Usmivka

I'm not affiliated with Harvard EPS, but I know some of the students there (plus one who transferred out with their advisor). Everyone I've interacted with has been really a pleasure to be around; sharp and fun. It seems like a good environment for the students in general with a great peer group. You should also email some students in your prospective lab to get their take! I get the impression it is not such a positive place for pre-tenure faculty, so you should think hard about how likely your potential advisor is to still be there in 5 years. I don't know anything about the specifics of faculty dynamics, but it is hard to imagine that the high refusal rate for tenure makes for a more collaborative environment. I'm not sure how much that matters to you though--it really depends on how your advisor feels about it and how successful they think they are/can be. Remember you can make your committee from the best available folks, both inside and outside of Harvard.

Hopefully he was strongly encouraged to go elsewhere so his genius could be better appreciated.

I think this is a very smart approach for the department. While you want to take the best people based on some semi-objective process, it helps no one if someone is accepted and comes that others in the department all want to avoid.

Yes, the conversation here is bifurcating based on expectations about 1. academia, or 2. a terminal masters. The latter is like a professional degree, and it is not unreasonable to evaluate the costs, benefits, and risks in the same way one might if they were getting an MBA or JD. However, once you are on track to a PhD and subsequent postdoc, accepting dept makes little sense, even if you later decide to leave academia. For example, I'll be in my mid thirties by the time I finish my first postdoc--I will never make up the "lost" income from my years as a grad student compared to what I might have made in industry, as whatever my initial salary is will not have sufficient time to grow (should I be so lucky as to work for an employer that provides raises beyond inflation, eg no university ever). Taking on any debt at all would be extremely poor financial judgement compared to working and reapplying to school later or never. Consider doing a return on investment calculation (eg http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/09/30/is-grad-school-worth-it-7-steps-to-calculating-the-roi/) to see whether debt makes any sense for you and your specific circumstances.

Hold up a second. Differential equations are important, but there is no reason they have to be taken THIS semester based on what you wrote. You are a sophomore. You have two more years and three summers in which you could take this course. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that differential equations is much more likely to be offered every semester (including summer term, even if you have to do it at a community college) than those geology courses, which are probably on an annual or biennial schedule. So the cost of skipping DQ for now and taking it later is minor, while skipping a geology course now risks your ability to stay on track in the major. You should be talking with the departmental academic advisor about this and what courses need to happen when.

The reasons moochie listed (department fit, quality of life) seemed like compelling reasons to choose CU Boulder to me. I'm not sure a (presumably unrestricted) fellowship is much more desirable than RA funding, though I guess that depends on the advisor relationship and how far afield the RA work is from the thesis work. Were you in the same position, would that trump the other considerations? Moochie, congrats on making a decision!

I was very confused by the April 1 posts. This post is a filler for what was a far too in depth response to what is now clearly BS.

Having both average grades and poor test scores will not make your life easier. Yes, the GRE is the least important part of the application, and lots can be forgiven if the other components are all strong. But why risk it? Since you are not taking the GRE till this summer, perhaps you should spend the intervening time learning how to take it effectively with a practice book and some practice tests (say, one or two a month, then once or twice a week in the final 2-3 weeks). It is a single specific task that you can practice ad nauseum for, so being a bad test taker really should not be a factor--practice till it becomes rote. The GRE doesn't test what you know, just your ability to perform a specific task quickly (in this case eliminating wrong answers is often much faster than solving for the correct one, which has some parallels in science). Test environments aren't my forte either, but I aced the GRE with 6 weeks of practice. All these profs took the GRE too, so they know it isn't a big deal and can be prepared for--"I'm a bad test taker" doesn't fly well. It doesn't reflect well on anyone if they don't take the time to prepare for a known task. This is like cooking--assemble your ingredients before you turn on the burner.

Implicit bias (now explicit since I said it?). I'm in a marine science program--both UMass Boston and UMass Dartmouth have marine focused earth scientists and departments that I am aware of and occasionally collaborate with. Amherst does not, but it probably has the largest hard rock geology contingent of the three. Anyway, the other two jump to mind first when I'm thinking of earth science departments.

Ditto. It's like arctic foxes and snowshoe hairs, asynchronous peaking.

Definitely not the one I would have guessed.

My program is lucky to get 50% yield across all departments. Look at it this way--if someone is getting into one top program, they are likely getting into more. And you can't accept at two schools.

There are five UMass schools, 3 with geology departments. All make their decisions separately--which do you mean? I'm betting there are people on this thread applying to at least two of them.

At least here, spring break is an undergrad break, nothing more. All departments are operating normally, including admissions related stuff. For departments where decisions may not have been made, the only complication is childcare if the public schools are on spring break as well--in which case, some people might be out of the office, but working from home.

BU has two campuses--Arts and Sciences is at the northernmost, Charles River campus. It looks to me like that is where most BU E&E faculty have their labs and offices. I live in Jamaica Plain. I like it better than the areas immediately around BU, but I think it would be kind of a pain to get to there. Brighton within walking distance to the B line might be an acceptable place to start your housing hunt. Good luck.

You might have better luck in the Meet and Greet subforum. For an idea about living and working in Boston, take a look int he City Guide subforum. The river is slowly melting, so Spring might get here by the time your term starts in September. Which campus will you be working out of (eg I know some environmental science types work out of the medical campus in the South End)?

I first read that as [an] "okay" State.

Because not all schools allow deferrals, and some of those that do discourage it for anything besides medical and family emergencies. If a department has funds in a subsequent year, they'd rather take the best available applicants, regardless of who is left over from the previous year.

First, congratulations columbia09. But like GeoDUDE!, I am also confused--it sounds like you've been accepted at the grad school level but declined at the departmental level from what you've posted here. Did you apply to two different departments? What is the timeline on all of this (eg does the graduate school acceptance predate the departmental notification despite being sent later), and did the department change it's decision one way or the other? Additionally, what I meant earlier (whether your prospective advisor is "sensitive" or not), is that involving the department without speaking to him first can have negative professional ramifications for him (the opinion of his peers, departmental rules about offering acceptances, internal grant consideration to cover your costs). While I'm pleased it worked out for you, things could have gone south for you depending on the personalities involved--it is clear the department admin you contacted did not ask your prospective advisor what was up before going to the chair.

I thought maybe. It might still have been possible to go back and get acceptance if you ultimately were awarded an external fellowship this summer or he got NSF funding from the February funding cycle. But I think that is unlikely now, because you directly inquired at the departmental level without first talking to your prospective PI, and forced the chair to respond. At the very least you've made things awkward for your PI, so even if funding changed in the near future I doubt he'll be back in touch with you. If anything similar happens moving forwards, consider sitting on your response for a couple days and get some advice from a third party. Reiterating what I and multiple others have said--this isn't the end, and even if it was your last shot this application season, there are a lot of reasons to be happy about NOT being in grad school. __ EDIT: And everything said above about the department overruling the PI can be true. Departments have limited funds, and there is a lot of horse-trading that goes on between identifying a candidate and offering acceptance. Your prospective PI is just as disappointed as you, but for different reasons (no cheap labor, increased work output, advising experience for brownie points with his faculty committee and tenure review).

Depending on the admin structure there can be multiple layers of approval, as GeoDUDE! points out. Also, offering "a place regardless of funding" seems to me to be beyond the scope of what a professor can ensure. You might reread the correspondence carefully to see if there weren't qualifiers in there. Certainly don't accuse the prof of reneging or act in any way churlish, but if you have an unequivocal assurance of admission in writing, that (in some cases) can be construed as a binding offer of admission. I wouldn't try to force the issue unless your PI will back you up at the departmental level though. Whereas, if this was all verbal you don't really have any recourse. There are a number of older posts demonstrating why verbal OKs may not translate into actual offers of admission. Before you write any emails/make any calls that you may regret or could hinder your prospects, consider running the correspondence past somebody else for an informed point of view (not your paraphrasing, the actual letters). If you do it on the forums, please PM someone like GeoDUDE! or make a new thread so this one doesn't get too sidetracked from admissions news. If things don't go your way this Spring, try not to fret too much--it may work out better for you in the long run if you go to grad school after a couple years of job experience. My personal experience is that my peers with a gap between undergrad and grad work are on average more mature and successful in their graduate work than those who continue directly. This isn't true of everyone of course, but taking the time to build your CV and hone your interests is unlikely to hurt your prospects. You may even decide that the lost wages and time in grad school aren't worth it after getting used to a 9-5 job at a living wage.

You don't need an account to post results, you do to post a profile. For a number of reasons, only a fraction of people who might post in the results would also choose to make an account. This thread is not very oceanography centric at any rate, so there is no reason to assume that someone so inclined has dug through the forum enough to know that this is where they might post a profile anyway!

I'd say do it earlier, like now. The reason otherwise qualified people don't get admitted is funding. If you find a good fit now, there is plenty of time for 1. your potential advisor to think through your role with you and write your funding into the August NSF proposal, and 2. you to to do the same and apply for an external fellowship like the NSERC.

Admissions went out a few weeks ago for EAPS Planetary Science. I wouldn't expect anything to change until after visiting weekend (this weekend). EDIT: sorry, I see this has already been well hashed over

I haven't seen any relevant papers, posters, or talks at national conferences I attend from UCI ESS. But that really just means there is little/no field overlap. Still, I'd take a look at where students in the department are getting published and going for postdocs before you pull the trigger.