2016 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[sjoh197]

1 hour ago, magnetite said:

@sjoh197 Did you ever hear about funding at UH? Last I heard you were accepted but still didn't know if you'd be able to attend.

Nope. Radio silence.

I haven't heard another word from the department. About anything. 

[Different_Name_111!!!]

@sjoh197 Oh wow!  That sounds like it's going to be a fantastic trip!  Lucky!

I hope you get funded at UH, lame that you haven't heard about funding yet - - hopefully your PI is getting late funding and you'll be covered.

Edited April 24, 2016 by SickSlickensides

[sjoh197]

Well, I may or may not start rethinking my going to grad school decision.

Its now may, and I still haven't heard anything from the department. I emailed them earlier this week and heard nothing back again.

[magnetite]

@sjoh197 Dang, that sucks. I'm sorry. Hopefully you'll get good news.

I still don't have a definite answer from ASU. Two weeks ago, a professor I've been in contact with said he was working on making admissions decisions that weekend. I haven't heard from him again, though.

Now, my undergraduate advisor is telling me to apply to my school's physics masters program, since I don't have any acceptances yet. They apparently don't have a big enough incoming class and have TA funding available. I'm not sure how much two more years of physics is really going to help me with the aspects of planetary science I'm interested in. I kind of want to just get a job for a year and work on paying down some loans.

[emmuhhs]

@sjoh197 @magnetite

I am also playing the waiting game. Acceptance or rejected from UW is contingent upon my POI's NSF funding application results and he just hasn't heard anything from them yet. It's very stressful... my lease in my current apartment is up end of the summer so I need to know whether I should be looking for a new place to live here or across the country... I have no idea how long is realistic to wait for this.

[zerozircon]

I never received a decision from UW.  I decided to go to another school, but I find it extremely inconsiderate that after spending time and money on an application, they would not even let me know about my admission status.

[Slutha]

If you didn't receive any funding, but still received an acceptance, you could look into whether or not the school you want to go to allows you to pay in-state tuition up to a certain number of credits. UL-Lafayette charges in-state tuition up to three credits regardless of where you are from, for example. So it'd cost around $1500 for 3 credits. Not the best option, but possibly affordable if you're working a job on the side to support it. Take two semesters for 6 credits, then reapply for grad schools next year, possibly transfer, receive funding, etc. 

Just something to consider if you're in an unfortunate position of having no funding. Thoughts?

 

 

[GeoDUDE!]

1 hour ago, Slutha said:

If you didn't receive any funding, but still received an acceptance, you could look into whether or not the school you want to go to allows you to pay in-state tuition up to a certain number of credits. UL-Lafayette charges in-state tuition up to three credits regardless of where you are from, for example. So it'd cost around $1500 for 3 credits. Not the best option, but possibly affordable if you're working a job on the side to support it. Take two semesters for 6 credits, then reapply for grad schools next year, possibly transfer, receive funding, etc. 

Just something to consider if you're in an unfortunate position of having no funding. Thoughts?

 

 

 

Something people don't normally say is that TAships (rarely take up the 20 hours of time a week. I spend probably 5 hours a week when I'm on TA. I think it would be very hard to be a full time graduate student and have a part time job that you were required to live off of. 

RAships tend to be what you are doing your thesis/dissertation on so it doubles up. 

I think if you have bad GPA, it might be good to take a semester of courses and take out a loan. You should go in there telling professors that this is what you desire: to get a funded position and that while you are there to learn you are also there to find a position. They will understand. However, I do not think that one should go into graduate school and expect to fund themselves for the entire degree if they plan on being an academic: if you cannot get funding at this level, the competition goes way up as you progress in your career. It might be a sign that you are not learning the correct things and need to focus on something else. The act of getting funding is, imo, an important qualifier to know that you are on some sort of reasonably good track. 

[Slutha]

17 hours ago, GeoDUDE! said:

 

Something people don't normally say is that TAships (rarely take up the 20 hours of time a week. I spend probably 5 hours a week when I'm on TA. I think it would be very hard to be a full time graduate student and have a part time job that you were required to live off of. 

RAships tend to be what you are doing your thesis/dissertation on so it doubles up. 

I think if you have bad GPA, it might be good to take a semester of courses and take out a loan. You should go in there telling professors that this is what you desire: to get a funded position and that while you are there to learn you are also there to find a position. They will understand. However, I do not think that one should go into graduate school and expect to fund themselves for the entire degree if they plan on being an academic: if you cannot get funding at this level, the competition goes way up as you progress in your career. It might be a sign that you are not learning the correct things and need to focus on something else. The act of getting funding is, imo, an important qualifier to know that you are on some sort of reasonably good track. 

I'm happy to hear that TA'ing won't take up as much time as I was expecting. The papers I signed stated up to 20 hours a week, but 5-10 hours does sound more realistic. 

 

Also, do you recommend studying up on the class you will be TA'ing before the Fall Semester? I'm assigned to the Physical Geology lab, so I feel like I won't need to be prepping too much for it

[GeoDUDE!]

1 hour ago, Slutha said:

Also, do you recommend studying up on the class you will be TA'ing before the Fall Semester? I'm assigned to the Physical Geology lab, so I feel like I won't need to be prepping too much for it

I took 0 geology classes in undergrad, didn't actually know the difference between a rock and am mineral, and taught intro geology my first week of graduate school. 

Stay 1 week ahead. 

[1WheeledGeo]

On 5/12/2016 at 1:45 PM, Slutha said:

I'm happy to hear that TA'ing won't take up as much time as I was expecting. The papers I signed stated up to 20 hours a week, but 5-10 hours does sound more realistic. 

 

Also, do you recommend studying up on the class you will be TA'ing before the Fall Semester? I'm assigned to the Physical Geology lab, so I feel like I won't need to be prepping too much for it

I would say that the # of hrs you spend fulfilling your TA duties depends entirely on where you'll be attending, who you're TA-ing for, and your interest in an academic career that involves teaching. 

Some programs rely heavily on TAs, assigning three lab sections/semester or equivalent. Last fall I co-taught 10 hours of class/week to 25 students, plus office hours, plus time to edit and develop new course materials. When you factor in grading and answering emails, 20 hours was a low estimate for a typical week.

If you have any interest in teaching down the road, I would say this isn't really a bad thing. It's taxing on your time, but it can be a really good way to learn about pedagogy in the sciences, depending on the professor.

Also, you have the opportunity to spark or kill students' interest in geology, so keep that in mind as you lecture/provide feedback!

[TakeruK]

18 hours ago, 1WheeledGeo said:

I would say that the # of hrs you spend fulfilling your TA duties depends entirely on where you'll be attending, who you're TA-ing for, and your interest in an academic career that involves teaching. 

Some programs rely heavily on TAs, assigning three lab sections/semester or equivalent. Last fall I co-taught 10 hours of class/week to 25 students, plus office hours, plus time to edit and develop new course materials. When you factor in grading and answering emails, 20 hours was a low estimate for a typical week.

If you have any interest in teaching down the road, I would say this isn't really a bad thing. It's taxing on your time, but it can be a really good way to learn about pedagogy in the sciences, depending on the professor.

Also, you have the opportunity to spark or kill students' interest in geology, so keep that in mind as you lecture/provide feedback!

I agree with what you're saying, but at the same time, even if the program gives you a large workload, you shouldn't have to work more than the contracted/assigned number of hours per week. I really enjoy teaching and I put a lot of time and effort into being a good TA. But I don't work for free and I don't work more than the number of hours I'm supposed to work total. So, if I have a 20 hour/week TAship and the semester is 10 weeks long, I budget 200 hours for the entire semester for TAing. Some TA positions require me to front-load my work (e.g a lab where I have to first get familiar with every experiment / piece of equipment), I might spend 25 hours per week for the first few weeks and then 15 hours a week later on. Or, other classes that have a final project or a lot of midterm grading, I budget my time accordingly. I work with the professor I'm TAing for to budget my time---we meet at the beginning of the semester and discuss what needs to be done and how I will use the time. 

Part of this conversation is a discussion on how they want me to grade the homework. We talk about the time budget and basically I would then be able to know "Oh, that means I can spend 15 minutes grading each problem set" and then we discuss whether this is enough time. Based on my experience, I can give estimates like "15 minutes per person means I can grade X questions in Y style and provide Z level of comments". If we decide it's not enough or too much then we adjust the course. Some strategies we've used in the past are: reducing the number of problems in each set, reducing the amount of homework, or just reducing the amount of feedback I give.

Basically, in my opinion, being a good instructor is not about spending as much of your time as you can spare doing the job. But instead, understanding the resources available and limitations that you're subject to, and then making decisions to maximize the benefit to your students given these constraints. (Actually, I think this is true of any job, especially ones in academia, including research and other aspects of our work).

[sjoh197]

Sooo...  I still haven't heard anything from the department. Is it normal for them to wait over 2 months to contact me? I emailed the graduate advisor almost 2 weeks ago about whether there had been any error, or if i indeed they hadn't contacted me yet. I never got a response. 

I don't really know what to do now. 

[GeoDUDE!]

1 minute ago, sjoh197 said:

Sooo...  I still haven't heard anything from the department. Is it normal for them to wait over 2 months to contact me? I emailed the graduate advisor almost 2 weeks ago about whether there had been any error, or if i indeed they hadn't contacted me yet. I never got a response. 

I don't really know what to do now. 

 

Call them.

[sjoh197]

Just now, GeoDUDE! said:

 

Call them.

Call the grad advisor? I had actually just looked up his number... but didn't know if I should call since he didn't answer my email. 

[GeoDUDE!]

36 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

Call the grad advisor? I had actually just looked up his number... but didn't know if I should call since he didn't answer my email. 

What else are you ganna do ? 

You probably won't get the answer you want, but you will get an answer. Its the middle of may, most graduate school admissions is done. They are probably done. 

[sjoh197]

3 minutes ago, GeoDUDE! said:

What else are you ganna do ? 

You probably won't get the answer you want, but you will get an answer. Its the middle of may, most graduate school admissions is done. They are probably done. 

I'm not asking about admissions... I was already admitted the first week in March. 

And haven't heard anything since. 

 

[GeoDUDE!]

2 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

I'm not asking about admissions... I was already admitted the first week in March. 

And haven't heard anything since. 

 

Oh, congrats!

Then sit tight. Information about payroll, registering for classes and what classes you might teach (if you are a TA vs RA) will come probably after their semester/quarter is over.  These things come. 

 

[sjoh197]

Just now, GeoDUDE! said:

Oh, congrats!

Then sit tight. Information about payroll, registering for classes and what classes you might teach (if you are a TA vs RA) will come probably after their semester/quarter is over.  These things come. 

 

Ok thanks. That's really what I wanted to know. I just wasn't sure if it was normal for it to take so long to hear about enrolling and such. 

I didn't really think about the fact that the semester would have just ended last week or so. 

[TakeruK]

 

2 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

I'm not asking about admissions... I was already admitted the first week in March. 

And haven't heard anything since. 

Just to make sure I understand, you are saying you got admitted in the first week of March, then you officially accepted their offer, and you haven't heard anything since then. Did you get a confirmation that they received your decision? Most grad directors would email back with a response like "Glad to hear you are accepting the offer, look forward to meeting you in the Fall" etc. once you tell them your decision.

If you haven't heard anything official at all since you sent in your acceptance decision, you could contact the Graduate School itself (not your department) and ask for a confirmation if that makes you feel better. 

But, if you already know they received your confirmation to attend then it's too early now to have heard anything. If you are an international student though, then you should probably contact the school's international office to get started on the visa paperwork. But if you are not international, then there's probably no communication needed between you and the school at this point. 

Over the summer, you'll probably start to receive some information like: your student ID number / registering for the online system, getting proof of graduation and transcripts to the school, maybe some enrollment type paperwork. But this could happen pretty late in the summer depending on the school. Enjoy your break

If you do want to get a head start on things, you could consider contacting your potential advisor (if you have one) and ask if there is anything you could start thinking about (e.g. some background reading). Or, if you are really antsy to get started, you can even inquire about starting as a summer researcher (paid) ahead of time. In my program, students often start to arrive in June as paid RAs. You don't have to feel obligated to do any of this though! I'd personally would just enjoy the summer, get ready for any moving, save up some money, take some trips, and visit with friends and family. Before moving, we had a mini checklist of all the things in the area we always wanted to do but never made time for and we got to work checking them off!

[sjoh197]

Just now, TakeruK said:

 

Just to make sure I understand, you are saying you got admitted in the first week of March, then you officially accepted their offer, and you haven't heard anything since then. Did you get a confirmation that they received your decision? Most grad directors would email back with a response like "Glad to hear you are accepting the offer, look forward to meeting you in the Fall" etc. once you tell them your decision.

If you haven't heard anything official at all since you sent in your acceptance decision, you could contact the Graduate School itself (not your department) and ask for a confirmation if that makes you feel better. 

But, if you already know they received your confirmation to attend then it's too early now to have heard anything. If you are an international student though, then you should probably contact the school's international office to get started on the visa paperwork. But if you are not international, then there's probably no communication needed between you and the school at this point. 

Over the summer, you'll probably start to receive some information like: your student ID number / registering for the online system, getting proof of graduation and transcripts to the school, maybe some enrollment type paperwork. But this could happen pretty late in the summer depending on the school. Enjoy your break

If you do want to get a head start on things, you could consider contacting your potential advisor (if you have one) and ask if there is anything you could start thinking about (e.g. some background reading). Or, if you are really antsy to get started, you can even inquire about starting as a summer researcher (paid) ahead of time. In my program, students often start to arrive in June as paid RAs. You don't have to feel obligated to do any of this though! I'd personally would just enjoy the summer, get ready for any moving, save up some money, take some trips, and visit with friends and family. Before moving, we had a mini checklist of all the things in the area we always wanted to do but never made time for and we got to work checking them off!

I did get a generic confirmation letter from the graduate school office... just haven't heard anything from the department. 

But I had just wanted to make sure that it was normal. I don't really mind, and I'm not in a rush. I know things usually take a while in academia, I just don't know anyone else who has been through this process... and I didn't really know how long was typical for waiting for that kind of info. 

[jader]

Just to contribute to the body of information here, for whatever use it may serve- I just received an unofficial reject from my POI at UC Davis, said that I had a strong application but they didn't have enough resources.  Already expected it, but still a bit sad since I really like the school and the research.

In that time of no news, I learned of a scholarship for UK that I may apply to if I get accepted in a university. Then got accepted to University of Bristol, and set to interview at Oxford later.

[magnetite]

Sorry to hear that, @jader. I'm still waiting to hear from a professor at ASU and I've got a feeling it'll be the same news once I finally do hear something. Last I heard from them was three weeks ago and they were still trying to find funding.

[jader]

@magnetite  Yeah, thanks.  Thankfully, my application in Oxford seems to be going well   The research there is very similar to the one I was looking at in UCD, but I had to draft my own research proposal.  Still have to apply for a scholarship for that, though.

Such is life-- there surely are many opportunities out there that may work just as fine or even better than what we initially hoped for.