Showing posts with label application. Show all posts
Showing posts with label application. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The GRE (with a 2020 update)

GRE scores are required with most applications to graduate school. You must (MUST!) study for the GRE because you can improve your quantitative score dramatically even if your math skills are good (even very good), and the quantitative scores are what science faculty look at first. And despite the GRE's shortcomings, the majority of faculty looking at graduate applications give the scores A LOT of weight. The verbal scores are frankly less important (to me and some other faculty, even at large research universities) because it better reflects an applicant's economic background (and, of course, whether an applicant is a native English speaker), and tells us nothing about your ability to write. If I want to know if an applicant can write (and if they're savvy), I look to their e-mails to me and to their statement of purpose.

October 2020 update: There is no statistical correlation between GRE scores and success in graduate school. According to this article in The Atlantic, student performance on the GRE correlates more closely to a combination of factors that includes access to expensive test prep courses and other educational opportunities that prepare students for the test, and even the "student’s own insecurities regarding race and gender." A UCSF study showed that success in graduate school is better predicted by letters of recommendation from faculty advisors who know the student well, and the amount of research experience the applicant already has under their belt.

The Earth & Climate Sciences Department at SF State has joined the growing ranks of geology/Earth science departments that have ended the practice of requiring GRE scores be submitted with grad school applications. Many universities have ended this requirement; some make reporting your GRE scores optional which makes the choice of whether or not to report your scores a new kind of problem (I advise against it unless your scores are top tier). It is not yet universal, but the number of programs adopting this new policy is growing particularly following the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Of course, letters of recommendation aren't a perfect means of evaluation. A 2016 study in Nature Geoscience showed that women are "significantly less likely to receive excellent recommendation letters than their male counterparts" and the length of letters written for women are much shorter.

There is no easy fix here. Faculty in the Earth & Climate Sciences Department at SF State have started to use evaluation rubrics for hiring new faculty to avoid implicit bias. I think it's time to start using a similar rubric to evaluate graduate program applicants... and without a column for GRE scores!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Applying to PhD programs, part I

Thinking about applying to a PhD program? There is more to consider than just the interesting research being done at a given university. A successful PhD requires:

1) A great research problem - you're going to be working on and thinking about this research for (probably) 5 years. Do your research online and see which universities have geology departments with faculty doing research in your field of interest...is it one faculty member or several? do they have laboratory/analytical facilities to carry out some of this research?;

2) A graduate advisor you can work with for 5 years - are your expectations for how hands-on or hands-off you want your research advisor to be in line with their advising style? Do your personalities mesh? Talk to a potential advisor's students to get a better understanding...;

3) A place you'd like to live. This goes beyond just geography - yes, it does matter whether the university is in an urban or rural setting, on the east or west coast, or whether it's hot and muggy in the summer or covered in snow in the winter (which do you prefer?), but consider the culture in the department you're applying to (is there a big group of students working on similar problems to yours that you might be able to look to for support? do you like them? are people in the department friendly? are doors wide open in the hallways? are there frequent seminars with interesting outside speakers?);

4) Money. No not just the stipend you're likely to be offered. Money to actually get the research done. You can live on Ramen noodles, but you can't get field work and lab work done without research funding. You can ask a potential advisor about this if you are invited to visit campus, but you can also do a little homework to find out if the advisor has any active grants with the National Science Foundation or at least whether they have a history of grant funding.

Don't get your mind set on one or two grad schools you think you'd like...do some searching on the web to see which universities have faculty working on projects that interest you and try to keep an open mind - A big name university might not be the best fit for you (and no, I'm not suggesting you couldn't get in...).

Look for Part II when I'll give advice on how to approach a potential graduate advisor with things to do before, during, and after actually sending in your application.

Also, continue to consider whether graduate school is right for you - research requires a very different set of skills than taking college courses and it's not a good fit for everyone...