Teelee

Hi all, There was an old post that lists bunch of graduate fellowships/scholarships available but I am unable to find that list anymore. Can anyone provide a link for that thread? THANKS!

Thanks for your input

I am looking for dissertation fellowships in science - Biology/plant science

Hi gang, Many graduate fellowships are geared toward those just starting out in graduate school. Does anyone know any fellowships for advanced/doctoral stage graduate students? Thanks in advance.

I believe if someone declines an offer, HM will get it.

If you are good enough to get NSF funding, you are good enough to get funding from graduate programs too. If you wait too long (April award announcement), you will lose the opportunity to get funding from the department. Usually funding decisions are made Dec-Jan at the latest.

Have you tried looking under alternative education loans (aka private education loans)? As long as you have good credit, you should be able to get this type of loan. I know someone who got a non degree education loan from sallie mae for some training courses (17k total) awhile back. Hope this helps.

If you are plan on taking out a loan you should fill out a FAFSA. If you can get a subsidized loan, you wouldn't have to pay interest while attending school.

Don't worry too much about your GRE because your GPA and research experience will balance it out. Make sure you work on a solid SoP.

I am not 100% sure about this, but I believe the extra funding is state dependent. In some state schools, the state provides additional money to their resident students but it's not the case in all state schools. I have hard that Florida state university provide some sort of extra money to in state students in both undergrad and medical programs. In general, the admission standards should be the same for most schools, they will reward you based on the academic merit first prior to putting residential status into consideration.

If you are still an undergrad, you need to see if any labs are willing to take in a research assistant. Start contacting professors that you are interested in working with. Finding a research position takes time so get started asap.

Your studies in the first school has absolutely nothing to do with your intended studies (Env. Science) in grad school so the admission committee won't really care. In addition, your high GPA in the sciences will show that you are a mature student and is very serious about pursuing higher education in science. Probably should mention something in your personal statement without focusing too much on your mistakes in the past.

Well why not apply to your current school for Masters? If you know the professors there, you maybe able to have an easier time getting in rather than applying to a new school. There are so many colleges and universities offering MS in Biology that does not require much, so it really depends on what state you plan on attending. If you plan on applying for 2012, you still have time to at least volunteer at a lab for a semester and get your experience.

If you have a high science GPA, getting into Masters won't be as hard. It all depends on what schools you apply to.

It really depends on who is doing the writing. One of my LOR writer was a very strong believer about writing a great letter and tweaking it to have a good fit (grant proposal vs grad school, so on) so he would always print out new copies of the letter each and every time. My other writer was way too lazy and wrote a summary of my resume without any formatting (filled with spelling errors and spacing issues) and asked me to look over it. I took the time to polish up that letter. My third writer wrote a very generic one and printed one copy to sign. I ended up with multiple copies of that letter but it didn't bother me as much because the first two letters were more than enough. I guess as long as the letter has a signature to validate it, I guess it's alright?

If you volunteer as an EMT in your town, you can get your certification for free as long as you commit one night a week. Volunteering will give you an idea whether you actually want to do this as a career. You really should think carefully before you go into a health profession. It might sound attractive to go into an accelerated nursing program where you can get a nursing degree in 15 months, however, there are some issues with that program. Pending on your nursing program, you might have a harder time finding a job. As much as they say that nursing is in high demand, hospitals don't have enough money to hire the number of nurses actually needed. More often, nurses are given more work to do for lower number hours. I have met several nursing students just finishing up their degrees complaining how much they have to compete against part time nurses or nurses coming out of retirement who have years of experiences ahead of them.

If you were to compete against other applicants for a fully funded PhD program, your GPA can be an issue but with experience and high GRE scores, it doesn't seem that bad.

It really depends what you are good at. If you are good at memorizing word associations (antonyms, analogies) then the old format will give you an advantage. If have a strong reading comprehension skills, the new format will be easier since they will be replacing antonyms and analogies with sentence completions where you have 2 to 3 sentences with 2 to 4 blanks (all of this is available on the ETS website). If you are good at basic geometry problems the old format is better. Old format also uses small and simple number where you don't really need to do big math problems by hand.

If you can get really high GRE scores (700+), it wouldn't hurt. Also, if you plan on applying to some external grants in the near future, the application may require GRE.

Go to the ETS website and take the free sample tests available on the site to determine where your score lies. It will be a good starting point to see your weaknesses and strengths (be aware that these free sample tests are rather outdated and old). You would probably want to aim for higher GRE scores. You should look up schools that you are interested in attending and see their requirements (GRE, GPA, relevant courses) at the same time make contact with potential advisers. If you don't have any relevant experience, I would suggest trying to get some experience.

I think you can get more answers from nursing forums like allnurses.com they have sections dedicated to prenursing/students.

They should be able to change the info prior to you taking the exam. Their email response time is pretty fast 24-48 hours.

If you receive funding, can you defer it for a year? I couldn't find the info.

Clarify this for me please. You completed 2 separate research projects and each project was 3 months long? Does your 3 month long research have enough data for publication? Also, how much of the research project was your contribution? If all you did was set up the experiment outlined by your professor and just collected data but you didn't actually come up with any of the experiments on your own, analyze the data and/or interpret it, there is a good chance that you will probably not be included in the publication but maybe get credit on posters. It definitely doesn't hurt to ask. Also, if you plan on submitting a full research article, you will have to research the journal you plan on submitting and write 2000 - 3000 words or more (pending on journal). That includes some what extensive background information and a lot of literature review prior to writing. Do you think you can do this between now and when you start grad school?

Yeah I know what you mean. I don't think it's necessary to address a single W especially if you are not going to grad school for that specific field. I think it's better to spend time talking about your strengths in SoP.