InquilineKea

Ah okay I see. Good luck! And please keep me updated.

That could determine the chances of fit, or of possible future conflict? I'm a bit of an unconventional student, so this is going to be important for me.

Oh man this was awesome.

Alright, let's get this started. I'll be visiting from the 12th to the 16th.

Okay, so let's start this thread this year. As for me, I just got accepted into the Geophysical Science program, so I'm definitely going to visit sometime in March or April.

Anyone else coming? I'm visiting the campus from Feb. 6 to Feb. 11.

And how often is this allowed? Are some schools more likely to allow this than other schools?

Continuation of that "Shit X Says" meme.

haha, someone better now make a "shit TAs say" video...

Would you consider it useful to do so? After getting an offer, I decided to pick up all the old college guides (like the Fiske Guide to Colleges and the Insiders Guide) just to learn more about the undergrads in the schools I'm interested in. I like to know where the undergrads come from - which is going to be really important when I finally TA. Does anyone else do this? If so, what are your experiences?

Do vegans/vegetarians generally have to pay more, and are the effects city-dependent? Do "vegan/vegetarian"-friendly cities have lower costs of living for vegans/vegetarians, as compared to non-friendly ones?

I certainly don't want to show off, but it is going to be important if I want to be honest. Basically, I'm visiting Yale+Brown, and UChicago just gave me a really amazing offer (with a fellowship for top applicants) - I also know the UChicago professors quite well. I'm very open to learning more about Yale and Brown, and the research done at those places, but I don't want to disappoint the profs I'm talking to by getting their hopes too high. I do want to make it clear, though, that I'd be perfectly happy everywhere, and I do want them to gain something by talking to me too.

Wow - thanks so much for the advice. Do you know what type of surgery you're going to get? I am considering surgery as a last-resort option, but I've heard that it could go wrong too.

Oh okay - thanks so much for the responses. I actually do tend to wait for a day in many cases since it's easy for me to say something impulsive if I reply instantly, in which case there's always a chance I'll have to send a follow-up email to correct myself. I also delay with research-based emails since I need some more time for background reading. But I'll keep this all in mind.

Posting via email to a WordPress blog (and then searching the blog whenever I need to search for something). I also use Quora as a way of organizing things (haha).

Just a thought: but what about letting participants share their results on Facebook? Personally, I'm much more likely to take a survey if I'm allowed to share (and compare) my results with everyone else.

I'd preferably want something to completely replace scratch paper. The iPad's stylus is far too thick for comfortably writing up math equations.

lol I wonder if I'll end up on the list for January 2012... Now that I got in one program, I hoped that I was done with this - but no - I just managed to discover entire batches of new forums here!

This is an amazing post. And I completely agree. It is rewarding in so many ways. But it is extremely exhausting to have to stay up-to-date with at least 3-4 different research areas (now, I'll have to admit that 2 of them are really just ones I pursue for fun), and I have little free time for anything else. Nonetheless, I disagree about the "finding a job" part. I think that people in interdisciplinary fields can have it easier if they're doing computational/analytical work (they get more programs to apply to where they could be a competitive applicant). Humanities might be different though.

This was amazing advice. I completely agree. Professors like to know that they've gotten something out of the interviews too. I'm scared of getting into this situation, but I'll have to prepare for it (and I will be severely split, since I had such good interactions with faculty members at several schools). Could it be a good idea to say "keep in touch"? Maybe it might also be a good idea to suggest the possibility of meeting again at an academic conference? (or even for summer research/a future postdoc opportunity?). In any case, the choice of school might not matter as much as it used to - thanks to the Internet. Professors collaborate with each other even when they're in different schools. With that all said, it does depend on the professor you interacted with, and how warm they were to you.

I'll try, but doctors in general aren't the best people to talk to for pain management (I've come across this issue for other forms of discomfort too - the doctor was clueless but one person's solution [that I only found through Quora] actually worked really well).

Planetary Atmospheres/Astrobiology/Exoplanets

Wow - this is so interesting. Haha - I'm going to couchsurf with a Yale FES student when I visit Yale (I decided to visit several days early). Anyways, if anyone has any questions to ask her, please let me know.

Has anyone here applied to them in the area? And do they look at the Physics GRE score at all? I'm just wondering - maybe we could share resources with each other. I've never seen anyone else (on the Internet) apply to them in the field yet.

Sum total of professors emailed by school: Columbia: 9 (8 replied, 1 did not reply, several very enthusiastic responses). Split between Astro and EESC departments. Caltech: 6 (all 5 in GPS/ESE replied, though Sean Carroll did not ) Brown: 5 (all but 1 replied). Special case though, since for some reason, they always hit the "reply to all" button... MIT: 4 (all but 1 replied). My fault for the 1 who didn't reply - just looked at the email I sent to the one who didn't reply - it showed a formatting error since I sent the email when i was very tired. Princeton: 2 professors, 2 postdocs (all replied, but research interests insufficiently similar) Berkeley: 2 (1 replied, 1 from Astro did not reply) Chicago: 2 (introduced through IRL connections first so different - but we definitely clicked with each other at the AGU) Penn State (1 Astro, 1 Geoscience): 2 (all replied) Harvard: 1 (replied) UCSC Astro: 1 (replied) Arizona LPL: 1 (introduced through connections) Yale: 1 (replied) UCLA: 1 (replied) Colorado Astro: 1 (replied) UIUC Astro: 1, but long ago (replied)