previous research experience for earth science Ph.D. programs

[waddle]

Hi all,

I'd appreciate your advice as to how much research experience is standard for geoscience graduate programs. I'm not too familiar with the earth sciences, and don't really know anyone who's ever gone through a geoscience graduate program, aside from my research mentor, so I humbly ask for your help.

In brief, I am concerned about whether my research experience is enough to apply for Ph.D. programs in (bio)geochemistry. My research experience is as follows:

1. ~9 months (including a 2-month gap due to an internship, below) with current research advisor at my home institution (No Name State Univ.) in isotope geochemistry.
2. 3 summers (including one summer supported by a fairly competitive summer research internship) in a lab at Big Research Univ.; the work I did here was basic biomedical bench research (cell biology, etc.), nothing directly related to (bio)geochemistry.

I have no publications (not even close to publishing), but I did submit an abstract to the AGU Fall Meeting (crossing fingers). I'm still scrambling to collect data for this project, though.

I'm not sure where I stand in terms of research experience among geoscience applicants. If you could enlighten me, that'd be great. I wouldn't want to be wasting my time on applications that end up all being rejected.

As an aside: Do geoscience Ph.D. programs generally consider GRE scores or GPA as a factor in admissions? I know some fields tend to use those only as a threshold, and base decisions off of all the other components of the application. I ask because I was hoping my GPA & GRE could compensate somewhat for my lack of relevant research experience.

Thanks!

waddle

[katerific]

It's certainly enough, and I think that's a pretty good track record. At least in my dept, just about every grad student had to do research for their seniors or honors thesis or whatever at their ugrad institution, and a handful did a separate summer research project in addition to that. I think even a few did a summer internship but no senior thesis. A few presented stuff at conferences, but I don't think it's too common for people to have published as an undergrad. My impression has been that presenting as an undergrad really helps your application, and publishing REALLY helps it. (Not publishing won't hurt you!)

I think the fact that you did a more biology-based internship will not hurt you at all. Lab experience is lab experience, even if it's in a completely different field; more than anything, I think it reflects upon how dedicated of a researcher you'd make. Also, I can think of quite a few geobiology labs that have a lovely mix of biologists/chemists/engineers/etc, and those PIs would consider such a mixed background a plus. What sort of biogeochemistry interests you?

tl;dr, I think your lab experience is good. My impression is that they do consider GPA and GRE, but research and LORs are much more heavily weighted. Of course, that's slightly school-dependent as well.

Edited October 13, 2010 by katerific

[waddle]

Thank you, katerific! Hopefully I can find a way to make this application work.

(Not publishing won't hurt you!)

But it's all relative, right? So not publishing will hurt if a lot of other applicants have published?

I'm interested in using isotopes to study biogeochemical processes at the molecular level (e.g. redox cycles, fractionation mechanisms, maybe some paleo- stuff); this basically falls out of my research training, so these interests may (will?) change. I don't have a defined research interest, other than that I tend to shy away from Earth system-level processes (I've never managed to read one of those atmospheric modeling papers all the way through).

Thanks again!

waddle

Edited October 14, 2010 by waddle

[katerific]

But it's all relative, right? So not publishing will hurt if a lot of other applicants have published?

I guess so, but most applicants haven't published. I think even at competitive programs, a few have, but most haven't. Unless they've already done a master's, but I think they weigh that differently.

I could be wrong about this, but this is my impression.

I'm interested in using isotopes to study biogeochemical processes at the molecular level (e.g. redox cycles, fractionation mechanisms, maybe some paleo- stuff); this basically falls out of my research training, so these interests may (will?) change. I don't have a defined research interest, other than that I tend to shy away from Earth system-level processes (I've never managed to read one of those atmospheric modeling papers all the way through).

Thanks again!

waddle

Cool beans. I'm also interested in geochemical processes, but with a definite paleo flavor.

Doing work now with isotope geochemistry will be super helpful for that stuff in the future. I assume you're going to present on that work? AGU is such a fantastic time to meet people (and have lots of fun, too).

[Kitkat]

But it's all relative, right? So not publishing will hurt if a lot of other applicants have published?

I'm interested in using isotopes to study biogeochemical processes at the molecular level (e.g. redox cycles, fractionation mechanisms, maybe some paleo- stuff); this basically falls out of my research training, so these interests may (will?) change. I don't have a defined research interest, other than that I tend to shy away from Earth system-level processes (I've never managed to read one of those atmospheric modeling papers all the way through).

Thanks again!

waddle

Publishing at this point from what I can tell is nice and good and all, but not necessary. As for knowing exactly what you want to do when you get there is also not necessary, but it helps if you do know, and are going in with some ideas. But when you are applying should have a basic idea at least, so you know which professors you might want to work with and get in touch with. Lot's or people are telling me that this is much more important. And you don't want to get too specific because you will be working with your research adviser a lot on their own projects. This is why it's important to look at what they are doing to see if you would actually be willing to do a serious amount of work on it.