jacket24

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. It sounds like the consensus is that I shouldn't bring up the PhD until after I actually get a job rather than during the interview process. I've been applying for internships as well but most of those won't start until the summer so this quandary only applies to the more immediate entry level positions.

My understanding is that UW is behind in their whole process so I wouldn't count yourself out yet. I was initially told that we would hear back in mid-February (which has come and gone in silence) but more recent estimates are early March. They have sent out invitations for the first visit weekend (I'm not sure if there will be more than one scheduled event) to a few applicants who are being considered for department fellowships but that doesn't mean that you won't receive funding from your POI's project. What is your focus area?

The Stanford Atmosphere/Energy program must be on an earlier schedule; I am waiting for the EES department. I saw a Johns Hopkins acceptance posted yesterday but have yet to hear from them as well.

Hate revive a dead topic but this issue is becoming more real since I have a job interview lined up in the immediate future. How would you respond to questions like "Where do you see yourself in 1 year? 5 years?" with PhD admission decisions looming in the next couple of weeks? I don't want to be dishonest or deceptive but also don't want to exclude myself from opportunities when I don't know which (if any) programs I will be accepted to. Should I even mention that I've applied to grad schools in the interview or wait until an official offer is made?

*Cue extended drum roll in agonizing anticipation*

For me, funding doesn't matter as much as others would say (as long as tuition and living expenses are covered, assuming PhD programs). I would sit down and establish some baseline acceptable value for each city based on cost of living and anticipated expenses with a little overhead for emergencies then focus on what else is important to you. It may help to set up a decision matrix with set rankings and weightings for each category that you want to consider. For example (the numbers in row 2 would be weighting for each category...arbitrarily set for sake of demonstration): RANK SCHOOL Location Research Cost Funding Ranking TOTAL 2 3 1 2 2 1 Program A 1 2 5 1 1 17 2 Program B 3 1 6 2 2 23 4 Program C 2 3 3 6 5 38 6 Program D 4 5 4 5 6 49 3 … 5 4 1 4 3 37 5 … 6 6 2 3 4 46 Of course, this will only provide a guideline but it can be a helpful exercise to make you think about the pros/cons of each option. Edit: I realize that the formatting may not display properly on mobile devices but you get the idea.

Stanford is "in the full swing of things and they have been reviewing applications." I called to update some of my information and hope to get some sort of confirmation about the changes I requested in the next day or 2. We may be on the verge of hearing more decisions. Hopefully the flow rate increases and becomes turbulent in the near future (fluids puns, yep).

Johns Hopkins will be sending out notifications within a week (either this week or the beginning of next week) according to the DOGEE office. Knock on wood...

I wasn't expecting to hear from Stanford until next month at the earliest but this has given me a (perhaps misplaced) sense of hope that we'll find out sooner. On the other hand, the majority of acceptances have been for the Masters program so I don't know what to think.

Congratulations on your success so far, haynay! Yours is the first PhD result I've seen out of UMich so hopefully this upcoming week is the big one. Please post your results on the results page as well so we can keep tabs on decision timelines (and so future generations of applicants have more data to obsess over when awaiting their own fates).

Thanks for the input guys, I've installed a couple of your suggestions. Since my original post, I found that 'Page Monitor' is better for monitoring the results page since the site does not need to be open in your browser and you can elect to receive desktop notifications when results are posted. Similarly, I instaled 'iChanged Lite', an iPhone app that accomplishes the same task on my mobile device. Although it lacks some features, it gets the job done and saves me from manually refreshing ad infinitum.

I used Zotero for a short spell but found that it wasn't as intuitive or smooth as I'd hoped; perhaps I just didn't unlock its full potential. I've since been using EndNote's desktop application in conjunction with EndNote Web to good effect. It allows me to keep my PDF files and citations organized and share them easily when necessary.

I recently installed an extension (Refresh Monkey) that allows a website (i.e. the results page) to be refreshed at a predetermined time interval. This will, presumably, allow me to focus a bit less on mindlessly checking over and over since I should get a notification as soon as something new is posted. What particularly useful browser extensions or programs do you use/recommend?

Forgot to post my stats... UG: 3.2 (top 5 CEE program...started off slow, good upward trend in grades though) MS: 3.5 (top 5 CEE program) Research: 1 paper published, 1 in preparation, 3 presentations, 3 years research experience GRE: 164Q/159V/4.0AQ Your publication history is impressive, phdcandidate022014. What is your focus area? The first time around, I got a decision from Cornell in the first week of February, while acceptances for Yale and UW have been reported mostly in the 2nd-3rd weeks of Feb. in the last few years so I'm hoping that trend continues. Some of the larger programs (Stanford, Michigan, UIUC, etc.) do seem to take a bit longer to sift through applications though.

Like several posters that I've seen here, my applications were financially limited. I tried to apply only to programs in locations that I could really see myself living for 4-6 years but that hasn't stopped the voice in my head from telling me that I should have cast a wider net. This forum has been a blessing and a curse...while there is strength in numbers, I can't help but ponder how much more productive I could be if not for compulsively refreshing the results page in vain. Glad to see that I'm not the only one with these neuroses.

If anyone else here is applying to the University of Washington in Seattle, I expect that we'll hear back from them in the next 2-3 weeks based on an email conversation that I had with a POI there. Any leads on other programs or info about visit dates, etc. would be great if anyone has heard anything. I, for one, am glad that the seemingly endless month of January is almost over and hope that the decisions start rolling in soon. The silence has been deafening.

Agreed. Perhaps the people receiving these notifications have already been grouped within a certain range (i.e. only the most competitive or people on the cusp of receiving awards) and they will only be compared against others who received similar requests. Of course this is all just speculation at this point, but at least it's something to distract us from the painfully silent wait.

Have you received an admissions decision or heard anything else from Michigan CEE?

OP, when did you submit your application? Just curious about the turn around time.

Thanks for chiming in haynay, where are you applying?

I'm sure that I've seen a post about this somewhere but had no luck finding it. I will finish my MS degree this semester and am in the process of applying to PhD programs for the Fall 2014 season. Ideally, I would like to find employment in my field for the 8-9 months between completion of MS and start of PhD but I've had a hard time identifying employers willing to work with that time limitation (understandably so). I have been applying for internship positions without much luck so far. Would it be unethical to apply for a full time job without telling them about my intentions to leave within a year to continue my education? Something about that approach leaves me feeling uneasy about burning bridges but I have not had any success with being upfront about it.

Well the most obvious distinction would be the teaching factor. Professors are generally expected to manage some degree of course instruction whereas their industrial counterparts would not have this expectation. Also, and this is just my general sense so others please correct me if I'm wrong, R&D tends to focus on more specialized problems relevant to a particular company or field's operation whereas academic researchers apply for funding based on their own interests and can have either a "basic research" or "applied research" focus.

I thought the GRO program was only for undergraduates.