waddle

I somehow made it onto the mailing list of the UC Riverside College of Engineering Ph.D. programs' recruitment campaign a few months ago (see, it's funny 'cause I've no intention of applying to engineering programs). In the months leading up to their application deadline (I believe it was sometime in January), they blasted me with email reminders about how great it'd be to join their up-and-coming college and how they are "quickly gaining a reputation for producing world renowned research and world class students". They also waived the application fee for domestic students--a nice touch I guess. But this led me to wonder--if they needed to waive the application fee, how difficult is it really for UCR to get a good number of applicants? Well, turns out, it looks like it's been a rough year on their side of the fence. They've extended their deadline for applying for full funding consideration twice now (they're still accepting applications--at least for BioE--, if you're interested), and they've even allowed applicants to enter their estimated GRE score! (I quote, verbatim: "You can enter your estimated score and still submit if you are still waiting to take the GRE." ) Sounds like they're really getting pretty desperate now. So for y'all who are having a rough time with admissions now, chin up--it can get pretty ugly for the grad schools too! Just wanted to share.

You should contact the department secretary / graduate admissions coordinator about it and explain your situation, mentioning that you are still very interested. I'm sure you won't be the first one, and they should be understanding. Best of luck!

I've gotten a few notifications like that, but I kinda just brush them off. Don't over-analyze (easier said than done).

parker: Yup, applying to more schools might be a better strategy; may I ask why only Harvard & Yale? I'm guessing your interests lie in hard-rock geology?--Yale doesn't have too great of a biological emphasis, so I'm not familiar with the department there. Good luck with the GRE and your applications next year! I also have a non-traditional background (undergraduate degree in life sciences) for Earth science programs, but at all the places I've applied to, it hasn't mattered too much. Having some geochemistry research experience also helps, I guess. Feel free to come hang out in the Earth sci. subforum--we don't post much, but that doesn't mean we don't check it often!

I've attended two visits, albeit not with other prospective students. One was an interview, and the other was post-admissions. I wanted to be comfortable on the first day, as I was flying in, taking public transit and walking, so I wore a sweater & jeans with sneakers. I was expecting to be trudging in snow, so I brought the most beat-up pair of sneakers I had (we don't do boots where I live)--and what did I find when I got there? That the snow had already melted! I'm pretty sure I didn't leave a good first impression , since I didn't realize East Coast standards for formality of dress are half a step higher (i.e. East Coast casual is almost like business casual). It might be wise to dress ~business casual (assuming you're a guy, button-down, slacks (or at least dark jeans--wish I had those), and dress shoes (or black sneakers--wish I had those too)), but if you're visiting a school in California, non-trashy casual will probably suffice. Also, don't bring shoes you haven't worn before to a visit day. That might be painful.

In my field, there is one program that has infamously difficult qualifying exams. There's a high pass rate (~90%) but mostly because the students get so scared of failing that they study nonstop for 2-3 months before their quals. What I hear is basically that the exams are designed for the faculty to understand what you don't understand--and maybe to beat you down a little bit, but hey, that's just part of grad school, right?

NSF GRFP

Ridiculous. Don't do it.

What I've heard is that financial aid (at least need-based) will increase proportionally, so there shouldn't be much need to worry too much. But the people who really get screwed are the ones who barely don't qualify for financial aid. Times are a-changin', like it or not.

What's your subfield?

I won't be going to the Open House of one of the programs to which I applied--the event is smack in the middle of my final exams. But I'm heading over there (cross-country) on a different date. They bought the airfare & found housing for me, so I didn't have to pay anything up front. Ten thousand miles can't be good for my grades, but hey, they don't matter much anymore, right?

I wait for nothing. (At least, that's what I tell myself.)

it probably helps if you make a good impression (and if they remember you visiting--of course, you'd help jog their memory by slipping in a phrase mentioning talking to certain professors on your visit in your SOP ). If you made a bad impression, then it's probably a disadvantage.

I don't have a LinkedIn (like you, I'm not planning to move away from academia) but do have an Academia.edu profile that has nothing but a short version of my CV on it. I linked to it in my emails to potential advisors (instead of attaching it as a file); I think that worked out fine. It pops up when people google my name + my university.

I'd imagine the work that you do during your Ph.D. studies (and who you work for, of course) is most important to landing a job. But your productivity depends on the resources available to you--the bigger the program, the greater the financial resources, and the better the facilities, the easier your research will be. So it does pay to go to (e.g.) Columbia as opposed to (e.g.) Utah, all other things (advisor, funding, etc.) being equal.

You mad?

Cool story, bro.

Ditto. I figure I will post all my results after the entire process is done. I look at the results board as more of a guide as to approximate notification times (using previous years' data), than an actual results ticker, but I don't think that's a view that's widely held.

can you get this in LaTeX? that would be awesome!

I hear it's pretty good. My hunch is it should be nice if paleontology is your thing, but keep in mind it's very new and as such doesn't have the established track record of a lot of other Earth history programs.

Things not to say/do: Well, it's not like you had a shot anyways.Reality check, eh?How does that feel, mate?<point and laugh>Cool story, bro.So where else did you get rejected from?Even <insert names of other people they know> got into there! And I thought you were better than them!

Some people will scream academic incest, but there are plenty of sucessful scientists who have done this. My impression is it won't really matter in the long run, though it's always good to get exposed to how things are done at other places. Yes. The research process is more or less the same. Technical skills won't matter much, since you'll have to relearn most everything anyways once you move to a new research group. Any specific interest in inorganic? If you're into applied research, material science or engineering labs often do stuff bordering on inorganic & analytical (microfluidics & whatnot). There are also plenty of inorganic environmental chemists, geochemists & oceanographers (particularly the latter at UCSB). So you have no idea what you want to do. That's okay! Get more research experience, for a start. It'll help immensely in shaping your interests.

A month-long research experience isn't very much, unless it was full-time. If you'll be getting a letter from the professor, then definitely tack on a few sentences about your research. I figure it's always better to be able to describe what the 'big picture' of the project was and your specific role in the project in your statement, even if you haven't done a lot of actual work on it, than to have done a bunch of technical work, but have no idea what the purpose was. In other words, knowing it is better than doing it (if you don't have both, that is). Can you go back and work with this professor some more over the school year? Any data-analysis work you could do that doesn't require you to actually be in the lab, but still allows you to contribute to the project? Toggle multiquote for all posts you want to quote. Then go to the bottom of the page and click add reply.

It's the Lake Wobegon effect ... i.e. "all the children are above average". We've had a debate over grading at my university, and it was argued that our current grading scale (where the definition of a "C" is "average performance") does not reflect reality. Grades in most classes here are generally centered around a B-, not a C (though some professors do curve based on a Gaussian distribution around C), so the definition of a C as average is self-contradictory. There's been a movement here to change the definition of a C to something like "attained learning outcomes". To my knowledge, nothing came out of this, but there's bureaucracy for ya.

I've been browsing through the lists of alumni posted by graduate programs and professors at my prospective graduate institutions (you know, those "where are they now?" pages), and I've observed something odd. Seems to me like the alumni of Ph.D. programs at very prestigious private institutions (I'll call them "Ivy" schools--see note below) overwhelmingly end up in one of just a few career tracks soon after graduation: (1) for the lucky/superstar ones, as an Assistant Professor (that is, tenure-track) at an R1 university (those with 'Very High Research Activity' in the current Carnegie classification); (2) as an Assistant Scientist or Assistant Research Professor (non-tenure-track) at an R1 institution; or (3) have fallen off the face of the Earth (more like still slaving away on soft money somewhere after a postdoc or three). I have only come across just a handful of names of former students who are now employed at a no-name state university or a community college. Assuming that basically all (>90% or so, from what professors tell me) of the students who attend these graduate programs based at Ivies that are highly regarded in academic circles actually wish to stay in academia on the tenure-track after receiving a Ph.D., why aren't there more of them employed at these (less-well-regarded) types of institutions? Is it because Nowhere State University (at which a professor's research/teaching ratio is ~40/60 or less) won't hire a Ph.D. from Columbia, orbecause your average Ph.D. from Columbia wouldn't want to work at Nowhere State University (and would much prefer a >70% research job, even if it means relying on soft money for their entire career as a research scientist, given the competitiveness of the academic job market)? TL;DR: Does a Ph.D. from an "Ivy" restrict your academic job options such that it makes it difficult to obtain a position that is not primarily focused on research? Thanks! waddle P.S. This question is most relevant to the STEM fields, but feel free to chime in even if you're not in the natural sciences/math/whatever. Thanks! P.P.S. I'm using "Ivy" in a non-strict sense to encompass all very prestigious private institutions with huge research output (think not only Columbia, but also Stanford & co.). Also, yeah, I picked on Columbia today. Sorry Columbia people, if you're out there. P.P.P.S. Although I posted this in the Jobs forum, this is more relevant for my decision as to which Ph.D. program to attend (i.e. non-"Ivy" but still R1 graduate institution (the alumni of which tend to find jobs at Nowhere State Universities) vs. an "Ivy"), as I intend to stay in academia after my degree, but hopefully in a position in which I can do at least as much teaching as research.