Kitkat

I think I will start counting that as a special new group. Since new and continuing grad students also go through a similar situation.

Now you are making me concerned. I am looking at paleo, but I was getting the impression that with paleo that it was better to go straight for the PhD with paleo, especially since there is not much you cannot due with much in paleo with just a masters in the field. I mean, don't get me wrong, I applied to a few MA programs as well, but did I just cripple myself in comparison to my compeition by applying to straight PhD programs? edit: I mean is it just the best of the beat of the undergrads who can go straight to a PhD or is it more like a 50/50 kind of a thing?

A lot of the people as undergrad's also fear being 'over-educated' as far as say jobs for working for oil companies. Does anyone know how that works? (I personally am looking for academia so it is good to hear that for the most part either/or in the long run might not be a problem) but if you want to work in a more practical field, how does it work?

I am thinking about applying to work at a museum that I would like to work at as a grad student as well as a back up, but only as a plan B. Then there is also plans C, D, E, F and so on at this point. At this point, plan 'B's at this point are any jobs that can help me improve my chances into grad school next year. This is only my first year applying to grad school, and as other people have shown on this forum, second times a charm, if I don't get in this year, maybe with more work I will get in next year. After all, we are in a recession, there are possibly more better applicants this year then normal. Not that any of us are worth less, just that there is more competition this year.

That's the thing. I was advised by one of my letter writers(old school) to apply to more MA's to give myself more options later for PhD's, so that I don't get too specific too soon. At the same time, he is an older prof and says so, and that a lot of stuff is much more focused these days. He would like to see more general acknowledge of all info, as well as specific knowledge, which he thinks a lot of programs seem to ignore these days. I can see his point, but I don't want to loose out on a job in the future if I want to go into academia due to a lack of focus in topic (which is where my current PI(new school) is academically).

It's a bad situation that you ended up. That is obvious from what you have said. What I question is your assumption that being able to read your LOR's (aka waiving your right to read them or not) would have really helped. This looks more like a cautionary tale of having a backup fourth LOR just in case a situation like this should happen, if possible. In a case like this, with professors, like students, bad thing happen at the worst times, that they can't get around. It sounds like your professor meant well, but was not able to follow through, and it negatively impacted you. The best situation would have been if you could have had a forth person to look to, in order to give that professor an easy out. But since you didn't and the prof knew you depended on him tried to the best of his ability (which apparently at that point in time not great, and not thinking about the possibility of helping you find someone else to do it) and in the process doing you more disservice then help. I say this with the fact that he did not give you any indication that he could not give you a good rec. For that you should have a pass. Unfortunately that is not how it generally how it works from what I can tell with ad comms. They tend to see it to some degree the applicants ability to be ontop of everything, including LOR's, which are the most uncontrolable aspect of the application process, as your experience shows. I even at this point have to accept the out come of one application because one of my LOR's didn't finish one of the assignments. I have to accept the fact (in the mind of ad comms) that I was on top enough and started early enough to make sure that these people had enough time to finish everything on time, taking in account that anything and everything can (and probably will) go wrong.

All I can think right now is that of the 4/5 schools that I am still waiting for them to hear from the first round of acceptances to hear back from. And with that they have an idea of how many spots they still have to offer. I am just hoping that it is more spots rather then less for my sake.

Is there a major difference between what you can do with a MA vs a PhD? Is an MA in a geosciences or environmental field any use other then another method to get a PhD? I am sure that this is also dependent on the field/ career that you want to go into. I hear that when you want to go work for an oil company or something like that you are better off just going for a masters (but at the same time I have seen PhD's working for them as well ... ). Academia of course it is almost always better to get a PhD. I guess what I am wonder is if it is looked down on if you get an MA first and then a PhD, if you eventually want to end up in academia?

Only 14 more spots ... and so many applicants .....

Same here. I get the feeling that quite soon the title of this thread might become literal. I think I might crack soon and start contacting schools myself soon.

I think that for the programs that I was looking at, there were no cutoffs. At the same time, there were average GRE scores of admitted students at some of them. And it seemed that at the competitive schools they were generally ~1300-1350 at the competitive schools for PhDs.

I guess that it depends on the field and the department?

All good to hear, thank you guys! I think with the one school where I have heard about interviews for, the program is rather interdisciplinary, and I was looking at it for the geology/biology aspect of it. So to sansao, in this case interviews might be more of the case because of the other fields involved, not just the geo aspect of it. And to guttata, since I have not heard anything either way to what these interviews mean, or if there will be a second round, I am just going to think that they are not completely done with me yet.

I am jealous in a happy for you way. I'm glad to hear that you are having a great start to your application season. Hope to be following in your footsteps to a grad school soon!

You know, oddly enough I am feeling the same way about that. It's a nice thought, but still I am worried, since I am not in yet. So many people are making me worried with the thought that if you didn't get the interview, you're basically out. At the same time, I keep thinking that if that were true, why don't they just send out the rejections and get it over with rather then continuing giving me hope? Gah this whole thing is frustrating. I wish I knew what was going through their heads..... Does anyone really know how important the interviews are for schools, or do we take it on a school by school basis?

I think that when it comes down to it, my first emotion to follow was not being horribly suprised or upset by my first rejection, but rather a fear for the rest of my applications. Supposedly one of the schools that I applied to has started to do interviews and I didn't get an invite for that. This makes me more worried then the rejection.

Yeah, but from what I can tell, and was confermed to a degree people in geosciences tend to apply to a small amount of schools compared to other fields. It does seem to mainly be based on fit, as you said. But at the same time, if you find some good fits, then there is a better chance, at least in my mind, in getting into a program at all. Or at least I hope. But at the same time, one rejection is also increasing my desire to work on my plan B/C at this point.

I know how you feel. First response for me was a rejection as well, and it was about the same type of situation as well.

You're right, people are starting to hear back from Columbia! *crossing fingers*

I am also vert paleo, but going more for biostratigraphy and chemostratigraphy with it. I applied to more schools then you, and am still waiting to hear back from 5/6 of them. Congrats on getting into a program though. I hope that you hear about the funding soon!

I contacted a few of the professors there who's research I was interested in, but he wasn't one of them, although his stuff is interesting. Just wasn't quite what I was looking for grad work. But if I end up there, I might still have contact with him. Nice to know that he is good to work with. ;-)

Right now things that I am are doing to keep myself busy at the moment. 1) Watching Murder, She Wrote, and playing the game of how many guest stars ended up in Star Trek or Lord of the Rings 2) Reading for all of my classes 3) Catching up on all of my own reading from stuff from christmas 4) Playing video games (including a Diablo 3 beta) 5) Looking for a job for after this semester 6) Eating lots of chocolate