lab ratta-tat-tat

Sputnik- Bahaahahha your post made me laugh. You could also take the Lebron James approach and have a live televised (what I of course mean is Youtube) video where you are choosing between 2 schools.... and blah blahblah.... you know the rest. That would be hilarious.

Sheepi- I am also waiting to hear back from Neuroscience programs... where are you applying? Also- How do I get a peaceful ping on a mac?! I want one! Some one, please tell me how THANK YOU!

I strongly agree with the statement "It's not what you know, it's who you know". That is exactly how I got my job as a research assistant with the professor of my dreams at the school of my dreams. I am sure many other people have anecdotal experiences as well with this saying. I think if you have met the professor, or you have contacted them before about your interest in their work, and they have responded favorably, it would be appropriate to send an email stating "I appreciate you meeting with me (or discussing your research with me via email) and I have submitted my application. Thank you for your time". I encourage this because, (again anecdotal experience) during my application process I contacted professor X and told them how interested I was in their work, I luckily lived in the same state, and they invited me to meet up with them and discuss their research and me applying to graduate school. During my application process however, my materials (ETS score) did not get their on time and I was therefore removed from the applicant pile. Professor X later told me how disappointed this made them because they thought I had not applied at all, and was therefore not that interested. They encouraged me this year, (after i have been working with them for 2 years) to email specific faculty members I have had contact with and just say basically-thank you for talking with me, I have submitted my materials. Keep it short and to the point but do not have the intentions to start up another conversation. I received this advice from my boss who is the program director as well as they are a chair for the adcom. So take the advice or leave it.

The schools I applied to don't have an application, you just mail it to them. They have no site where you can log on and check the application of your status, which is probably good because I would hit the refresh button on my browser every 5 seconds. However, because there is no site to check the status of my application, I check the results board every day, several times a day, i refresh the browser on my email every 5 minutes just in case I got an email and I jump up every time I hear my phone ring because i think it may be my dream school calling to say they would like to extend an interview. Last night I had a dream the results board on this site crashed for a coupe of days, that is how I know, I am addicted to checking the status. Hi. I also have been watching the office and shows on tbs.com, hulu.com, and of course southparkstudios.com

ETS power prep does not work on Macs sadly. Also I registered a while ago and never got the disk they claim you are to receive. This actually happened once before, I registered and took the GRE (2 years ago) when I was a naive 21 year old. I must have missed the memo you get a disk to help you prepare. The morning I took the GRE I checked my mailbox and I kid you not, it was in my mail. No help since I had taken it that morning, Grrrr!!!! I downloaded the booklets straight from ETS though which have helped immensely and I actually recall 3 of the math problems from this math booklet, on the test I took 2 years ago. Which is great. Thank you for your input, I truly appreciate it.

When mentioning faculty members, if you choose to mention papers they have written (they usually put selected first author publications on their bio sketch page) in your SOP or in an email to them, I would make sure you know it enough to discuss it when it perhaps, comes time for an interview, phone conversation, etc. If you like what they do I would mention them. My boss is on an adcom and informed me when writing an SOP if you do not mention faculty members you are interested in working with, it may show you have not done your homework- as in, did you look at the programs website and the faculty members research areas? Not mentioning a faculty member or a research area may come off as you just want to be in the program, but you have no direction. That is not the type of student they want to invest $25,000 a year in for the next 5+ years. I was told to mention up to 4 faculty members and to make sure they were A.) taking students and B.) they were in somewhat different areas of research, within the specific program. My personal experience with mentioning a faculty member's paper is that I was called my that faculty member for an interview to the program, (which was awesome) Professor X brought up "You read my paper----, what did you think about the methods?" I actually had read the paper, and it was awesome to talk about it. But unless your willing to commit to reading it and knowing it, don't mention it. I hope this helps

I also have been posting a lot today. I think it is to avoid the feelings of angst, anxiety, and an emotional breakdown. Any free time I have to consciously think, I may break down and cry. But seriously, I saw this topic and figured I would share my experience in writing SOP's since I am happen to know people on adcoms who are willing to give great free advice, i figured I could give some insight on the issue.

Hi all, I know this is kind of late in the game but here we go- I am taking the GRE on Sunday, I have studied countless hours, purchased and reviewed many books and I have done my homework. My Question is, what can I really expect to see on the Quant GRE? Will I see a majority of word problems, geometry, square roots, etc? I just don't want to be studying my brains out with geometry and word problems, and show up and it be long division and decimal places. I appreciate any input. Thank you!

I could be totally wrong but here it goes... My boss (who is on the admissions committee at University of Awesomenes) told me it is always important in your first paragraph to state your purpose. Why are you applying to graduate school? What is your purpose? A lot of people do not state that and it drives adcoms crazy. Your first paragraph can be a brief introduction about how you got interested in your field, some experience you have in it, and lastly, what motivated you to seek a PhD? Was it the experience you had as a research assistance was so great? Was it the little career advancement you saw in filed X as a basic researcher? Whatever it is that motivated you state it, whether it is at the end of the paragraph or the beginning, adcoms want to know why are you applying, and why should they invest $25,000 in you for the next 5+ years and are you worth it? If so, prove it, show them. Also, it may seem really silly but if you have a writing center on campus, use it. They have people who specialize in technical writing, scientific writing, admission to graduate school writing, grant writing, etc. Also, the writing center is free. I went there 3 times and at my school, you were able to email them your drafts if you could not meet with them. Something interesting, I was told was to not write a lot of crap about every research position you ever held in the past. It is great you were involved in lab Totally Rad for 1 year and lab Kinda-not-so-awesome for 3 years, but you don't need to list every thing you did, they can look at your CV to see all the positions you held. Highlight the most important ones that speak to your potential future as a graduate student in their program. Lastly, it is important to state your long term career goal(s). This can be vague such as "a career in academia" or whatever. Not everyone knows exactly what they want to do, and not everyone wants to be Principal Investigator (PI) and that is fine. Point is, they want to know you can complete their program and go out and get a job and represent their program well. This is all advice I received from students and faculty members on adcoms. It is not applicable for every school or program but just a overarching outline of what to address in your SOP. I hope that helps and does not come off abrasive.

I never take naps, since this process of waiting, I have taken naps to pass the time. I always wake up like 2 hours later, Damn it.

I just watched that entire episode of southpark because you submitted the video. The ENTIRE episode is about waiting..... I wonder if we cryogenically freeze ourselves if we can make the time go faster... just a thought

The deadline to my program is January 15th... January 15th!!!! That feels like light years from now! Fortunately you could submit materials starting December 15th but the Neuro program I am applying to runs a little later than others so they wont even take a look at the stuff until January. I am FREAKING OUT!!! I am also thinking a lot about "What if.....?". Also to the last poster, the same is happening to me, a lot of people in my field are hearing back but nothing has been sent out from the school/department I am applying to. Good luck!