2015 Ecology/Evolution/Organismal/Marine Biology Applicants

[Monochrome Spring]

You should talk to your advisor/graduate secretary about this. Make sure you don't go to any school that doesn't give you a stipend high enough to live comfortably. I'm not saying live in a two bedroom on your own and eat out a lot; but you should be able to afford an apartment, basic health expenses, and healthy groceries without going into debt. Also, I would be concerned if I was expected to pay tuition. Even when I went a few units over the maximum covered by my university fellowship, my advisor paid for the extra from his own funds. In ecology, the student-advisor relationship is very close and should be facilitated by things like this. 

 

Also, I disagree that advisors don't know about funding. Unless all funding comes from the department or university, a lot of your funding may come directly from their research grants (RAship; TAship will most likely come from department). In general, your advisor should know how funding works so that you aren't thrown under a bus and completely confused later.

[NonparametricBananas]

Yay! Got final confirmation from my two cosupers that the official offer letter is coming in the next few weeks! Got into NCSU Zoology PhD

[flashdance]

My offer was made over the phone. Would it be weird/inappropriate to ask for something in writing?

[Tuanis]

My offer was made over the phone. Would it be weird/inappropriate to ask for something in writing?

Not at all. You should definitely ask for the offer in writing.

Happy decision day everyone!

[FoggyAnhinga]

I assume at this point everyone has heard from most, if not all the schools they applied to.

 

Best luck to you all on your graduate school career for the upcoming fall!

[shadowclaw]

Interestingly, UTK is still on the table for me. I finally decided to ask about the status of my application (website says it's still in review) and found out that I am still on the waitlist and that the department is still waiting on some people to accept our decline offers. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I still don't know about funding for OSU (and won't until sometime in June or maybe even July), but thankfully there's no deadline to declare my intent to enroll to the graduate school. However, I'm quite excited about moving to the west coast (and especially the Pacific Northwest) as well as attending OSU.

I don't know what I'll do if I get an offer from UTK now. It was my top choice because the research opportunities are absolutely amazing and I feel like I would regret it forever if I passed it up. However, OSU is a better choice for many other reasons, and is the only school my husband was actually excited about. Good thing I'm really busy with my summer job... I don't have much time to dwell on it!