<p>I'll be applying to a number of PhD programs in materials science this fall. If a school has an application deadline in early to mid January, should I wait for my fall grades to come in before I send in my transcripts? My hunch is to send in the complete application early (Novemberish?) and only send in an updated transcript later if a school asks for it. Let's hear your opinions.</p>
<p>None of the schools to which I applied asked for first semester grades. I realized way too late that I totally could have gotten straight D's senior year and still gone to grad school. :)</p>
<p>Ah, good to know. Is it advisable to get applications in as early as possible?</p>
<p>only if the school has rolling admissions. Otherwise lots of schools just wait until the deadline expires before the PHD or Masters committee meet to evaluate the applications.</p>
<p>but id try to have everything in as soon as possible. Last year when i applied, I was busy everyday with sending out materials and checking to see if the schools recieved them. FYI, the people that send out GRE scores take a long long time to do their job. So start with those.</p>
<p>GL</p>
<p>I agree with pippyvan -- it's not necessarily an advantage for your application to get your materials in early, but it's much better for your peace of mind. You have time to call each school and make sure they have all of your application materials (I had to have one of my letter-writers fax a letter because his hadn't gotten there by post, had to rush GRE scores to one school which hadn't received them, all that stuff).</p>
<p>My field does pre-acceptance interviews, and I got calls to interview very early, which I assume is because I got all my applications in early.</p>
<p>My advice to send your applications in early. November will be good -- most schools don't expect the grades of the 1st sem of senior year. But hey, if you get very good grades - you can always send a recent and updated transcript in January. Most of the schools will easily add that to your admission file.</p>
<p>Good luck,
**pmat</p>
<p>Thanks. Man, I am so excited to get started with all this application stuff. I'll likely be applying to 10-12 schools as well as the NSF and NDSEG fellowships. Applying to things is so amazingly fun. I'll be going absolutely nuts in the spring as I wait to hear back from everyone.</p>
<p>the application itself is very easy to complete. It's the letters of rec and GRE scores that are a pain. My advice for the letters of rec is to use the online submission. Many schools have this feature built into the application. An email from each school gets sent to your professor, they will just have to upload a pdf or doc file. This is great because you can instantly verify whether the letters have been uploaded. Another method is to use one of those letter of rec services where they will store and mail out the letter of recs for you. Many schools have them.
Just ask your professor early because they ALWAYS seem to be busy.</p>
<p>As for sending the GRE scores, just make sure you start that early to offset any errors that may have taken place. For example, when i was applying, the code for UCLA was misread as the code for UTAH (even though i wrote down UCLA next to the code). My GRE score was still sent to Utah. I had to go through a major ordeal of calling them and having them send it to the right place and such. </p>
<p>those were 2 of the most stressful things i encountered while applying for grad school. Hope some of my advice helps. GL on apps.</p>
<p>Send your transcripts early!! I decided to wait until my fall semester grades were in, but there was a mistake on my transcript -- a D that should have been an A. I couldn't send my transcript with the D, and it was too late to send transcripts without that semester. Then, I couldn't get my grade changed to an A until mid-January, because the college offices were closed for all of winter break. My transcripts were late to about six schools, and one of them told me that they would not consider my application. It was a nightmare.</p>
<p>So I would definitely advise sending your transcript early. You can always send an update when your grades are in, assuming everything works out.</p>
<p>I had the same problem as False Alarm, but it was 2 of my professors that submitted the wrong grades. It eventually took 4 months to correct the problem. I was thinking about submitting my final transcrip to the school that rejected me to see how they would react, but I think its a little too late.</p>
<p>This year I had a problem with my GRE scores as well. I was applying to Kansas and Minnesota, which happen to be one digit different from each other (and it was the last digit...go figure!). Well, Minnesota got my GREs twice and Kansas never got them. I had to call twice to remedy the situation (the first person said he needed to verify it on my written request, which was a load of bull. The second person had them sent out immediately), they finally received my scores (after the deadline) but I don't think it mattered much.</p>
<p>Well it's nice to know all the critical grades are done with in my undergraduate career. Thanks for all the input.</p>
<p>Addwit,</p>
<p>I'm applying to MatSci programs this year too. Good luck with the application and fellowship process.</p>
<p>Hey Dirt, good to hear. What are your primary research interestes? Which schools top your list?</p>
<p>I'm interested in mechanical properties, specifically size effects and dislocation theory. I've done some work on high temp microsample testing and I am starting a project on nanocrystalline thin films. Right now I'm looking at MIT, Stanford, UCSB, Caltech (mechanical), and a few others. How about you?</p>
<p>Looks like we're not so different. I'm interested in the synthesis and mechanical properties of thin films and other nanostructured materials, and I'm also gaining interest in bulk metallic glasses (though I'd likely only go into this area if I got into Caltech).<br>
My classes have a pretty strong focus on mechanical properties, and I've done a couple REU's making nanoparticles and thin films.<br>
My top choices are Stanford, MIT and Caltech, probably in that order.</p>