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Continue doing what you're doing! You are doing great so far, especially with the grades and research. Whether or not you need to take the GRE Subject Test is going to depend on what programs you apply to. Identify potential graduate programs first, and then look at their admissions requirements. To identify programs for you, one way is to ask your professors where the top scholars in your area are doing research. Another way is to read articles in the field that are cutting edge or exciting to you, and then find out where those authors are located and if they are still doing research in those fields. If you can, visit a regional or national conference in your field and start networking - go to talks that look interesting and talk to the presenters afterward. (Bonus points if you present yourself!)

If you don't have any research experience and any coursework in your areas of interest, then I would say your chances of admissions are pretty small. Professors will wonder why you want to get a PhD in your field if you don't have coursework related to and haven't done any research in it - that means you don't have any experience doing what it is you say you want to do as a career. The fact that you don't have good recommendations or a good writing sample just compound that. If you really want to get a PhD in this field, it seems that you may need to take a few years to prepare for that. Getting an MA may be just the way that you do that - it will give you an opportunity to develop a writing sample (likely your courses will require at least a 10-15 page paper); you will develop relationships with more professors and will be able to take courses in the area in which you wish to do research; and you can also get some experience doing scholarship in the field.

It depends on your field, and it also depends on what you ask them. I don't think that asking for feedback on your application is necessarily a good idea unless you had a personal contact with them ahead of time, simply because they do see so many applications and are unlikely to remember yours. The people who should be giving you feedback are your current/past professors and any supervisors you may have now who are familiar with the process. But if you want to contact professors to ask them if they are taking students, or to discuss their research with them, that's different. You can definitely do that.

^Oh yes, I would agree that in addition to at least calculus I you should take statistics and probability (probably in a math department) if SIPA is emphasizing quant to the point that they want a resume about it. And no, nobody is going to care about your SAT II scores. That's for college admissions. Graduate school is another ball game.

I got a Keurig from my cousin for Christmas. It's like one of the best gifts I ever received. MMMM. Coffee!

You can still do that. I am also very social and find it easy to let my mind wander when alone. During the course of my graduate program, I met some friends and we formed working circles. We'd bring our work (laptops, writing, whatever) to a central location and just write/read/do whatever together. No talking - although sometimes I had friends who liked periodic 20-30 minute check ins - just writing. But the thing is in graduate school most of your work won't be "light work," so a lot of it will require focus and concentration and you may prefer that alone. Still, you don't have to be in solitude. You may be granted a desk that is in an open work area with other graduate students and research assistants, so you can work there among people. Likely your university library will have study carrels and open tables, where you can sit and work - you won't be talking to other people, but you won't be alone, either. I tend to work really well in a quiet library with headphones in, because I don't feel lonely but there's also nobody distracting me. I've grown tremendously and have come to really value solitary time. Solitude doesn't have to mean shut up in your apartment - you can go into a public park and read books or articles for several hours, or sit in a coffee shop and work amongst people. I can't work in quiet, so coffee shops are great - the buzz around me becomes pleasant white noise and I can write for hours! You can also meet people in grad school. Join a few grad student groups; join a social or professional organization in the city you move to. You can meet friends in different fields to hang out with during your downtime.

I agree that you should take your high school classes off there. They're interested in undergraduate quant work and any quant work you may have done in your professional career. A 168 on the GRE will definitely boost your application, but I think you should take calculus I at least. Many of the economics and statistics classes are based in calculus or at least heavily related to calculus. Of course, not all SIPA students have had calculus, but it will strengthen your quant resume.

I have free time in grad school - you have to make free time. I have a Mac and I love it. I was worried about compatibility issues to but it turned out to be a non-issue. I purchased VMWare for $40 from the Apple store and my university allows us free access to Windows OS, so I have it if I need it, but I rarely use it. For PCs, Lenovo and Asus are good. Toshiba is also a good brand. Don't get a Sony. They're flimsily constructed and overpriced.

It depends on the field. In one of my fields (psychology), Stanford and Harvard would be great, but a degree from UW-Madison or Michigan would actually be better than one from Berkeley or Cornell. In general, academia does tend to be prestige focused. For example - in my field, the professors at Stanford and Michigan (both top programs in my field) tend to come from other places that are like Stanford and Michigan. Generally speaking, you can't get your PhD at Compass Point U and end up at Harvard, Stanford, for Michigan. However, Stanford PhDs can end up at Stanford or Michigan or Harvard - or they can end up at Swarthmore or Wellesley (top liberal arts colleges) or UNC-Greensboro (regional university campuses). Yes, it is definitely the connections for one. My advisors at my top 5/top 15 program (two different fields) are familiar with the very top researchers at other top institutions, and through them I have met people in my field making the moves and changing the field. If they write me a recommendation letter for a job at one of these places, that faculty member can call up one of my advisors or recommenders - who they may have gone to grad school with or collaborated on a paper with - and chat about me for 15 minutes. One of my advisors has literally written the book on the research method I use, to the extent that when I go to conferences and say that I work with this person people immediately know what I do. To that end, they assume that I know what I am talking about when I use the method in my work. But there are other things, too. Going to a big name school means access to resources you don't have at other places. I can borrow a book or get an article from several other top universities, which gives me access to millions of volumes and journal articles. I can't remember any time in my 5 years here that I couldn't get a book or article I wanted. And even if I couldn't…I could ask our librarian to buy it for me and it would be here in a week. Or my advisor could buy it for me with one of his grants. The people who do scanning in my department have access to several state of the art fMRI scanners, and other expensive equipment they need. It's stuff like that that can make a difference in the quality of your work. But that doesn't necessarily mean the name of the SCHOOL, but moreso the reputation of the department/field. The #1 department in your field may be located at a university that doesn't have great name recognition, but the department itself is baller and has resources out the wazoo for anything you want to do. Subfield is important, too. My secondary department is top 15 in my general field, but wouldn't be a good place to come if you were interested in stereotyping and prejudice research or, like, child development research. If your intent is industry, then the actual name of your school matters more. It is! You do! It is! And in my field(s), professors do tend to shuffle around the top field - so that a tenured professor at Columbia may move to UCLA, or a tenured professor at Stanford may move to Michigan, when a position opens. Sometimes the position isn't even advertised, but the deal is brokered between the chair of the department and the deans and provost or whatever. In my own top 5 department, I can remember ONE assistant professor that was hired in the last 5 years and he was/is a superstar. In the other department (top 15) we hired 2 assistant professors in the last 5 years and both had crazy publications going back literally 10 years. One was already an assistant professor somewhere else - another top 10 school in my field. The other one has a first-authored paper in Science and was a postdoc for 5 years, which is unusually long in my field.

PhD students don't usually live "at or near the poverty line." The poverty line in the United States is ~$10,000 for one individual, or ~$14,000 for a family of two. Most PhD stipends are at least around $20,000, which is about the poverty line for a family of four. So if you are in a family of four, maybe. My stipend was on the higher end but I also live in a high CoL city. It's not fun to make it work on $20,000 (or $30,000 pre-taxes in NYC) but you won't starve, either. And generally speaking, we're getting paid to get a degree. I think as long as stipends keep pace with the CoL in a particular area, they're fine. But I do cast aspersions on the programs that offer less than a $20,000 stipend or - worse - don't offer any stipend at all, and expect doctoral students to borrow money to survive. The academic market sucks seriously. Some fields are better than others. But it's largely because of the changing face of academia. Tenure-track positions are being phased out in favor of contingent labor - adjuncts who get paid $3,000 per class; graduate students forced to teach 2 sections of freshman comp a semester while writing the diss in return for an $18,000 stipend. I would say that the only reason they can do it is because we are willing to do it for them, but it's hard to say that to someone trying to feed their family or complete their PhD while still eating. I myself am trying to find another part-time job to supplement my fellowship (which is now $22,000 pre-tax, because my NSF ended. Not enough in NYC!) but I can't teach anymore because I could make far more working part-time in a research position or even as an administrative assistant somewhere than I could TAing a section of stats. I used to grouse about my workload, and then two things happened. One, I finished my coursework and exams, and suddenly I only had to do work I actually wanted to do. Working 60 hours a week isn't so bad when you are reading and writing on topics you're passionate about. And two, I realized that any high-profile, high-prestige career I would have at this stage in my life would demand the same or more hours and studying. I could be a third-year attorney in a firm racing to bill hours; or I could be a medical resident trying to catch a few hours in a cot at the hospital; or I could be a young consultant working 80 hours a week flying all over the country…basically, any other job I also considered doing besides a PhD would require the same amount of work as me. Some of them might make me more money, but they wouldn't have the flexibility of a PhD program nor would they open the jobs I want to do (I don't really want to be a corporate lawyer or a physician). So why a PhD? Because I wanted to be a researcher, a consulted expert in my field. I wanted to change the state of knowledge about my particular area (the application of social psychology to public health), and I want my research to be used to improve the health of millions. And as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I am actually enjoying the later years of my PhD program and I am starting to believe that it is actually worth it.

My feedback is similar to St. Andrews Lynx. 1. Focus on improving your mental health and physical health. Hash it out with your psychologist; journal, exercise, make sure you get good sleep. Try to find your happy even in a bad situation. 2. Do anything to get out of the house. Volunteer - maybe there's a nearby church with a philosophy you agree with that needs a part-time youth minister/pastor or Sunday school teacher or whatever. Maybe there's a cultural organization you care about that needs a volunteer to do something. You can put volunteer work on your resume/CV! 3. Do look outside your field for ANYTHING that seems interesting and pays the bills. Many people find fulfilling careers outside of what they majored in, and are sometimes even surprised and how their own field applies to the new field.

My master's program (public health) had very few tests. My epidemiology class had two tests - a midterm and a final - but other than that, most classes had no tests. I think it's less common for master's programs to have tests; much of the graded work is papers. And often, your classes ARE only based upon one paper or 1-2 tests during the semester. It's grad school; they don't want to give out a bunch of little homework assignments. The real test is whether or not you can retain the information and process it over long periods of time. This is also going to be based on program, too. If you go in math or computer science, for example, there may be more tests. Nursing may have a lot of tests, too. But if you went in public policy or the social sciences or something, it'll probably be more papers.

Definitely you have to get the feelings of your family and SO out of your head. First of all, many doctoral students who leave find that their family actually doesn't care as much as they thought they would, and are quite supportive. When I was thinking about leaving, both my then-fiance and my mother were very supportive and understanding, and my father actually wanted me to leave. Secondly, even if they are mildly disappointed, they are not the ones who have to complete the program. You just started your second year, which means you still have at least three more years to go (this one and two more) - and more realistically, 4-5 years to go. That means 4-5 years of passing qualifying exams, doing research and writing a dissertation when you don't care and what out. That sounds like a personal kind of hell. You don't need a PhD to prove success; only academics think like that. Everywhere else, a master's is usually sufficient for what you want to do. In the biomedical sciences, people with master's often do research their entire careers. The only difference is that they are not the ones calling the shots - you don't get to decide the actual study itself - but many master's-level researchers work as project coordinators and research associates, helping to put together the important parts of a research project. MS-level researchers also typically stay at the bench, so if you like bench science that may be the way to go. PhD-level researchers take a much more administrative role; once they get senior enough, they really act like more of a manager - managing their project coordinators, research assistants, graduate students, and their grants. (They don't tell you this in graduate school!) Intelligence also doesn't decide who gets a PhD; most people who leave don't leave because they aren't as smart, but because they simply lose interest and/or decide that they would be better off spending their time working or doing something else. Life is too short to spend 4-5 more years being miserable in a PhD program. The way to decide whether you want a PhD is to act like you are looking for a job. Not an academic job - the job YOU want. Read up on some careers and scour job posting websites for job postings. Mark the ones that excite you. Do they require PhDs, or do most of the people doing what you want to do have a PhD? No? Then you don't need one. Google "I hate grad school" or "I want to quit graduate school" or something similar to those search terms. Read. I promise it'll make you feel better - if for no other reason, than to remind you that you are not alone and that there are thousands of other people who have felt the same as you and have grappled with the same decisions. I was one of them. Some of us decided to stay and finish (like me) and some of us decided to leave. But it's a process and it takes some time and thought. However, before you can truly decide you need to learn to block out all of those competing social interests (What will my friends, family, partner, strangers, dog think?) and focus on your own inner thoughts and feelings. That in itself takes some time, but reading the results I gleaned from web searches like the ones above helped me to do that, to focus on what I really wanted and not what I thought everyone else wanted. I eventually decided to finish, but that's because I was further along (nearing the end of my third year) when I was doing the decision making and I was finished with most of my program's requirements aside from the dissertation. Since I had already decided on a topic and had the data for it already, and since I liked writing and doing research - so writing a dissertation didn't sound terrible to me - and since some of the jobs I wanted were within my field and required a PhD, I decided to stay. But if I were at the end of my first year and felt the same way, I would've quit and done something else.

The field thing for your NASA internship isn't a problem as long as it was engineering related research, but the relationship with your mentor is another thing entirely. Does "not the best" mean you just weren't close (which is totally fine) or that you had a personality mismatch and butted heads? But anyway, yes, it is totally possible to be admitted to PhD programs without publications. I know in engineering it's more common for undergraduates to have pubs, but really they aren't expecting you to have any necessarily. Go ahead and apply, you're a very strong candidate! However, definitely seek out some funded MS or MEng programs that are research based and will beef up your apps for a PhD program, just in case. With your stats you should find getting funding for a master's program relatively easy. And depending on your field, "under review" is totally fine. In my field people put their under review (and even in preparation, if they are close to finishing) manuscripts on their CVs all the time. I see it done by everyone from graduate students to senior scholars. "Under review" at least means that you completed a publication to the point that it was ready for submission to a journal, which is something.

Blue Sky is also the planner I liked when I used pen and paper planners. You can get large and medium-sized, and their calendars have monthly and weekly views with lots of space for writing your obligations and to-dos. Plus they have cute colors and designs. I bought brightly colored pens and color-coded my tasks so it was easy to see what kinds of things I had to do. The website is blueskyimg.com, but you can also buy them at Staples. Now I simply use Google Calender, which I sync across iCal on my Mac and iPad and the calendar app on my Android phone. Endlessly useful, since my calendar's at my fingertips when I need it and I don't have to remember to bring anything extra. I always forgot to bring my planner along. Thoughts I definitely still keep on paper; I have a variety of paper notebooks that I pick up from various places (bookstore, online, whatever).

In my opinion, it's better to have no publications than a publication of low quality. You're new and just beginning your academic career; nobody expects you to have publications yet. You're still seen as potential. But publish a poorly written article, and suddenly you're someone who's only publication is a poorly written article. You don't want that. And yes, people do hold weak publications against you even if you aren't first-author. Your name is associated with it, therefore they assume that you had something to do with it. Somebody will read it - and that somebody may be a granting committee, or a postdoc or job evaluator. The pub would go on your CV and people ask for reprints. But I also agree with the others - asking your name to be removed was not necessarily the right move. All of us have to deal with editing papers and doing a lot of other stuff while also handling our lives. You do have time - you have to make the time, and honestly just starting in your lab is when you will have the MOST time. You will be mainly assisting with experiments and lab projects at this moment and expected to focus on coursework. Once your first year or so is over, your responsibilities will ramp up considerably and you will have less time. So consider (if you can) working on trying to edit the paper.

In my field it really depends on where in Europe you go. There are certain European institutions that are really good in my field and from where a PhD will be treated just like a PhD earned in the States; others not so much. I think you should check with trusted advisers within your field and see if there are differences based upon that. Less time in a PhD program doesn't always mean fewer papers. In US PhD programs you spend the first 2-3 years in coursework and exams anyway, so it can be difficult to publish something then. In European PhD programs you only have 3-4 years but you aren't taking coursework or exams - you're just doing research - so I'd wager you have the same amount of publishing time as an American student.

I choose left-align because I hate those mismatched spaces between words and I think justified columns on regular papers are hard to read. It always irritates me when my students send me justified papers, lol.

Graduate schools don't forget to realize that statistics don't work for every individual; that's why they admit people within a range. They realize that statistics are averages. So they accept some students below their average who they think will be promising for other reasons, but they also realize that statistics do have some predictive power. The thing about low scores is that everybody has a story of a person or two that they know that got admitted somewhere with lower scores. It does happen, and it is possible. However, you greatly raise your chances of admission if you get higher scores. You have to think about the distributions. For example, HBS's score range is a 550-780, showing that it is indeed possible to get admitted with a score of 550 on the GMAT. However, their median GMAT score is 730. That means that the distribution is very much skewed positively - 50% of the people who got admitted got over a 730, and that it is the rare person who got in with a score of less than 600. Columbia makes it easier; the middle 80% of their admitted class got between a 680 and a 760. So that means only 20% got less than a 680 on the GMAT. Probably less than 5% got less than a 600, and only if they did something very exceptional as was pointed out above.

I think this depends a lot on you and your goals. If you absolutely have to get into a PhD program next year for whatever reason, and your field is moderately competitive, 8-12 places isn't so far out of bounds. I'm in psychology and people who really want a PhD often apply to that number of schools (especially in clinical, where 10+ is common). However, less competitive subfields (like experimental and cognitive) often seen students applying to a smaller number of programs, like 5-10. I agree, though, that you should only attend programs that you really like. Not only do you have to spend 5-10 years there depending on the length of your program, it will also stay on your CV through the rest of your life. You need to be proud of the school you wear there. It's not a good look to start off your academic career by selecting a place you would go to if you had no other choice in life. FWIW, I only applied to one PhD program (and four MPH programs). I'm here. I would say if there is only one PhD program you want to go to, then only apply there. A PhD isn't a necessary thing and if you'd rather not go to a PhD program at all than go somewhere besides that 1 (or 4, or 2) program, then don't bother applying anywhere else.

Neither of these is my field. But from the outside, a change in field usually needs to be justified not just by passion and interest, but some sort of sustained activity in the field. This is less so for an MA than for a PhD, but you still need to do that. A statement focused on history of mathematics in art sounds more like art history to me than history of science, but again, not my field. I'm just not sure how much a history of science program would appreciate that given that they seem to be more focused on the history of scientific and technical innovation and its connection to social changes and forces. Have you taken any traditional history and/or science courses? That may be the place to start.

I just use my name. I have to admit I chuckled at the OP's post because I also dislike the use of "Best," especially because I've seen it at the end of some pretty passive-aggressive academic emails. But I more dislike it because of bitterness about academia than the actual term itself, lmao. ANd I realize that it's completely ridiculous. It's just one of those really irrational things that annoys you for no reason.

I do this, meal planning for the week. It saves me so much time and anxiety.

Going through the summer slump right now. I dragged my feet on my dissertation proposal on an amount of work that could, I discovered, be completed in one night. I'm supposed to be grading papers right now…lol. I thought I was depressed too, because I've struggled with depression. But no, I'm really happy for the most part. Just completely unmotivated. That PhD Comic that Eigen posted is exactly what my summers look like. Then it's September and I'm like fuck, I haven't done anything!

There are lots of Citibanks in NYC, and if you are going to Columbia, that's the bank that has the most on-campus ATMs. There are at least two on the main campus (one in Lerner and one in Uris, the business school), and a couple on the medical center campus too. Chase bank is also a good one, with lots of locations and ATMs. There's a Chase ATM right at 113th and Broadway, and the closest branch is at like 111th and Broadway IIRC. There are Chases all over the city, almost as ubiquitous as Citibank. Whenever I stop at an ATM it always seems to be a Chase one. Bank of America is eh. The closest one to main campus is at 107th and Broadway (campus ranges from about 114th to 120th between Broadway and Amsterdam, so it's a bit of a hike). I would go with Citibank or Chase over this one. I have Bank of America and it always seems like I have to go out of my way to get to a BoA ATM, whereas I pass Citibank and Chase ATMs just walking around. (If you're going to be on the med center campus, though, there is one on 168th and Broadway and a full branch on 170th and Broadway). There's a TD Bank on 110th and Broadway and TD has later hours and supposedly pretty good customer service. But I don't see that many TDs all over the place. There's also the option of going with an online bank, which usually has free ATM fees. I have one account with Ally Bank, which is a pretty good online bank and you can withdraw money from any bank's ATM. Not only do they not charge you fees, they will also refund you the ATM fees. Of course an online bank is not a good option if you like to go in and see the teller for any reason, or if you ever need to deposit cash.