Cookie

Most applicants with low GPA have better chemistry GPA. If your chemistry GPA is not stellar, why do you want to pursue a graduate degree in Chemistry? Are you confident of your fundamental knowledge?
Unfortunately, your GRE is just average and probably doesnt improve your chances. I have been told If you take Chemistry GRE and get very good scores, then it might help a little.

Welcome! Please post your stats in your profile or signature to make this thread more convenient for everyone. thanks

I put together a list some time ago for our PhD students at the institution I attend. Unfortunately, the opportunities for international students are somewhat more limited than those for citizens but I did find a few, which may or may not still be available to apply for:
 
I've set it up as follows:
 
Opportunity
Field of Research
Agency
Time to Apply
Award Amount
Renewable?
Deadline
 
            American Heart Predoctoral Fellowship
Cardiovascular Research
American Heart Association
After Candidacy
$23,000 stipend + $2000 fees
Renewable up to 2 yr.
 Due July 17th, January 17th
Dennis Weatherstone Predoctoral Fellowship
Autism Research
Autism Speaks
After 1st Year
$22,000 stipend + paid tuit./fees
Renewable up to 2 yr.
Due October 2nd
HHMI International Student Research Fellowship
Biomedical Sciences
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2nd or 3rd Year
$43,000/yr
Renewable up to 3 yr.
Due (By Invitation Only)
November 28th
Josephine de Karman Fellowship
Any discipline
Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust
Any time
$22,000 toward stipend
Not renewable
Due January 31st
Predoctoral  Research Training Fellowship
Epilepsy Research
Epilepsy Foundation
After Candidacy
$20,000 toward stipend
Not renewable
Due August 23rd
Student Training and Research in Tumor Immunology
Cancer Immunology
Cancer Research Institute
After Candidacy
$30,000/year
Renewable up to 2 yr.
CURRENTLY NOT FUNDING
AAUW International Fellowship
Any Field of Study
American Assoc. of University Women
1st or 2nd Year
$20,000 toward stipend
Renewable up to 2 yr.
Due December 1st
UNESCO-L'OREAL International Fellowships Programme for Young Women in Life Sciences
Any field of Study
Unesco-L’oreal
Any year (lots of stipulations)
$20,000/year
Renewable up to 2 yr.
Due June 10th
 

Come on guys! reply

But in the application tracker(or search) there are tons of applications to KAUST?????

It's Max Planck, for God's sake.

Grad school is all research. How could you have been sure about wanting to go to grad school without understanding the importance of research experience? This leads me to question your motivation & preparedness for grad school. 
Like you said, your research experience is very limited. It's very hard to accomplish much in a single semester, much less in organic synthesis, especially if you're starting out fresh and taking time to learn all the techniques. Did you have prior experience doing organic synthesis research? What exactly did you accomplish in the two labs that you worked in? 
 
Having a well-defined research interest for grad school does nothing to help your application. Anyone can go ahead and say in the personal statement that "I have a very strong interest in <insert topic>." What matters more is the evidence for your stated interest, and this is why previous research experience is so important. Undergraduate research experiences help the applicant realize whether or not he/she enjoys research in the first place, and if so, they help inform his/her future research interests. Given your research background, I would be hardly convinced by your reasons for wanting to attend grad school (i.e. something besides "there's nothing else for me to do") and being interested in the specific fields you mentioned. 
 
Another thing is letters of recommendation. LORs are extremely important in grad school applications. A student who worked few years in a single lab will have a much stronger LOR than a student who only dipped their feet into the project, and you'll be competing with other students who have spent multiple years on each of their multiple projects, FYI. 

Does the ETS website have a list for the GRE code for each school?  I keep emailing one school asking them for their GRE code, and they keep telling me to go to the GRE website.  How can i find this.  I don't know why this school is being so difficult.  All the other schools gave me the code.  Thanks.

Yes, I Googled it. That's where I came up with these erroneous assumptions about the conversion process. 
 
I guess I was wrong on many levels. Thanks to you guys, I know the err in my comprehension of the GPA conversion process. I think it's best if I just leave it for the universities to convert and not sweat over it. 

Bear in mind that as an international student it is considerably harder to get into American universities than if you are domestic students, especially in the top schools (not that it is ever easy to get into Harvard if you're domestic). There are more international students applying for fewer designated places, and the Admissions Committee often have higher expectations re. GRE scores, GPAs. 
 
My point is that you might be getting ahead of yourself - neither school has made you an offer yet! Apply to both places, and apply to a good range of schools, then consider the matter again once you've got all your offers.

Hello,
 
I am applying for Fall, 2015 in PhD programs (Computer science). 
 
The admissions page of many universities I saw, demand an undergrad GPA of at least 3.0 and graduate GPA of at least 3.5
 
Now, I excelled in the two masters degrees I have (MBA, MS).
 
But I was an average student in undergrad. Average in India means that I scored around 68% in my undergrad years (I.T.)
 
If you ask me, I think this conversion thing is crazy. Many colleges in India grade/score very stringently, since the min. percentage required to graduate is 50%. So, if I were an average student at an elite college in India, my CGPA/ Percentage would be 7.0 or 70%. Using this conversion table, my GPA on a 4 point scale would be 2.3.        
 
In the US, however, you need a min. GPA of 2.75 to graduate. A GPA below 3 is considered to be a shocker, while a GPA between 3 and 3.5 would be considered below average. It'll never work; it's like comparing Apples with Oranges.
 
Am I missing something here? Any thoughts?     

Looks like it's our turn to carry on the tradition of biting our nails and grinding our teeth.

It's Max Planck, for God's sake.

This fellowship funds the person, not the project. Both essays are equally important.

This fellowship funds the person, not the project. Both essays are equally important.

While I don't know what will/wont work for the adcomm or what advice to give you in that regard..
 
I can say that if you can't crank out a 15 page paper about Unicorn Mating Habits in 8 days that is well researched, written, and considered.. then you're going to struggle in grad school. Especially a program that's paper/analysis heavy (which is most of them.)
 
You have to write less than 2 pages a day to make the deadline.

My group is looking for a postdoc. PM me if you are interested. loginofpscl is right! "top" groups hire very highly specialized people, and that doesnt always transfer to "how many papers I have published".
 
PS: we are not a "top" group. We do what we think are interesting and compelling quantum dynamics problems. 

Oh, great question! I'm just going to throw out some thoughts:
When looking at a paper, prioritize global concerns over local concerns. For example, thesis that doesn't make sense or relate to the rest of the paper is a bigger concern than a formatting error. Try to keep your comments to what has been discussed in class, and even then, try to focus your feedback on three or four main points the whole class is working on. For example, if you are working on maintaining an argument through close textual analysis in class, your feedback should focus on that. Keep marginal comments brief and sparse. It can be overwhelming for students to get papers back with tons of marks. I try to limit myself to one or two comments per paragraph, if that. Also comment on the strengths; students learn just as much from positive models (even models created by themselves) as from constructive criticism. Form your feedback as questions, pushing the students to come to their own conclusions and make their own choices as writers. Questions like, "how does this quotation/outside source back up your initial claim?" is more helpful than "Doesn't back up your original claim." So often, students have smart connections in their minds but don't articulate them on the page, so questions can help push them to making their analyses and claims clearer.  End comments should focus on the future. Even if students won't be revising this draft for class, frame the comments as "here's how you can improve your next draft or project" rather than "here are all the things you did wrong with this one."  For you, set a time limit for each paper. It can be really easy to get sucked into a problematic paper, but you don't have time for that. Go through a few papers, time yourself, then figure out what would be an appropriate amount of time to give yourself for each of the remaining papers. Don't go over it!  If you are TA'ing, feel free to ask the professor to look over your feedback and give you feedback on your feedback! Or if not the professor, another experienced TA can also give valuable feedback.

Hi everybody!
 
I promised to myself to let students who live outside the US know about the way Wisconsin Madison treated me last year.  Here's the story:
 
I applied to the Genetics program. My BS GPA is >3.7 and my MS GPA is >3.8. GRE scores: 93 for both the verbal and the quantitative sections and 54 for the AW. TOEFL: 106.
 
According to UWM's website, it says (or at least it used to say) that if we have GPA>3.5 and a percentile >90 on at least two sections, then we'll most likely get an interview.
 
Soooo as most of you will soon realize, the week before Christmas is one of the most stressful ones because some schools send invitations as early as that. On gradcafe I saw that some people got invitations to UWM during that week so I wouldn't stop refreshing my inbox. But nothing... So a few days later, I was almost sure that I got rejected. However, I wanted to be 100% sure, so I called the university. I was told that applicants who live outside of the US (internationals or Americans) still hadn't been reviewed and that we'd know around mid-January. But still nothing mid-January... So I asked them again and I was told that it was going to be late January. Then guess what? Late January I was told that it was going to be beginning of February. 
 
I sent an email beginning of February and here's the reply:
 
Hi X,
 
Thank you for your patience. We complete reviews, interviews, and admissions for applicants within the U.S. borders first. We then review external applicants. Frequently, this first phase fills the slots available. I will email you when a decision is made.
 
Thank you for your interest in our program.
 
X
This is honestly the most outrageous thing ever. Those who live outside the "US borders" basically don't stand a chance. However, we pay the same application fees (+the fees to send the GRE scores, TOEFL scores, and transcripts) as everybody else. We had to deal with the application procedure like everybody else and we had the same deadline. However, we are considered as second-class applicants. And it's not like they warned us... Basically, I consider it to be theft. They stole my money and wasted my time. They didn't plan to review these applications in the first place. We are directly thrown away or in best case scenario, they keep our applications in case they have some miraculous slots available.
So if you live outside the US, DO NOT apply to this school. You are just going to waste your money and time. As to those of you who live in the US, think about it: do you want to go to a school that has such an unfair admission procedure? 
I wish I was warned about this by previous applicants and it was important for me to let you guys know about it. A school shouldn't be allowed to get away such unfair policies. 
Anyway, if some of you need advice for your applications, don't hesitate to send me a message. I am happy to help. 
Good luck to all of you! 
 
 

Cookie, I am doing research. I am actually doing it while I waited for answers. But it is never a bad choice to just ask. Plus, it would give me even more information regarding my problems. I also do have information regarding schools, school's rankings, professors, etc. I didn't want the "correct" way of choosing but more the experimental part, the How-to of the choice making process. I also believe life is more than just researching, you have to consider other things like living expenses, study possibilities, society's affinity with your topic (specially in social sciences), etc. Anyways, I appreciate the help.
 
GeoDUDE!, thank you.

muahahaha     
 
YoungR3b3I,
To be honest, you can never justify cheating. I have never cheated any time in any form during my entire education, and still maintain close to perfect GPA. I'm not saying GPA is the most important, but since it's important to me, I work to earn it.
 
No offense, your English is very weird. I read it 3 times and am still not sure what you meant by "prof oppression".

I disagree with the idea that you should put down your top choice schools. I personally picked one of my mid-tier schools where I knew the professors' work and resources well, and mentioned continuing existing collaborations between professors across departments. I ended up accepting an offer from a higher-ranked school, but NSF reviewers are aware of this in judging senior applicants. I encountered neither difficulty nor a moral crisis requesting a tenure change to the school I will be attending.
 
I would advise applicants to get to know a university other than your undergraduate school very well, communicating with profs at those schools to learn what sort of resources they have to support your proposal.

Lowly first years should learn to stop backtalking seniors. If a first year has an opinion that differs from the seniors, the first year should NOT try to reason with the senior. He/she shouldn't ask why either. He/she should take what the senior says as fact without talking back. Too many times, I've seen a lowly first year backtalk a senior, and its disgusting, because the first year is wrong most of the time. The only time a first year is right is when 500,000 first years backtalk a single senior. There is a reason why you are still just first years and they're seniors with numerous publications. Its because you think differently than the seniors. Stop thinking like a first year. Start thinking like a senior.

(1) don't be cocky and lose the know-it-all attitude or you will get burned
(2) don't get too comfortable too early, especially when you are not a candidate yet
(3) know that you are being evaluated by senior students or post-docs constantly 
(4) don't be a moocher 
(5) don't ask for special treatment
(6) don't be a two-faced b in front of the PI 
(7) don't ask questions that can be easily answered via Google
(8) be independent, learn how to read user manuals 
(9) respect your colleagues' opinions
(10) constantly make new friends and meet people outside your field
 

muahahaha     
 
YoungR3b3I,
To be honest, you can never justify cheating. I have never cheated any time in any form during my entire education, and still maintain close to perfect GPA. I'm not saying GPA is the most important, but since it's important to me, I work to earn it.
 
No offense, your English is very weird. I read it 3 times and am still not sure what you meant by "prof oppression".