TakeruK

I can't give you school names, but I can say that research experience in X can still help you in getting into grad school for Y. Sure, similar research experience is "worth more", but at some level, research experience is research experience and it will still help.

See: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/get/ Summary: ETS says it will take 10-15 days for you to get your scores online.

Indeed, and actually, U Toronto's astrophysics program is a US-style direct-to-PhD program (although, if you are coming with a Masters from another school, you will enter at advanced standing, unlike most US PhD program). They do allow their graduate students to go for only a Masters too (funded) which could then be used to attend a PhD program elsewhere. So, it's like a hybrid of a Canada-US system! In my field, Toronto is the only school like this.

You mention Toronto and McGill, which are Canadian schools. In general, the MA degree in Canada is very different from the MA degree in the US. In Canada, you must do an MA before a PhD, because the path to the PhD is 4-year BA, 1-2 year MA, and then 3-X years PhD (where X depends on the field...maybe the 3 does too). I did a quick check and Toronto will fund the 1-year MA program.

1) ETS says you will get your General GRE scores "about 10-15 days after your test" (https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/get/). So, October 30th for Dec 1 deadline should be okay. Most people take it earlier because: i) they want to get it out of the way since October is a busy time for preparing applications, ii) they have to write the Subject GRE as well, which is offered in September and October nowadays, so taking the General GRE this late means study periods overlap, and iii) they want a chance to retake the General GRE if necessary. 2) This is not true. April 15th is not the notification deadline, it is actually the deadline schools will give you to decide on their offer. Not all US schools follow this convention (especially not the ones who do "rolling admissions"). But for those that do, what generally happens is that "first round" offers are made between late-January and early-March, depending on the program. Check the "Results Search" (http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php) here to see when your programs have made decisions in the past. Put your results here when you get them too, to help future students! Then, after the offers are made, schools will make arrangements for students to come and visit and/or interview. This usually happens in February to early April. Although the first round of offers have the April 15 decision deadline for applicants, many people will be able to make some sort of decision before April 15. They might have gotten into like 6 programs and already know their top 2 so they might decline the other 4 as early as March. Some people got into their dream program, visit it, are satisfied that it is the best program for them and accept early! In any case, some schools will be able to make a second round of offers before April 15. However, not all schools will not be able to do this. This means that they might have to wait until the April 15 deadline passes before their offers come back accepted or declined. So, a lot of schools will have a bunch of spots opening up right around the April 15 date. At this time, people may get last minute offers with tight deadlines (sometimes just a few days to decide), especially those who were on a waitlist. Top applicants on a waitlist might even get contacted by the schools that want them to warn them of this possibility. This is why April 15 is the "freakout" week and why we have a forum here titled just that. That said, as piglet33 suggests, you should get a good sense of how crazy April 15 will be for you by mid-March or so. At this time, if you have offers from your top choices already (or know you got rejected) then you probably won't have to worry about April 15 because at this time, you would already have all the information you need to make a decision. However, if you haven't heard from some of your top choices by late March (neither an accept or reject), the two most common possibilities are a silent reject or a waitlist. You should contact them at this time to find out if you're on a waitlist and if so, you should try to keep the week around April 15 relatively free so that you can consider and respond to any last minute offers. I don't know how far in advance you will need to schedule your surgery. If you need to schedule it well before March 2016, then I think you should schedule it no earlier than May 1, just in case, if that is possible. If you do get a last minute acceptance and need to talk to the faculty there, you can do a Skype call. You can also schedule any visits around your surgery--they will understand. Also, keep in mind that many US schools will not have an international student fly out to visit them because the flight is too expensive. If you don't have to schedule it until a few weeks prior to the surgery, then by March 2016, you should have a sense whether or not you need to keep April 15 clear. Finally, sometimes offers are made really late, like May or June. Some schools might make a last minute offer in July or August or even the week before the term begins because of a last minute change in funding or enrollment. You can't really plan for these though. If your surgery will mean you will be out of email contact for a long time (~a work week) then if you still have not heard from a school, you might want to email them prior to going for surgery and just let them know that in case you are still being considered, you will be away from email for X days etc.

I also second the statistics side of math programs for helping people. With a solid foundation in statistics and applied math, you can do a lot of things. It's a great toolbox for solving problems in various fields. Sure, finance is one of these fields, but it's not the only one. You can also go into finance and not help big corporations, for example, I believe there are need for advisors in government with this sort of training too. I know another statistician that is in resource management and using his expertise to help protect the environment. You can also help other scientists--us astronomers are pretty bad at statistics and in the last decade, our community have started teaming up with the statistics community to ensure we are analyzing data properly. Another friend found a position with people behind election campaigns (you could consider it a good thing if you're aligned with that political party!). And there are websites like Nate Silver's http://fivethirtyeight.com/ that help people by disseminating useful analysis and information (originally about elections but I really enjoyed their World Cup coverage last year). I think with good training, statistics majors are very helpful in analyst positions that can help a lot of people. Of course, one caveat is that everyone needs to get paid, and usually, it's the big corporations that have money to pay for the work more than non-profits etc. Maybe a statistician here can add / correct some of these things?

This is hard to evaluate because honestly, it depends so much on the person. When I started, my supervisor had just been hired about 1-2 years ago. However, I know that this person is a superstar that will definitely have no problem with tenure. And, they will be up for tenure in the same year I graduate, more or less. And, I talked to the department head and asked about tenure rates in general (not about any specific professor) and tenure here is basically a sure thing. So, with all of this, I have no worries at all that my supervisor is "new". I don't think younger faculty are "better" or "worse" than senior faculty. They are just different, and these differences might even be smaller than differences between individual faculty members. I have worked with brand new, mid-career and late-career supervisors. Generally and briefly, I think younger faculty tend to have more projects going on, which means more interesting things to work on and they can be very hands-on. They can provide great advice too because they were in your shoes just a few years ago. Senior faculty, especially those near retirement tend to have smaller groups and fewer projects going on, which means smaller groups sometimes (but not always, especially in lab fields) so when I worked with senior people, I got more attention (all the grant $$$ for me! mwahaha). They also have a very wide network and deep experience with the field, which is very helpful. When forming my thesis committee, I sought to have a balance of young, middle-career and senior faculty to get the best of all worlds! For your case, you are just applying to schools now. Definitely apply to this one with this POI because you are super interested in their work. Do contact them and see if they would be interested in taking on students. I think this is field dependent--I know from other threads that in the humanities, new professors don't really advise students very much because their beginning years are meant for them to write that book and develop their own program. However, in the sciences, new faculty are often given lower teaching loads and lots of startup money so that they can hire an army of students and postdocs and produce a ton of research. But in either case, you will have to ask them to find out. When you do, just simply say you are very interested in their work and ask if they will take students in Fall 2016--no need to mention your concerns about new faculty (in fact, don't mention them, it would be rude/weird!!). If they say yes, you don't have to decide now--just apply and find out more when you visit/talk to them after acceptance. Talk to students and other mentors you might have to get their opinion once you actually have this decision to make!

I know a bunch of people that did a similar path to CBclone. They also had a couple of unrelated passions (like James Shaw) so they did a couple of years in each job and then decided they wanted to go to graduate school for an academic field. They are now at one of the best programs in the US for this field now. In addition, I know a lot of professors in my field who did a lot of other things at some point between undergrad/grad school/postdoc/faculty, including being a musician, a wine critic, and a truck driver (not the same person though lol). So, although I still think you should really know you want to study X and work in X before you go to grad school in X, if there are other passions you want to follow now, feel free to do that and go back to grad school later! (Of course, there are different challenges with being an older student but not any that you cannot overcome).

I am not in this field so maybe I am coming at this all wrong. But I have worked with similar topics at schools in the past and I think some of my thoughts about application materials might apply across many fields. Another resource to tap, if you haven't already, is to talk to your professors in your undergrad department to see what they think. After all, they likely also read admission essays and they can let you know how they would feel if an applicant wrote about their school! With the caveats above, some of my thoughts are: 1. You say that your main goal is to communicate that you are knowledgeable about the school and the campus. If so, I think there are a lot more effective and less risky ways for you to demonstrate this than to tackle this issue in the analytical essay. 2. I mention that this is risky. In my opinion, I think choosing this topic does not have a very high chance of helping you, but it has a chance of hurting you. Because this is a controversial issue, there is a chance that someone making the admission decision might strongly disagree with you. If so, that could really hurt you. However, if there is someone making the decision that strongly agrees with you, I don't think it would help you very much. 3. I also think this is risky because you are still an "outsider". I don't know your current affiliation or status with UC Berkeley, but if this is an issue that the school is currently working on, they might already have a plan in place and are working towards that. I think it would seem a little arrogant for someone external to just come in saying "this is how I would fix it!". It's one thing to write about this at some other university (e.g. your own, where you have experience, or some neutral third party) but it's another to write to the people who might already be involved in working on a plan and saying this is how you would do it instead. Similarly, when people apply for jobs, they don't criticize the company/organization they plan to work for and come in with all these ideas. Instead, people generally are expected to join the organization, take some time to take stock of what the situation is really like and then develop an action plan that works for that organization. Of course, #3 here doesn't apply if you are actually already fully familiar with Berkeley. In that case, I think this is a big strength and you would be very valuable to the department so you should demonstrate that. However, if you are not already part of the "solution" in place at Berkeley, I would think it is less risky for you to wait until you arrive and assess the situation from within before you tell the people who work there (and may already be working on the issue) how you think it should be done instead. Also I guess it is clear that I'm giving you this advice from a risk-adverse perspective. I just think it is a high risk with little chance of a "gain". But each person's level of acceptable risk is different, so I hope my thoughts here help you determine how much risk might exist in choosing this topic and whether or not it is worth it to you!

It might not help puyple, but for some fields, you can use http://www.gradschoolshopper.com/ Their title page says they contain information for "physics, astro and other physical sciences". I haven't had to look at this for a long time so I'm not sure which "other physical sciences" they mean!

When I started my PhD program, I started at the same place as someone who just finished undergrad--my school doesn't count my 2 years in a Masters program at all. As a result, one of the grad classes I took was something I took for the 3rd time and another was something I was taking for the 2nd time. Fortunately, the nice thing about grad classes is that they are specialized so that each instructor puts their own spin so I did get to see different material and viewpoints during the repeated courses. It also meant I could spend less effort on those courses and focus more on research. Ultimately, I am also okay with starting all over again and I do think it's has been good for me (and while my MSc experience doesn't count towards official PhD requirements, I did feel better prepared to tackle grad school)! But I sympathize with you on the frustration

In North America, all of the experiences you list count as research work. I don't think the specifics really matter, but you're right that people will often refer to them as different things. In terms of applications, what I would do (and what I did!) was to have a heading with something like "Research Experience". Then, each entry under this heading specifies the project, where you worked on it, your supervisor, what kind of work did you do (thesis? research assistantship? directed studies? etc.) and what you actually did. In my field, there are three main types of research activities conducted by undergraduate students and I would divide them up like this: Thesis work/project: This is usually a year-long project completed during your final year of undergraduate work. You undertake an independent study with guidance by a professor. In the end, you will have at least given one oral presentation (a defense) and written a manuscript (a thesis/dissertation). Undergraduate dissertations are generally much shorter than graduate dissertations, of course. Also, usually, a thesis is a degree requirement (at least in Canada, for the "Honours" degree, we generally must complete a thesis). As such, thesis work usually is a class where you earn credits (and you may get a letter grade or just "Pass") and most schools have policies that you cannot be paid for this work. Thesis work is also often completed while also taking your final year of classes, so it's something you'd work on like 10 hours per week. Directed study / independent study: This is similar to a thesis but it might only be a semester long instead of a whole year long. This is also a course that counts for credit (so unpaid usually) but it is often not a degree requirement. It's more like an elective that if you have some spare room in your schedule for a semester, you might undertake a directed study project with a professor of your choosing. There also isn't a formal defense or dissertation, but you will probably have to do some final wrap-up thing to demonstrate what you learned/achieved during the semester. This might be a presentation or a report/paper. Research assistantship: This is probably the most valuable type of experience. This can be part-time (during the school year, like the two above cases) or full-time (either during the summer, or if you take a year off of classes to do work). And this is usually paid work but you can be a volunteer research assistant too (however, in my field, most professors avoid using unpaid labour). This is more like an actual job, and you may be hired to work on a specific aspect of an ongoing project, or you may be hired to work on a new project the professor has thought up. Because these assistantships are only full time for a few months, the former is more likely because real experiments/projects are much longer. I think what you described as research assistantship work sounds lot like the research assistantships I've been doing (since I'm not in a lab field). Research assistantships can "look like" a lot of different things In addition, research assistantships, come in a lot of different flavours! One type is where the professor/PI/lab has money from a grant or something and they just pay you from their own budget. But, in the US and Canada, there are external programs that award money to help the professor pay for your salary. This helps increase the amount of research opportunities available because it makes hiring undergraduate students less expensive and thus decreases the risk. It also helps professors think of training undergrads as a sort of "service" or "teaching" instead of just simply paying a labourer, so that professors are able to take students who have potential instead of only hiring proven researchers. In the US, a federal program that awards money like this is called "REU" (Research Experiences for Undergraduates). However, individual schools often have their own programs that will award money to their own students and/or students from other universities to work at their school for the summer. So, sometimes it might help our American colleagues understand if we describe it as "REU-like". Finally, I think the reason that American colleagues "dismiss" your Masters work is because a Masters degree in America is very different than it is in the UK and Canada. I have had a similar experience. When I was finishing up my 2 year Canadian Masters degree (equivalent to the first two years of a US PhD program), I was presenting my work at a US conference and when I talked to a professor, I introduced myself as a finishing Masters student, forgetting about this difference. The professor thought I meant that I was in a PhD program but decided to leave with a Masters instead so he said something that was meant to be consoling like "Oh well, not everyone needs to do a PhD!". I was confused and then figured it out and explained that in Canada, we always do a Masters first as a separate program, then apply to PhDs and that I would in fact be enrolling in a PhD program later that year!

In addition to the very extensive information in the link, you should also call the testing center and inquire about the size of their storage lockers, if you wish to use that. Keep in mind that this will be likely very small--the one I used would not have fit a backpack, maybe a purse and a jacket at most. But it should keep things like car keys and phone safe!

Glad your experience went smoothly and thanks for the update. I wonder if renovations will be complete by December, which will be my next visit home and the next time I have to do this again I did forget to point out that since YVR is on Canadian soil and jurisdiction, all security and enforcement comes from Canadian agencies, such as CATSA and the RCMP rather than the TSA! The US border agents are only there to allow/deny you entry to the United States--it would be up to the RCMP or other Canadian organizations to actually prevent you from getting on the plane if you try to do so even after being denied entry.

There are also many other reasons for deadline extensions that don't have anything to do with you / the quality of your application. In addition to fuzzy's example, others could be: 1) the University system was buggy and they wanted to give people more time to apply, 2) some applicants asked for an extension and they wanted to be fair and offer the extension to everyone, 3) the people who will process and evaluate the applications will be away for another week and won't be able to look at them in the upcoming week anyways, so why not just extend it? or 4) the deadline is tied to some other university-side system and some policy change means that the deadline needs to be changed as well (i.e. it might be an issue for a completely separate department on campus and not related to your department at all).

I think everything that is required to be submitted will be evaluated. But your University GPA (which probably contains the majority, if not all, of your upper level courses) will certainly be more relevant, thus it makes sense to assume that the committee will put a higher weight on it. Also, your old GPA isn't bad at all, and the committees will also consider trends in GPA, especially the improvement since junior college. Finally, it's worth noting that although many schools will ask for an overall, cumulative GPA from each school, many programs will identify several "key courses" and give a larger weight grades to these courses. For example, many programs in my field will care the most about certain physics classes and upper level astronomy classes.

Ah okay. The majority of co-ops at UBC are industry jobs (in fact, almost every job in the Co-op website's job database, and thus almost every job that they help you find) are industry. However, you can just set up your own arrangement with the professor and it will still count as a co-op placement (that is, you don't have to use the co-op center if you don't want to). The downside is that you pay co-op fees (fees are still much less than the earned income though) but the positive side is that without officially enrolling in a co-op program, I would have not been able to get a honours BSc degree because I would not be taking courses during co-op terms and I get to keep full time student status, helpful for things like tax status, benefits, etc.

In most application forms I filled out, the Education section asked for details on all institutions attended and transcripts from these. (Sometimes, they will only ask for institutions from which you received a degree, instead of "all" but the majority asked for "all"). So, this will be the correct place to enter details from your junior college and it is likely you will need to request a transcript from them too. During my Masters, there was a course I took that was officially listed at another neighbouring school (but taught jointly by faculty at my school and the other school). Through the Ontario Visiting Grad Student program though, students from my school were able to take this other course for credit. But because I did that, I needed transcripts from the other school as well when I applied to PhD programs! The credit appeared on my "home" school's transcript, but it just says "Transferred Credit" or something like that, no course details. So the other school's transcript was required to show what the course was and what the letter grade was. If you are worried about this, most schools should have their PhD applications open by now. You can log in to / create accounts for all these schools and see what requirements they are asking. If you need official transcripts, make sure you are easily able to access your old school's transcript request service. In my case, the "transfer" school decided that they will only take transcript requests that are snail-mailed on legal sized paper, which added an extra couple of weeks in the processing, so I was glad I had plenty of time to sort it out

I agree that it's not impossible to find funding. But for an international student, full funding in this sense is also essential because international students need to show evidence of financial means to support themselves prior to arriving (either through the school or personal funds). And almost all of the things you mention are not accessible to international students. In particular, there is a pretty strong limit on what work is allowed and the number of hours one may work as a non-resident alien on F-1 or J-1 status. I also think it's a difference of perspective. You are right that there are lots of ways to apply for small things and/or "bust your ass" to prove yourself and if you are determined enough, it could work out (or at least greatly minimize your loans). But to me, graduate school is a job; it's an apprenticeship. I don't want to have to spend my time working odd jobs or applying to every possible small funding source just to get a few hundred/thousand dollars here and there. And all that work just so I can do the "real" work of my Masters research (which may not even be paid). And I do not want to work for a year or two in order to save up money so that I can ... work for a MSc? No thanks! (Just my personal decision for myself, I understand others may feel differently). I agree that funding is indeed a hustle at BA/BS/BSc programs and I worked very hard during my undergrad to pay for everything. My undergraduate education was funded through a small amount of scholarships, several summer jobs at a car parts warehouse and some research positions. However, most countries other than the US view Masters programs as actual jobs and stepping stones towards PhD jobs and post-PhD jobs. This is why I don't think the mentality of the "hustle" works well for me at the graduate level. The way I see it, graduate programs are an exchange: I provide valuable research labour in exchange for pay, benefits, and the training/mentorship that leads to a valuable degree. Graduate programs are not like undergrad where the student is the only one getting the benefit so therefore the student has to find their own way to pay for everything. I think the biggest reason for the difference in thinking is that US Masters programs are very different than Masters programs in many other countries. From what I know about terminal Masters programs in my field, they really are more like an extension of undergraduate programs and it's exactly how you say it here: funding is a hustle and Masters students are treated like students, not researchers. I hope that clarifies the approach I have taken to the OP's question. Also, this difference was also why I asked the OP what field they are pursuing and why they want to join a US Masters program. I asked this because if the OP is from a country where BSc-MSc-PhD is normal, then they should actually not be applying to US Masters programs, because they might be expecting a different type of graduate program than what the US terminal Masters programs offer!

US schools will ask for your cumulative GPA. But they also want to see your transcript. They will also consider trends in GPA and will also (sensibly) weigh upper level classes more than lower level classes. Also, the GRE is required for almost all US schools! Doing well on it can help offset a GPA too. Can you talk to professors about working for them (even if there is no official U of C system)? Also ask them if you can apply for NSERC USRA or CIHR undergrad research awards through them?

Just to clarify--you say you never paid a cent of tuition, but what about a stipend and living expenses? It could be a difference of field, but when people in my field say "funded" (for both Masters and PhD level), we mean "fully funded". That is, we mean that the student is funded at a level where they do not pay tuition, get benefits, and get paid a livable stipend (sometimes it's just barely livable, sometimes it's enough to have some money leftover to save). We also mean that the availability of the income is generally guaranteed although, as you say, exact TA or RA appointments may be competitive and vary (but you're promised to get something). And finally, it also means that the work is actually academic and will help you towards your career (i.e. a teaching or research position, not an administrative assistant or tutor position). To clarify the above posts, in Canada and other countries that follow the BSc-MSc-PhD format, the MSc portion is "fully funded" in the way I describe in this post.

Hello, When I first read your thread title, I thought you were talking about undergraduate degrees. It is very uncommon to think of "choosing majors" in grad school because unlike undergrad, it's not like you would enroll in a grad program first, and then declare a major, and then adjust it as necessary. Instead, you need to know what you want to do (at the "major" level, not necessarily at the "thesis topic" level though) when you are applying and apply specifically to those programs. It is pretty rare for a graduate student to be able to "change majors", instead, they have to leave the program and apply to a new one. That said, while I hesitate to say this because I don't really know you, my first piece of advice is that you really need to be a little bit more focussed when you are deciding on and applying to graduate programs. You list 4 different programs as things you are interested in and while it's great to have lots of interests, I think for applying to graduate school, you should pick one or two (ideally related ones) of these interests and spend the time to prepare your applications. It is a lot of work to apply to schools and people generally apply to a large number of schools (4 to 12, on average). If you are applying to 4 different types of programs, then this will multiply the work you have to do by 4 !! Also, in your last sentence, you say that you "really miss school" but you do not really go into much depth about the 4 programs you're interested in and why you want to go to graduate school in these fields. Maybe it will help for you to chart out your short and long term goals for each of these four programs and then you would have a better idea of why you want to go to graduate school. i.e. what do you want to get out of your time pursuing a graduate degree? Knowing this will make your applications a lot stronger, and also it will help you choose the right programs to apply to and set you up for success afterwards. In general, my advice would be that while undergrad was a great place to find out what you like and do general and broad learning, graduate school is not about education. To me, graduate school is basically a type of vocational training, not unlike training to be a plumber or an electrician. It is really different from undergrad and other schooling in the past, which is why I always caution applicants against applying to graduate school because they don't know what to do or because they miss school. Finally, to answer your first question: how did I know what I wanted to do in grad school? Well, at first, I didn't even know I could go to grad school (or that grad school even existed). While in my undergraduate degree, I started getting interested in research by listening to older students tell me about their work. I wanted to try it myself so I joined my school's undergraduate "co-op" program, where you do 4 years of classes plus 1.5 years of full time (paid) work. My paid work was all research. After taking the 1.5 years off to do research, I knew that I wanted to keep doing that. I also tried several different research projects (4 different ones!) during my undergrad and that helped me determine that I am really passionate about planetary science, so I applied to graduate schools for that!

What field are you in and what are the reasons for wanting to get a US masters degree? As fuzzy said, the US doesn't follow the BA-MA-PhD (or BSc-MSc-PhD) format that many other countries follow. So, for many fields in the US, you actually would want to enroll in a PhD program instead because a Masters degree is not going to be very useful.

For graduate schools, your GPA in the last two years of undergrad (and MSc if you do one) would be more important than the first two years. So, although your current GPA isn't competitive for top US schools, I would say that all the grades that are yet to come will count for a lot more than what you have so far. You should work on improving that GPA over the next two years, for both top US and top Canadian schools. Another thing you can do (another thing you should do) is get research experience. There are three main ways to do so: 1. Find a lab that is willing to let you volunteer or pay you to do some work. Talk to the professors in the classes and/or just ask to meet with people in your department that do work which interests you. Let them know that you are interested in research work with them! 2. Get work experience as part of a co-op work program, if your school has that. I was able to get 16 months of full time work experience in this way through UBC, and that helped a lot for applications (and publications!) 3. Win a summer research grant. The problems with 1 & 2 above is that a professor might be interested in you but have no money to pay you. There are programs from NSERC and CIHR (depending on where your research interests lie) that you should be applying to. Look for additional opportunities as well. Finally, in your last year of undergrad, apply to both Canadian MSc program and "dream" US schools. If you don't get into a dream US school, you can certainly get a Canadian MSc first and then decide what you want to do afterwards (maybe you can then apply to a dream US school, or maybe you decide you don't want a PhD, or maybe you find another PhD program in Canada). Good luck!

Personally, I would interpret "I'd encourage you to apply and let me know if you have questions" as a conversation ender. It's a good way to end but there is nothing else you really need to say (or they really need to say) unless there is a question the prof can help you with. I don't think you need to have an ongoing discussion with each professor from now until applications are due. Just reach out, get a positive response like the one mentioned here and then move on with your application. Of course, if you do have specific questions about the prof's research that you would like to discuss as an interest for grad school work, then you should certainly follow up with that.