liszt85

Long distance sucks but works. We've done it for 3 years. I went to school 1000 miles away from where my SO lived and studied. We spoke hours on the phone everyday. We met once or twice a year. We're getting married in June this year. She does not know if she wants to go to grad school. So she hadn't applied anywhere. She will accompany me and we'll live on my modest stipend. If she finds something interesting at OSU, she might apply later on (maybe for a MS or PhD, she has a MSc in Physics already). So we're looking forward to life in the US and we're extremely happy to have each other.

I'd think that getting any external funding would most definitely increase your chances. Why don't you shoot another email or maybe even call them up and tell them that since you've now got the OGS, funding wouldn't be a problem and that you hope they can find a place for you as you'd really love to attend?

It worries me that your subfield is Nuclear.. I am a physics major too and have a batchmate whose greatest ambition is to make the most destructive nuclear bomb ever (he did not write that in his SOP of course..). His applications however were rejected by the American Universities. He's going to do a PhD now at an institute for fundamental science research here in India that's pretty good as well. I shudder at the thought...

This seems to be a good idea. You may end up loving it for all you know. If you think you can do stellar work there, its only your work that will count in the long run. Getting a job will mainly be based on how good your work has been. With your background, it looks like you will have no problems producing good research work. You can always use that to apply to a relevant post doc position at a good university after your PhD and then direct your career in whichever direction you deem fit at that time.

http://ls.berkeley.edu/soc/diversity/ap ... ent-1.html An excellent one with a review by an adcom, I guess..

My referee listens to a lot of indian classical music and has a huge collection and I have a huge collection of western classical music. I gave her the cds that got me into western classical music, stuff that somebody who influenced me highly (and died in an accident last year)had gifted me when I was 10. She said "it looks like you're saying goodbye,..leaving behind cds with me, etc" but then I told her that that was the only meaningful thing I could leave behind with her. She then asked me to come back to her house sometime to take a few of her indian classical cds since that was what she could do for me! She keeps negating all my efforts at gifting her something.. I wanted to buy her dinner but before I could talk about it she asked me if I could take some time off as she wanted to treat me to dinner! So I'm stumped here.. As for my other two referees, one of them is my MSc thesis supervisor but I don't feel like I know him well enough, so I have no idea what to gift him or if I should. As for my third referee, who was supposed to be my main referee, he was very discouraging, kept saying things like "why're you applying to MIT? Berkeley? These are just too highly ranked.. Your grades aren't good, how can I write a stellar recommendation?" He may have been right but after having worked for him for 2.5 years and totally independently of coursework (I had no obligation to do any of it), and after having submitted a paper for publication (on which he really had no business being second author.. he had no idea what the paper was talking about), he really should have shown a little more appreciation. Also the bad grades I have are in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics and some such core engineering courses and I'm a physics major and the 4 courses I've done that he taught, I have a 9/10 avg on them. So I didn't quite understand why anyone would look at grades in irrelevant courses and decide on how good the recommendation must be. I did send him a small email thanking him. That will do.

I'm being paid out of a professor's grants during my summer and he's paying "the maximum possible". So I don't think I'll get to go home (halfway across the globe). Maybe twice or if lucky thrice during the entire program and that too with permission from the adviser.. that's what I'm expecting. I don't know how it will turn out. My wife is very attached to her family and would like to visit more often, so if I'm unable to go, she'll probably go see her family every summer or so (and maybe invite family over during one of the other summers..as some of them do want to see America!)

If you're only going to use a laptop for MS office and internet, check out cool netbooks! Extremely cheap and sexy looking ones.. If you want to go ahead with a laptop, I advise against Sony ones, esp vaio. Almost every single sony vaio laptop I know of had problems with their keyboards within a few months, some had battery issues but I don't know if that was a general problem but the quality of the keyboard was definitely a widespread problem. I own a HP pavilion DV series (2025) laptop, its about 3 years old. Its endured some extremely rough handling.. I used to pick up my laptop and hold it by its screen.. one hinge broke off, it still looks and works fine.. it does have a few heating issues but that's to be expected in this Indian summer (40-45 deg Celsius!). However HP laptops have issues with their cd drives.. this is a general problem. Most hp laptops people own here have issues with the cd drive. I also had a toshiba laptop 4 years ago. That had HUGE heating issues. People here generally seem to be extremely happy with Dell. For cheaper options, people go for Acer ones. Macs are great of course but for MS office and email/internet only? Get the cheapest available laptop.. you will most probably get good deals through your university..

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A stripper (really?) who's got into a genetics PhD program.. hmm, a perfect date?

Seconded. Might help to retake the GRE after some good preparation for the quant section.

Status updated Deny reason 2: No major professor available in proposed specialization in major. WTF! There was this prof who I've been in touch with (still am) who does exactly the work I wished to do. I can't make sense of any of this..

I have also found that some professors take a lot of time to respond but that just means that they don't check their emails too often. My MSc thesis adviser here is around 65 yrs old and has a severe eyesight issue. So he doesn't check mail at all! He has an assistant who sometimes does it for him. He prefers that we call him and he's given his personal mobile phone number to all his students. So a person not replying to emails does not necessarily mean that he's cold and unresponsive. Now, when multiple people do that, it might be a concern. A professor at Mac was interested in my application and had recommended my name for admission (but I was rejected by the committee) and I seldom got a timely reply from her. There were some 3-4 emails that went unanswered but she became more responsive as the decision deadline approached. Recently (after I'd been rejected) I emailed her asking her for some advice regarding my univ selection and she was in Europe and had just landed but still took the time to reply (albeit a short one) though she really didn't have to. Both she and I however know that I might apply to be a postdoc at her lab later on. So it is really difficult to read into such situations.. Around this time, they should really be checking their emails regularly and should try to reply to emails from their prospective grad students. However, I do not know if you should read too much into it. Maybe you should..

I'm going to tell you what I think YOUR thoughts are about this. I think you prefer Georgetown (there's passion in your description about Georgetown that is not quite there in the other) and I think since that's the case, you should opt for Georgetown

I'm in cognitive and my PhD work will be in a more general area (memory, attention, etc) but my long term aim is to specialize in studying music cognition. So it is absolutely necessary for me to do one (or more) post docs to gain that expertise. Only then would I even think of applying for a professorship. So I think the need for postdocs really would vary with the circumstances you might be in with regards to the nature of specificity of your research focus. If it is already specialized enough and if you've done great work AND if there are enough jobs for that specialization, I don't see a reason why one would want to do postdocs, unless as someone pointed out, he/she would want to live a few more years free of the bureaucracy that comes along with such a job.

Well, didn't you read about one or two cases on this very thread where this was not true? So did that not falsify the premise?

Me too.. but couldn't they have done it on the 14th instead? To send a rejection email after the April 15 deadline or just minutes before the deadline is a joke. Yes, it is nevertheless appreciated.

We are in the process of making a decision on your application for admission. You may review the decision after 8:00 a.m. PST on April 21, 2009, by accessing your UC Davis application on the online admission web site. Please contact the Psychology program if you have any questions regarding this decision. WTF! This comes on the 15th of April. Same with MIT BCS, they sent me a nice rejection email late at night on the 15th! Why did they even bother? If they could do this late at night on the 15th, what held them from doing it on the 14th?!

Congratulations on having made a decision.. you deserve some rest now! Get an MA and then come to OSU, they have a higher stipend for people with a masters Btw, can you post a link to their coursework? I have no idea about what my MA coursework (years 1 and 2) is going to be like at OSU (as it has to be decided in consultation with the adviser after I get there), and I'm a little apprehensive as I'm a physics major as I may have told you earlier. So I really need to know what the courses are going to be like and at what levels they would start off, etc.. I hope they start off basic enough. http://cog.psy.ohio-state.edu/documents ... ts_003.pdf This talks about some of the course requirements but I have no idea about what they will be like. People with a background in cognitive psychology, if you can take a look at these and tell me what to expect, that'd be great! Also if you can suggest preliminary reading, that'd be awesome as well since I can get hold of the reading material and try to read some in the summer.. An excerpt from that link: Course Requirements 1. Statistics 826, 827, 828 must be taken in the student's first year. 2. The following courses must be taken by the end of the student

Got an email from them today(!!): We are in the process of making a decision on your application for admission. You may review the decision after 8:00 a.m. PST on April 21, 2009, by accessing your UC Davis application on the online admission web site. Please contact the Psychology program if you have any questions regarding this decision. Best regards, Office of Graduate Admissions and Academic Services University of California, Davis --------------------------- Makes no sense at all.. I got an email last night from MIT BCS too saying that they were sorry that they couldn't admit me ..blah blah.. but why now?! Couldn't they have done this at least 2 days before the 15th of April, is this some joke?

That was not a typo. He spent about $360 on rent as he shared a bedroom with another person! They were three people living in a one bedroom apartment. It was horrible yes, but he put up with it because he had to. $500 a month is more than sufficient to take care of the food expenses..

A Reasons: More faculty, slightly better ranking, good placements, they were nice during your visit, etc.. Low stipend is not an issue as long as you are going to support only yourself on your stipend. My friend lived on a $950 stipend for a year in LA (USC)! So don't worry about stipends and cost of living if you're going to be on your own.

This thread here really explains why this financial crisis really triggered off. As someone said, subpriming is a different animal but the attitudes that go into it are pretty much the same. As somebody said here, people bite off more than they can chew, be it education loans, be it housing loans, or whatever..

A professor from another school that I was considering told me that I could finish their program in 4 yrs if I worked hard enough and that other international students had done it in the past (had to complete it asap due to financial reasons). Again, depends on what your program is like..

I had to choose a second choice school over my first choice due to many reasons, but one major reason I'm excited about going to this second choice school is because my prospective adviser worked his ass off to get me there. I had been rejected at the first instance and he was adamant that he wanted me and he got me a departmental fellowship for 9 months and committed to funding my summers. His research is far removed from what I'd wanted to do first but I'm a physics major shifting to Psychology and I don't mind exploring. So what I'm trying to say here is that I'm going happily to my second choice school (after I had a major bout of depression at having to reject my first choice school due to entirely financial reasons) only because my adviser wants me. I'd also be amongst his first crop of students and so I'm really an investment that he would put time into. So my advice to you is to definitely go where you are welcome! Also like you said, your top choice, school A has only this person working on the exact themes that you wish to be working on. Most of the times, the vibes that you get from people are extremely good indicators of what is to come in the future. If you didn't FEEL good and if you FELT unwelcome, trust your instincts. She was not on the adcomm and probably doesn't want more students. Go where you reckon you'll be happy. Research fit is one thing, an amiable adviser in my opinion is also extremely important. You now have to decide what its got to be. Is school B's research fit that bad? If you get to work only on related fields, you can always direct your future research activities through post docs or whatever into exactly what you wish to do. That is what I plan to do too. I wanted to do music cognition, but people told me that if I focused only on that, jobs might be hard to come by. So I'll work on a more traditional area (memory, attention, language, etc) with the occasional project on music cognition and then I hope to do a few postdocs in Europe at wonderful labs that do music cognition work. I'm sharing all these plans with you because what I'm trying to tell you here is that even if you're happy working in a field that is slightly removed from what you originally wanted to do, you will be successful as you will be productive working in an amiable atmosphere than you will if you work in hostile conditions. If you think this makes sense, what I'd suggest you to do is the following: email this "cold" professor from school A, tell her that you really wish to work in her field but that you got the feeling that she may have too many students already. Ask her directly if she minds taking on one more student or just ask her if she still thinks there are all those problems she talked about that day if you were to attend school A! If she says "No, I don't think there is a problem, I highly encourage you to accept our offer", accept their offer. If she says "Yea..like I said, those buildings will be...", then promptly reject their offer. Good luck with your decision!