TakeruK

You can also see if the Results database hosted on this site has information. Usually helpful to search for school name and your field name. For example, a search for "Berkeley astronomy" tells me that this dept often sends out acceptances around the end of January and rejections around mid-Feb based on the last 3 years of data. You can try this to get an **estimate** of when you might hear back. However, schools are known to change policies from year to year so I wouldn't make any decisions based on these estimates. You can access the database with the "results" link on top of the page, or here: http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php

Definitely agree. There was a recent series of papers showing that metrics like GRE scores aren't great for identifying grad school potential and they suggested using some evaluation of characteristics/skills instead (e.g. perseverance etc.) I am supportive of this but the group of us that tried to get more grad schools to adopt these metrics have met much resistance thus far (some are practical: e.g. how do we actually measure this in a way that doesn't get students to "game" the system while others are just stubborn to change). So, whether or not these skills matter depends on the programs and I know specifically about a number of programs that would not value these attributes (have yet to find programs that do, but I'm sure they are out there!)

Just to be clear, both TAs and TFs at the school in question were paid a flat sum once per month. TAs had a contract for X hours per semester and they divide it up by the number of months in the semester to make equal payments. TFs had a contract to teach the course and the pay was also divided up by the number of months to make equal payments. But, while TAs had some recourse if they were being assigned too much work (i.e. if getting close to X hours limit, they would discuss with dept to either stop working or get paid extra hours), TFs didn't since they were paid to teach the course, no matter how many hours. The pay was almost double though, but most TFs tell me it was 3 to 4 times the work.

Maybe they have changed what that final screen shows but I didn't see percentile ranks there, only the score. Unless there was a mistake in the grading system, your score should not change. You can already look up your percentile rank in the tables provided by ETS. The percentile rank that will appear on your report is relative to the test takers in the last 5 complete testing years. In this case, that's July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2017, inclusive. The tables are updated once a year. So for your applications this year, the scores of everyone testing after July 1 2017 does not matter. Also note that if you reapply next year with the same test score, your percentile rank may be different since it's now calculated with respect to the scores from July 1 2013 thru June 30 2018. This is probably why they don't show percentile rank on that screen, since they don't know when you will be submitting your score.

Yeah, the test company only runs the test center and they are contracted by ETS to administer the test. They don't necessarily know anything beyond that and you should contact ETS directly with questions. Although you get your "unofficial" Q and V scores right away and these scores are pretty much set, they are not officially scored yet. ETS consider a score report as a set of Q/V/AW scores from the same date, so you will not get your finalized scores until it's all done. They don't work with partial score sets (e.g. you can't send the Q and V scores from different test dates, for example).

Being the primary instructor was fairly common for students in humanities departments where I did my Masters degree. It was a Canadian school though. At this school, these instructors were considered "Teaching Fellows" (TFs) rather than TAs. TAs were paid on an hourly basis ($40/hr, 10 hrs/week for a 12 week semester). TFs were paid a fixed amount (around $8000 per semester) with a 10% bonus if enrollment was greater than 125 students. So, they were treated more like salaried employees. The TFs I talked to spent way more hours on their courses than a TA, so in the end they still got paid less per hour because the University says they "should" only need X hours but that X is very underestimated.

Most professors won't show you their letters. If they have not yet already said they would show it to you, I would not ask to see them.

No, this is not true. As a Canadian, I had no extra access to US-based funding when I was in the US, except for the fact that I could access Canadian government funding (however, other international students could potentially access their own country's funding either).

My PhD was from a geophysical and planetary science department. As we are a very multidisciplinary field, we get people coming in from all sorts of backgrounds. There are still many different disciplines within geophysics/planetary science so it could depend on what part of the field you're applying to. It's hard to measure if this letter will be a positive or negative effect. It will certainly help you stand out, because most applicants will not have had your experience. I would think that at most places, your letter will have neutral impact. What you describe in the letter will not really do much to help you get in since these characteristics are not really what is being judged in a PhD application. (Depends on the program / people reading it though). I think even if someone was against the US armed forces, they would not really judge you poorly for this letter either, because, as I said, the criteria for deciding doesn't really ride on these factors. The real question, for me, is whether or not you have a strong 3rd academic letter. If you don't have a good 3rd letter from a prof, then I'd say go for the LCol's letter. If you have a prof who can write about your research experience then you should be using that letter instead. If your 3rd prof letter would be something very generic from someone who doesn't know you that well (e.g. they just taught a class that you took) then I think the LCol's letter would be better or at least neutral. Our field doesn't get a ton of applicants so it's not like you need a huge flag to set yourself apart. I wouldn't send in a letter just for this "shock" factor. Finally, if you want to send a PM with some more details about where you're applying, I can see if I know anything that might be helpful!

I think the 2017-2018 fiscal year information is not up yet. I am more familiar with the NSERC side (although they must use very similar systems). The names, partial stats (some awards are not yet accepted) and affiliations of NSERC award holders have been posted (back in Sept): http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NSERC-CRSNG/FundingDecisions-DecisionsFinancement/ScholarshipsAndFellowships-ConcoursDeBourses/index_eng.asp?Year=2017 But the database that allows you to view titles etc. only go to fiscal year 2016-2017: http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/index_eng.asp. The fiscal year (at least for NSERC, but again, the tri-agencies probably are very similar) ends on March 31. The NSERC Awards Database contains the total amount of monies paid out in that fiscal year, so I would expect the database to be updated after the fiscal year ends. Fun side note: I tried to look up myself and realised that since I did a different project than what I proposed for in both the CGS-M and PGS-D cases, the titles are all wrong! Oh well. I think for student projects, the database entries aren't as important as the big Discovery grants that faculty have!

No, don't do it. I would say that if you already sent in the first set of scores to schools (free reports) then I wouldn't worry that the school can see both scores. But there's no need to spend extra money to send the first set of scores to schools that already received the second. As you can probably guess, all metrics come with some sort of measurement error or variance. Your test score is just another metric/measurement so it's not immune to variance either. ETS reports their estimate of test score variance to everyone (test takers and schools). Table 5 of this publication (https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide.pdf) tells you their reported standard error of measurements for various scores. For the Q score, it's 2.1 for an individual measurement and 3.0 for score differences (you may remember from your lab courses that adding/subtracting two measurements results in adding the errors in quadrature). So, a 6 point difference is an actual improvement, but it's helpful to remember that there are going to be natural variations in your score (i.e. I wouldn't say that your first score was so much lower than the second).

I don't think this is a good generalization. I know we're in different fields here, but you're talking about PhD programs right, not a professional masters or other qualification. These programs are not just about courses. It's about seminars, discussions with colleagues, research work etc. Grad students are generally expected to have some sort of presence in the department. This part is more field dependent since not everyone works in an office/lab. But for my PhD program, the general expectation is that you're in the dept and in your office (or lab) 40 hours per week, approximately 9 to 5. Classes are during the day too, but there will be meetings and TA office hours and all that stuff that will mostly be scheduled during the work day. Some students work something like 6am to 2pm or 1pm to 9pm or even 3pm to midnight, but only after they have settled into a routine with their research group (e.g. nothing wrong with a 1pm-9pm workday if all of your stuff can be scheduled in the afternoons). And especially since you say you are transitioning to a career in academia....this means you really do need to be "present" at your program to make the connections and become a scholar. I don't think a part-time graduate program will cut it if you want to really pursue a career in academia. Most of the students that I know who end up being fairly "distant" with their grad program (commuting in only a few days a week etc.) are doing in this their last few years and are planning an exit route from academia. Or, they have special circumstances that require them to be away so that they make extra effort to remain connected in other ways. I do think grad students need to be paid much more, especially those in the humanities, but the reality is that grad students are generally underpaid because we're considered not-even-trainees. Many schools view the tuition waiver and the opportunity to take classes / study with them as part of our compensation (personally, I think this is BS because we provide valuable teaching and research labour and we should be compensated justly but that's a discussion for another topic). As Sigaba said, at this stage, it's not helpful to focus on the way things "should" be but instead on the way things are. I know a few people who have gone back to grad school after working in the "real world" and a common theme is the big adjustment back to frugal student life. The exceptions are the people that worked in very lucrative jobs before, saved up a bunch of money and are living off their savings because they are happier doing something they love than having those savings. Or some people have family or partners that are earning way more to support them. What are your motivations and goals from a PhD program? You don't have to say them here or defend them or anything. Just suggesting that you should check to make sure what you're trying to do in terms of school will actually lead you to the goals you want. Going back to a frugal student lifestyle is a big change and it's important to ensure the sacrifice will advance you towards your goals.

I don't think you need to bring anything else, but be prepared to talk about your past research work, your current research work, what are your plans for your current work and what you would like to achieve in a PhD. It sounds like you are meeting this prof about working with this specific prof for your PhD right? If so, be knowledgeable about the work that they do. Have good questions about the collaboration. If you haven't already, practice a 1 minute summary of all of your past projects. I find that when asked on the spot, sometimes I end up emphasizing the wrong parts of the summary or it goes in a direction I didn't want to highlight and then the rest of the discussion steers away from my strengths. Similarly, think about how to frame your future and practice how you want to say it. In my past experience, I feel that I understand someone else's work "enough" for something like this if I could summarize/explain their work/paper/result to a colleague. So if you can find someone to practice this with, that might help. I don't think you will be intensely grilled on these details but it's better to be prepared than not. If the prof is in a different field than what you previously have worked in, be sure to tailor the 1-minute summary to the audience. And if there are any parts of your current project that are still fuzzy right now, either clear them up or have a plan to clear them up.

Whether or not you're allowed to work external/side jobs depends on the policies related to your department and your source of funding. For international students, there is also another layer of work visa/permit rules. I know in some fields, the funding is tied to only a small number of hours of work per week and therefore they don't expect you to pay all the bills and aren't against you working. At other places, like my PhD school, everyone gets full funding with the expectation that we do not make any major commitments outside of our assistantship and our studies. In particular, for students in my department, we are considered to be paid to be fully committed to the program, not paid for specific amount of work. In this case, in theory, we should ensure any outside work we do does not interfere with our commitment to the school, otherwise we must sign some formal agreement so that either we drop to partial student status (or take a leave of absence) or set up some arrangement to ensure we remain 100% committed to our school. In reality, this means for very small side jobs (e.g. tutoring a few hours on the side), no one will care. You can report it to the school if you'd like and they will likely approve it. But if you take on an actual job that could call you in for hours of work that interfere with your expectations as a student, then it's less likely to be approved and you should probably talk to the school to come up with some formal arrangement (e.g. perhaps you agree that you will only work on weekends etc.). The examples they give for when you definitely want approval is for things like you are starting a startup or joining a startup as a CFO, CIO, or some C-level executive. So, in reality, there are probably many students who have side jobs that they're not supposed to have. If they don't get caught then it's not a big deal as long as they get their work done. But if you are at a school where you're expected to be fully committed unless otherwise excused, and then you fall behind in your work and they find out that it's because you are taking on unapproved commitments, it could have very negative consequences for your funding and for your status in the program. I know of at least one case where a student had to leave their program because they were doing these side jobs without proper authorization. So, in your case, you really should check with your program. There are at least three levels of policies to check with: the source(s) of your funding, your department grad student guidelines, and your university-level grad student guidelines. If you're okay to work then great! If not, then while I cannot really suggest you violate policies, but what you do with your life is your decision! If you do go that path, perhaps employment not directly related to your school would be more discreet though.

I'm not in Chem/Biochem but I am in another similarly multidisciplinary field. My work is on the study of planets around other stars, which is a field that lies well in between Planetary/Earth Sciences and Astronomy. These two fields study the same systems from different approaches. In general, planetary science allows you to study planets as actual objects in themselves, where you can learn stuff about their atmospheres, surfaces, interior structures etc. This is a study combining geology, physics, chemistry and maybe biology (if you're studying life on other worlds for example). The other perspective, astronomy, generally studies planets as disturbances to stellar light. By studying how the light from the star is affected by the planet, you can learn about the planet's orbital parameters, and maybe even get spectra (based on light reflected off the planet, and in some rare cases, light emitted from the planet). Maybe this is all boring to you, but I just wanted to set up how my work fits in between two fields. When applying to PhD programs, I was less interested in the "name" of the program, whether it was planetary science or astronomy. I chose the program that would provide the better support and better connection to the research advisor. My PhD program was in Planetary Science even though my BSc and MSc were both Astronomy. I had 6 required classes as well, and they were in planetary science. Some of them were not very useful to the exact topic I was studying. For example, learning about seismology and earthquakes was not useful to the type of planet work I was doing at all (however, I thought it was very cool). Some of them are tangentially related, for example, the planetary atmospheres class focused on the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, but I was studying gas giant planets in other systems. My work doesn't concern their atmospheres, but instead, only their orbital properties, however future technology developments will allow better study of these atmospheres, so it will one day be useful. If I had chosen the astronomy route instead, I would also have 6 core classes. Some of them would be very interesting to my work, for example, the class on star structure and the life of a star, or the class on how telescope detectors work. But many would be very useless, such as the class on how galaxies interact with dark matter (this is way too large scale for planets!). But my point is that grad school is not about taking classes only in your research field. You don't become an expert by taking classes. In fact, I would even say that classes are meant to be foundational knowledge and instead, as Eigen said, it is your research work that teaches you the specialty skills. Especially in multidisciplinary fields, like yours and mine, the classes from each department will give us general knowledge that is useful for someone who has a degree that says "chemistry" or "biology" or "planetary science" or "astronomy" to know. How embarrassing would it be for me to say that I'm a PhD in planetary science but I can't tell you about the minerals that make up most of our own planet Earth (even though it has nothing to do with my dissertation?). These foundational classes are also meant for you to be a scholar in your department: they will help you attend other chemistry (or biology) seminars that are outside of your field and have conversations with other scholars in your department. You do seem dismissive of other topics within your own major discipline(s), and if I may be blunt in order to be helpful: this is immature but not uncommon for new grad students. I understand the desire to really dig deep into the topics you really want to care about, especially after finally figuring out what you want to do. It's exciting! But keep the big picture in mind. Most academic departments will have the mindset of something like, "you are a planetary science first, and an exoplanet researcher second" (to use my field). Think about it another way: you're kind of saying that you only care about your own work/field and don't want to even learn about other stuff. What are you saying to your colleagues? That you don't care about their work? That you think their efforts are wasted/boring? How will you talk about other people's science when you don't take the effort to learn the basics of fields outside of your own? If you plan to be the type of scientist that only talks about their own work and never about other topics, even if you're not going into academia, this isn't a good look and it won't help you. To reiterate, at the PhD level, classes are still for general/breadth knowledge and it's your work that will be the narrow specialized knowledge. And as you said, you have only experienced a few classes and they are different everywhere. I have found that especially in multidisciplinary fields, the core classes are actually fairly basic because the point is to get everyone on the same page. All six of my core planetary science classes would be the equivalent of a junior/3rd-year undergrad class for a major in that particular field, with maybe 20% of the material being more advanced. The people coming in with geology backgrounds would know most of the Intro to Geo class already. The material covered in planetary atmospheres would be what an undergrad taking upper level fluid dynamics would already cover. I found that even in some "pure" grad programs (e.g. my Astro program at my MSc school), undergrads come with a wide range of background classes so they need to use the core classes to get everyone on the same page. Finally, something you can do though: check out the elective class requirements. At these schools, I would ask whether I could take classes in other departments. For me, since there were a number of classes in physics and astronomy that would be helpful to my work, I took most of my electives in physics/astro (including those two classes I mentioned above). So I would advise you to stop thinking that you must only spend class time on NMR and that everything else would be useless. Think of your core classes as developing your breadth and your knowledge as a scholar in chemistry and biology. Your elective classes are for developing broad skills in your areas of interests. And your dissertation work is where you will hone and fine-tune your specific skills in your niche area of expertise.

I think this is a bad idea. Unless explicitly stated on the website, the contact person for grad application isn't meant to be an advisor to applicants. It's not their job to give specific advice on each person's application package. If that person is a professor, they are likely very busy and their main role in applications is probably to answer questions about the process and/or convene the admissions committee. If that person isn't a professor (more likely when I see a contact person listed) then they wouldn't be able to help you.

This discussion has motivated me to find some time to write about my postdoc search experience last year. I learned a lot and it might be helpful to those in similar fields. Also, I think it might be a therapeutic experience for me to write it down.

Like fuzzy said, it's best to ask the department. But I found that there are two general scenarios: 1. There's no shortage of positions and the main goal of the TA assignment process is to make assignments to optimize interests/productivity/scheduling/preferences. 2. There are more students that need TAships than there are positions, so TAships are a resource (since money for paying TAs comes from the dept/school, rather than the advisor). Generally, there will be some procedure that determines priority of TA assignment. This might be encoded in a union contract, University policies, offers, etc. It might mean that students are guaranteed X years of TAship based on the offer letter, or students within the dept having priority over those outside, or students without fellowships having priority etc. If this step results in enough TA positions for the highest priority students, then it might go like scenario 1. Otherwise, there may be another step where qualification is assessed and TA assignments made based on qualification. This could involve a small committee, a TA coordinator, or the prof of the course deciding who is best suited for their course. My PhD school worked like scenario 1 and the prof in charge of appointing TAs asks both students and faculty who they would like to TA for/have as a TA. Generally, students talk to the profs they want to TA for ahead of time, since if both TA and prof pick each other, it will almost always go through. However, this happens on an unspecified day and the email only gives you like 24-48 hours to respond so we always tell first years to think about this by April/May so that they can get preferred assignments for their 2nd year (first year students do not TA, they all get fellowships). Just another example how it's important to ask around and find out how things work, since this is not publicized anywhere in our dept.

Congrats!

We're in different fields, but I say this to everyone considering academia/professorship as a career: What else could you do with a PhD in your field? The reality is that very few (less than 5% in some cases, less than 20% in others) PhD graduates end up with permanent positions at a University. However, depending on your interests and your field, there could be lots of good opportunities for PhDs in other sectors. Personally, I knew that academia was the right call for me when I researched all of the career paths I could want and almost all of them either required a PhD, or you would have a big advantage if you had a PhD. Some career paths in Canada that required MA/MSc seemed to be mostly hiring PhDs too (due to the overflow of PhDs). And finally, I found some PhD programs that provided a decent salary, benefits so that I was not going into debt or paying too much "opportunity cost" to pursue the PhD. I see that your sidebar info says you're in Canada, where Masters programs tend to be more meaningful than masters in the US. Not sure if your field follows the same format, but in Canada, my field generally wants you to do a Masters first then a 3-4 year PhD. So I decided to use the Masters program as a test to see if I would enjoy it. Academia is a lot more than just coursework! I really enjoyed my Masters program so I applied to PhD programs in the 2nd year of my Masters. However, my field was very small in Canada back in 2011/2012, so I applied to US PhD programs. My partner and I also have the goal of settling down eventually near our families in Canada, so we were also concerned about the nomadic nature of academic careers. In addition to the good salary/benefits above, we also decided that the PhD program needs to be a very good one to maximize the chances of getting to live where we want. So I ended up applying to only the top tier programs that also paid well. My reasoning was that it's better to just leave the academic path now (with a Canadian Masters) instead of spending 10+ years in grad school and postdocs until giving up anyways. Note: It's certainly not true that you must be at a top tier program to get a job, but we wanted to maximize our chances or it might not be worth the risk. In the end, I did the top tier PhD program (but since it was in the USA, I started grad school over again, so it took 5 years to do the US PhD). We did a similar thing for postdoc positions and luckily ended up in a perfect location. So, it's working out so far. Still don't know if I will be a professor one day but I do feel that my PhD and my experience will allow me to find something I like in this geographical area!

The instructions (https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/test_day/expect/) says this of the test: "There are six sections, one of which is an unidentified/unscored section." Later on, they also say, "An identified research section that is not scored may be included in place of the unscored section. The research section will always appear at the end of the test." So, the combination of these two statements tells me that every test does indeed have an experimental section. Sometimes it is the unidentified/unscored section, so you won't know which one of the six sections it was. However, sometimes they will identify it as a research section and it will be the last section, meaning that you will know which one is the "experimental" one. When I took the test, I had one of those identified research sections. It was an experimental question that was an essay prompt. You could choose to complete or skip it. Since it was already at the end, I decided I would see the prompt and see if I wanted to write. I don't remember the prompt anymore but I did end up writing a response.

I think this is much improved. Two brief comments: 1. It's weird that your first paragraph is only one sentence. I think you can use 2-4 sentences here saying what you want to do in their graduate program. What are your interests and why are they your interests? 2. I think you can still condense the history part further, in particular: the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. I think the first sentence of the second paragraph still reads weirdly. Why say you enjoy high school physics and then say you were drawn to EE? High school doesn't matter at this stage, so I think just start with your undergrad experience. My recommendation is to combine the 2nd and 3rd paragraph and follow this narrative: - You were enrolled in an EE degree at BITS. - During this time, you realised how much you enjoy physics, so you started self-study. - Then, you started a physics project with Dr. Sarkar. - Then your 3rd paragraph can continue from this point. I think this tells a nice story of how your interest in Physics grew. It also shows how you took steps to pursue interests on your own (reading books, online lectures, self-study) and then followed it up by pursuing research work in Physics (i.e not just an interest/hobby for you).

There are some of us who are new PhDs or received their PhDs some time ago and still remain here. But I've also heard lots about TheChronicle's forums: http://www.chronicle.com/forums/ I am not registered there though and only sometimes read things when someone sends me a direct link. I feel your job seeking pain---I am glad to be off the job market this year since I just started a 2+1 postdoc. I guess we must be in fields that do things differently since my job search season was in the last year of my PhD, rather than after graduation! Also, in my field, the season has just begun, and decisions won't be made until mid-December onwards. My other suggestion was to find whether your field has something like this: http://www.astrobetter.com/wiki/Rumor+Mill However, I found that every year there are some very toxic people that write very toxic things so I'm pretty sure things like that does more harm than good if you have other ways of finding postings. That said, I think many people know it's no use to check the wiki but we all do anyways. Sigh. Good luck on your search! Don't forget, you only need one acceptance, so the large number of rejections don't really matter. One piece of advice that worked well for me: For postdoc positions, it's helpful to contact the person that would be your mentor/advisor. Sometimes the posting is fairly general, e.g. "planets around other stars" but when you talk to them, you find that they're really looking for someone who uses telescopes, or maybe someone who does computer models, etc. Knowing this can help you decide which applications to spend your time on, or which parts of your application to emphasize (especially if you have proposals for multiple projects).

Another thing you can try is to contact the schools you're applying to. Explain the situation and ask if they will accept self-reported unofficial score reports for now. Tell them that once you have the funds, you can order the score reports. Some schools might not actually require the official reports until they have made their decisions.

I think that morally unethical events are more newsworthy and worrisome, so they are reported, while many functional and ethical academics operate successfully and reasonably. I was from a top tier PhD program and my advisor and our group did not do any unethical things. There were certainly unethical things going on in the school at various levels, but those were not the norm. But I do think stories of students experiencing scenarios they were not expecting is normal. Sometimes you might be surprised that you had to do something you didn't think was necessary but it turns out to be part of the culture of your field. This isn't always unethical, unless you have an extremely strict moral philosophy. For example, if you believed that a strict 100% meritocracy is the only ethical way to make hiring/promotion/etc. decisions in academia, then you will find that people will be acting unethically. However, that's not really a problem unique to academia, it's human behaviour and you'll see that this happens in most of the rest of life too. That is, being facing morally ambiguous decisions isn't unique to academia and every field (academic or otherwise) has its own sets of idiosyncrasies that may jive with some people but not with others. Although serious ethical breaches do happen, I think they are small but very attention-grabbing number of events. Many dilemma situations may just be because you're new to the field. After more experience, you may see why there isn't a problem with the situation or perhaps you will discover a flaw and you could work to fix it one day (all fields will have flaws).