TakeruK

I think your GRE scores are great. I know that in many STEM fields, you might get a sense that students are expected to score perfectly on the Quant since it's high-school level math. However, since it's high-school level math, you obviously know how to do it if you have an engineering degree, so they will probably consider a score like yours (probably 1-2 questions wrong) just a bad fluke -- perhaps you made a silly mistake. It's not going to be damning and they definitely won't think that you can't do math! I'm not an engineer myself, so I am just extrapolating from physical sciences that STEM fields are pretty similar, but I'd say that your first set of GRE score is good enough to get in anywhere. That is, I don't think your score will fail the cutoff at any school!

I'm not sure what you mean by "without demanding that the student ... do research". In many schools, the whole point of awarding a fellowship is to allow the student to have freedom to do research (instead of TAing in the first year). Or do you mean "without demanding that the student ... do research [for a specific professor who is paying them]"? I don't think there are many fellowships that will pay all of graduate tuition + stipend and not require you to do something for it! Most of the time, these fellowships are awarded based on research merit (which is why we must submit research proposals) because they expect us to be doing research with the freedom from TAing. The "freedom" you get is the ability to work with someone who might not otherwise have funding to pay for you.

Like others above, I think it's fine to mention your significant other as "supporting evidence" for any arguments you make and you can relate it to yourself. In my SOP, I mentioned my wife because I felt the need to explain why we chose to do a MSc in Canada before a PhD in the US (where the MSc is basically worthless and I'd be starting all over again). One of the reasons was that I was not yet married to my wife and if I had gone to a US school right after undergrad, my wife would not be able to join me until we got married. Later on, when visiting schools, my wife came along with the visit when it was possible for her busy work schedule and budget (she visited schools that we could drive to, and the school reimbursed mileage the same whether it was one passenger or two!). At all schools, the profs I talked to knew that the PhD is something my wife and I were doing together (even though I was technically the student) so that we would both be making the decision together. I didn't encounter any negative feedback about this -- everyone was understanding and they were all very helpful in trying to ensure I get the right visa so that my wife could apply for work authorization.

Yes, I think you should list them literally, without too much explanation unless you really feel the need to. For publications/presentations, you should list them as a full bibliographical entry in whatever style your field uses. Include all the names (not Jones et al. for example). Include "submitted/in press" articles with article tracking ID when possible. Also, I included a link to the DOI for any papers too, so it's easy for them to look it up. If you presented the same work at multiple conferences, I would only list the most prestigious conference and call it "Selected presentations". An exception would be if you did not have many different presentations (which is fine), and you want to show you have experience presenting your work at conferences, then you maybe should include more entries. For awards/scholarships, list the year(s), institution held, monetary value and maybe also the "scope" of the award (i.e. is it something awarded by your institution? by your state/province? nationally? internationally?). I think monetary values are important as they are usually an indicator of the award's prestige/competitiveness. And for extracurricular activities, list them like in a CV: dates, organization name, your position, and maybe a 1 sentence statement of any major things you did. But if you feel this is the strongest part of your application, it probably wouldn't hurt to expand these sections to fill your 1 page maximum.

I agree with rising_star -- quality over status only if both have a PhD. To octopussongs, I am not sure if your employer letter was from someone with a PhD and/or in the field you're applying to. If the answer to both is no, then even the prof you only know for 8 weeks might be a better fit. However, this statement comes from someone in the sciences and not everything might be equal in all fields. The prof you know for 8 weeks -- is he/she a research advisor or an instructor? If they are supervising your work and/or chose to hire you then you might be discounting how well they can write you a letter. By the time December rolls around, they would know you for 3 months already, and a lot of summer research positions are only 4 months long. In addition, if they chose to hire you (or allow you to work with them), they obviously saw something good in you so they can definitely write to that. I think something like this would be more helpful than a letter from an employer in an unrelated field (if that's the case!). Just my thoughts -- hope it helps but maybe this general advice might not work for your specific situation!

Almost every program I applied to asked for a CV (or Resume) as one of the documents you upload. For one school, instead of wanting a CV, they wanted multiple files uploaded separately, but each of them would have been a section in a CV (e.g. they asked for list of publications, list of awards, list of extracurriculars/leadership, etc.)

That is a good point -- I guess I was thinking and writing more from a physical sciences point of view, where we don't decide on our dissertation committee until something like 3rd year. This is because we really need to fully flesh our exactly what our thesis topic will be before we can find out who the experts are. In addition, we often get an "external" member on our committee, so even if a prof moves away, they can still be an external member. I feel like deciding on which school to apply to based on who will be on your dissertation committee is thinking a few steps too far ahead. But maybe that's just a discipline difference and interesting to note! Finally, maybe this is a difference again in the fields, but I think profs mentor/advise PhD students equally at all stages (except maybe the first year where coursework is dominating our time). In the beginning, they help us learn to research on our own, write scientifically etc. But in the last few years, they help us find jobs and help us make connections with different faculty at places we might want to post-doc at. They help set us up with "talk circuits" and continue to send us to conferences so that people can learn about our work. They also provide advice on the whole tenure-tracked position hunt!

Just a word of warning -- I get the sense that the LORs are "averaged out". That is, 3 great letters and 1 good letter isn't as helpful as 3 great letters. I wouldn't ask for a fourth letter unless it's as good as the other three!

I think a better resource for you would be to talk to your fellow students, your TA, and/or your professor. You still have just under 2 weeks, so don't delay further because you don't want to be asking your prof for help in starting a big essay one week before it's due!

If you have a good relationship with your supervisor, then don't be extra formal for no reason. My profs basically told me to badger them everyday once it got close to the deadline. But if you are afraid of being "bossy" (and to be honest, the deadline is over 1 month away!!), instead of reminding them of the deadline, you could say something like...."here's one more school please, and please let me know if you want me to remind you about each school's deadline as it comes up", or something like that. I asked my profs for LORs about Oct, and sent the actual requests about this time last year. I followed up with an email reminder about 2 weeks before the deadline and again 2 days before the deadline. If they didn't submit it (only happened to one prof once), I emailed them again 2 days after the deadline to make sure everything was okay. Usually, LOR deadlines are not as strict as getting your own application in!

I would not mention classes either. I learned the hard way that most department's "list of classes" is not complete nor up to date. There are many schools with classes listed that have not been taught for 5, or even 10 years! In addition, a piece of advice you'll get if you're in a research focused PhD is to spend as little time as possible on classes and emphasize research, if you want to continue in academia. I'm not saying that you should just barely pass, but if it takes X hours to get an A-, and it would take 2X hours to get a A+, stop at the A-. From what I've heard, B+/A- seem to be the range to aim for! As for facilities, I always mentioned the telescopes that each school had access to in my SOP because that's what I want to do in my research!

I don't think there is a good way to ask someone about this directly while in the application process. Assistant profs (i.e. those without tenure) are more likely to move because if they don't feel like they are going to get tenure, they might have a better offer elsewhere that will promise them tenure. Or, maybe their tenure review is coming up and if they aren't promoted, they are often forced to leave. Associate Profs and above already have tenure (usually), so they will only move if they are also given tenure elsewhere. I don't think it's worth worrying about moving profs at the application stage -- the chances are low that more than one person you're interested in would be moving around. I think asking directly now could offend people and do you more harm than good. What you could do though, is ask it like "Are you planning to take on PhD students from my cohort?" etc. -- if they are in the early stages of planning a move (i.e. have not told their own department yet) you probably won't get a useful reply, but if they are all set to move then they will probably tell you that they aren't going to take students. I think once you are accepted to schools and are in the process of deciding where to go, then it's a good time to talk about the future. Either during visits or phone/skype calls, you'd want to speak to some potential advisors and find out many things -- whether they are a good match for you, whether they have interesting project ideas, and whether they are going to be around for awhile. I still don't like directly asking if they are going to move or retire but I instead asked them lots of questions about their plans for the future. For example, when visiting, I asked profs if they plan to expand their research group, if they plan to start studying/researching another similar topic, if they plan to start new collaborations, use new techniques etc. etc. I also ask students in the department their opinions about the profs -- often students will know the rumours of who is planning to leave etc.

I think there's no reason for you to worry about this.

I used "Are you taking any students this year?" (or sometimes phrased as "Are you planning on taking any students from the Fall 2012 cohort"). I did get one or two profs that replied like yours did, although it was "dismissive" rather than sarcastic (i.e. something like "the department admits students, not the profs, but I do plan on expanding my group etc...") Perhaps they were afraid that I was trying to make contact in order to ask them to help me get admittance (which I wasn't -- just wanted to know if they were still working on what I was interested in to decide whether or not I should apply!).

In most cases in academia, "Affiliation" means the University / Program / whatever that they are working / teaching / researching at. "Title" is usually "Professor", "Assistant Professor" etc. but if the box is really small (and doesn't let you enter very many characters), you could try using "Dr."

I definitely agree that the CV is the right place for these extra things, unless you are going to tie them into a point in your SOP. Otherwise, the last section of my CV was for extracurricular activities.

I agree with the advice of margarets and disillusioned14, especially Orwell's "rules". I also want to say some more things: 1. Avoid comparing previous experience in negative ways (e.g. statements like previous courses not intellectually satisfying enough). 2. Avoid using descriptive or intensifying adjectives in academic/scientific writing. Words like "very" (and other similar words) can almost always be removed without changing the sentence. 3. It still sounds like you are trying to make the essay an enjoyable read when I think the SOP in the STEM fields should be very technical. I should be able to skim it and pick out the important things you did, instead having to read it in depth to enjoy all of the colourful writing. The committee has to read a ton of these things, so to stand out, you should make their job easier by making yourself clear and concise instead of trying to stand out by writing creatively. I would put your extra-curriculars either after you mention your undergrad program and before research, or right after research but before talking about "fit". I think the former is better though. In addition, I would remove anything that took place before college -- leave it on the CV if it's important but "high school prefect" won't mean anything to the committee, in my opinion.

Definitely (1). No school is going to say "well X is a good candidate for our school but they're applying to other places, let's not accept them!" If you're a good candidate then they want you! They are not asking to make sure you are their top choice, they are asking for either (a) statistical purposes (the Graduate School/Faculty might want to keep track of who chose their school over others and who didn't so the department might not even see this information, and/or ( gauging your likelihood of accepting an offer -- if they have 6 spots, they might accept 10 students who each have a 60% chance of accepting, for example. (2) is the wrong way, in my opinion, to think about grad school apps. It's not going to help you if the school knows that you are their top choice, or that you have only applied to them. Why should that make you a stronger applicant? Having alternatives can work in your favour too -- a lower ranked school that want to compete with a higher ranked school for you might end up making you a better offer!

Does your family member know you in a "professional" or "academic" way? If the only connection you really have is that you're related, then I don't think name-dropping would help you very much -- the admissions committee will probably think "oh that's nice" or "so what?", or maybe even negatively. I also can't think of a way you could work in the "name-drop" if you didn't work with or study with this person. In general, I think what helps more than name-dropping is getting the person to contact the people involved directly. For example, I was working in the same group as a post-doc (but we didn't work together) and applying to their former supervisor. The post-doc sent their former supervisor an email that basically said that "hey, I know this guy that is applying to your school, and I think he's pretty good!" etc. Similarly, it might be helpful if your profs who know people at other schools put in a good word for you (but generally with profs, the normal way of doing this is through the LOR). I don't think it's a moral dilemma to use any connections you have to help your application. For example, if you had met some profs that you wanted to work with before applying (maybe at a conference, maybe they visited your department/your prof, or maybe even a random chance encounter), and you made a good impression, you might have an advantage over other applicants because of this extra opportunity to make a good impression. This is okay and I think very common in academia. Sometimes people might even say "I'll only accept your admission offer if you also admit my [spouse/significant other] etc." Sometimes profs are hired in this way too. But sometimes these things can backfire (if the student's spouse wouldn't have normally been accepted, they might not be able to do well in classes etc. or the school might not be a good fit at all). But in your case, if your family member has nothing to say about you other than "he/she is my relative and I think they're great", then it is not going to help (in my opinion) so it's not really a dilemma! I don't think you have anything to gain from name-dropping but it might hurt!

To original poster (marco_math): I would say that for a student applying from undergrad, at least one strong research supervisor LOR is necessary to be a strong candidate. Two would be great and three is hard to do but obviously better. "non-traditional" students generally have a tougher time finding LORs since they may be several years removed from their last academic experience. So, I think you will be fine -- you already have one strong letter and 1.5 years to find one or two more. A very reasonable goal is to do a summer research project this coming summer to get your 2nd LOR and then do a senior thesis in your fourth year to get your 3rd LOR. LORs are not the only reason to do research though, of course, having the research experience will strengthen your grad school application and more importantly, help you decide what you want to do with your career. You are in a good place right now to start planning your path towards grad school. I don't think it's a paradox to require research LORs before grad school. I don't think grad school is a place to "start doing research", especially not in the STEM fields. It's good to have a taste of research before committing 5+ years of your life to a PhD program! Grad school, instead, is a place to start to learn how to do independent research and other skills necessary for academia (teaching, presenting, etc.). In addition, when considering applicants, grad schools are looking for students who either have a proven ability to perform research, or demonstrated potential. They will be investing several hundreds of thousands of dollars in you so they want to make sure you are a "good investment". So you should start planning out how you are going to find at least one more research project to work on. (At schools I've been to, you generally want to start talking to profs about summer research around January-February. Sometimes you can apply for programs like REUs etc.) My advice is for undergrads to do as many different projects as possible in undergrad -- so even if your first research prof offers you a job again next summer, I'd say to try and do something different (or at least involve another professor) so that you can get another LOR. More importantly, this will expose you to more topics in your field and you might find there's something else even more interesting to pursue in grad school. Finally, remember that not all of your experience have to be in your same field -- at this point, grad schools just want to see that you've had experience in research! I strongly believe that grad school / PhD programs is not something a student should pursue as the "logical next step in their education". Deciding to go do graduate work was a big decision for me and a result of many years of planning. My BSc program was very good at encouraging us to plan ahead and informing us the importance of doing research as an undergrad. This keeps your options open in case you do want to do grad school later and also introduces you to research / academia.

I would answer it honestly and probably not try to relate it to my research. But, I am not in the humanities (but this is posted in the general forums), so it's pretty unlikely that I could tie in time traveling with my research (unless I choose to view the Universe right after the Big Bang or whatever). I would think this is one of those "show your personality/thought process" type questions like "If you were a vegetable, what kind would you be and why?" that are asked at some job interviews. Personally, I'd probably travel to something that interests me -- maybe go see some dinosaurs, or finally figure out how the Mayans built their temples etc. I don't think this question has a "right answer", but the idea is to convey qualities that they would like to see in their students. Show that you are curious and can articulate an idea as well as defend/justify it logically.

I would agree that listing or summarizing your course experience is a good idea if it's very important to your field, if you'd taken particularly noteworthy courses, or if your transcripts show them as "Special Topics in Basketweaving" etc. But I am not sure what you mean that most SOP guides instruct you to spend little time on background and focus on the future. About 75% of my SOP was my background -- describing the kind of student/researcher I am (based on what I've done and why I've made certain choices) and the remaining 25% was a discussion of why certain aspects of the program I'm applying to (especially the research that certain profs are doing but also courses, resources etc.) would be a good fit for my future career goals. Although I would give the advice to "not dwell on the past" in SOPs, I mean don't dwell on things like poor grades, lack of focus or whatever. But you definitely want to provide a narrative of your experience as a scholar in your field. Of course, this is just my opinion -- maybe my SOP was garbage!

I thought it was weird that the poster mentioned PEDMAS instead of BEDMAS too. But then Wikipedia told me: "In the United States the acronym PEMDAS is common. ... Canada uses BEDMAS and the UK uses BIDMAS or BODMAS. In Canada and other English speaking countries, Parentheses may be called Brackets, or symbols of inclusion and Exponentiation may be called either Indices, Powers or Orders, which have the same precedence as Roots or Radicals. Since multiplication and division are of equal precedence, M and D are often interchanged, leading to such acronyms as BODMAS. ... PEMA is one of the mnemonics taught in New Zealand. This makes the equivalence of multiplication and division and of addition and subtraction clear." Interesting!

Depending on the school and program, you might be able to get away with it -- I know that most physics programs (not math but still a physical science) pretty much completely ignore the General GRE score. I think they are just forced to ask for you for the score because the University's Faculty/School of Grad Studies require it. However, a 3.0 on the writing part is a bit low ! Maybe you can talk to profs that you know to see what they think of the score. And you can also contact schools that you're interested in and ask if you can submit a writing sample as "supplemental information" to offset your GRE writing score. But if you're worried about the score, maybe consider retaking the exam after basically memorizing the structure of the samples online? The GRE's AW section is a bit silly, you have to write it exactly the way they want it! I'd probably say a 4.0 is a good enough score in the physical sciences, but I don't think a 3.0 will automatically rule you out at all schools.

In the past, I've mostly done computational/theoretical work so I just need to mostly write notes so that I remember what I did / what each piece of code does. I also keep track of simulation progress and so on, so a "composition" book or "Columnar Book" (what they seem to be called at e.g. Staples etc.) works great. I prefer lined paper, slightly smaller than letter sized, and numbered pages. Sometimes I print out stuff (tables, plots) and tape them into the book. I'm having trouble finding this type of book with numbered pages now, though. I've also used books with gridlines in the past and they are nice too. Very effective for making tables, sketching diagrams/plots, or just lining up things for readability. The ones I used were bigger than letter size. I'm not sure what I want to be doing for projects this year. So far, I got a free notebook (standard coil bounded lined paper) from the school so I am using that for now. Eventually I will shift to a more sturdy book but I'm toying with the idea of electronic notebooks as well as just a binder of loose-leaf (not sure how I feel about that). The type of work I do does not really require "official" lab notebooks where pages are signed and can't be removed etc. It's mostly just notes to myself and typically, no one else will look at it -- even if another person takes over the project down the road, it's likely that I will rewrite the material into a more concise readme or guide!