
Hillary Emick
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Everything posted by Hillary Emick
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I got my undergrad degree as a single parent, and about to head off to a graduate program with my family including my husband and our 4 kids. For both of these adventures as a family in academia, I found that attending a school with family housing was key. It creates a really engaged and mutually supportive community, and you can get your rent (and usually most of your utilities) covered with financial aid. We are planning to take out a loan for the entire first year's rent, and hope that my husband will have found employment by then so we aren't going too deeply into debt. I am willing to take on the debt if necessary though. It is an investment in our future. Our kids are all in school at this point so daycare is no longer an issue. For my undergrad degree, having an on-site daycare with a grant program was also critical.
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Bio Sciences Interview at WSU
Hillary Emick replied to grizzlygirl87's topic in Interviews and Visits
I think this is pretty common in the sciences, where you will be working as a team with your POI's lab, not just one on one with the POI. This was very much how my interview was set up. I interviewed with my POI in the morning, several other faculty in the department, his other PhD student, and his lab staff over the course of the day. The next day I interviewed with the dean of graduate enrollment, the department chair, and some other faculty. I was just offered admission on Thursday. I have not received a funding offer yet but the program is pretty well funded and they seem pretty invested in their graduate students so I am hopeful and very excited. Try to relax and enjoy this. You are meeting people you are interested in working with over the next several years, and hopefully you just hit it off all the way around. I was very nervous too, but immediately felt a good connection and rapport with most of the people I met and actually ended up enjoying it a lot. Read up on the types of projects they are involved in and be ready to ask them questions about their research, and answer questions about your own work and anything that might stand out on your CV and SOP. No one quizzed me on my knowledge about the specific academic areas of the program, but they all asked me a lot about what I am doing now. I think my ability to describe and explain my current work was very beneficial for me. I didn't get any of the kind of generic interview questions, but it can't hurt to be prepared for those. It was mostly structured where first they asked me about my experience and research interests, and then told me a bit about what they were doing and I asked them questions. -
I agree it is a slow year and not to give up yet. If you are rejected at a school, reach out to your POI to ask what the deficiencies in your application materials are and how you can put together a more competitive package for next year. I have found that most professors who have been willing to work with you on the applications package so far will also be willing to give you a little constructive criticism as well. You have to really steel yourself to be tough to go seek out criticism like that, but it can be worth it. These are the people who are evaluating grad student applications and will really know what it is you need to be more competitive.
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Fill out the FAFSA and see. I am eligible for some subsidized, and more unsubsidized than I hope I have to take out.
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Congrats on getting in! Talk to the grad office or your POI about this. I am sure they will understand that you need more information about the likelihood of being offered an assistantship before you can commit to moving your family to the Bay Area. Does your wife have any job prospects? Or do you have savings to help out until you can get a TA or RA?
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That is great to hear sansao. I was very impressed with the faculty & facilities when I interviewed there and I am so excited to have this opportunity.
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POI - should I plan in-person visit?
Hillary Emick replied to iowaguy's topic in Interviews and Visits
If the program is nearby and it isn't a significant cost, a in-person visit can't hurt. But it's a waste of your time and money to fly out to places to talk to a POI before submitting an application. That's a better investment once you have an app in that other faculty and the adcom can review, and you can meet with those people on the visit too. -
Arizona State University, Environmental Life Sciences PhD. http://els.asu.edu/ I'll be doing research under their astrobiology initiative. It is a really unique interdisciplinary program. They also have family housing in a really good school district, which might not matter at all to most grad students but it was critical for me as a parent.
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How to put GRFP into your email signature without being pretentious
Hillary Emick replied to c07030's topic in The Bank
I have seen fellowships in grad students' signature lines and didn't think it was pretentious. -
How long did it take to hear back?
Hillary Emick replied to shaxmaty1848's topic in Decisions, Decisions
I got my first response two weeks ago and it was a rejection. Applied in December, was asked to separately apply for university funding in January, and then got the rejection two weeks ago. I got my first acceptance just this morning. I applied in November and interviewed in early January. I hadn't heard a thing in the mean time and was too chicken to actually call them in case it was just hastening a rejection.The department updated the FAQ's on their website two days ago with a bullet on the decision process that all interviews had been conducted and applicants could expect to hear from them by mid-March. They emailed me late last night with an acceptance. -
I got accepted at my first choice! I interviewed almost two months ago, and in the mean time got rejected from my second choice and have been second-guessing everything I said or did at my interview ever since. Got the notification at 10 pm last night but didn't check my email until this morning. I feel slightly less neurotic about all those times I checked my email one last time before going to bed, feeling insane to even bother, as if any adcom member would be at their computer at 10 at night sending out notifications. Ha. I am so excited I can't sit still. It was so good to have all of you to commiserate with on the long nutty waiting it out process. It was such a roller coaster and nobody who hasn't been through it really understands how stressful it is and how much it can make you doubt yourself.
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I am a neurotic mess. I can handle rejections, it is the feeling of my entire life being up in the air that is making me a little whacko right now. I do ok with not obsessing on the weekends, but during the week I work on a computer all day and ALL I can think about is when the answer is going to come, one way or another. I would feel a lot crazier if it wasn't for all the folks here in the same boat reacting the same way. I am glad I have you all to obsess with so I don't drive my husband as crazy as I am.
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I had something similar. I got a rejection letter from the department, followed a week or so later by a letter from a fellowship committee at that school asking for an interview. Contact the department and let them know you are still being considered for funding and ask if there is a possibility of overturning the admissions decision and if there is anything you can do to facilitate that (speak with prospective advisors within the faculty, etc). It's worth a shot.
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As of today, my neurotic side kicked into overdrive. The last of my top choice's interview weekends just wrapped up, and they told me that they would be sitting down after that to make final admissions and funding decisions and be mailing those out ASAP. So even though logically I know this is going to take more than a couple hours, I really need to find something else to do to take my mind off obsessively checking my email and their website.
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I have been on an emotional roller coaster with this whole process. I got invited for an interview for a university fellowship last week, about a week after I got a rejection letter from the department (because my POI had left suddenly and at this point in the process there wasn't anyone else with room in their roster for another grad student.) The program coordinator expressed his sympathy about the situation and encouraged me to apply again next year. He also told me not to lose heart and that he didn't get accepted until his 3rd year of applying to grad programs. I found that pretty discouraging rather than encouraging as he probably intended.
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water and sewer bill, letter from my kids' school
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accepted while interviews are still going on??
Hillary Emick replied to Marius's topic in Waiting it Out
I would not be discouraged. If you are interviewing, they are very interested. Interviews are often about matching you up to the right funding (TA or RA, which project if RA) not just admission. Definitely go. -
Right now I only have one possible acceptance left. I had a good interview, but it is very selective and I am on pins and needles waiting to hear back from them. My boss would be thrilled to keep me on for another year (I already checked with her about this when decisions started coming in), and I learned some valuable lessons from the process.
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Does anyone know anything about the process for this fellowship? The website said that my application was complete and that they typically notified of decisions in May. Do they interview top candidates? If so, when are those interviews generally?
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It depends. If you are eating beans and peanut butter, it's probably cheaper than eating meat. If you are eating soy/textured vegetable protein fake meat, it's more expensive. I found being vegan less expensive than being an omnivore.
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I'm not sure what Dartmouth's interview rate is. But at my interview at my top choice, they told me they had about 500 applications and were interviewing about 50 people for about 30 spots (department-wide, 3 separate PhD programs). So they were definitely interviewing about 20 more people than they were accepting, at their expense.
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We're spending most of the summer on our cross country move/epic road trip adventure. We've got a 5 week itinerary including visits to friends and family and a stop at the Grand Canyon. We are leaving the last week in June and arriving at our destination August 1st, unless I can negotiate with family housing to move in slightly earlier. Orientation as a TA starts August 2 and my kids start school August 10. We have several stops that are an average of 6 hours driving time between each. This breaks the drive up into nice manageable chunks and gives us the chance to see far flung places and people.
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Recruitment event-Friday --attire???
Hillary Emick replied to noyoo's topic in Interviews and Visits
I concur with business casual. If the jacket feels like too much, then don't wear it. Make sure you are comfortable. I had two days of interviews and wore a skirt and blouse for day one and slacks and blouse for day two. -
I am waiting it out. Not sure I am relaxing, but I am waiting it out. The anticipation is killing me.
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I'm married, and my husband and I discussed each school/location at each step in the process from sending out exploratory emails to POI's to which schools to apply to, and he came with me to check out the area while I interviewed with my top choice. All of the places I applied were places he was happy to relocate to, and we'd already had solid plans of what he was going to be doing professionally for the next several years in the area of each school I applied at. It doesn't sound like your and your SO had those kinds of discussions or that level of commitment to the relationship. You have to really have a heart-to-heart with your SO about your mutual commitment to your relationship and how to you are going to negotiate making these kinds of life decisions together if you both decide that you are in this for the long haul. I would personally be hesitant to put off pursuing my own dreams and what is in my own long term interests based on a romantic relationship without long term commitment.