are just the ones that I have lower on my list, that I might also just have a better chance of getting into.

It's just that lately I have been looking at a lot of them for even the really competitive schools. One of the lowest is 22% acceptance rate from U Chicago. They also say that they can go from 10% one year to 35% another year, and the 22% that they have is an average of the past 5 years. Columbia seems to have one around 20%. And they also seem to have low numbers of people applying to all the programs that I am looking at. At the high end seems to be 150 people applying to these programs(but I have only seen that at U Texas- Austin and they seem to also have a much larger program compared to the others), but most seem to have more around ~70-80 people applying each year, or less. And most of these places seem to accept more like 20 students a year(of course, not expecting all of them to attend).

What do people think a good acceptance rate for putting a school into either a "dream" school as opposed to a "safety" school? I am looking at both recent and when I can, when they are offered, long term acceptance rates (those from 5 year averages). What do people see as a better chance into the school acceptance rate to the less likely to get into. Thanks!

look ahead

spring coil

I am looking at places like Columbia, Yale, U Texas at Austin, U Chicago, and a handful of lower ranked schools, including a backup of doing an MA at CUNY (which is where I am now) with the hope of being able to apply again in the future with a strong app if necessary. That was what I was wondering about. Most of the support I know about comes from the schools themselves in the form of fellowships, TAs or RAs, and generally they want you to apply earlier if you need them. I know that Columbia does it at the same time as their general application so it is not a huge issue for them. Do any of the schools you are looking at say that they help international students in anyway to get extra funding? My GRE came out to a 1310, which broke down into a V640, Q670, A4.5. I am not really happy with the Q score, especially seeing some of the statistics of some of the ave accepted students. But I am probably not going to be taking it again till next summer since I am not applying until next year. (I am getting prepared very early)

I am in a similar situation as you. I am also applying to earth science Ph.D. programs. I know that for at least some of those schools (ie Columbia, and Chicago, probably MIT) will probably want higher scores then that. I know that Chicago says that they would like to see top 15% of both the Quant and Verbal, although their acceptance rates seem to say that they are a bit flexable about that on the verbal section, but in order to to that I think you need to have strong aspects in other parts of your applications. I would say take it again (I am going to be as well to get my quant up), but do you think you could take it sooner? Are you also applying for funding? I know some of those schools have earlier deadlines for the funding applications.....

For those at the GSA conference how are the presentations going? Both yours and those that you have gone to. And any interesting new contacts through it?

I am not in your field, so take this with a grain of salt, but what I would say is see if the programs that you are applying to will take a fifth rec first. Explain the situation, saying that you think that they would get a better idea of your qualifications. If not, I think the recs that you should send on depends on what you would want to do after you get your PhD. If the work that you have done with judge is something that works well with you want to continue doing, I would say go with that.

I got my highest score in ecology/evolution same as you. But my percentile there was only 71%. But like I have said before, I am going in as mainly a geo student, with some background in bio, and the subscore that matters to me is the ecology and evolution one. But I guess what I am asking is, what is good for bio students, knowing that I might not be that good, but I do not want to be too far below either.

I would say see if there is anybody there who has a lab position open for undergrads, preferably in something that interests you, but something is better then nothing. Talk to the professors that you have, that sort of thing. As for good geology information,you can always go look at places the the GSA website or the AGU website.

No I definately have a specific focus. What I was thinking that I might take one or two grad classes that are more oriented to what I want to do in grad school. It looks like I will probably be able to fit that into my schedule, but it does depend on what I can take. I will probably talk to my adviser about that.

There dosen't seem to be that much information about it all. I know I got a 71% on the subsection of the test that is most relevant to what I want to go for, so I guess that is a good thing.

They offer general mineralogy as an undergrad here, but not the more specific optical unless you do the grad class. I am not entirely sure that I would need that class for what I would want to do. But then there is the question, is there any good point to taking grad classes before getting there. I am not saying that I am going to load up on them now, but would it help me in any real way?

So at my school they recommend that if you want to go to grad school, you should take a grad class before you graduate, and specifically optical mineralogy. I am wondering how useful this would be, or just taking grad classes in general taking grad classes before going to grad school really is for the geosciences, and if it is, should you go for ones that you would be taking if you were doing what you want to do.

I know she talks about how she put information into excel to help put in the data and compare programs. I was wondering if anyone else has done this, and how they did it. I like the idea, but am finding it difficult to reduce the schools and their qualities down into pure numbers. But I am also finding it hard to compare the schools with pure words as well. I do like the idea though of putting everything on an easily compared chart.

I want to go, but between the cost and the timing of them, can't/couldn't make it to the big GSA and AGU one. But I am going to go to the local one by me for GSA and a few other ones for fields that I am interested in.

Does anybody know what kind of scores schools look for with for the GRE bio subject tests? I am looking at geobio programs, and some of them are interdiscipliary, and am competing with bio majors as well for these programs, and that the bio departments will be looking at them. So what is a good score for them? I got a 680 (64%) on the one that I took, but keep in mind I am not going for a straight bio degree.

I would send an a quick email to all of them, letting them know some basics about you. Also, try to read at least a paper by each of them, or at least do a through look through their bio and research background so that you can ask them good questions.

Publishing at this point from what I can tell is nice and good and all, but not necessary. As for knowing exactly what you want to do when you get there is also not necessary, but it helps if you do know, and are going in with some ideas. But when you are applying should have a basic idea at least, so you know which professors you might want to work with and get in touch with. Lot's or people are telling me that this is much more important. And you don't want to get too specific because you will be working with your research adviser a lot on their own projects. This is why it's important to look at what they are doing to see if you would actually be willing to do a serious amount of work on it.

Does anybody know what is a good percentile to get if you want to be competitive for the GRE Bio? A particular percentage you should aim for?