1FJG

Without much knowledge on the program, I would go to UT Austin for my MS.

Oxford. My understanding is that they accept international students only if they have funding (fellowship/scholarship) for that particular international students.

check again and see how long does ti take for your PI to make 160K. I'm willing to bet more than 10 years especially if you are in a public school

Because I can handle the truth and I'm consistently looking for answers to my questions, through experimental research. Yep, I find amusement from being a lab slave.

even though I got my funding, I'd still say "we are FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU". that basically means predoc and postdoc fellowships now will be even more competitive. i feel bad for international students in the U.S. who wanna apply fellowships. and the effect of this sequester probably won't end until the next decade, meaning that the path to academia is almost as challenging as mass produce solar panel to developing / developed countries and have everyone installs it.

I think aberrant is responding as a science student POV. Just found out this one example: http://bbs.yale.edu/apply/faq.aspx What are the average GPA and GRE scores of admitted students? The BBS Program does not publish GPA or GRE data on our applicant pool. Our main guideline to applicants is that although a high GPA and high GRE scores are attractive to admissions committees, they do not guarantee admission. On the other hand, GPAs below 3.0 and GRE scores below 500 Verbal, 500 Quantitative, or 3.0 Writing are detrimental to your application. you need good scores to make the first round cut in lots of science programs. there are also tons of statistics on that, too. if you can't make the cut, it is almost impossible to have the adcom review your essays, letters and so forth.

http://bbs.yale.edu/apply/faq.aspx What are the average GPA and GRE scores of admitted students? The BBS Program does not publish GPA or GRE data on our applicant pool. Our main guideline to applicants is that although a high GPA and high GRE scores are attractive to admissions committees, they do not guarantee admission. On the other hand, GPAs below 3.0 and GRE scores below 500 Verbal, 500 Quantitative, or 3.0 Writing are detrimental to your application.

When you say "correction", do you mean a modification on the content of your thesis, or the writing quality of your thesis (i.e. grammar)? From my understanding, there are numbers of professors who are not willing to fix your grammatical errors for you because it is your job to ensure that the thesis has no typos, run-ons, any grammatical errors possible when you submit your thesis. Obviously, correcting ones writing isn't their duty or their jobs. So you might just have to find an alternative option for that kind of correction. As for the content, you may either wait for your advisor for the fix, or somebody else who has experience in terms of looking through a thesis and determine where to improve so that the thesis becomes a qualified package. Statements like this can be tricky (because you are confident with your work but you are also asking your advisor for revision; besides the fact that your advisor disagreeing your perspective based on her response from your post). Depends on the scenario and content, this may actually offend someone who is more knowledgeable and established, careerwise. Anyway, ask somebody else to improve your thesis. The sooner the better. Good luck.

It is true that many students have research experience (at least a year or two) during their undergraduate studies, especially at big state schools like UCSD (and it is extremely common). to compensate your situation, my understanding is that students from a smaller school tend to apply for these summer research programs since their freshman year (in other words, they should have 3 10-week summer research program under their belt when they apply grad school in the fall of their senior year). as a result, you will need to address (short and precise, hopefully) your lack of research experience situation. In any case, focus on your strengths in your SOP. Don't use a huge portion of your SOP to explain your disadvantage(s).

I seriously doubt that any graduate students would evaluate their professors on ratemyprofessor.com. If anything, graduate coursework tend to be unorganized. Besides, just because one may not be a good lecturer doesn't mean that he/she isn't a good communicator (person-to-person / small group). Looking at both threads that you posted on tgc, I honestly think that you shouldn't even go to graduate school for you are STILL talking about "which school should I go" based on preposterous reasons/factors (almost) 3 MONTHS after you made your first post. I mean, really? Just on this page, you evaluate the schools based on: - rankings - locations - reputation - assumptions (e.g. if the professor is this, than you can't deal with him/her.) that assumption one also showed that you are biased towards one over the other. Without even asking "what do you mean by 'if he's not clear'", why wouldn't the advisor from UCLA be "frustrating to work with"? Is it because ratemyprofessor.com told you that this advisor has strong numbers (based on 2 reviews) that this person automatically became a good person to work with/for? Your logic is a mess. And since you also said that "what if I end up not liking the work I'm doing with the prof there, then will have to find someone else to work with", it suggested that you just wanna study in a program and work for someone that is absolutely perfect for you that you don't have to deal with any obstacles (during your 5 years) before you commit yourself to a program. Good luck with finding any person to work with.

If an only if you get 4.0 (48%?) or above. Anything below that number will hurt your application (specifically to the ivies).

AW score is just a formality to many science programs, but then 3.5 (29%) may potentially hurt your application. AW is more about using critical thinking/logic to analyze a specific discussion/topic. If I were you I would retake it.