Usmivka

Howdy! Others may disagree (in fact the screen is telling me that someone answered while I was writing this), but here is my take. It is common for applications to request grades with only two significant numbers allowed. So if the student has a 2.97 for example, I see no issue with rounding to 3.0. If you can't mathematically round to 3.0 in good faith (below 2.95) then it would be worth clarifying with the student. Perhaps they are referring only to their grade within major, or taking into account more recent grades, or haven't looked at what happened to their overall GPA with the most recent grades? Regardless, if it is an honest mistake, he should be able to correct it with the schools being applied to with a quick e-mail and updated transcript. It is unlikely they wiped his computer, however, it is entirely possible the hard drive was replaced. In those instances you get the old hard drive back, but if it had to be replaced there is no guarantee that it was in operable condition. Normally, repair issues take place at a local storefront within a couple days of taking the computer in, and they use overnight shipping for those who can't make it to the store, but it is possible there was a long wait period to even get a repair slot, so maybe the situation was more complex than he wanted to get into, or maybe he fudged and said the repair took a long time on Apple's end, but in fact he was on vacation and didn't realize the computer was toast until recently--all idle and irrelevant conjecture on my part. Regardless, I assume he needs a letter of recc now, and you clearly can't write him one based on work that was not completed. I'd stick to evaluating him on what he has actually done for you. It sounds like you are uncomfortable writing him a positive letter of recommendation. Unless he specifically asked if you would write him a positive reference, you are under no ethical obligation to write him one, but I think it would be poor form of you to write him a negative one without warning him. I think the appropriate move here would be to say that you are unable to write him a letter of reference that is wholly unqualified. No further explanation is needed, although you could say that since he hasn't completed the work assigned to him you feel like you are unable to evaluate what he has done. Offer to write the letter, but suggest he look for someone who has seen more of his work product and can write a more positive recommendation. I think if you did both of the above it would put the ball back in his court and take care of any ethical obligations on your part. It would also give him the best shot at grad school if everything is above board, given that you now have misgivings which could lead to bias, even if unconsciously. If he really can't find a more positive rec writer than you, the onus is on him for not making a better impression with you or anyone else. EDIT: of course the cat beat me here. Four paws > 2 hands? EDIT2: and again for spelling and clarity

If you seem affable and unlikely to be a pain in the ass to work with, you're already home free at the interview stage. In my view the point of interviews in the earth sciences is to weed out the folks who look great on paper but are unlikely to be functional in the specific environment of the lab or department, for whatever reason. Of course, not all programs even do interview like activities prior to admission (mine included). I helped with the student/peer side of applicant visits last year (again, they were already admitted, so we were trying to get them to commit, not looking to be impressed per se at that point), but what came up repeatedly in my conversations and profs interactions was: A) What is your background B ) What are you excited about C) What can I tell you about to help with your decision (city, social opportunites, resources) Also, handy trick if you are feeling nervous, ask any prof or student what they are currently working on and you can just sit back and relax for like 15 minutes!

I assume you've already taken care of this, but send an email with an updated CV.

This really varies by program. My partner applied to four schools, each of which took 3-5 students, and the same 5 or so were admitted to all of them. So after those 5 made up their minds, the schools started moving down the wait list and making admissions offers much later than the decision deadline. A semirelated point of etiquette here--if you are admitted to a lot of programs, please be courteous to everyone on a waitlist and decline the offers you definitely won't accept well prior to April 15! In my program, they outright accepted about 60% more students than they wanted (aim for 40 in all sub-disciplines), assuming many would go elsewhere, but in my particular subfield (1 of 5, and about 1/4 of the students) nearly everyone admitted accepted the offer. So the school took a lot more students than they had planned, and ended up accepting fewer students the next year to compensate (by subfield admitted 4-5 last year, only 2 accepted). This year there are something like 300 applicants for 30 spots, and I assume they will again lean towards fewer admits and taking the savings if not all accept.

No luck, they are both at sea. Perhaps you should use the spellings you prefer and put a line at the top that says you are using the American spellings that appear on your degrees/are used by the institutions? I would hope that no one will hold it against you if it is clear that different spellings are not misspellings. And I think major fellowships and your degrees from your undergrad ought to be listed (eg BS in Fantastonomics, with honors or BA in Concrete Sculpture, cum laude). I do think the GPA is superfluous now.

I'm still getting email through outlook...do you have a desktop server setup, or are you trying to pull straight from the owa website?

Depression is a complicated illness, and although I don't doubt that Swartz's legal troubles compounded the situation, it is really hard to blame anyone else for his mental health. Attacking MIT seems off base to me, but I get that others feel differently. In case anyone is interested, here is a letter from the MIT president: "To the members of the MIT community: Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community, took his own life. With this tragedy, his family and his friends suffered an inexpressible loss, and we offer our most profound condolences. Even for those of us who did not know Aaron, the trail of his brief life shines with his brilliant creativity and idealism. Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011. I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy. I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it. I hope we will all reach out to those members of our community we know who may have been affected by Aaron's death. As always, MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling, but there is no substitute for personal understanding and support. With sorrow and deep sympathy, L. Rafael Reif"

RSS feeds. Much easier than reading through full journals, I can pinpoint what I'm interested in, read a brief summary and analysis, and download the related paper through the library system to read later. This has the added benefit of highlighting what others are reading and focusing on in your sub-field.

As my father was fond of saying, the fair is where you get a corn dog and go to check out the livestock. If you're not there, don't expect fair!

I'm going to assume you meant "Earth" vs "Environmental" science. If I'm wrong in that assumption I apologize. Earth science has to do with the study of natural processes, and is often couched as a subset of a traditional physical or natural science, such as physics, chemistry, biology, or geology. Good examples would be things like geophysics, atmospheric chemistry, and marine biogeochemistry. Environmental science, on the other hand, has to do with viewing the Earth system on an integrative and manner, often using heuristic methods to simplify analysis of a complex system. In many programs there seems to be a strong emphasis on ecosystem function and how it interacts with the physical environment, and some programs focus particularly on anthropogenic impacts or interactions with the environment, including altered ecosystems and pollution. Some examples might include terrestrial ecologists and environmental organic chemists. So my take on all this is that environmental science builds heavily on and seeks to integrate foundational research (hypothesis driven or exploratory) from the Earth sciences and a host of higher order biology fields (by which I mean studies involving more than a single organism, not some value judgement!) with a particular emphasis on networks and complex interactions. Public health intersects with environmental science when it seeks to relate epidemiological trends to factors in the physical and biological environment, either natural or influenced by human activity. This particular subset of public health is sometimes referred to as "Environmental Health," although the same term is also used by some programs to describe the field of occupational health relating to exposure of workers to various hazards in the work "environment," whatever setting that might be.

Way back when in high school we publicly posted all our rejection letters on the cafeteria wall. I suspect this is the digital age equivalent. Good luck with the rest of your apps.

Thanks I guess, but next time please don't downvote me if you like it, it gives me feelings of low self-esteem not entirely unlike my day job ; ) Maybe they need to put those buttons further apart...

I just looked up my scores on ets, and they list an estimated "new" score next to the ones in the old format, and the percentiles next to them do not agree with the table linked above, but do agree with what showed up on my paper score report a couple months after the test. If your test was treated the same, I'd bet your percentiles reflect the running average surrounding your test date as well, not whatever the newest percentiles are, which are derived from the average over some later period of time.

There is a long post about this somewhere. I'll find it and edit in the link. For me, it is whatever is at the top of the dresser. But field scientists don't necessarily worry about not looking ridiculous... EDIT: three threads, two of them way too long

This is good advice--I went through part of my undergrad with an employee tuition exemption. I was limited in how many credits I could take at a time, but if time is no object this can be a great way to go.

I'm sorry if I missed this, but are you required to sacrifice the animals at the end of the study? This seems implied, but I'm not sure if it is the case. As someone who encourages the adoption of lab animals post-study (and you cannot sacrifice a lab animal without crazy review and justification, and mostly for situations involving fairly deadly pathologies), I often surprise people when I mention that most lab animals are not killed, and are often pampered relative to how pet owners typically treat their animals. I'll also clarify, I hate animal studies. But I know that they are done with far more protections and safeguards for animal wellbeing than provided by a pet store or animal shelter. Hell, films showing animals being stomped or decapitated with no anesthesia are legal in some states (including my home state, much to my chagrin). Not that anything on the spectrum makes me feel really good, but I feel much worse for such critters, and furry friends like bunnies in antibody cloning facilities and livestock. As for working with these animals, (a question for the OPer) will you be helping care for the critters? I'd assume this research is moving forward with or without you since it has gone through however many years of approval process to get this far, but if you are there, you can make sure that the animals are cared for to the greatest extent possible and are treated with respect and compassion. This is a hugely stressful job, but your empathy and effort could make a big difference to their quality of life. PS: I am DOD funded and study the carbon cycle. Pretty sure they aren't trying to weaponize that, so I appreciate Eigen's point for others (not the OPer) that DOD research isn't necessarily intrinsically evil.

There is unlikely to be anything except rejections for incomplete apps until after the early February NSF deadlines. Faculty are just too busy until proposals are in, and these are one of the two biggest deadlines of the year for grants. Take a look at prior years on the results and you'll see this timing is pretty consistent.

I'll address these point by point from where I'm coming from: A) Getting a PhD requires focused research--pretty hard to do successfully without motivation or direction. Courses are a component, but not the most important. I think the attitude you are describing is a lot more prevalent in undergrad degrees now, and perhaps some professional programs and skill based masters degrees, and to be fair, I just assumed we were talking about a PhD. For better or worse, it is not the attitude that admissions committees (including faculty, admins, and your potential peers--who often get some say in who they want to see admitted) are generally looking for. Why would any of the above want to work with someone who evidences what could easily be construed as apathy and entitlement? B ) Arguably the singular requirement of academia is honesty. If you can't even be honest about why you are there, why should anyone expect you to be ethical in your research practices? So yes, someone who lies should be "blamed" for their actions and grad school is a poor choice for them. If you are ambivalent, don't lie about it. You can still show commitment to a project/program/job even if you have reservations about whether it is the ideal course forward--but if you can't even see how it might help you, why waste the time that you could be doing something enjoyable? This is totally separate from a question of whether it is worth time and effort to get a slip of paper just for the sake of the credential, and whether someone can or should know exactly what they want to do, which is what you seem to connect it to. I don't think anyone hear would suggest that they know 100% what they will do and how it will turn out 5 years in the future, but having solid interests and enthusiasm sure makes it more likely that you'll put out good work and graduate in a timely manner, both of which are important considerations for grad programs. Even the ones you pay your way for are generally "losing" money on you relative to the cost of your education. This really gets back to the point you brought up in A--admissions are limited, and I'd argue that ability is not sufficient to "deserve" (a loaded phrase that I dislike) anything relative to an applicant that is more enthusiastic/committed and also has the ability to contribute positively to their program. C) There are NGOs and NPOs looking for enthusiastic and smart people to help them worldwide. And the OPer is clearly from the US, so this is a red herring regardless.The OPer clearly is excited about such jobs, which include the travel and learning/thinking that they specified as appealing. The "then what" is that these positions provide the experience and CV blurbs to do things in related fields that continue to value and reward the same activities, say, working for the Gates Foundation. Or that they provide some direction to future grad school so that instead of retreading old ground in a field you dislike, you are using your time productively towards a goal in something that you can get some more fulfillment out of than checking off the to do list. Finally, I'd point out that I didn't suggest anything the necessity of "finding yourself" prior to grad school or work, just that grad school wasn't the ideal place to make this happen. The same was true of the OPers teller job, and lots of other situations. The reason I used quotation marks is that it is clearly a cliched, oversimplifying phrase.

That table clearly states that it is based only on examinees between late 2011 and early 2012 (an 8 month period). The OP provided no info on when the test was taken, and since the scores were given in the old style, it may have been a few years ago. If used the scoring table from when I took the test 5 years ago, those would be ~60/40--what the scores mean changes dramatically with time and test group since ETS uses a running average to compute the percentiles. So again, the OPer needs to provide the percentiles that came with their test, and it clearly makes a big difference for how much of a stretch those applications are.

The above looks like laboratory skills, with some research elements. And I know UW micro requires some research based classes and a senior project to graduate (or at least it did a few years back). So play up your analytical skills and laboratory skills and anything that you did in classes that is research like, most programs don't have those elements. And yes, the letters of rec will have to be great and you'll have to do well on your GREs, but I think you have a fine shot. Be smart about where you apply and be in touch with profs to give yourself a leg up. Better to get one of those letters from the immunology lab you worked in.

What were the percentiles? Scores mean different things with different test dates, so you need the percent to really say how you did. I'd guess that those are in the 50th-60th percentiles though, so you'd need to have strong writing samples, resume, publications/presentations, letters of rec, grades, and statement of purpose to compensate. Maybe a Lit person can give you more feedback.

I see no reason why she would say that unless it was true. Not exactly a standard pleasantry. They want you to make sure you complete your application, including that rec letter, so that they can consider you/make you an offer. I had an interaction like this with the school I applied to/attended, and they were serious about it. Followed up with a call a couple weeks after everything was submitted correctly and gave me an informal offer of admission, way before they talked to anyone else (It made me feel very wanted, probably the last time grad school gave me a warm fuzzy feeling). Sometimes not submitting all the letters or parts of an app indicates that an applicant decided to give up/not follow through/focus elsewhere, and they want to make sure you don't do this and you to still consider them.

Me too! I think it is the "our" thing specifically, because I feel similarly uncomfortable with "colours". I'm also curious about this one. There are a couple Germans downstairs, I'll go find them and see if I can wrangle a CV. No promises though.

Agreed. Often it is the admissions committees reading an SOP, not necessarily the individual prof considering you as a student. A CV is the easiest way for them to decide if you are worth paying attention to, and then maybe reading your SOP. CVs may not be required, but I'm pretty surethe places you apply will not deny you the opportunity to submit one, and you should.

If you are applying to a microbiology program, stipends and tuition should be covered (the school pays you). Engineering, depends on the specific program and school, but it is more common that you may have to pay for an MS than for a PhD. So I'd apply now if you are sure you want the degree. No loans should be involved--if you are in the sciences, you shouldn't really be going to a program that doesn't pay you, wither through RAships, TAships, or fellowships, and the majority of reputable programs aren't "pay as you go."