Do departments look at MOOC's certificates favorably during the graduate admissions process? Will it give me any advantage over students who don't have them if I am trying to enter a PhD program?
123149
I'm preparing my application for a master degree scholarship, would it help to put the MOOC's I took in the application, I earned five MOOC certificates and expecting another two in the near future.
22761
I'm in the process of trying to decide on which graduate program to attend.  I am pursuing a Master's level degree in Computer Science in hopes of furthering my web development career.  I would love to be able to teach web development/programming at a community college someday after getting a few more years of industry experience (teaching requires at least a Master's degree).  Previously I taught secondary science before transitioning into web development.  I've been accepted to the following programs:  Boston University - Master's in Computer Information Systems / Web Application Development  (U.S. News ranked #51 nationally)  Brandeis University - Master's of Software Engineering (U.S. News ranked #31 nationally)  University of Bridgeport - Master's of Computer Science (not ranked nationally)  I keep going back and forth in regards to which program I should choose.  University of Bridgeport seems to have a good curriculum and it looks like it will be cheaper (I may get a scholarship), but I'm concerned that it's not viewed as a "top" school.  I would be happy to pay for a more expensive school if it helped provide greater opportunities in the future.  Do you find that going to a "better" school has affected your resume to the point that you may have more teaching opportunities after school?  I realize that a certain school won't earn me the actual position, but having a highly regarded school on my resume MAY lead me to getting more interviews.  Any insights are greatly appreciated.  Thanks and have a good day.
36678
This question is specifically about a high school course, but it should be applicable to any online course in general.  I was taking a physics course online to skip it in school, those courses are really expensive, so I took the cheapest one that my school was allowing me to take, and it was understandably low quality. This much was ok and expected.  What wasn't ok however, was that all the questions on the quizzes and exams were stolen from the internet. Every single question was taken from some school's "Ch 3 Review Sheet" or "2008 XYZ High School Physics Final Exam" etc. that was made public online.  My parents paid $500 for this course and the people didn't actually write anything themselves, and I'm pretty angry.  So my question is twofold:   Is it ok for a course to do this? If not, is there any official organization I can complain to.
25295
While accepting an offer to grad school, one is basically entering into a lasting relationship with one's adviser - most likely, someone whom the applicant has never met before, and the only exposure has been through the potential adviser's website/publications. It is in the interest of both parties to ensure (to the greatest possible extent) that there are no personal/professional traits of either that hamper the formation of a pleasant working relationship - no-one would want to go through the ordeal of having to change advisers midway!  While the faculty has a chance to have a good look at the applicant's profile as well as his motivations (through his grades and SOP), the applicant doesn't have a similar opportunity. So, I'm interested to know what parameters can be used to gauge a potential fit. I've thought of the following:   Past students:  Did anyone ever drop out/change advisers midway, and if so, for what reasons? These would be a bit hard to find though, as I don't expect the faculty concerned would list them on their website. It would be great if anyone could let me know how to find out the list of incoming students to a department for any year. Publication rate, taking into account the venues where they were accepted. Time taken to graduate - though I accept this is more dependent on the student, a median figure should be telling ... What they did post Ph.D. - did anyone get tenure if they went into academia, or is almost everyone unable to break out of being a post-doc?  Tenure status: I'm a bit unsure about this, so wanted the community's opinions about it. Just so that I'm clear, I'm only trying to calibrate the applicant's expectations about the working style of his potential adviser - and hence need to know to what extent are the following "typical" assumptions valid.  Tenured professor  A full professor is more likely to get grant funding, hence less time spent on TAship - but could also mean less time/effort spent on interactions with students (either being busy with other projects/talks, or due to more commitments to family at that age).  Tenure-track faculty (Assistant profs)  More likely to be young and energetic, and could translate to more time spent on one-to-one discussions with grad students - but funding may prove to be an issue, and may have to be on TA for a longer period.   What other factors would be relevant in this matter, and to what extent am I correct/incorrect in either the factors considered, or for undertaking this exercise at all?
50126
I have started solving problems from the American Mathematical Monthly. While I will definitely continue this, I am not sure how much this will help for math graduate school admissions (assuming I submit my solutions and they are recognized by the Monthly). How significant would multiple solutions to Monthly problems be in admissions? What about having the published solution to a problem? One issue is that I don't know how difficult the problems are presumed to be: all I know is that I personally have solved at least one of them!
97944
I'm an engineering undergraduate, and my university doesn't require me to take any math courses past the standard calculus sequence and differential equations. The field I am interested in entering in grad school is slightly math-intensive, to the point that it requires more math than what I have taken. At this time, I have two years left to graduate, and I'll be taking about 17-18 hours each semester until then, so it would be very difficult me to tack on an extra math course. I was considering simply officially auditing one, so that it appears on my transcript and so that I at least have some exposure to the subject.   My question is: will this have any positive benefits while I'm applying to graduate school? Or would the admissions committee assume that I didn't learn as much as someone who actually took the course, and take it with a grain of salt that I know the material?  On a related note: what about if the course I audited was on directly in my major? Would that be beneficial (if it were, say, a graduate-level course)?
46523
This question is inspired by answers and comments to the question  on this website.  Suppose that an applicant to a graduate program suffered from some mental health issues during the completion of his previous degrees, and that this situation had a noticeable impact on his academic performance (for example, significantly lower grades or part-time status for one or several semesters).  Most graduate school applications have sections dedicated to providing explanations for such special circumstances, and it is of course strongly recommended that any applicant with unusual drops in academic performance should mention something about this in the special circumstances section. Otherwise, the admission committee will be left to guess what might have happened, which is likely to decrease the odds of being admitted (indeed, it seems a consensus that the more tangible information an admission committee has about an applicant, the more confident they can be about the fact that admitting him will be a sound investment).  Many answers/comments to the question  seem to recommend being very careful about revealing details on one's mental health conditions, given that there is still a lot of stigma attached to mental health conditions. However, in the case of PhD applications, not mentioning anything is not an option.  This then leads to the following question: If not making any mention of health issues is not an option (such as in PhD applications), how much details should one go into? To avoid stereotyping associated to any particular disease (such as depression=unreliable, learning disability=not smart) one could limit the description to "health problem", but could this lack of details be seen as suspicious and/or still a situation where the admissions committee will have to do guesswork?
99672
I recently saw this infogram circling around various social networks:    It appeared in  with the following claim:     Got a PhD? Your chance of becoming a Professor is 0.45%. Good luck.   Being a bit sceptical of the claim and of shiny info-grams in general, I traced the image back through  to  by the Royal Society (see page 14), featuring various reputable academics in the introduction. The report cites a number of other reports from UK organisations as its source (I did not dig deeper). The infogram seemingly pertains to graduates of PhDs in the UK in STEM fields.  I find the figures literally incredible. I cannot believe them. Fewer than 1-in-200 PhD graduates become professors? This would imply, for example, that STEM professors in the UK would need to graduate 200 PhD students just to "repopulate" themselves.  I would like to compare these estimates with figures sourced elsewhere. And so my question is:   Are any other studies or sources of data for estimating the number of PhD graduates who end up with professorships? (... preferably within the STEM areas and not restricted to the UK)    There is a related question specifically for the maths field and referring to tenure-track positions but none of the answers really address this question:   EDIT: Pointer to a follow-up question asked by @gerrit:
67632
I failed my written PhD qualifying exam twice in Computer Science from a middle-ranked university. Instead of kicking me out, I can get a terminal master's degree. Please note that this will be my second master's degree.    Now I am planning to re-apply to PhD programs at other Universities. My questions are:   Since I am getting a master's degree, is it okay not to mention about failing in the PhD qualifying exam in statement of purpose (SOP)? Please note that the Graduate committee informed that it will not be reflected in the transcript. If the answer is yes for the previous question, then my advisor is ready to give a strong recommendation, so can I ask him not to mention about failing in the PhD qualifying exam in his recommendation letter?   Please note that the written qualifying exam is about getting good grades in 4 subject areas of Computer Science, it has nothing to do with research. This is one of the main reasons I do not want to mention in SOP, I wanted to highlight my research potential saying that I submitted a 10-page research paper in a top tier conference in one year. I have industry experience of more than 5 years.  Please help, since my goal is to get into academics, help students and do independent research. I want to pursue my dream irrespective of this setback.
81434
I am preparing to submit applications to high ranking CS PhD programs in the US. My GRE quant score is not quite what I wanted (162V/163Q). I have strong research experience, good letters from professors I worked with, and a decent GPA (~3.6) from a top 10 undergrad CS school. However, my quant score is only around 80th percentile, whereas many top CS programs have averages in the 90-95 range. I'm not sure if submitting my GRE scores will hinder my chance, or if the opposite case is true. Is it the case that a student without GRE scores will look lazy, or look like their hiding poor scores? All of the institutions that I am applying to have made the GRE optional.
83347
I am currently a Master's student and planning to apply for PhD. Now, I have directly worked with two professors for research projects. Unfortunately, those two are the only professors I have taken more than one course with too. With no other professor I had two or more classes so they do not know me well. I could be able to convince one of them to write letters for me. But surely that's gonna be a canned recommendation like "I taught him this course and he's got an A". Besides as an introvert, I am not memorable at all. I don't drop by during office hours to have small chats or ask many questions in the class. On the other hand, I have a PhD student in my research group. He doesn't have the credentials or experience, but he can write a more personal and accurate recommendation letter for me. I have worked with him closely and he can give his opinion from both our personal and academic interactions.   Edit: just to be clear, the two professors I have worked with already agreed to give me LORs. I need a third letter.  Edit 2: I have another option. I have worked as a TA for one semester. The instructor can give me an LOR. But he is neither a tenured professor nor a Ph.D. degree holder himself. So I am not much sure about this option. Is it gonna "hurt" my application?  Edit 3: I collaborated with the PhD student before and we are co-authors of two papers.
39682
If I were a Spanish Major as an undergraduate and decide to pursue a PhD in a completely unrelated field (like Theoretical Physics), it makes sense to give a qualifying exam to check that I had the necessary skills to begin the program.  But if I'm coming from a B.S in math to a PhD program also in math, it doesn't seem to make sense to give a qualifying exam, as if the knowledge I gained in my undergraduate was insufficient.  I presume that one is accepted into a PhD program because he/she has already demonstrated the "qualifying" skills.  Thus, I'm baffled by the notion of the qualifying / prelim exam.   I'm curious about the ultimate goals of these exams, and how they relate to the professional development of a graduate student.
14866
I'm considering a PhD or Master's in engineering in the US, and I haven't really decided which makes the most sense for me. There are many questions and answers here that mention leaving a PhD program with a Master's and how it's not a "failure" or "dropping out", but it occurs to me: what effect does this have on a person's adviser/professors?   What about references, future relationships, etc? Is it taken negatively or as an insult, or cutting ties, to bow out with the lower degree?  What prompted this question is that a few programs that most interest me state explicitly that there is very little funding available for Masters students (so you are mostly expected to pay your own way), but full funding and additional opportunities are available for those admitted to a PhD program. The way they are worded, they seem extremely interested in good PhD candidates, and not at all interested in Masters students.  I'm not considering seeking a PhD solely to get a Masters/funding, because that's just outright dishonest and I wouldn't stomach such deceit. But, what might the ethics be of not being certain whether you want a PhD or a Masters, but applying for a PhD program?   If one's adviser and/or program and/or professors are explicitly harmed by having someone complete their Masters requirements, then I'd be much more hesitant to even consider a PhD application unless I was certain that's what I wanted. If being unsure is considered normal and the "harm" caused by bowing out of the program with a Masters not so great, then that would certainly ease things the other direction.  To be clear, these departments also specifically suggest you pick Masters OR PhD, and generally discourage you from applying to both. Thus my quandary!
31833
I'm applying for graduate school (PhD in computer science), and I'm considering writing to faculty whose research areas match with what I intend to pursue, to understand:   Whether they'd be looking for new students at all in the coming year? If they did, would they be potentially interested in my profile (I know no-one would guarantee an acceptance without me going through the process of application), but it would help to know if they would not be interested at all in me - which would leave me  free apply to other schools in which I get a neutral/positive response.   Keeping the above in mind, what would be the best way to introduce myself in the first mail?   What should be the salutation - I know "Respected Sir" sounds archaic, but was wondering if "Dear Professor X" sounded too informal or not! Do I state my credentials (details of where I did my undergrads/masters) first, or do I state my purpose in writing to him/her? How to mention my background concisely, without giving too much details, while at the same time not "underselling" myself as a potential grad student? I want to give a link to my resume/profile hosted on my website - should I embed the hyperlink, or is it better to write the link in plain text? How do I end such a letter - the obvious ones (such as "see you soon" or "till we meet again") being not quite suitable in this case)?   I'm basically afraid of saying too much (causing vexation) or too little (resulting in no response to my missive). I understand that the faculty are accustomed to seeing their inbox flooded with such mails each year, few of which ever get a positive response - which may not always be due to lack of an interesting profile, but the manner in which the mail is worded (Many professors have explicitly mentioned on their websites that they would not respond to generic "Do you have funding" type of queries no matter what the credentials of the student are!).   Though my interest is specific to CS, I believe it would apply to other fields as well. Also, I would be interested in the opinions of both present faculty members (who have to sort through such mails), and past applicants to grad-school (who have the experience of successfully writing to their advisers before applying)...
15870
I was reading the following article by Mathew Might.  I saw the following the paragraph  What doesn't matter GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant. Where you work/worked? Unless it's a research lab, it's not important. I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.  Is Mathew Might telling the truth? For me it's very hard believe that GPA, GRE scores and undergraduate school don't matter. I used to think that they play an extremely important role in grad school admission.
89876
I'm an (international) electrical engineering applicant applied to some top-10 graduate programs in US (say, MIT, Caltech, UCB, etc.). As I check the entries of "thegradcafe.com" every day associated with the programs I've applied to, there are many entries which declare interviews with some POIs. So far, I have received no interview requests from any target school. Thus, I'm a little bit both curious about the importance of interview and anxious about the interpretation of such a lack of interviews in my case. To be specific, are all admitted students to top-tier engineering programs invited to interview before getting admitted? In other words, should I expect to be rejected if no one invites me to any sort of interview?  PS. If it helps to clear the situation, I'm currently an M.A.Sc student at a well-known Canadian university. So, both my university and my supervisor are pretty famous to the research community of my field.
50210
I plan on doing a PhD in computational linguistics, which I intend to start in about 3 years. I have one more year of undergraduate study, and 5/6 of the courses remaining are for my minor in Applied Linguistics.  I plan on taking 2/6 of those classes as credit/no-credit (CR/NC) because I'm also working two jobs, and worst-case scenario I'll fall behind in these classes, but not so far behind that I wouldn't pass with 75% (and still receive credit).   that:     Admissions committees do not place as much weight on courses outside the major as courses in the major. If you are a physics major, for instance, a C in a US History course is not going to be as problematic as a C in electricity and magnetism.   These CR/NC courses are not in my majors (Computer Science and French), so I don't think that they would raise flags to admissions committees, but I also don't want admissions to think "oh he seriously slacked off his last year of undergrad!"  Do admissions committees care about CR/NC courses in undergrad?