coonskee

A man is stopped by a tourist on the streets of NYC. "Excuse me sir, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The man responds, "Practice, practice, practice." But seriously: I agree with the above - the quant section isn't hard math, it's just teaching yourself another way of looking at problems. If you have trouble with it (i.e. you're too slow answering questions, meaning you're not seeing the easy ways to solve the problems), spend time doing practice problems. Do them all the time. In my case, I kept my practice book next to me on my bench. 2min incubation time in a protocol? Practice question. Lunch break? Practice questions. etc. And from what I recall, I avoided using a calculator unless there was math I thought I couldn't do in my head without making a possible mistake. I think that you shouls use as much scratch paper as possible as it'll stop you form making silly mistakes - not a lot of writing, but get the bare bones of the problem on the paper. That's just my opinion though.

Bwahh sorry! I misremembered my score - I only got 161. .____. I thought my score didn't seem as bad as I thought it had been when I first got it... sigh. And thanks My memory is starting to make me question whether I should actually go or whether I'll fail out in the first semester

I'm not sure how accurate mine was to the concordance table, but there's a really long thread somewhere in this subforum about "new GRE" - you can look through it and see what peole scored and what their percentiles were to compare with the table!

Sorry - I totally forgot about this! Verbal: Section 1 2x Level 2 (both correct) 15x Level 3 (1 incorrect - whoops!) 3x Level 4 (all correct) Verbal: Section 2 6x Level 3 (one wrong - sigh) 11x Level 4 (one wrong) 3x Level 5 (all correct) Verbal Total Incorrect: 3, for a final score of 169 Quantitative: Section 1 4x Level 2 (one wrong - ouch!) 7x Level 3 (one wrong) 6x Level 4 (one wrong) 2x Level 5 (both correct) Quantitative: Section 2 11x Level 4 (2 wrong) 9x Level 5 (2 wrong) Quantitative Total Incorrect:7, for a final score of 164 I'm still upset about missing that Level 2 question Hope this help!!

January 20th, right? I was too - my real name's Ola (I'm female - I think my username confuses people so I'll clarify ).

I know it's tempting, but you have what, eight, nine weeks left in the semester? To phrase it harshly: suck it up, put your nose to the grindstone, and get it done. In nicer terms: You've had a 4.0 till now. Don't let one semester of senioritis tarnish it! And I agree with guttata, too.

Also, though it sounds like there are more results for you, two trolls decided to post rejections from my program before any news had gone out at all (I'd emailed the grad secretary to see if they were valid). So, keep in mind - sometimes, the intrawebz just wants to mess with you

I emailed the grad secretary once - and that was because I'd seen two rejections for the program go up here. She told me the posters were full of sheet, and to email her if I hadn't heard anything by the next Monday. I got an unofficial acceptance two days later from my POI/three days later from teh dept

woohoo kar9291!! congrats!!

I did quite well on my GRE (169V, 164Q) and I actually thought that both sections were disturbingly easy - so much so that I started panicking that I'd failed the test entirely (which is why, I think, my Q was so low - I spent too much time worrying and made stupid mistakes). Don't try to gauge whether your second section is harder or easier, and by how much, because it may really mess you up. Just my $0.02! I'm at the lab now but I'll log in to my diagnostic tonight (don't have my login saved on this comp) and post my ratios for you.

I definitely agree with this. The truth is, across any line of work, whether it's science, business, art, or basket weaving - who you know can sometimes be far more important than what you know. Keep this connection open; you never know how it may be able to benefit you (and the PI!) in the future. I'm sorry about the rejection (I've been stalking your signature for a while to see an update on CU because if you got accepted I was going to ask if I'd met you at the interview weekend!).

Especially if they send snail mail letters - yes, wait till next Tuesday! I think the only reason I got the official letter so fast is because it was sent electronically And congrats, kgumps!

For my acceptance: I got an unofficial email from the program director on a Friday evening, and received an "official" email from the grad office on Tuesday, around lunchtime.

Mmm, I guess that makes it easier - I'm thinking from my experience (sometimes I'll get in the lab at 7am and not leave till 11pm). If your problem is a "two-body" problem, then as long as you think you can do the commute without burning out, then go for it. Do remember you're going to be working your butt off, though - don't let yourself crash in your first year because of a commute!! good luck

Another copy of Nature! Yesterday, that is. Left for the lab at 6:30am today, much earlier than the mail gets in...

Honestly: I don't deserve to be going to the program I got into. I'll have had one year of research experience before starting - ages less than what most people here seem to have. My PI here further refused to write me a letter for an application to transfer (I'm currently an MSc student) - a very shitty situation indeed. However. Because I wanted to transfer, I chose to apply to only one school - my top choice school, which is also my alma mater. I figured, if I didn't get in this time, I'd stick out the misery of the MSc program (I'm extremely unhappy here) and cast a wider net the following year. That probably helped because it showed how much I wanted that program. I had really good letters of reference, and really non-traditional ones - two from former science profs (and I got a poor grade in one of the referees' classes; he still wrote me a glowing letter, which says something, I guess), and one from an English professor. I think that helped because, although the program for which I applied is Biology, it's an "Integrated" program, and the fact that I was an English/Bio major and did well at it shows that I like synthesizing various areas and making htem work together. Or maybe I'm just deluding myself I also highlighted that I write a lot about science (I have a blog); not sure that had anything to do with it. I had a decent GPA from CU (3.58), very good GRE and MCAT scores (I used to be premed, so I subbed my scores in that for a GRE subject test score) Maybe it's the fact that I'm clearly a weird applicant, but I got an interview. The reason I think I got the acceptance: I rocked my interviews (read 3+ papers/faculty member with whom I was speaking, knew my stuff, was able to explain why I wanted to transfer and why CU was my top choice).

Just finished Microbe Hunters by de Kruif (it's from 1926 so there's, um, a hefty amount of racism in the book, but it's a really well-written history of the start of microbiology as a study), and I'm currently starting The Poisoner's Handbook (can't remember the author), which is about the dawn of forensic toxicology in NY in the 1920s. Both awesome reads! I'm also partway through Polio: An American History, which is great, but I keep getting distracted by other books. I'm also partway through the 4th book of A Song of Ice and Fire, but I've gotten bored by his writing style (or lack thereof) so I'm taking a short break. I'm probably going to start the first book of the Hunger Games series soon. Aaaaaaaaand I think that's it so far. Yes, I have reading ADD.

I think that's kind of a ridiculous commute for anyone working. There are likely going to be times when you'll be in the lab for a LONG time - do you WANT to be taking the bus at 10pm at night? Is there anything you can do to move closer? I just worry that you'll "burn out" from the commute... that's 4-6 hours out of your day, every day, if you take the train/bus.

I'd say that, if you're interviewing at a school, using Professor So-And-So to discuss a prof at the school is definitely a good idea - just to avoid accidentally stepping on any toes - and anyone outside of the institute would just be referred to by last name or full name. Good luck with your interviews!

Ok, now I feel a LOT more confident about the stipend I'll be getting from my NYC school... we'll have to share tips on how to save money!!

I wanted to go about transferring in a kosher way. I asked my current PI if he'll write me a letter just to show that I haven't been a huge fuck-up (I've worked really hard in this lab, it's just this school is not for me - I'm currently doing a MSc here, and was planning to apply to PhD programs after finishing up, but I'm absolutely miserable and wanted to apply to my dream PhD program after one year instead of finishing up this degree). He said he wouldn't write me a good one (basically he'd be honest about ohw hard I work/how smart I am but would add a sentence saying that he thinks I'm not committed, which is ok) , I said that's ok, I'd appreciate a letter anyway - and then he sent me to the grad director instead of talking with me further about things (basically, to force me into staying). So I applied to my dream program without his support. I got in. Without his help. If you want to transfer: APPLY. Don't tell people about it (I didn't tell anyone I was applying, and have only told three people in my lab [of 30 people] that I got in because I know I can trust them), because that may cause issues, unless you know you can trust the people with whom you're working...which you probably can't if you want to transfer. That was all very poorly phrased, and I know my situation is slightly different because it's MSc --> PhD rather than PhD --> PhD, but still. Here's hoping I can help a little bit. One thing to note: make sure you can articulate very clearly why you want to transfer. It will have to come up on your SoP. It will come up in interviews. Have a very good, concise, honest, and straight-forward answer to provide to anyone who may ask.

You can ask your PI what kind of reading you should do in order to prepare to enter the lab and ask other PhD students what their day-to-days look like (follow up with whether you can expect the same), for example. You can also ask the students and PI about what starting will look like - will you be paired with someone for a training period, will you be looking for a thesis project right away or helping others with their stuff until you get a feel for things, etc. Congrats on your acceptance!

There've been a lot of threads about this throughout the forums, but they're kinda hard to track down - there's a whole debate in the Biology subforum titled "Business Casual?" or something to that extent, and I'm pretty sure that tie vs no tie / suit vs no suit is debated to some extent there. As I am of the XX PhD candidate variety, I'm not really sure if I can help you (I wasn't exactly checking out male counterparts at my interview weekend ). Good luck on your interview!

Well everyone has their own individual bottles here - you microwave them and then keep them in an oven (so I'll make 800 mls at once and use those over the course of a week or two). Came upon the fact that if you make agarose with water, it'll melt when a charge is applied to it..... mwahahahahahahahaha.

Someone in my lab keeps stealing my agarose gel. Everyone here uses 2% - so I started labeling mine 1%. still being taken. Anyone have any ideas of how I can mess with one bottle of gel so that people stop taking my s***? I've asked everyone in the lab if they use my gel and no one will fess up!