Redbackedwren.files.wordpress.com



Some musings on how to apply to Graduate School (in ecology, evolution, behavior)John Swaddle, August 2013What kind of graduate school are you interested in?To answer this question you need to ask yourself about the endpoint. What do you want to get out of graduate school? Are you willing to commit 5-7 years to a PhD, or is a MS sufficient for where you want to get to? Don’t look down on a Masters degree, especially if it is a research-focused MS as these can give you great experiences in a short period of time. A strong MS can also be a launching point to a top-10 doctoral program. If you are ready for a PhD ask yourself “why” three times over and if you still feel positive about a doctoral program then you are probably ready.What credentials does it take to get in to graduate school?Other than having a strong undergraduate (or Masters, if relevant) record in the biological and natural sciences, you should think seriously about taking:A statistics courseAt least one upper-level evolution-based courseAt least one upper-level ecology course, preferably with a field componentAny modeling or quantitative courses that you can fit in. In my experience, quantitative gifted graduate students are highly sought after.You should seek out relevant research experiences at your university and/or at other institutions. There are a lot of resources you can use to locate a research experience. Here are some examples:Ecolog contains daily postings on job, grant, and graduate school opportunities: Jobs. Send a 'subscribe' request to the Cornell University e-list server at listproc@cornell.eduNSF’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs: A&M’s Job Board posts tons of summer and longer-term research positions: Institute for Technology Summer Opportunities Board contains a very good listing of ecology opportunities: a good score in the GRE. Although this is a nationally standardized test schools still pay attention to which percentile you fall in to with the GRE scores. You must take this seriously and prepare for it properly. Take practice tests—your scores will improve no matter how smart you are to begin with.You MUST cultivate strong and relevant letters of recommendation. This sometimes takes a couple of years of planning but you need to get to know your faculty and help them get to know you. Target professors that have been impressed with your work AND who are in a relevant field of study. Preferably they are quite well known in their field as having a letter from a reputable person counts for a lot. Getting research experiences will help with this cultivation of letters—if you have a research experience make sure that this professor can write a letter for you. Fostering these letters is not a passive process, you need to work on letting your faculty know your interests and why you have those interests. The best letters are ones where there is obviously a personal connection between the letter writer and the applicant; those letters carry more weight.Have your peers, faculty, and any graduate students at your own institution look at your CV and cover letter. It is very difficult to write these in a vacuum so be prepared for some good constructive feedback so you can hone these critical documents. Your cover letter should explain why you are interested in that graduate school and why you are an excellent fit for the advisor and program. Many advisors will also see this as your first writing sample—so make sure it is well written. The CV should quickly communicate your emerging excellence and achievements. If someone can look at your CV for just 30 seconds and be impressed then you are on the right track.Many potential advisors will also want to know what kind of research you see yourself performing in graduate school, therefore it is also important to write a short “research proposal”. The point is not to cement into place what your actual eventual thesis research will be. Rather, this proposal will give potential advisors and idea of the sort of research questions that get you excited, your approach to answering those questions (i.e., your research creativity), and (importantly) how well you can write. This proposal doesn’t have to be long, something like 1-2 pages should do it, and the sort of proposal that you would submit to NSF for the Graduate Research Fellowship program is ideal. How to find advisors and programs?Once you know what kind of program you want (MS or PhD), then you can start to look for advisors and schools, and at particular geographies. Of these, the most important fit is with your potential advisors. You are going to spend the next several years in close collaboration with these people so they have to be a good fit for you.So, how to find an advisor? You can approach this much like a term paper assignment and search the literature for the kind of work that excites you. If you can find recent papers that you think are very interesting then the authors of those papers are your potential advisors. From the list of authors you will want to see who is in the right geography (e.g. the US) and who is in a program that accepts graduate students. You can also use this literature search to see which papers are cited most as a proxy for the impact of the various advisors. Ideally you want to identify someone who is doing the kind of work you like, who has a good track record of external funding (listed in the acknowledgments section of each paper), and who is making an impact on their field.Once you’ve generated a list of potential advisors then starting looking at the structure of their graduate programs. Is it the right size for you? Are students publishing? Do they have professional development training for their students, etc.? Importantly, is there more than one person in the department/program that you can see yourself working with? Although you will likely have a main advisor you will also have a committee of other faculty who you will need to go to for advice. Also, if your main advisor ends up not meeting your expectations you want a backup plan. A department/program with good depth (i.e. several advisors you could see yourself working with) has more opportunities for intellectual exchange and possibly even collaboration. The geographic location of a program can be important, depending on your own situation, but I encourage students to think broadly as which graduate school you attend is a very important decision. If you have family considerations then you might want to look at Metro areas so there are employment options for partners/spouses, etc. Perhaps you have to consider the quality of the local school districts, etc. Another way to find potential advisors and graduate schools is to attend a professional conference. These conferences attract hundreds of potential advisors and their graduate students and so are hotbeds of information. Here is a short list of some relevant professional societies that host regular conferences/meetings that you could attend: International Society for Behavioral Ecology: Behavior Society: for the Study of Animal Behaviour: Society of American: Ornithologists’ Union: for Conservation Biology: for the Study of Evolution: professional societies often also maintain some resources for prospective graduate students. For example, the Animal Behavior Society maintains a list of graduate schools that offer obviously behavioral programs. However, you should not feel limited by this list as behavioral ecology is a very integrative field, so many people do behavioral ecology who are not on this list: to make contact with advisors and programs?Unless you’ve already had a conversation at a conference (see above) the best way to make the initial contact with a potential advisor is through email. This first email should be short and sweet but informative. Introduce yourself and what kind of research you are interested in. Then state quite specifically what it is about the advisor’s work that you are interested in. Everyone likes a little flattery, especially insecure faculty members, so stroke their ego a little (but don’t be obsequious). Ask if they will be accepting graduate students in the relevant application round, and attach your CV and an informal copy of your undergraduate transcript (and GRE scores if you have them). Preferably the attachments should be pdf files so you don’t have Mac vs PC conversion problems. This email should go out at least 3-4 months before the application deadline for the school.Then wait a little while. If you haven’t heard anything back after three weeks, send an even shorter follow-up that forwards your previous message but posits that your original email was eaten by a spam filter or never arrived. This gives the faculty member an “easy out” for being slow in responding but also shows that you have some gumption. If you don’t get a response from the second email then move on to other advisors as this person is unlikely to be a particularly attentive graduate mentor. If you do get a response then start the conversation by email but ask for a phone call. When you prepare for the phone call make sure you are in a quiet space with good reception, that you have some things to say about yourself, and that you have a few questions for the advisor about their lab, their students, and about the graduate program. One of the most obvious things the advisor will ask you about is for you to explain your previous research experiences. When you talk about this don’t lose sight of the big picture of why the work is interesting—practice with your friends and colleagues. They will also likely ask you why you want to attend that program and/or work with them. You should always ask about current and planned projects, about funding situations, and about where students go after they complete the graduate program. Make sure you have meaningful comments and questions prepared. After the phone call send a “thank you” email. If you feel things are going well you can also ask about contact information for current graduate students, as they hardly ever hold back about giving you the “truth”. Ideally you will want to visit the program and advisor and meet with current graduate students. Sometimes that isn’t possible, so email contact and phone calls can replace some of that. You want to know if the current students are happy and are succeeding. Talking to (or meeting) current and previous graduate students from the program and advisor you are interested in can be very informative and tell you a lot about that advisor’s style and whether it would be a good match for you. These interactions will also help you assess whether you will get on with other graduate students in the program. The truth is that you’ll be spending a lot of time with other graduate students and you want to feel comfortable, supported, and around a group of people you can see yourself spending time with, having fun, and also developing intellectually. Applying to schoolsIf you’ve followed all of the advice above you should be in a really good position to put together your application materials. The vast majority of programs have online applications (with a fee). Again, make sure that you’ve received constructive feedback on your CV, cover letter and research statement. It is very important that you explain WHY you want to go to that program and WHAT you see yourself doing once you get there.Do not apply at the last minute—get organized early. A lot of deadlines fall over Winter break or in late January so you should have prepped your letter writers in the fall semester. Give them a couple of weeks to get their letters in. Sometimes the online systems go down so you don’t want to be stuck sweating over IT problems. Once your application is in it is often a good idea to let your potential advisor know that you’ve sent in your application so they can look out for it. It can’t hurt anyway. Don’t expect to hear anything back for at least 4-6 weeks. When you do hear back make sure you understand the full extent of their offer, e.g., financial aid, teaching commitments, etc. The national deadline for students making decisions about which offers to accept is April 15. A program cannot force you to make a decision before that date but if you know what you want there is no point hanging around.A typical financial package will give you a livable stipend (perhaps including health insurance) and cover your full tuition in return for you being a Teaching Assistant. In the sciences it is rare for a student to pay their own way in graduate school—unlike the social sciences and humanities. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download