TakeruK

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!

In addition, it's never a good idea to "put down" others to make yourself stand out when applying for jobs or grad school. I'm not saying that you want to do this intentionally, just making a general statement that might help you or others that read this. Statements in the theme of "I always worked harder than my peers", "Not everyone is as [fill-in-the-blank] as me", etc. are not good! I'd recommend to avoid comparing yourself to others in any way and just focus on emphasizing your strengths in any application.

I have a question for you since I might be in the same situation as you in the future! I'm on a J-1 right now for my PhD and from what I understand, this means I have to return to Canada for 2 years before I can get an "immigrant class" visa to the USA (not really in the plan for the future though). However, I thought this means I would be able to continually get non-immigrant class visas (e.g. more J-1s) indefinitely? If you know for a fact that you won't be able to get a J-1, then could you let me know why? It would help me greatly! By the way, I learned that J-1 status can vary from University to University. The US Immigration requirement is just simply that the majority of our funding comes from "non-personal" funds, i.e. paid a stipend, fellowship from either Canadian or US government, etc. However, it's up to each University's International Students/Scholars Program to decide whether or not to issue that DS-2019 that we need to apply for J-1 status. Although I had both funding from the University and NSERC (for PhD studies), U. Arizona refused to issue a DS-2019 (and they told me that they almost never issue J-1s to PhD students) while plenty of other schools were glad to issue a DS-2019 for me!

Oh -- sorry, I misunderstood your post! I thought you were already a student at this school and you are looking for advisors now that you're there!

I am not sure how you would send a prepaid envelope to an advisor in a different country since you would need to be using the postage stamps for that country, not the one you're currently in! I don't think it's usually easy to buy postage stamps for a foreign country. In addition, if I was going to ask for a snail mailed reference letter, I would always always pay for what's called "Registered mail" in Canada so that it comes with a delivery guarantee and tracking information (it's ~$10 instead of the usual ~$0.60 for a letter). I have had a bad experience with mail getting lost before!! I've only had to use snail mail letters for fellowships administered at the local level, and when I asked for these letters (from the same country but far away), I did offer to send prepaid envelopes. However, the profs usually have their own mail accounts, paid for by the grants or other research funds, and the department admin staff takes care of making sure mail is sent with the right priority and tracking so I didn't have to worry about it. The way we see it -- writing letters is part of the cost of hiring a student to do work, so the money for mailing letters can come from the same source as the money that was used to pay me. Of course, you should probably discuss this first! I'd offer to pay for it by having the prof's department send me an invoice for whatever mailing costs are incurred. Hopefully, it's only 1 or 2 schools that are still stuck in the 20th century and asking for snail mailed letters!

I agree that a business card is not a CV. But you should definitely put your website (preferably your own domain name or your page on the department's page) where you have a link to your CV! Lewin00's format looks good, but it seems redundant to say "PhD candidate for PhD in Social Psychology", in my opinion. I would put something like Name PhD Candidate [Your department / program name] -- I'd leave out University name because it will be evident by the logo! [Contact info]

Just want to say -- sometimes schools are flexible on when the official scores come in. So it might not hurt to check with them either! For me, my earliest deadline was Dec 1 but the official scores did not arrive until something like Dec 20. However, I checked with them and they said it was fine -- the committee won't even look at them until January so they said it's okay as long as I report unofficial scores ASAP and they get the official report by Jan 1.

I just want to add that although I'm not in engineering, my science MSc did not have any rotations. In fact, for almost all the work I've done, the majority of the work was numerical/theoretical, which is usually done in smaller groups so that I only had one faculty member to work with. However, when I was finishing my BSc and applying for MSc, I still had 3 LOR writers who supervised research. I think that many applicants will have at least 2 research supervisor LORs -- one from their honours/senior thesis and one from a previous summer project. My engineering friends generally didn't do a thesis in 4th year but they all had to do a senior project under the supervisor of a Professional Engineer to graduate, which should count for the same weight. As for summer projects, I think a prepared undergrad should have at least one lined up. During my second year, my profs started to advise us to start thinking about doing research if we want to continue in academia (or at least keep the grad school option open). After all, even if we already wanted to go to grad school, we should actually see if we like research first! At the very least, it does have academic value -- research/doing projects teaches things that a classroom lecture might miss! So, the prepared undergrad would have 2 summers (2nd and 3rd year) to find at least one research project to work on. Unfortunately, I think the student who decides at the beginning of fourth year that they want to go to grad school, with no previous research experience, will have a much harder time getting into a good program. It's not impossible -- I know one person who had no research experience but their grades got them into a top 5 program. However, I think it's safe to say that a "solid" application would contain at least 1, if not 2, LORs from research supervisors. When I TA undergrad classes and my students ask about grad school, I always advise them to seek research projects ASAP and to aim for 3 different people to get LORs from (whether it's doing 3 different projects, or working with multiple faculty on different parts of a bigger project etc.)

Most people don't like saying "no" to others. If she said no, you might thank her for her time and go ask someone else (ideal response). But some students will ask the prof why, and if she explains, then she has to put together a complete argument describing why she can't write a high quality letter, and then there might be more emails back and forth debating the topic, depending on the type of person the student is! I think most profs that don't want to write a letter would still agree to write it but give a comment (such as what your prof said) to hint to the student to find someone else, leaving it up to the student to decide for themselves if they want the letter or not.

I agree with R Deckard, I would probably assume that the prof has written a lot of LORs in their career so they should be very used to doing it. It is probably something that can be completed on the order of 1 hour, depending on what they have to say. In addition, only the first letter takes awhile, the next 5 letters should just be a matter of changing the school name. Maybe the prof will customize a paragraph if they have some reason to write something different for a specific school (e.g. they might compare you to a former student of theirs that is currently at that school). I know my profs did the "copy-paste-change-name" thing since some programs give you an email when the LOR is submitted and I received these emails within 1-2 minutes of each other! This is standard -- you do the same for your SOP too! Also, if the prof has already written a LOR for you in the past, they will probably reuse most of it! The reason why people say to ask for LORs well ahead of time is that while it doesn't take very long to write a LOR, it is still hard for a busy academic to find the time to do so during the school year. Giving weeks of notice is a courtesy to allow profs to take any hour they choose over the next ~weeks to ~months to write your LOR. In your shoes, I'd be happy that your prof got that out of the way quickly, so it's one less thing you have to keep track of when you are finishing up your applications in the coming weeks.

I'm not a woman but I don't think that is reasonable to assume that only female workers will be "less attentive" because they have children (and that male workers won't be affected the same way by their children). In fact, in Canada (and probably other places), it's illegal for employers to discriminate based on family status (i.e. martial status, whether or not you have children etc. -- you can't even ask these questions in a job interview). For example, an employer cannot choose to hire/promote someone who isn't a parent over someone who is when faced with two equal candidates. In addition, things like maternity leave, parental leave, sick leave for children are within an employee's rights (depending on the local Employment Act and any employment agreements) and an employee should not be punished for taking advantage of such rights (e.g. someone who takes allowed time off should be treated as having as good "attendance" as someone who didn't take any sick days). But stuff like this is usually hard to prove. I brought up this example because it ties in with your other point, i.e. "academia [is] where work never really ends". While that may be true, it doesn't mean that an employee in academia is expected to be constantly working too! An employee in academia should have the same rights as an employee in other jobs. So, a grad student who takes a leave of absence should not be academically penalized on their return. An assistant professor who takes maternity or parental leave should not be disadvantaged when they are reviewed for tenure.

Are you uncomfortable with her suggestion, or are you just nervous because it's an unfamiliar situation? If you are not comfortable meeting your potential supervisor in their own home, that's perfectly reasonable and you should not have to do it if you don't want to. You can excuse yourself by suggesting a time during working hours, in either her office or your office instead. If you need an excuse, you can say that you would prefer to do this during the day and that you want to be at school during your working hours to be more productive. Or you can just simply say you aren't comfortable with meeting her in her home at this point (since it sounds like you don't know her very well?). I think I would be very nervous and uncomfortable to have a supervisor schedule a work related meeting at their home when there seems to be no reason to do it at work. That said, when I first moved to my MSc school, my supervisor had my wife and I over for dinner (but it wasn't a work related "meeting") and when I was about to finish, I dropped off my final draft of my thesis at his house (logistical issues made it the most convenient option) and then we stayed and talked about future plans with the work for a little while. I'm not saying it's wrong to meet with supervisors at their homes -- I enjoyed spending time with my last supervisor, just that you shouldn't feel like you have to since they requested it. If you're just nervous because it's a new situation, then I think it would be safe to treat this meeting as if it was happening in the office. I don't know if it's a good thing or not that you are meeting her in her home instead of at work -- on one hand, you and her might get along really well and this is a good way to begin a good relationship (although usually I would think "house calls" are more appropriate when you both already know each other well!). On the other hand, it might be more inconvenient for you to go to her home instead of school (unless it's not!) and if this meeting is happening outside of work hours, it might be an indication that she expects you to be available to meet with her at her convenience anytime. Of course, that is probably reading way too much into your one sentence description but just things to keep in mind I guess? In any case, you might be able to learn a lot more about her personality and style from visiting her in her home than in the office, and that could help you make the decision on which advisor to choose in the end!

Just want to add that many smaller schools, including the one where I did my MSc, if you are a strong applicant, they will fly you out and pay for your visit BEFORE you even get accepted (or necessarily submit an application). Getting a paid visit before you even submit an application is probably not going to happen at a big name school but I know many smaller Canadian schools do this to convince students to give their school a shot. To set one of these types of visits up, you should email the grad coordinator and let them know you're interested in applying (or that you will be submitting an application etc.). For a lot of students (in Canada), our mid-term break is in February so many students try to visit during this week. You can say something like "I'd like to visit your school during my break if possible" and they will either offer to fly you out or say that they don't have funds but they will generally offer to help you set up appointments with profs. It's definitely not a good idea to assume/presume that they will pay for a visit or you will likely hurt your chances! But it doesn't hurt to ask if you're interested in the program.

I think it's okay/expected that first year graduate students won't have a very extensive CV, especially not in the publications department. I wouldn't try to pad the CV, just include the relevant things -- education history (school, degree name, etc.), awards, and any academic or leadership things (e.g student leadership, volunteering etc.)

A lot of schools I applied to said that for US students, only transcripts from schools where you earned a degree need to be submitted (i.e. not transfer programs). But not all of them say this. Also, some schools only want official transcript after you accept their offer, so you can save money by sending unofficial transcripts upon application!

No, if you don't submit your second application, the school will never process it. If it makes you feel better, you could log into your old account and delete everything you've entered though.

I'm also confused about what your task is. It sounds like your professor is asking you to write a review chapter for his book? If so, then this could be considered a very lengthy review article. In review articles / chapters, almost no original data and research is done. So the answer to your last question is no, not all publications are 100% original data and research -- but usually there are specific journals that publish review articles (e.g. Annual Reviews), specific journals that will only publish original research, and some journals that are a hybrid. I have never written a long review article for publication before (only for term papers in courses). I know there are others on here that have published these types of works. Perhaps they can provide more guidance and advice. But the simple answer to your first question is to cite everything that you take from other works. You cannot just copy and paste entire paragraphs from other authors though, of course. What I would do is to read some sample review articles in your field to get the sense of what these are like. Overall, your main task with this chapter would be to read everything you can find about the topic of the chapter. Then, your own chapter would be a summary of everyone's work to date. Although you won't be providing your own original research or data, this is still valuable work because you can provide context to all the studies previously done and also form connections. You won't be presenting the information as your own, instead, you are writing your interpretation of the sum of all the work that has been completed. The goal, I think, is to potentially spark new connections/ideas for people already studying the field as well as provide an introduction to major developments for those new to the field. All this is assuming that you are actually writing a review chapter. Hope these thoughts were helpful!

I also don't want to sound preachy or like a immoral jerk, but this post might sound that way! I do not believe there is an absolute right or wrong. I think everyone should make decisions based on their own interpretation of what is right and wrong. That is, just because you (or I, or anyone) believes that X is right, or X is wrong doesn't mean that X is actually right or wrong, it's just right or wrong to you or me. In your shoes, I would feel that the project you described would be against my personal code of ethics and I wouldn't pursue it. However, if you did not feel this way and if doing it makes you happy then that's great for you, go ahead! As scientists and researchers, I don't think that we have the authority to decide what is right or wrong for the world. I don' think anyone has this authority. The scientist's job is to seek out knowledge. However, we do have the authority to personally decide what is right or wrong for ourselves. So, while I would definitely distance myself from a project as you described, it is because I am personally uncomfortable with it. I wish that kind of research would not happen. But I do not think that it is right for me to impose my ethical code on others, because it is part of my own ethical code to respect the autonomy of others to determine for themselves what is right or wrong (for themselves, but I don't think one's right to follow their own ethical code should be allowed to supercede other people's rights). What I am saying is that you need to do what makes YOU happy. intrib makes very good points and their words should be used to consider both sides. It sounds like everyone here, including you, is against doing this kind of research, so stand up for what you believe in. But if you had actually felt that this kind of research was okay with you and you would be happier having a funded program than not doing any science at all, then stand up for what you believe in. "Everyone has a price" is a cynical way to view it, but I think it's true. I believe myself to be someone who have mostly made decisions according to my own ethical code, but I can see myself compromising my ethical code if the "price" is high enough (it would have to be something much more valuable than money though, e.g. my family).

How much space do you have? I haven't applied for NSF fellowships (being not-American and all), but I have had experience and success with the Canadian version of NSF. In these cases, I only got one single-spaced page to do it all! So there was really no room for explaining a "backup" plan. The way it works for us is that the evaluation committee are not going to be experts in your particular subfield. For example, the people that read my planetary science project proposals were scientists from all fields of Physics and Astronomy. The most important thing is to demonstrate that you are capable of planning a project (i.e. you're a good investment for their funding money) and also explain why your project will help the scientific community. Physwimic gave really good advice. rising_star also mentions great resources. Another good resource is your own supervisor or other professors. If you are applying for funding for a project you're already working on, then you should definitely work on this proposal with your supervisor. If you don't have a project yet, then I would recommend that you sit down with a prof (or skype with a prof if necessary), explain that you are applying to NSF and talk about a project with them. These profs have experience on what is a viable 3-5 year project, and with their experience, they might be able to provide some extra insight. Finally, I don't think fellowships necessarily goes to the most exciting projects. I think they want to see something that will both work and be useful to the community. Especially since the readers/evaluators may not be from your specific subfield, it's very important to motivate your project well!

In addition to juilletmercredi's comments, it might not always be a bad thing if the prof is "winding down" their own independent research. Some professors do this as they near retirement and would prefer to act as a senior advisor instead of doing projects directly themselves. If their review articles are invited reviews from prestigious places (e.g. Annual Reviews, if that journal exists for your field), then it could be a good thing -- your advisor is likely very well respected and that can help you down the road for applying to fellowships, later jobs, etc. If this is the case, you could also probably expect a more hands-off approach to advising (but not necessarily so). Ask one of their students! If you want to remain more anonymous, you can send me a PM too -- my last advisor was definitely in the "wind down" phase of their career and while we're in different fields and every advisor is different, I can tell you more about what it was like to work for an older, about-to-retire prof if you'd like.

I applied to Planetary Sciences as well as Astronomy programs last year since my interest lies in between both. I second the advice to talk to the faculty members you're interested in -- they helped me decide where to submit my application. In the end, I did not apply to two different departments in the same school because at places where there were both departments, they told me that applications are shared between related departments (so I might apply to Astronomy but get accepted into Earth & Planetary Sciences). In addition, since the people I wanted to work with were in between both fields, most of them have cross-appointments and most of the schools will allow students in Department X to work with people in related Department Y. The advice they gave me was to look at the academic requirements for each department (orals, course requirements etc.) and pick the set that I was more interested in. Also, since the two departments are in different buildings, if all the cross appointed profs actually spent their time in Department X's building, I might want to factor that into my decision too! Basically, the advice I have to give is to talk to the profs!!

It also depends on your relationship with the professor. If they advised you on a research project and you both know you did a good job, it's expected that you will ask them for a letter. So, coming in with copies of your transcript should be okay (but probably don't put their names down for anything until you get the confirmation), in my opinion. When I was in undergrad, I just dropped in my old supervisors' office and said "hey, I'm going to be applying for grad schools this year, would you write me a letter?", they answered yes, so I said I'd email them all my stuff and then I asked if I could set up a time later to get some advice in choosing schools, finding the right fit, etc. The second time I applied for grad school (PhD program), I was already at my MSc school across the country so I just did everything by email. It's different when it's not someone who has supervised you (directly) since the dynamic of your relationship would be different. But it's pretty much part of the prof's job to write letters for people they supervised. Just presenting a different point of view!

Coursework is definitely not as important as research -- no one (future employers) really care about your grades. Although you will need to have a good solid foundation in order to pass quals or oral exams or whatever you have at your school, they usually cover a broad range of topics. Even if you did as bad as you thought in this exam, it's not going to be the end of your career!

I agree with Eigen. But if you really do want some additional information, here's what I know about my field (astronomy/planetary sciences) and maybe most of the physical sciences. 1. Most PhD programs in the sciences are fully funded. Sometimes, if a student applies for a PhD program, but don't make the cut, then they may be offered an unfunded 1-2 year (usually courses only) Masters program. Many PhD programs won't even accept "self-funded" students -- it's too much of a risk (what if the student runs out of money). If you are not interested in an unfunded program (most aren't) then answer "no, you won't accept admission without funding." Answering yes or no will not change your chances of getting funding. The standard answer to this question is "no". 2. The standard answer is "yes, waive rights to see the LOR". Schools are legally required to ask you to waive your rights because of a Freedom of Information law (might be called something different in the US) where students are always allowed to see what's on their student record. However, the kicker is that if you are not accepted to a school, you are NOT a student, and thus you cannot see your letter anyways. In addition, more importantly, your LOR writers will know your answer to this question and they will probably not want to write you a LOR if you can see it. Finally, you might see another question about "where else did you apply" This question won't affect your chances of admission either (see lots of other threads here about it)! Just answer it honestly, don't overthink