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How NOT to Apply to Graduate School

Here is another WomanOfScience’s story of her process of applying to graduate school.

My experience applying to graduate school probably has more examples of what not to do than what to do. The story starts the during the summer before my senior year of undergrad. I was on my way to Germany to participate in a “Research Internships in Science and Engineering” program sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service. I planned on using some of my time outside of lab to look into graduate programs online. When I arrived at my little apartment for the summer, I discovered there was no internet service. I would have to go to to internet cafe a few blocks down the street. I thought this would be only a slight change of plans. As soon as I got over my jet-lag, I realized that exploring a new country and watching soccer were much more interesting than looking into graduate programs.

Ten weeks later I returned to the U.S. to start my senior year of undergrad with no more inclination about where to go to graduate school, or even in what field. Some days, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go. Was going to grad school something that was just expected of me because I was a strong student? I suppose I did want to go based on a lack of interest in teaching high school (I didn’t want to deal with parents) and my lack of interest in a lab tech position (I wanted to be in charge). As far as what field, I had been considering three or four different ones, all STEM and somewhat related to each other, but this didn’t give me a lot of confidence in my ability to make this big a decision about my career. I felt like I was all over the place and casting my net too wide. Have you heard of the paradox of choice? Too many options makes a decision harder, rather than easier. That sums up the fall semester of my senior year pretty well. I told myself if I just dedicated a few minutes each day to looking at programs, I’d have a list of things I’d like to apply to in no time. On the days did manage to dedicate some time to looking at programs, those few minutes ended up being just before bed when I was already exhausted and stressed. Looking at yet another program’s website and becoming more confused quickly led me to believe I should just go to bed; I’d see something different, something that would make this decision easier if I only had fresh eyes. I went to bed, but often couldn’t sleep since I had gotten myself so stressed out.

At some point I decided this couldn’t go on. My first decision when it came to applying to graduate school was that I was only going to choose programs whose deadline was after January 1st so that I could work on application materials over winter break and not have to worry about them at the same time as final exams for the semester. I went through the programs I had bookmarked and just checked the application date. I was able to narrow them from who knows how many to about ten programs in three different fields. I also started sleeping a bit better, when I made time for that.

At home on Christmas break, at some point between singing carols and wrapping presents for my younger cousins I took out my list of ten schools and my dad’s atlas that guided all of the family road trips we took growing up. I looked at the likely outdated population suggestions and eliminated two schools because I couldn’t picture myself living in a big city. I actually thought I would have eliminated more programs this way.

Finally, once all the presents had been unwrapped and we said goodbye to family members, I was relaxed and had some time to think about the actual research and science in the programs remaining on my list. Only at this point was I able to take the advice from my professors and choose programs where I thought there were a few different faculty I would be interested in working for. Doing this for a list of eight was much more manageable than doing this from a list all of the programs out there. I chose five to apply to (there were still three different fields represented in my list), writing my personal essay about how my experience in Germany working with a graduate student mentor who was not confident in his English (generally, I understood him just fine) helped me realize the important role communication has in science and for this reason I was interested in pursuing a career in science policy. It’s now my fifth year of graduate school and I still have the same interest and career goals.

I emailed my undergraduate professors while they were also on break and asked for letters of recommendation just a week before the first deadline (really, don’t do this. Give your letter writers a lot more time than I did.) Before I left for winter break, I had warned them this would likely be the case, but couldn’t give them any details at that time. I started submitting my materials in mid January and sent in my last application just a few days into the spring semester.

By March I had found out that I was accepted into all five programs. Some people may tell you this is a sign that I didn’t push myself. Those “reach” schools were probably in bigger cities or had earlier application deadlines and were among those I had eliminated in my early rounds of decision making. Also by March, I had finally realized that one of the three fields had risen to the top, so I visited only the two programs in that field. After my visits, I took all the time I could deciding between them. Reputation, H-index, alumni employment, even time to graduation weren’t factors that I considered strongly. I chose the program where the faculty I met were more excited about their work and where the students I met seemed genuinely happier.

While I doubt it’s highly recommended, I view my path as a success. Given the chance, I would choose the same program again, just maybe not in the same way.

Have advise for someone else applying to graduate school, undergraduate, postdocs, or tenure track positions? Comment or post here!

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Category:

Applying, Career, GradSchool

Applying for Tenure-Track Jobs: Your Packet

I have talked about applying for jobs with a two-body problem previously (Two-BodyProblem Posts can be found in the Two-Body Problem Category, below). But, here, I am just going to focus on the mechanics of how to put together your packet and apply.

In General: First, off, as I have said before, ask other people for their successful examples. This means having a near peer mentor who has successfully landed a job. You might not have one of these, so you can ask your advisor for their packet, if they aren’t too old, they might still have it. Also, you can ask your advisor for advise, if they are a good advisor. If you are interdisciplinary and applying to a specific department, make sure you get a mentor in that type of department who can read the packet and give you advise. If you postdoc advisor isn’t in that type of department, seek out another mentor. For example, you are a chemical engineer currently working in a physics department, but want to go back to chemical engineering, you need to know how the game is played in chemical engineering. (I know chemical engineering is a particularly small group, and they have some weird rituals. If you are thinking of chemical engineering, you have to get a mentor to help guide you!) The goal of the packet is to get an interview, so make it work for you!

Cover Letter: The cover letter is a formality that makes sure the administrative assistant handling things knows which job you are applying to, and they know who to expect letter from, but the search committee will probably not read it. This is important to have the right information (which university/college, your name and full information, why search). You don’t want to go into the molecular biology search when you do evo/devo. Your cover letter should just be bare bones. Don’t make it too long. Don’t go into too many details. If you have a two body problem, don’t mention it in the cover letter (don’t give them a reason to not even interview you).

Your CV: I have had posts on your CV for getting tenure (CV), and the same basic stuff applies. It would be a full CV, with everything you did. You probably won’t have teaching or service sections. You probably won’t have mentoring or grants, but that is OK. Five pages is plenty.

Research Statement: All tenure-track jobs will ask for a research statement. This is a plan for what you want to do when you get to your new position. Depending on the type of science department, it will need to be more or less specific or look more or less like a grant proposal. It should only be about 3-5 pages long. Again, this is where you need to get examples. Mostly, you don’t want it to look too odd. Don’t write an NIH/R01 grant-style research statement for a department that is all NSF and DOE funded. The styles are very different. Don’t write a vague, sweeping and broadly open statement for a department that expects specific questions with specific techniques. Do use figures to illustrate your points. Do state the significance of the proposed work. Do point out places where the work you propose could intersect and collaborate with people in the department to which you are applying. Do say where you think you will be able to get funding (which agencies?). Don’t write the wrong school or department name! Each statement needs to be tailored to the school to which you are applying. In my experience on hiring committees the young faculty on the committee will read these statements with great interest and go into detail about what you propose. Make it exciting and sell it!

Teaching Statement: Not all tenure-track jobs will require a statement of teaching, but many will, especially small liberal arts colleges. Again, get examples from people who have successfully written these statements to land a job. At a research school, they are going to want something pretty standard. What types of classes are you interested in teaching? Will your use modern teaching techniques? Are there any specialty courses you are thinking of inventing for graduate students? Remember that mentoring in the lab is part of teaching, so you can mention what the composition of your lab will be like. How many graduate students do you think you will have? How many postdocs? Will you have a technician? Is that typical for your field? Will you take undergraduates? By mentioning mentoring, you will remind the committee of your research again. You can also mention that innovative teaching and student mentoring are important for broader impacts required by NSF proposals. Again, you are mentioning research in your teaching statement.

Letters of Recommendation: You will typically need 3-5 letters of recommendation from professors for your application packet. For most people, three letters is tough and five is a huge stretch! If you are applying to a tenure track job after your first postdoc, you will likely have had 2 advisors – your Ph.D. advisor and your postdoc advisor. The 3rd person is usually the weakest for most people. When you get to a postdoc, it is good to talk to other professors at your new place, so you will always have someone to act as that third writer. The letters of recommendation are the most important part of the packet for the older people on the hiring committee. Having big name letter writers is important for these guys, unfortunately. And this is one part of the packet you cannot control and also tends to favor men over women, since we know that scientists have significant gender bias.

Do you have suggestions for people going on the job market this fall? Post or comment!

Category:

Applying, Career, New Job, Self-Promotion

Applying to Grad School: Admissions View

I have served on the admissions for two different graduate programs, so I have had a view of what the admissions people think and are looking for when making acceptances. These two programs do things very differently. One accepts straight up, based on the application alone. The other has interviews for people before accepting them. One relies heavily on the results of the subject GRE, and the other does not require a subject GRE at all. Despite these differences, they are both looking for the same thing: Excellent students who will be able to get good grades in the first year of courses, be able to pass their respective qualifying exams, and ultimately be able to conduct new research and write papers for publication. There are many items that need to be included in the packet and each has various weights in the decision to accept or reject.

Each year, I give a little talk at various venues called, “How to get into graduate school” but really it should be called, how to assemble your packet for graduate school. Here are some of the hints I give:

What does the admissions committee want to know? When crafting your application packet, it is best to keep in mind what the committee is looking for, so that you can give them the information they want. We want to know from your packet, “Will this person do well in their graduate courses?” “Will this person pass the qualifying exam?” “Will tis person find a research group?” “Will this person be able to conduct independent research?” “Will this person get a Ph.D?”

What is in the packet? The packet consists of the following, and I will go through the rationale of each part below.

1. Your grades in your academic classes.

2. The scores on your GREs – both general and subject (maybe).

3. Your letters of recommendation.

4. Your personal essay.

Grades. The grades in your science classes are an important indicator of how you will do in your classes your first year of graduate school. All graduate programs have required classes to make sure you have a certain basis of knowledge before you go forward into research. All graduate programs have a minimum grade average or grade in each course that is required to stay in the program. Your grades in your classes will indicate if you will make good grades in your graduate classes. On the admissions committee, we want As, but that isn’t good advise for how to get into grad school. By the time you are applying, most of your grades are already set in stone. Maybe you messed up a few courses? Maybe you overloaded one semester and did poorly. Maybe there is a specific course that you really struggled with. Any booboos in your grades should be explained (not excused) in your Personal Essay. I once saw a personal essay that plotted the student’s GPA over time to show an upward trend. That was very convincing. It also showed that the student knew how to represent data in graphical form – an important scientific skill.

GREs. There are two types of GREs. General GREs and Subject GREs. The General GREs are like SATs. Everyone has to take them. You should do well – especially on the math. Science majors should have very good math scores. If you are foreign, the verbal scores are used to determine your reading and writing abilities. All graduate programs require the General GREs. Even if you are good at math and verbal skills, you need to buy a book on the General GREs to see what the test is like. Don’t go into the test cold.

The Subject GREs are not required by all graduate programs, but it is required by many. For graduate programs that will have a written exam for their qualifying exam, they often use the Subject GRE as a test run for the qualifying exam. They typically have a minimum number they prefer. That number, or ranking, is not a hard line, but merely a suggested set-point. For Subject GREs, I recommend studying very hard. Get practice tests. Use the summer before the fall semester of your senior year to study for the exam. One issue with the Subject GREs is that it is hard to encompass all the skills your need for scientific problem solving in a multiple choice exam. They are not very good at actually testing critical thinking and reasoning skills that we want you to have in graduate school. That being said, there is no other metric.

Letters of Recommendation. You typically need 2-3 letters of recommendation from professors who know you and your work in undergraduate school. The professors at your school are my colleagues.  These letters are the ability for them to talk directly to me about you. As someone else who has gone through the rigors of getting a Ph.D., possibly doing a postdoc, and getting a job as a professor, I trust that their values and judgments for students are valid. Because of these reasons, the letters of recommendation have a lot of weight for getting you into graduate school. Also, you want these letters to actually come from professors. It is not good enough for them to come from graduate students or postdocs you may have worked more closely with. They need to come from the professor you worked with. If the professor cannot speak about your work, have the postdoc talk to the professor before he/she writes the letter.

You want to make sure that your letters come from professor who can speak about you. The Best: Letters from professors with whom you worked closely in research. These letters can tell me about your aptitude in research, which is your ultimate job in grad school. Good: Letters from professors with whom you worked closely in class. This isn’t as good, because most professors have 100s of students each semester. They might not remember you. Even if you have a small class, you will usually be compared to the other students in the class, and there aren’t as many ways to prove your abilities in a class as there are in the lab. Poor: Letters from professor with whom you had very little interaction but did well in class.

Etiquette for requesting letters:

  • Ask for letters with enough time for the recommender to prepare it. Give them at least 2 weeks.
  • Send a complete list of all the places you are applying with the online location link, and the date the recommendations are due. This allows your recommender to check off when they completed one, and it is all in one place. If you just trust that the online systems will send messages to the professor’s email, you are not thinking about how busy your professor is or about how many emails he/she gets each day. The list will help your professor keep track of how many requests you sent to make sure they didn’t miss one.
  • When you request a letter, make an appointment to meet in person. Bring your CV/resume, a 1-pager on your current or past research, and have a talk with your recommender about your goals, so he/she can speak intelligently. Think of this as coaching your recommender, so they can write the best letter possible.
  • Professors are busy! Send friendly reminders via email. Do not badger, just remind. Most professors will appreciate it. If they agree to write the letter, they will want to get it out in time.
  • After you hear back, let your recommender know if you got in. They spent time to write a letter for you. They want you to do well.

Personal Essay. This is your time. It is your time to shine. It is your time to explain. So, what do you write? For the admissions committee, your research is the most important aspect of this essay. Include what you have done in research with enough detail that the professors reviewing it will know that you actually did it. Include examples when you solved a problem on your own. You should have a letter of recommendation from your research advisor to corroborate your statements. Summer REU advisors can write letters – not just your home professors! This is where coaching is important, because you want to make sure you and your professor are on the same page about what you did. Include specific advisors with whom you would like to work (only if you know and are sure, it is OK, if you don’t know for sure). Include subjects on which you would like to do research. They should be subjects that are actually pursued at the school you are applying to! You can use this space to explain any negative aspects of your grades or anything else.  Don’t make excuses and don’t dwell on it.

Here are some Do’s and Don’t’s:

Do’s

  • Do have someone else read it – preferably your advisor
  • Do address or answer these questions – either directly or indirectly:
    • Will they find a research group?
    • Will they conduct independent research?
    • Will they get a Ph.D.?
  • Do use examples to demonstrate your ability to do research.

Don’ts

  • Don’t start with a quote from something
  • Don’t give your personal reason for wanting to go to graduate school
  • Don’t make it too personal – this is a professional application
  • Don’t include a long list of every person in the program with whom you would like to work. If you aren’t sure, say that you are open to exploring your options
  • Don’t put the name of another institution!!
  • Don’t have egregious typos or errors. Make sure you proof-read and spell-check

OK, so that is a lot of information. Does anyone else have any suggestions for students applying to graduate school? Post or comment!

Category:

Applying, Career, GradSchool

Applying to Grad School: Student’s View

It was a long time ago, but I remember applying to graduate school. It was my senior year at SmallLiberalArtsCollege, and I knew I wanted to continue science in my MaleDominatedField. That meant applying to graduate school. The task was daunting. I was very worried I would not get in anywhere.

Looking back and understanding the psychology of it, I realize I was suffering from major StereotypeThreat. I knew that my field was male dominated, so I felt like I could not make it into graduate school because I was a woman. Further, StereotypeThreat played a significant role in my ability on the required SubjectGRE exam required by almost all graduate schools in my field. I knew women did not do well on the SubjectGRE in my field. I knew that LiberalArts Students also did poorly (male or female), so I had a double whammy. (I was also at a special SmallLiberalArtsCollege that was women-only – sheesh!). The protective and nurturing environment of the Women’sCollege was actually harmful because I knew it would ultimately hurt me on this exam, and so many schools straight out use that number to decide your ability to do well in graduate school. JUst as a matter of record, I did really poorly on the SubjectGREs. The typical cut-off is the 50th percentile, and I am pretty such I hit the 30th. I was pretty bummed about my prospects of getting into graduate school anywhere.

As far as the rest of my packet – I have no idea what I wrote. I am sure it was stupid. I did have a 4.0 in all my MajorCourses and I think I had good letters from my professors. One benefit of SmallLiberalArtsSchools is that many professors know you very well. I had three letters from professors who knew me, and my abilities in class and in research first hand.

I submitted 8 applications to schools that were mostly in the top 20 in my field. When I got my first acceptance, I was so happy and grateful I could fly. It wasn’t even a safety school. In the end, I was rejected from 2 schools. These 2 are well-known weed-out schools, so I might not have survived anyway. I got into 2 other top 10 schools, and they became my focus to try to decide where to go.

Deciding where to go was another issue. One thing that was very important to me was how the graduate students felt and acted. I visited one school where the students were just depressed. They were so down trodden and defeated that I couldn’t imagine going there. Other places, the students were happy and positive about their work and future. Other than that, and the ranking, I didn’t have a great deal of knowledge about what to look for. I was pretty naive.

In the end, the awful SubjectGRE didn’t matter once I got in. I acted like it didn’t exist and didn’t let it drag me down in grad school. I saw that it was only one test that lasted for 3 hours of my life, and I majorly failed it. Luckily, plenty of schools decided it didn’t matter as much as the other parts of my application. Being able to put it behind me and having confidence in my abilities in class and in research allowed me to excel in actual graduate school, which is nothing like the SubjectGRE. Even though a couple schools didn’t want to give me a chance, the ones that did were smart, and the one I went to is lucky I accepted. I was very successful in grad school and after, and that success reflects back on them and their forethought in letting me in and educating me well. Looking back, I still feel anxiety about big tests where I know I won’t do well. Luckily, I don’t have to take those anymore.

Any other stories out there on their experience in applying to graduate school? If so, comment or post. We would love to hear you share your story.

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Category:

Applying, Career, GradSchool, New Job, StereotypeThreat

Your CV

One of the main components, if not the first component of your tenure packet will be your CV. This is a place where it is easy to get it wrong. The people writing letters and on the committees will get your CV and scan it. Much like writing a grant, it needs to be in the right format – a format that people expect. Unexpected things from an outsider (woman, minority, whatever) are not welcome. So, what does your CV need to include and what order? The best way to find out is to ask someone for their CV. I suggest asking the young people at your institution who just got tenure. They need to be at your institution, because the Promotion and Tenure committee at your institution will ultimately make the decision. If they just got tenure, then they obviously did something right. Don’t just ask for one. Ask for many. In fact, ask for their entire packet. We will discuss the packet more in a following post.

What should be in your CV?

  1. Your name and contact information right up front. No pictures of yourself. That is odd.
  2. Your education including your undergraduate and graduate (Ph.D.) degrees. You can put your postdoctoral appointment(s) in this section or in the following section I have seen both.
  3. Your professional positions. If you got paid to do it, it is professional. This changes as you get on with your career.
  4. Awards and honors. Include a short citation after the names so people understand what the award recognizes.
  5. Publications. When going up for tenure, I modified my publications area in several key ways. I had a sentence describing author contributions in regard to author order. This is distinct from sub-field to sub-field in my department, so I wanted it to be clear for my particular sub-field. I grouped my publications as at my current institution and prior to my current institution, so that it was easy for people to see what work should be attributed to my pre-tenure years. I also highlighted which students worked in my lab under my direction and indicated if they were high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, or postdocs. Also, it is now becoming standard to add the DOI locator at the end of each reference, so it is best to include it.
  6. Presentations. By the time you are coming up for tenure, this list might be fairly long. You can divide them up into different types of presentations such as Invited Presentations at International Conferences, Invited Seminars and Colloquia, Contributed Talks at International Conferences, and Contributed Posters at Conferences.
  7. Funding. Yes. List your funding in your CV. When you are coming up for tenure, be explicit. List all the grants you currently have active, your prior grants that have expired, and the grants that are pending.
  8. Teaching Record. As I have said before, being a professor is many jobs in one. Your CV now needs to reflect these other responsibilities and duties that you have taken on. I think you want to be specific about what you did for teaching and mentoring. *Mentoring of research students could go in the research sections above after funding. I have seen both ways. The teaching section should include:
    1. Classroom teaching record. What you taught and when, number of students, evaluation scores.
    2. Student mentoring including postdocs, graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students. Don’t forget to include students for whom you have served on committees as a committee member, also.
  9. Service Record. Much like teaching is a new addition, so to is service. Make sure you are updating your CV often when you get new service assignments, so you don’t lose track. Also, there are multiple types of service. Service to your research field, service to your department, service to the college and university. I separated these different service aspects out, so they were not jumbled together. Also, did you get funding for service or teaching activities? Where will you list it? Up in the funding, which is really your research section? It might be a bit distracting. I separated out my service and teaching funding and put it into a separate funding section. Some sections in my CV include:
    1. List of funded and pending grants for service and teaching activities.
    2. Professional service to societies and meeting organization. This includes any offices held in professional societies or any meeting sessions organized or chaired.
    3. Proposal reviewing is a professional service, but some panels are anonymous and others are known. If it is anonymous, like NSF, don’t list the panel or the date, but simply leave it vague, like (2 panels over the past 5 years). If it is a published list, like NIH, you can list the panel. I also list ad hoc proposal reviews by the organization.
    4. Journal reviewing is important to show that other people care about your opinion. I list all the journals I have reviewed for and the years I served as a reviewer.
    5. List and short description of service to my department.
    6. List and short description of service to the college and university.
  10. For going up for tenure, I also make a list of active collaborations with a short description of the collaborative work. This helped the department decide who to ask for letters and who was an “insider” vs. and “outsider.” After tenure, I don’t see as many people listing these collaborators, but having it for tenure makes it easy for people to read what are your contributions to these collaborations.

These are just some of the items you can put in, and this is your CV, so you can add other things, such as publicity for your work and cover artwork. But, make sure that the research is up front. For instance, it would be a mistake to put your publications at the end of the CV.

Any other advise or suggestions on getting your CV ready for tenure? Guest post or comment!

Category:

Applying, Career, Tenure

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