waddle

Thanks, UnlikelyGrad! I'll see if I can spot him.

770 V = 99th percentile 730 Q ~ 80-ishth %ile

Thanks! I'm not even sure what section I belong to ... my research is in hydro but I'm applying to biogeochem programs. I suppose I could attend the Biogeoscience meeting/reception, but in any case I won't know anyone there. That sounds like fun! My school won't have one, I'm pretty sure, since to my knowledge only two (maybe a couple more?) research groups here are attending the conference.

Oops, apparently the luncheons are sold out. Sorry, I'm a bit clueless as to how the social events work at conferences. Could you fill me in? I'm going for ~3.5 days, so I'll be missing some stuff too.

Good point, rising_star. I hadn't thought of that, but no, I don't think the NSF website specifies that.

try using Irfanview (freeware) to compress your images

They won't let you take anything into the test room except: (1) your ID; (2) key to locker; (3) your body; (4) the clothes you're wearing. My testing center required turning pockets inside out and a scan by a metal detecting wand before entering the room. I had the same worry about becoming dehydrated, too, but I forgot about being thirsty completely when I was writing my essays. Then I just chugged lots of water during the break and slogged through the rest of the test. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way around it; just play the game. (Heck, you aren't even allowed to have water during the GRE Subject Test (paper-based)! Yet people were allowed to go to the restroom--and I have a suspicion that some of those testers who took a bathroom break didn't actually need to go to the restroom ... Oh, ETS and their convoluted policies.) Good luck!

I've always thought it was the other way around, i.e. "Professor" is more formal than "Dr.", since not all people with doctorates are professors, but most all professors have doctorates.

Any recommendations for sessions/talks to go to?

Props to an informative summary! I don't recall having heard about this from ETS when I took the GRE a few months ago, and have had a hard time finding info about whether the essays are actually sent to score recipients (I've seen it tossed around on the GradCafe fora, but haven't found anything from ETS about this). Could you point me to where I could find info on this? But hey, same thing for most of the essays you write for your undergraduate career, 'cept you just have four years' worth of scores based on cursory glances, rather than four hours' worth.

For your reference, here is some advice previously given to people who have been in similar situations:

I'm sure the NSF Fellowship has been awarded to terminal masters students; if you look up the past awardees, you'll find that the graduate institutions of a small minority of winners are state schools with only masters programs at the graduate level. However, I would think that reviewers would be more partial to a student who is pursuing a Ph.D. than a student who would only want to finish a masters. After all, the award funds three years of work, and most masters students would take less than that to graduate. The degree objective is really not confidential. I suspect most applicants who apply for the fellowship would state in their essays that they are working towards a Ph.D./M.S. at University of Blahland (or, in the case of pre-graduate applicants, that they are applying for Ph.D./M.S. programs).

I'm sorry to hear, that's awful! Could you ask your recommender to contact the GRFP office? The people there might allow your recommender to submit a letter late.

I'm pretty sure you still do. I recall seeing somewhere that the Search Service only provides schools with your score range, not your exact score. (Actually, just found it here: http://www.ets.org/gre/general/about/tools/search_service).

I'm assuming it'll take a while to input all of the transcripts they've received in the past few days. If you're concerned they might not have received it at the GRFP office, then you could try calling them or sending them an email inquiring about it.

You should be able to find a lot of funding sources in the stickied thread:

Wow, this is mind-boggling. That's a terrible situation to have to go through, but I'll be rooting for ya! Can you broaden your choice of schools? Assuming you're in a field in which there are umbrella programs (e.g. biology), could you broaden the discussion of your proposed focus in your SOP? I'm assuming most applicants would have the opposite problem; could you state your specific interest, but also mention that you'd be willing to do work on other similar topics (even if you're not)? What you mentioned makes me very apprehensive about my applications. How can they require publishing TWO papers, both as FIRST AUTHOR? (My PI publishes two papers every five years!)

This was basically my experience, with some minor differences. Before entering the room, I needed to turn my pockets inside out, and a metal-detecting wand was also used (though I think you can opt out of this one). I seem to recall that I entered the score recipients after seeing my scores. And testers were allowed to jot down their scores on another scrap of paper that is provided (not the scratch paper booklet) after finishing the test.

Hi all, Which bibliographic format is the default in the geosciences? I've seen all sorts of things in different journals, but I formatted my NSF GRFP citations in ACS style, with which I'm most familiar. Does it matter which style is used? Thanks! waddle

I think you should give at least a week for a response. Who knows? She might be out of town (or out of the country!) and couldn't get back to you. Or she just has a lot of stuff on her plate and hasn't gotten to it yet.

One of my letter writers will be procrastinating, and told me he'll write the letter this weekend. Crossing my fingers that my Friday deadline isn't actually the deadline for letter writers.

http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/scores/get/

I don't know anything about geosciences honor societies for students, but I assume if you're elected as a GSA/AGU fellow, that's a good thing. I also don't know that holding field-specific honor society memberships is actually useful--at least, not in biology (e.g. if you're a member of Beta Beta Beta, great, but that's generally not going to help you much). I still don't know much about the geosciences, but taking a suggestion from my PI that I consider biogeochemistry for graduate school, I just began reading whatever papers / faculty websites I could get my hands on. After tracing citations and author listings for a few generations of papers, you end up back where you started--it's a small (academic) world (or so it seems). Sorry for not having much to add to this discussion. I'd love to hear anything the more experienced geochemistry/geobiology folks on this forum deign to share with those of us that are lower on the totem pole of the earth sciences academe.

A few questions for those of you who have been to / presented at the AGU Fall Meeting before: How long did you stand by your poster? And how many people stopped by your poster while you were there?Does anyone know anything about AGU travel grants? I applied for the Fall Meeting grant, and was (not surprisingly) rejected. Does anyone have any idea how many of these grants are available and what award rate is? The AGU website is very vague about the review and award process for their travel grants.Thanks!

Slightly off-topic, but you've still got 9 days until your exam. I'm assuming you're all set, but in case you're not, a week is plenty of time to brush up on (read: memorize frantically) at least a thousand words (your mileage may vary). Good luck!