hope4fall2012

I have been mailing professors of late and one professor offers to have a phone call to discuss his research group and the university. I would like to say this is good, but I'm very very bad when it comes to speaking with people. I dont want to screw up my app before even beginning it. I had a few questions about this : 1) What does one address a professor as in the US? An assistant professor? Here,in India we address them as Sir/Ma'am and when I was working in an American company (in India),everyone was on a first name basis. So I'm really confused. 2) Also, how long is the phone call going to be? What is usually discussed? I know I need to be up to date with the professors research, but do I need to be in a position to state my research goal. If yes, how specific do I have to be? 3) How is it normally done? Does the professor call you, or do you call them? Over the phone?? or skype?? I'm sorry if these are noob questions, but Ive never done this before and I dont want to end up embarrassing myself.

Wow..both of you are from University of Washington.. And an awesome list of schools.. I need a safety-net set of schools though.. So I'm looking at schools like Penn State, Georgia Tech and Stony Brook. How reputed are these schools? It might be very difficult to get into academia after graduating from these schools, but what about good research labs?

That thing regarding the UCs definitely is bad news..I have 3 of them in my list, might chop it down to 2 I think..for lack of research fit.. But if a prof replies that there is funding available for one graduate student in his research group, does it imply that funding is not a problem, atleast for that particular prof?

I'm sorry if biggies meant something else. When I said biggies, I was referring to universities that are really well reputed and very difficult to get into (from an average, international (Indian) students perspective. I could very well be wrong. And how would they compare GPAs? There has got to be some method to it right? And that is a very very strong list. . I would be probably be applying to Penn State, UCSC and WashU too. Just wondering, why is Berkeley missing from your list? They have a pretty strong earth sciences program too right?

I have to thank you again for all the help. This is a lot of helpful perspective. What I did was just leave a link to my website (google sites webpage) in my signature. What you did is definitely more effective. I was worried about this too. But I'm scared of applying to a professor (Focusing your SOP on 1-2 profs is more effective, yes?), who doesn't have any openings. This will mean I've wasted a precious slot. (I can only apply to 8 universities) Wow. Is it OK to do this? Would it be OK if 2 professors found out later that I had mailed both of them? What if I mail one prof and after getting a reply, mail someone else in the same dept ? Is this OK too? I know that these are really newbie questions, but I'm clearly out in the deep end here. I don't want to end up being too cautious and lose out.

Hello Waddle, Thanks a ton for the reply and the offer to help out.. What I do is this : Look at the relevant departments of schools I'm interested in and then look at the webpages of faculty whose research is in more or less the same vertical as my current research. I look at the research interests, projects and also the publications. If possible, I read one of the papers. (not to grasp each line in it, but to get the general idea of where the author is going with it). I then mail the professor, telling them what I do currently, what my interests are, what I would like to do in grad school and which one of their projects/papers I found interesting. I end by asking them whether there are any openings in their research group. I keep the length of the mail to within a screen-size. Am I doing it the right way? Thanks again for the help.

I hope I am not digressing with this post. I have been mailing a few professors over the past couple of weeks. I would like to think Ive put some considerable effort behind this process. I've checked pages, read few papers and tried to make my e-mails as insightful as I could. By some coincidence, all the professors whose research I liked (and hence mailed) have been assistant professors who have started their teaching jobs around 2008-2009. I have heard back from no one. I'm asking this question because I don't know how the education system works in the US. Aren't Assistant Professors allowed to take graduate students ? Or am I choosing the absolute "wrong" set of professors?

Are you sure about this? And even if they do, they might just go up or down by a couple of points right??

posted this on the other thread as well..Mines 1410 on the old scale too Got my scores too..Kinda disappointing.. AWA : 3.5.. (29 %)..Shuts me out from all my "good" applications.. Quant : 167 (95%) (Previous estimate 750 - 800).. corresponds to 800 on the old scale Verbal : 160(86%) (Previous estimate 630 - 730).. corresponds to 610 on the old scale.. So that makes in 1410.. Peeved that my verbal score is below my estimate..

Got my scores too..Kinda disappointing.. AWA : 3.5.. (29 %)..Shuts me out from all my "good" applications.. Quant : 167 (95%) (Previous estimate 750 - 800).. corresponds to 800 on the old scale Verbal : 160(86%) (Previous estimate 630 - 730).. corresponds to 610 on the old scale.. So that makes in 1410.. Peeved that my verbal score is below my estimate..

The page is up again, but without my scores..

Its up again now but my scores aren't there.. This is not good for my heart

The page says that the scores are unavailable right now..

Dont worry about it.. The other person was suggesting that universities could view 320 as the new 1400.. If all universities had 1400 as their cutoff, there would be lots of seriously disappointed people.. Bottom line, even if 320 is viewed as the new 1400 (and we dont know that yet), it definitely wont be the cutoff for majority of the schools

I took my GRE on the 14th..Waiting for my scores..I'm 10.5 hours ahead of the time in New York, so hopefully Ill have the scores first thing I wake up..

You got your scores today? When did you write the GRE?

Is anyone else applying to programs in Atmospheric Science or Physical Oceanography? I wanted to discuss the reputation of certain schools as well as chances of getting through others.

Yeah.. .. As soon as my post came up on screen, it looked yellow!! Guess I was happier than usual while writing the post..

My scores are due on the 17th of Nov as well..I keep visiting mygre and this page like my life depends on it.. .. I tabulated all the results available in these posts to get an estimate of what my scores would be.. My projected scores were Q: 750-800 and V:630-730..The quant scores could be anywhere between 159 - 170 (82% - 99%) and the verbal score could be between 159-161 (84%-89%).. I'm applying to PhD programs in atmospheric science, so I'm worried about my quant scores more than the verbal. All the best to everyone who's waiting..

Hello everyone , I'm from Bangalore, India..applying to PhD programs in Atmospheric Science for Fall 2012..Still in the process of shortlisting places to apply to.. .. Im pretty sure I can't get into the biggies (Princeton AOS, Harvard EPS, MIT POAC, Columbia EESC, Chicago GEO, UCLA Atmos, Caltech EPS, UW Atmos, UC-SD Scripps), but I'm applying to 3 of these, just in case, things "happen" .. The trouble I have is choosing the right set of schools which are not in the league of the above schools but still pretty good that I'd want to go there.. ..and I've been stuck on this list for way too long.. All the best to everyone who's applying.. May the force be with you..