Wonder why your Ph.D./Master's application is being rejected?

Here are some insider reasons (from a committee member) that result in such "Love Letters" 👇

- A Short Thread

1) First, you should know that sometimes, an independent reviewer is required (especially in the US) to review applications even after PIs must have selected their candidates. So, even if any bias slips through the PI, the independent reviewer will pick it up.
2) Having said this, there are three major issues that application reviewers/committees often find with your application. These three components make your applications almost challenging to assess.
3) NUMBER ONE - Incomplete Applications

This occurs when you do not upload the requested documents needed to evaluate your file. Think of a candidate that did not send a GRE score when the institution clearly requires it for admission.
4) NUMBER TWO - Error laden Essays

This is particularly interesting because based on reports from this resource person, it is not particularly about how little your experience is but how you communicate it error-free or at least extensively minimized. This gives headache!
5) "Too many errors and running sentences pisses me off and I begin to wonder if this applicant really took this application seriously or just submitted his or her application as part of many mass submissions just to make up the numbers", says this resources person. Take note!!
6) NUMBER THREE - Generic recommendation letters

This often presents itself as bland and generic. This kind of letter does not attempt to share practical engagements or activities carried out by the student in collaboration or independently of an advisor.
7) Filled with many "She is intelligent, intuitive, and hard-working". Okay? so can you put this in perspective? Can you give examples of situations where the student exhibited these qualities as claimed?

Now you know! Fix this ASAP.

#BigDaddyTweets #phdchat

More from Science

"The new answer to a 77-year-old problem"

😭


https://t.co/hm9NoaU4nr


https://t.co/8fKDiKjSWc


https://t.co/jkaicC1F2x


https://t.co/PpxWT4Jef4
So it turns out that an organization I thought was doing good work, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (associated with Center for Inquiry, James Randi, and Martin Gardner) was actually caping for pedophiles. Uhhhh oops?


Since this, bizarrely, turned out to be one of my longest videos ever (??) here's a quick thread to sum it up for those of you like myself with short attention spans. 1/10

In the '90s the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was founded to call attention to the problem of adults suddenly "remembering" child abuse that never actually happened, often under hypnosis. Skeptics like James Randi & Martin Gardner joined their board. 2/10

A new article reveals that the FMSF was founded by parents who had been credibly and PRIVATELY accused of molestation by their now-adult daughter. They publicized the accusation, destroyed the daughter's reputation, and started the foundation. 3/10

The FMSF assumed any accused pedo who joined was innocent, saying "We are a good-looking bunch of people, graying hair, well dressed, healthy, smiling; just about every person who has attended is someone you would surely find interesting and want to count as a friend" 😬 4/10
Ever since @JesseJenkins and colleagues work on a zero carbon US and this work by @DrChrisClack and colleagues on incorporating DER, I've been having the following set of thoughts about how to reduce the risk of failure in a US clean energy buildout. Bottom line is much more DER.


Typically, when we see zero-carbon electricity coupled to electrification of transport and buildings, implicitly standing behind that is totally unprecedented buildout of the transmission system. The team from Princeton's modeling work has this in spades for example.

But that, more even than the new generation required, runs straight into a thicket/woodchipper of environmental laws and public objections that currently (and for the last 50y) limit new transmission in the US. We built most transmission prior to the advent of environmental law.

So what these studies are really (implicitly) saying is that NEPA, CEQA, ESA, §404 permitting, eminent domain law, etc, - and the public and democratic objections that drive them - will have to change in order to accommodate the necessary transmission buildout.

I live in a D supermajority state that has, for at least the last 20 years, been in the midst of a housing crisis that creates punishing impacts for people's lives in the here-and-now and is arguably mostly caused by the same issues that create the transmission bottlenecks.

You May Also Like