TakeruK

As was said after this post, everyone knows that grad school will be full of challenges. What matters is our ability to cope with the challenges, conquer them, and move on. I didn't see the posts in this thread as saying that the posters can't handle the communication problem. A common method of coping with challenges (one that I find work very well for me), is to discuss it with others in a similar situation and find support in one another. Usually I learn about a viewpoint I might not have considered before, but probably won't change my overall view. After the venting/complaining is done, we sigh, suck it up, and deal with the challenge. No one is saying they are going to give up because of this. For example, everyone loves to complain about air travel -- tight seats, bad service, delays, lost luggage etc. Most of the complainers are still going to fly again, even the same airlines that give them problems before. Or, does your cohort/department have weekly/monthly pub nights where everyone gets together, have some drinks, gripe about their courses/research/equipment/etc. It's just a coping mechanism. And gradcafe is great for students in all stages of grad school to cope with grad schools' challenges.

It might be a STEM thing since graduate students are not expected to possess scientific writing skills before starting -- it's something we learn as we write papers during our PhD. Although if you do have the skills, it would make you all the more desirable! I wasn't trying to say whether or not the adcomm would "appreciate" good writing, but whether or not they would judge you on it. For example, when I grade my students' homework, I appreciate neat writing, or typed reports, but I don't actually grade them on how nice they format things (unless it's illegible). It's my understanding that many social sciences/humanities applications involve a writing sample, which is much longer, and I would think that would be the place where writing style/ability is judged. Sure, having a well written SOP is never a bad thing, as it might be read before the writing sample and thus give a good first impression, but it is my opinion that you should spend enough time on it to make sure it says what you want to say, and then move on. My SOPs went through 2 drafts and then 1-2 more drafts for each school as I personalized the SOPs to fit the program. In total, I probably spent about 6 hours writing the master version, plus 1 hour per school to personalize it -- not counting the time it took to research each program to learn how to personalize each SOP. Sure, if I spent more time, it would make it better, but I think it would be diminishing returns at this point!

I understand why you didn't feel like telling your manager(s) was important, since they don't seem to last very long. My wife has worked in places like that before, her shortest manager was only there for a week! Every new manager tries to do something big -- change up a procedure or whatever to show they are the ones in power. And it makes sense to not give too much notice, or they might just reassign you etc. Or, maybe not in your job, but sometimes if you're up for a promotion, they might not give it to you if you are leaving in 2 months. However, no matter what, your boss should probably be the first one to know. If you wanted to let your clients know 1 month beforehand, then you should also let your bosses know 1 month beforehand. They probably did find out that you didn't tell them but told your clients -- they might not have known where you were going to grad school (so maybe you could have been poaching them), or they might just be upset that they didn't know first. What my wife is doing now (since we are moving soon for PhD), is that she told her boss that we will be moving for my school by the end of summer -- her manager said thanks for letting me know, give me an exact date when you can. She's planning on giving them ~4 weeks notice. Although 2 weeks notice is the minimum, if you want to maintain good ties with your bosses afterwards (maybe you don't!) then you should probably give them a bit more. In addition, they probably were upset that you didn't tell them you were rescheduling your clients / not showing up. The rescheduling without permission thing sounds like a misunderstanding between the new guy and how things practically work. But the new guy probably expected you to at least call the gym and leave a message for the managers to let them know that you aren't coming in. So, from what you said, it sounds like while you did not communicate with your bosses properly, firing you right then was a overreaction. It might not be fair, but it doesn't sound like they did anything wrong legally. I feel bad for you too, because you've done so much to make sure your clients are happy but in the end, things still won't work out! What can you do? 1. In Canada, if you are fired, you are entitled to 2 weeks termination pay (it's the other side of the "2 weeks notice" law -- an employer also has to give you "2 weeks notice" if they are firing you, or they can fire you right away and pay you for 2 weeks). I think this only applies if you have worked there for at least 1 year. Maybe this will apply to you and you will only be without income for 2 weeks? 2. You could try to negotiate with the employer to allow you to resign instead of being fired, if you don't want it on your record, or if you need to go on unemployment benefits (if they exist in your state), but this is probably not worth the effort. It doesn't sound like you will be getting references from them in any future jobs either. 3. Do you still have any legal obligations to the gym? i.e. now that you are no longer an employee, are you still allowed to contact your clients and make private session scheduling with them? Or would accessing their contact info be some breach of privacy now that you are no longer employed? If so, maybe renting space at a studio or a gym for the next few weeks might be a good source of income? Good luck!

Oh, that would explain why we noticed a dramatic decline in listings! Thanks for the alternative and I hope padmapper and Craigslist work out some kind of partnership / licensing.

I approached my SOP the way I would write a cover letter for a job -- it's professional writing where you try to make a point/argument based on your personal experiences. I didn't try to use humour at all, but the personal nature of the experiences I was sharing helped make the SOP not so formal/bland. I prioritized being clear over interesting/creative sentence structures every time though. I think it's more important to say what you want clearly and concisely rather than provide an enjoyable experience for the reader. But this could just be the nature of my field (or maybe I completely misjudge the SOP and I was lucky I even got in, lol). Good writing is definitely one of the fundamental skills a scientist should have, but the SOP is not meant to demonstrate these skills -- it is for arguing for your fit in their program. I think programs usually ask for a writing sample when they want to evaluate your writing ability. I say this because I don't think that a candidate would be rejected based on how interesting-to-read their SOP was. I think SOPs are evaluated for content, not style. Of course, in the subjective world of admissions, an offensive-to-read SOP would be detrimental, but I don't think a cleverly written SOP will have enough advantage over a "bland" but gets-the-job-done SOP to justify the amount of writing and rewriting necessary. I found it very useful to have people who weren't graduate students read the SOP as well (even though the adcomms would be in your field) to make sure the narrative flows and is logical.

I guess I was used to the number of applications being lower in my field -- astronomy tends to have around ~150 applicants for ~10 spots, which is probably one of the higher numbers -- the program (option) I got into only had 33 applicants (and 8 spots). But you're right, if they are getting hundreds of applicants, posting a GRE minimum to allow applicants to self-select would be the right thing to do for everyone's benefit! For the sciences, which values clear quantitative measures (oh, the number of times I had comments like "what do you mean by 'the trials were repeated many times' -- be explicit!" on my lab reports), it's also ironic that all the admissions pages use similar vague words /adjectives to describe the candidate they are looking for, and without numbers! I mean, I understand that the process has to be holistic (which is a good thing for me anyways) but it's just funny I guess -- well maybe funny for me since my application season is now over Good luck on yours!

It sounds like going from 9/15 students to 8/15 students isn't going to hurt the prof too much, so it's probably okay to switch. But you should be upfront about it and say that you're interested in Class B too. I'd also check to see if Class B is going to happen again in the future as well. If Class B is being taught by a visiting prof in his/her specialty, then I'm sure everyone will understand if you want to take advantage of an opportunity that might not happen again. Maybe the culture is different in your department, but here, classes that are under 20 people usually decide on class time by class vote / whatever slot fits best for everyone. That doesn't sound like the case for you, but if there are other students interested in both A & B (and the classes are in the same department), then maybe consider bringing it up to both profs -- they might not realise the conflict and may reschedule. Also, depends on your department culture again, but I've found that profs aren't very offended by our course decisions -- we've been encouraged to attend lectures for the first couple of weeks and then decide whether or not we actually want to take the course. But the registration rules are pretty lax here, as long as you officially hand in the form with all signatures before the last day of class, they will make it work (even though the official deadline would be ~1 month into the term). I'm not saying that your department will work that way -- it sounds like Sigaba is speaking from experience -- but I just wanted to show that not every department has the same "culture". If in doubt, you could always ask another student in the department. But I wouldn't give up a chance at Course B to spare a prof's feelings -- you will have to make choices that disappoint some people through your whole career. I've found that even if they say "this course will be offered every 2 years", you never know for sure!

Thanks! Sounds like some mean critters! We haven't had many cockroaches to deal with yet, but there are some pretty big centipede thingys up here, especially in the summer. UHaul keeps its pods in an indoor storage unit (so they say, anyways) until we pick it up and we're planning to unload it all in one day -- either pay for them to take it to us / pick up the pod (but our future landlord might not have a space for us to use in this way) or rent one of their trucks/vans to unload the pod on location, and take it back to our place. Fortunately, I already have a good friend in the program there so many hands will make light work, hopefully! We don't have a lot of things but the bed, sofa, and all the small kitchen stuff add up to a lot of value! Given that it will take a little over 2 weeks to arrive in Pasadena, and we will probably be moved in for ~1 week before our things arrive, we will probably want to get the pod ASAP anyways! We're really excited for the fall but the current worry is trying to find a place -- we are probably going to fly down and sign a lease in between the submission of thesis and my defense (i.e. end of July), which works well with California's 30 days to vacate notice. We're looking at ads, padmapper, etc. every day to see if there is something open for Sep 1 (or maybe even Aug 1, cause paying an extra month's rent is roughly equal to the cost of flying down) and asking our friend there to check the place out for us. We're also on the school's waitlist for their unfurnished apartments but it seems like the list is very long.

Star Alliance airlines are good because if you are elite status in one of them, you will have elite status in all of them (and they're everywhere!) -- but that doesn't mean points from one airline will transfer to another though! If you really want to rack up points though, I recommend getting a credit card that allows you to get points for an airline that you'd use. In the US, I also know that US-government funded grants can only be used for travel on American airlines (not the proper noun lol), but as long as it's coded as an American airliner (e.g. United Flight XYZ operated by Air Canada, on Air Canada planes), it will still count. So, you should pick an airline that is both American and will fly to your parents' country. Then you can use points you rack up in work travel for personal travel Again, Star Alliance is a good choice because they tend to code-share a lot so you can actually fly on other airlines on code-shared flights as long as you book it as a United or Delta ticket. If you fly enough to get elite status, then I think it's worth it to stick to one program. Otherwise, I'm not sure if the rewards are really worth it. I guess you could compute how many miles are needed for a free flight and find out how many domestic flights it is to equal one free flight. Then divide the cost of the flight by the number of trips and compare how much money you get from redeeming points vs. how much money you save by just booking a cheaper airline.

Prime isn't available in Canada. Generally, if you search for the same item on amazon.ca vs. amazon.com, the US site will have more of it and for cheaper. A lot of items aren't even available in Canada! Many people I know (including me) sometimes ask our friends south of the border to receive things for us and then we drive down and pick it up

I think an undergrad thesis is the most useful thing you can do to prepare for grad school and grad school applications (especially if you have no other research experience). But don't you have a supervisor for your thesis? Generally, methods in papers, like you said, are written for experts and it can be very hard to know what they mean and to read between the lines. But that is why undergrads don't do theses on their own -- you'd work with a faculty member, a grad student, or maybe a post-doc? I'm writing this from the point of view of physical sciences but I think similar ideas apply. Usually a thesis is done with classes and maybe you should choose whatever electives you have left to be math/stats course. That said, I believe that DOING stats (e.g. on a research project) will teach you more (and be more useful) than just learning it in a course. You can always take the course in grad school if necessary (and it should be easier to learn the theory too if you already know a bit from applying it).

"effect" could also be right, if you are saying that undergrad research could cause graduate research to happen (maybe a student did a project as an undergrad that led to a related project in grad school?) But to answer your actual question, while it's a good thing if your undergrad research is related to what you are proposing to do in grad school, I think it's just as good if your research is different! So no, it definitely does not limit your graduate options -- some people can get into grad school with zero research experience! But this might be field dependent and mandarin.orange's field is very similar to mine (but I would argue that this is true for all physical sciences). Here's an anecdote: In undergrad, I did 3 research projects: one in cosmology, one in medical physics, one in planetary science (my actual field). I did the first project because it was the first thing I got and I learned that I love astronomy research from it. I chose the second project because I knew I wanted to go to astronomy grad school by that point (I had just finished junior year and was going to take 5 years) so I purposely chose an unrelated field as my "last chance to do some non astro research". Then I did my senior thesis in my actual field, followed by a masters in the same. When I was visiting some schools this Spring, some faculty members gave me feedback on my application and they said that they were impressed by the fact that I've tried research outside of the field! Also, my first project was the one that resulted in the most number of publications (at time of my applications) which definitely helped my admission (and fellowship applications). So it sounds like you might have a really good opportunity (for potential publications, conference experience, research experience in a big project, and to develop close ties with researchers and his/her network, which will result in great LORs) in front of you, if what the prof says is true (about actually getting good results from the project). I would only turn it down if you had an equally good offer from someone else in a more related field! But you can check out the profs former students and see how well they do / how many publications etc. -- sometimes professors will overestimate their own projects' success! Finally, just also wanted to add that many people do a PhD in one topic and then move onto a different subfield later in their careers. So if the topic of their PhD research doesn't limit their post-doc/career opportunities, it's hard to imagine undergrad research would limit you either

I've found that having my parents cosign on the lease made a big difference, especially for my first lease ever. I will be facing a similar problem moving to Pasadena (I'm from Canada) as we have no credit history in the US, my wife can't work until we get her Employment Authorization Document, and we won't have a US bank account right away (but we are considering hopping across the border shortly to get an account before we start looking for apartments). We called ahead to some landlords and they said a certified bank cheque is good for the initial deposit and I guess I will hope my stipend info is good enough (my income would only be ~2x the average rent though). We do have some savings so maybe if we have the first few months rent in certified cheques, it might help the situation. Thanks for bringing up this question as I haven't heard of the "3 times income" rule before and the answers in this thread were helpful to our situation too!

I think they don't post minimum scores to keep their options open -- for example, they don't want a situation where they say "you need 500/800" (on the old scale) as the minimum but end up with a candidate that scored 480 but is a great fit otherwise and has a good reason for scoring so low. Sure, they can post minimums that are really low to make sure they get everyone but then it won't be very useful to us (it would be very different from the competitive minimum!) Since the departments are the ones that set the minimums, and the ones that have to do the work of considering applications while its the school that collects the fee, I don't think the departments purposely avoids providing information to attract more students. What is jerky though is not providing all the information in one place, or not updating information! Sometimes on the main admissions requirements page, it would just say "GRE required" and then if you dig through the FAQ, you learn the minimum is 500 (or whatever). Or sometimes the department admissions page will say one thing but the school-wide Faculty/School of Graduate Studies will have a conflicting criteria (often due to one or more parties not updating their pages).

I would also advise to wait until you get there and discuss this matter in person since it doesn't seem like confronting the issue now will change anything (i.e. it doesn't sound like you would reconsider this school even if they don't give you the award, and it doesn't sound like you would be able to convince them to give you the award over the phone/email anyways). Once you arrive though, if it turns out that they did actually mislead you, then I would make an issue of it -- maybe they will be able to find funding from another source for you later on.

I agree that applicants are not accepted purely on numbers -- there is no formula that computes your scores with some weighting, your research interests, etc. and spits out a number! Also, it's not always the best "on paper" candidates that get in. Lots of other reasons, such as fit / needing to fill a certain gap etc. that makes a difference. Still, you can probably ask your LOR writers or advisors to get a sense of whether to apply to, say, top 10, top 20, top 50 etc. schools. My advice would be to apply to a large range of schools being sure to include schools both above and below where you think you can get in based on the guidance above. This way, you won't feel like you've sold yourself short nor will you risk overestimating your abilities, as much.

(I know the original topic was for a fellowship application, but in response to OregonGal's comments about score timelines for grad school applications): Sometimes schools are willing to wait for GRE scores. For my subject (Physics) GRE, I took the exam on Nov 12 2011 and my applications were due starting Dec 1 (the majority were due in the Dec 15-31 period though). Fortunately, for subject exams, you are almost guaranteed to get your scores by a certain date (~1 month if you pay to get it by phone, ~6 weeks if you wait to check online). So maybe this won't apply as much it sounds like AW could be greatly delayed (I got my score in the specified time though, which I think is also 6 weeks). But in almost all my cases, the schools didn't need my scores by the application deadline -- I just gave me the testing reference number and any preliminary scores I had (if you do the computer based GRE, you will know your Verbal and Quantitative scores right after the test). With the testing reference number and the other info they ask for, they can pull the scores from their database when it's available. (Similarly, they were willing to wait for official copies of transcripts and LORs if necessary too). I did let the admissions officer/grad secretary for the department know that ETS won't have my scores ready until Dec 23 (or whatever it was), though, and noted it in the application where possible, instead of just submitting it late. Also, as soon as I knew my scores, I let them know (unofficially) and they were happy to use the self-reported score until the official report came through the system. I found that by the time school was back in session in January after the break, most of my applications confirmed that the score has been received from ETS.

Just to answer this question -- I don't think it's "frowned upon" to use LORs from people at the University you're applying to at all! Actually, I think it's a good thing since what can be more relevant than a recommendation from its own faculty! In addition, there are lots of other situations where a student might use a LOR from the same school they're applying to: 1. They did their undergrad at that school 2. They did a REU, SURF, or other undergrad research program with a supervisor (or collaborator) from that school 3. Someone they worked with in the past has now transferred to that school etc.! I don't think any of the above situations would be "frowned upon", so I don't see why your situation would be any different. However -- LORs are best if they came from someone who supervised your research work. Will you get the chance to prove yourself research-wise in the provisional/non-degree program? With just classes, it might be hard to impress the faculty enough so that they are fully confident in your ability to succeed as a graduate student. Of course, if you do really really well, or if you already have enough previous research experience and want to do this to make up for your GPA, I would think the faculty will see your potential! Maybe you would be able to volunteer to work for some faculty members?

Good luck cgmoore! I think the mental illness topic came into play because another user brought it up (as it was relevant to his/her situation) in this thread. I'd like to see mental illnesses treated the same way as health or other physical illnesses though (i.e. unfortunately, for some reason, it's wrong to stigmatize, for example, paraplegics, but it's seems "less wrong" to stigmatize people with, say, schizophrenia), so I personally would like to group the two together!

My opinion is that a hook isn't necessary -- it's okay to just be direct. The problem I had with trying to come up with a hook was like Eigen said, to avoid a cliche since then I wouldn't stand out at all! I also think that SOPs are read for content, not for style -- unless you are really good or really bad, they probably won't notice when there are so many to read. They are looking for evidence that you will be a good researcher / have potential and that you're a good fit for them. I think it's a rare case where it's "if only student X had a more interesting hook, we would have accepted him/her!" On the other hand, a bad/boring hook probably won't harm you either -- they will likely just skip past the first paragraph and begin reading.

Thanks for the tip about Amazon Student -- can't use it yet (in Canada) but I will definitely sign up for it this fall!

I think it's easy to get too many unneeded credits if you aren't sure about what you want to do at the start -- it's hard to decide when you're 17-18! My school also needed 120 credits for majors, 133 for honours, and I graduated with something like 140 because I did a little switching (from majors astronomy to honours physics+astro so not really a big change, but I needed to take a summer semester of courses to catch up to the honours stream). But even if such a small change required ~9 extra credits, I can imagine a bigger switch could "cost" a lot more credits easily. Also, some of my friends who wanted to minor in, say, English or Math along with their Physics degrees easily had over 150 credits. The limit at our school was something like 170? However, I don't think anyone had issues because of transferring from CC -- if the credits from CC don't count towards the University degree, then they also weren't counted as credits against the student. So usually one does ~60 credits in 2 years at CC but most people end up only transferring something like ~50 credits especially since some CC courses in the major aren't transferable and they would have to repeat at University. I think undergrads at a University whose education is paid for by the parents/someone else could be liable to be ungrounded/unfocused but it's not true to generalize that. I agree that everyone I knew in my major that transferred from a CC were definitely grounded / focused but so were people who worked and paid for their own education! I would probably want my children to earn their own tuition (either through scholarships or working part time) and let them choose between CC or University because it's going to be mostly their money (obviously we will help them out a bit where possible too).

You can generally estimate it, if for example you see an acute angle (i.e. less than 90 degrees) and you have to decide between say, 40 degrees and 120 degrees. But you really shouldn't estimate it if you have to pick between, say, 40 degrees and 60 degrees. Strictly speaking, the lengths and angles are not necessarily to scale when these questions are created. However, from looking at them and doing practice tests / real thing, I don't really see any GRE questions where they purposely mislead you by misrepresenting the side lengths. That is, I think they do draw the diagrams pretty much to scale, but they put the disclaimer there so that if there are mistakes, you might not get the right answer by using your superhuman protractor and ruler powers. Often though, there is a choice between two pretty close angles so that guessing from the diagram doesn't work unless you've done enough work to eliminate some choices already. But if you have a question where you have to compare the value of, say, an angle x vs. some other value, and the angle x is some angle in a triangle that is drawn a certain way (with no other angle/side information), you should keep in mind that the angle drawn is not the only possible value for x. So in this case, you definitely should NOT try to estimate the angle. Although I don't know if these types of questions are still in the new GRE.

The calculator link you gave calculates the grad the "ktel" way (i.e. weigh each course grade by the number of credits), except with the added step of automatically converting a "Canada" grade to a "US" grade, using a table. I noticed that the table for Ontario is very different from what your school uses (the first link you gave). So, unfortunately, the more accurate way, I think, is to use your school's conversions for each course and then average all the grades using the method ktel described. The second calculator link uses an arbitrary conversion system which might be useful if your school didn't provide a % to GPA chart. A problem with a GPA system is that a difference between, say, 79% and 80% is very big! Usually that's a 0.3 grade point change. But if the grade came from a 100 question multiple choice test, that's only 1 answer different. However, on the other hand, if you are grading an essay, how do you distinguish between a 80% essay and a 79% essay? It would be easier to group students in different categories ("A+", "A", "A-" and so on). Most students will have some courses where it makes sense to get a % grade and other courses where a letter grade / 4.0 scale only makes more sense. Sometimes certain elements of a course (e.g. multiple choice midterm and a final essay project) might have differing "optimal" grading practices too! In addition, a GPA of say 3.7 could come from a lot of 4.0 courses and a lot of 3.4 courses; or it could happen from consistently getting 3.6-3.8 marks, which indicates a different type of record for sure! Now add onto the fact that each school grades differently -- not only do the conversion range for, say, a 3.7 grade vary, but also the expectations for a 3.7 / A - grade could vary too -- and it becomes very hard to quantitatively judge two GPAs from two schools and be able to say that Student A is better than Student B by some measure. So, I don't think it's too useful to try to get precise GPA values, if it's a 4.0 system, I'd probably say, when comparing grades from different schools, any GPA should come with a +/- 0.15 or 0.20 even -- so you can probably say a 3.9GPA student did better than a 3.6, say, but it would be tough to pick the better student between 3.7 and 3.8!

I had both types of research courses -- for my co-op education work courses (which didn't have to be research, but they were), we just had pass/fail, based on completing all the reports as required by the program. But for my senior/honours thesis, we were given a grade like any other, but it wasn't just given by our advisor. A large chunk of the grade was given by our peers and the thesis coordinator (we gave 3 presentations to the other thesis students: proposal, midterm report, final defense) and the thesis itself was graded by our advisor and a second reader in the department. There were also participation marks for attending the talks and participating -- filling in comment forms with helpful comments and asking questions. So getting marks for research isn't always "free". However, I think that universities don't just look at the cumulative/major GPA and base it on that -- that's probably a good cutoff criteria if necessary, but they're going to look at your actual transcript too. They will then weigh your courses based on what they are looking for, and they will probably get rid of research courses and other unrelated electives, or if you happen to take a random 200 level course related to your major (but not required) in 4th year because you wanted/needed an extra credit. I know they go further than just GPA because at some schools, for applications, they don't even want me to enter a GPA, they rather calculate it themselves with their weighting. (Although as an International student, the grades may be hard to translate to US equivalencies so that might be why they rather do it themselves.)