Usmivka

Not just bright, but moral and patriotic too! It figures this started in the 50s.

I know hikaru1221 is trying to help, but this is incorrect. It sounds like a tautology, but graduate coursework (eg a 500 level course) is graduate coursework in terms of fellowship requirements/preclusions. It doesn't matter whether you took it as an undergrad or not. Unless the course is cross-listed with two course numbers (eg 300 and 500, with one being the graduate section and another the undergrad section) there is no way to count it otherwise on your transcript--this is unrelated total credits counted towards graduation. Further, few if any programs in the sciences accept transferred graduate credits as substitutes for their own requirements unless a student is transferring with their advisor from another graduate program late in their thesis progression. Taking a grad course as an undergrad may help you learn more, faster, make future graduate work easier...but it most likely won't get you out of future course requirements at the sort of place you are trying to get into when "aim[ing] high." I'm not really sure what hikaru1221 is elaborating on for point two. Yes, there is variable quality in any conference or publication, but this isn't exactly breaking news. As for how to using paper to your advantage in the admissions process, I'd like to think that most scientists hired by top schools are competent to understand and evaluate work in a related field. S/he seems to be making an argument for style over substance, but this appears ot be a false dichotomy to me, and I'm not sure how it relates to the "quality" argument. I'd be very surprised to see evidence that applicants coming from a similar educational background to you "with a bunch of publications at hand [commonly] get rejected by all the top schools" as hikaru1221 claims. The point I made is that a paper "not reach[ing] the standard quality expected in the school" is unlikely to be a problem for peer-reviewed, published work coming out of a lab at a "very highly ranked" US institution. I don't think it is something you should be worrying about. Also, you don't need to apologize for the way other people read and (mis)understand your posts. You clarified, and it wasn't as though you posted something offensive!Besides, even if you had, I'm just some person on the internet--who cares, right?

Well the Fellowship is only eligible to applied scientists and gives out about 15 a year, so it isn't really surprising that there was no thread this year until now--only a small fraction of the grad cafe user base is even eligible, much less are "the brightest technical people in the Nation." Best of luck!

I don't completely agree with these two points: 1. Graduate courses may count against you for fellowships--most external fellowships you are eligible for, whether your naturalization status changes or not, require that you be a beginning grad student. This means that if you have too many graduate credits, you could be considered beyond a year fo coursework and no longer eligible for an award. Look at application guidelines well in advance and be careful not to cross this threshold. 2. Communicating your science is the ultimate goal. The primary way that scientists communicate their work and are referenced for it is through papers. So I think having (quality) publications (that will be referenced) is more or less the ultimate goal. With a US educational background, it seems less likely you will be submitting papers shotgun style to journals of poor repute and minimal review, which is the issue hikaru1221 is keying into.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bonk

This is the second somewhat misleading thread title that has reeled me in today.

Of course someone has done it before. You're just going to do it better. Also, the last sentence in the above comment. As for the sentence before that, I would consider carefully before saying that your time management has been ineffective; that is a big opening for an advisor to take advantage of you down the road and blame any future issues on you--I've seen it happen.

I'd suggest reading all the pinned threads, including in this forum if you are concerned about what and where to post. A few thoughts: If you take the GRE too early, the scores may be deleted before you apply to grad school. You have good scores now--if you decide to work for a year or two after school and your score expires, you may have to retake it. So consider applying before that happens and deferring admission if need be. Don't waste time retaking it just to improve a few percent, which is all that most people accomplish with focused study prior to a second round. Research and publications are good. If you can focus on a topic for a year or two, aim for a first author publication. Maybe work on a project involving two profs, hence two LORs. The consensus on the forum isn't that ranking programs by university name should be resented (which implies some injury to those who disagree with the practice), but rather that focusing on brand over program, advisor, and research fit is dumb in the context of a PhD. Lots is written on the forums about this elsewhere, backed up with scholarly articles, statistics, anecdote. The search function is your friend, but summarizing what you'll find, this really shouldn't matter much relative to other components of your decision unless you are doing a professional degree or hoping to work in certain industries that care about branding over qualification. Without a green card you will find the bar is set significantly higher in terms of admission, if for no other reason than the increased cost of supporting international students (higher tuition and health care costs) and decreased eligibility for fellowships. All qualifications being equal, a US permanent resident or citizen will be preferred because they have some shot of defraying their cost with, say, a GRF whereas you will have none without further steps towards naturalization. You say you know it is hard, though, so this is probably nothing new for you. Extracurriculars matter little, except insofar as you can use them to demonstrate that you are a strong candidate, eg showing how self-directed you are, leadership or teamwork, ability to contribute to the broader impacts requirements for a potential advisor. Some advisors may view extracurriculars as a liability if a student is determined to spend time on them in grad school--not a good viewpoint for fostering a healthy work/life balance, but a reality nonetheless. There are a number here who argue that a graduate degree should not be a goal in and of itself, but a necessary stepping stone to some larger career or life goal. Others will argue the point more eloquently I'm not going to get into it. I will point out that your goal most likely will not be a satisfactory motivation as far as an admissions committee is concerned.

I know someone who got stuck in a rut with no progress for 3+ years. It made her feel so demoralized she ultimately quit her PhD. So two months sounds not so bad as it could be, if schadenfreude cheers you. Most people can't run full steam ahead all the time. I'm not sure why the 4th year should be terribly critical either, you are probably at least a couple couple chapters into your thesis, and you have 20 some months to go! So it's all good, right?

I wouldn't want to swap institutions if I were that close to finished. Presumably your committee already has someone at your current university...take a close look at your academic handbook, because that may be sufficient for graduation, even with a (now) external supervisor. Have you talked to your dean in charge of student affairs, academic advisor, another trusted faculty member at your current institution? I suspect this also depends on your field--in mine, the advisor and committee members, as well as coauthors on papers, matter more than the name of the university, and it sounds like that list of names would not really change regardless. EDIT: and I just saw how old this post is...

This is not what I anticipated from the thread title.

...for example that the top three google search results for your name are 1. an arrest report for your doppleganger, 2. a writer on a conspiracy website, and 3. a facebook picture of a frat guy doing a keg stand...

The last point line is crucial. I'm on a 5 point scale, so good luck translating that! When you report your grades, the school you apply to in the UK will do their own conversion based on both relative range of the scale and what the admissions folks think of your university (sort of a sliding "porestige" multiplier, like what id quid pointed out). Don't try to send in converted scores unless they specifically instruct you to, this is really only for your edification.

Hi danieleWrites, I'm sorry that's what you took away from my post. I did not make the argument that a degree gauranteed a good job, but that it is becoming a baseline requirement--those statistics include the two year technical degrees increasingly required for jobs like HVAC repair, plumbing, seaman, home living assistant. I relayed one of the conclusions of the paper, so I think criticizing my reading of that point is off base--I suspect you'd find much in there you agree with in the remaining text. The importance of a college degree for job qualification reality for many, regardless of whether you think it ought to be. Some of the most significant factors going into whether a student can or can't do college level work in the US stem from socioeconomic background, so I'd argue that stating someone is inherently unqualified for education and its benefits is a more "bourgeois" attitude than anything I wrote above. An aside for any readers who haven't read Marx in a while, "education as the key to success" is not an idea closely linked with the Bourgeoisie, but rather has been a tenant of socialism and stands in opposition to the idea of the middle-class as a selfish entity which hoards the benefits of modernization and globalization (the Bourgeoisie as used in sociology and political theory). I did not imply that students are entitled to pass a particular class and wrote nothing to that effect. The point I tried to make are that college degrees are important for much of the work force, the lack of a degree can be a major setback, and therefore the stakes are high for students. Required courses for all majors serve as a bottleneck, and someone who is gifted academically in other fields can drop out of the pipeline at these points, so switching academic directions is not a useful suggestion in this context. For this reason it is imortant to consciously think about what standards are in such a class, how they have or could be communicated, and what level of flexibility is necessary to give students a fair shot. Hard and fast rules without room for empathy are not necessarily an effective teaching tool--is the goal to conform to a framework (eg a grading distribution or rubric) or to help students learn at any pace even if holds up the rest of the class? Niether extreme is good, but I personally believe that adhering to rules for the sake of personal consistancy is not a more moral or ethical stance. I have much more sympathy for a student who gets annoyed at what they perceive as an unfair advantage given to others than I do for the teacher that lays the bulk of the responsibility on a failing student. I was a TA for a student that dropped out with a failing grade, and I think that outcome is at least as much my responsibility as hers, since I took on that responsibility when I agreed to teach. Hopefully you follow where I'm coming from. Beyond the central point reiterated from the linked report, the rest of my posts are personal opinion--I don't agree with everything that's been posted, but I don't think they are invalid opinions either.

I do all paper correspondence, submission, reviewer responses if I'm the first author. Same is true for the other grad students for whom I know anything about their lab dynamics, regardless of field (within an admittedly limited subset, but it does include folks in traditional chemistry and physics departments). I think this may be more institution or advisor specific. Perhaps the opening poster should ask other students in his/her department? Regardless, I think it is poor form for the advisor to take all writing tasks. You do need practice to become a good paper writer, and you are expected to be able to write grant proposals and papers as a postdoc.

That sounds like a long shot for either of those types of programs. But a strong research background, statement of purpose, and letters of recommendation can offset low test scores. Generally speaking GPA and GRE are more like thresholds--get beyond a certain level and you'll be OK, below and your application may be chucked without ever being looked at. Where that cutoff lies depends on the program.

St Andrews Lynx, I don't think the view you expressed is really consistent with the current state of the US educational system and job market. This study from Harvard's Graduate School of Education indicates that more than half of American college students do drop out, with the vast majority not returning to finish their degrees. Meanwhile, more than half of all jobs in the US require some college, and as of 2007 more than 40% required a completed degree--nearly identical to the proportion of jobs that required only a high school degree in the 1970s. It is not exagerating to say that a BA is now the baseline requirement for employment at most above-minimum wage jobs that a high school degree used to be. So an undergrad degree may not be quite the relative achievement it used to be, but if anything the value is increasing for large portions of the US population. Most sources that I've read indicate that this proportion will only continue to rise. While it is possible to have a successful career that pays a living wage without a college degree, those jobs are becoming increasingly rare and competetive. Given the relatively meager social welfare available in the US as opposed to most countries with similar living expenses, lack of academic attainment in theis sence can be a crippling setback, while a completed degree serves as a check against poverty. And an introductory writing class is something required of every US college student, so switching to some other academic track isn't terribly useful. Telknaru, while you have no doubt been successful, I suspect that a student that gets into Harvard, dropout or not, is a lot more likely to return to academia or otherwise build a successful career than the average student dropping out of US colleges as a whole (even excluding the Gates and Zuckerberg types that are dropping out to start a business).

Would you consider taking a few night courses at your local community college or university? I suspect a couple geology courses (and maybe more chemistry or physics if you want to work for a petroleum company) would make for a little bit easier sell to programs. I think at least some of the schools you listed have more PhD-centric programs--they mostly aim for PhD students, even if they nominally offer an MS. If you do find a program that will accept you for an MS as a terminal degree, you will probably not be funded, so you'd need to pay tuition, which can be very pricey as an out of state student. While extracurriculars/hobbies are nice, I don't think anyone cares much for grad school, except perhaps as they demonstrate some other quality like leadership or ability to do independent research. Test scores are nice, but the least important aspect of a successfull application. Your personal statement and prior research experience/papers will be much more important. If you have not done laboratory or field research, perhaps you can volunteer with a local lab for a year or two? Answering your questions specifically: 1. "Am I delusional here, or do I have a chance at some of these?" As GeoDUDE! pointed out, these are top-tier geology schools, so your chances aren't as good as they could be if you can demonstrate research potential. 2. "What happens if I apply but I haven't taken any geo courses? " You are unlikely to be accepted, but this all depends on the specific program and advisor, so you can target places where this will be less important. Conditional acceptances for graduate school are not something I've heard of. A bridge semester is highly unlikely. A MS is already very short, 1-2 years, and largely filled with coursework and research. There is no time to be playing catch up, and no one wants to pay for the extra time that takes--even if you are paying your tuition, the PI or department still has to sink a lot of money into you to cover research and overhead costs and will be losing money on you. So in summary, I think you can make this happen if it is really important to you, but you need to play the long game. Applying this season is not likely to pan out.

You are looking for a grant or fellowship, not a scholarship (the latter can only cover tuition). The US federal grants of this sort that I'm aware of (eg NSF DDIG) are limited to students attending US universities. There may be some small private dissertation grants. Again, the ones I know of are limited to US schools, but they tend to be smaller and more specific to school, region, or topic, so there may be some hope. We could maybe help more if you gave us some idea of your field of study. Good luck. Also:

This has the added benefit of not making you spend additional time grading new papers. But I don't see that by giving them a chance to fix this issue you'd be giving them an unfair advantage--you could offer to ugrade them to a 'D,' or no higher than the lowest passing grade for making the fix (which sounds to me like just putting in a couple citations, so it wouldn't cost you much time on a regrade), and warn that it is a one time thing. A 'D' has the benefit that if they reengage, it is not quite so difficult to come back from, and it is less humiliating--depending on your students' backgrounds, an 'F' could give them the mental excuse to say 'I'm a loser and am going to fail anyway, so why try at all.' Are you going to drive them to drop the course if you give them an 'F' on their first ever college assignment? You probably have a better guess as to the answer than any of us. How'd it go today?

D:

Blindingly fast off the starting blocks...

You did mean PhD yes? We both said there was no need to apply for another MA, though jm suggested you could if you were feeling particularly antsy about having a backup.

This is a duplicate post.

The nature of many masters degrees is to spend a lot of time doing classwork and research mostly thought out and organized by your PI. I don't think a second will be any more compelling to an admissions committee as evidence of your ability to perform independent research. It sounds to me like you already can make the case that you can think up interesting questions and follow through on your own ideas, and you have papers and a good GPA. Half a year is a trivial absence from academia. What will a second Master's gain you if you already think you are ready for a PhD program?