<p>Lumperica, in grad school they are less As and Cs, profs tend to give a lot of B,B+, A-</p>
<p>reason? if you already made it up to this point, your focus is no longer grades (except masters students, but in science/engineering PhD is majority), you already passed the competitive admission process, the department doesnt need to “test” you and see if you deserve to be there</p>
<p>plus, many grad level courses are very small (5-15 students) and interesting grading standard, for example for such small class department doesnt assign a TA (this of course, also depending on the size of the department), and the profs dont want to grade stupid homeworks themselves, so they simply don’t give/grade any. If you are in a grad course, means you really need to know that advanced knowledge for your research goal, and profs don’t need to push you around with the routine exam/quiz combination to make you learn, hope it makes sense.</p>
<p>I have been taking courses in the Phd program at the University of Colorado in biomedical sciences and B’s are not something that would indicate poor performance. The majority of the grades for each course are B’s.</p>
<p>Hey, guys, I had a question about the qualifying exam and was wondering if you could answer it:</p>
<p>So I’ve been looking at PhD programs in a particular niche (Experimental Analysis of Behavior/Behavioral Psych) and there aren’t many actual programs oriented towards it–however, there are quite a few faculty members somewhat tucked away in Behavioral Neuroscience programs all over the place. I’ve contacted some of the professors and they said that people with limited background in neuro still get in when they’re a good fit with the professors.</p>
<p>However, for quals, I do understand that we’re examined based on a fixed amount of professors’ works. Do we get to choose the professors that examine us (like our advisory committee?) or are these exams generally representative of the department as a whole (as a means to test us on our core classes someway?). I’m currently loading up on physiology and biology courses so that graduate coursework doesn’t kill me, assuming I can get in somewhere–however, if I don’t have to be an expert in neuro, I would rather not kill myself now and just concentrate on doing more research and trying to get a paper published in the next year.</p>
<p>Quals are usually meant to do two things: measure your general competency as well as your preparedness for your specific research plan. Generally, the quals cover the material you study in the first year or two, which is meant to serve as your base preparation for your research. In those schools that have a core curriculum for their PhD programs, quals will usually include an additional (and often larger) section covering that core.</p>
<p>In all of the schools I have looked at I was told I got to pick my examiners, but I have not personally been through it yet…</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, somemom I’m a Math/Econ double major with Psych, so I’ve taken a few math probability theory sequences along with a Psychology intermediate research methods/stats course. Is there any other specific class I should be looking at?</p>
<p>As a math major you are probably good, my DD is taking a ton of stats in her ExPsy MS on her way to cog-neuroscience PhD and she has been repeatedly told "they’ like to see lots of stats</p>
<p>ymmit, undergrads at Caltech are given two quarters of pass/fail grades, though I don’t think most graduate programs offer this sort of grace period. I came in my first term and wound up with a B, B, and C+ for my grades, but haven’t had any problems even though my GPA has pretty much held out around a 3.1 since then.</p>
<p>Bio might be friendly and offer all of their classes pass/fail, though. I know there’s a number of courses offered that was in other departments, so it might be possible that’s all they do (since, really, most classes are mostly graded on a pass/fail scale even if they’re not called that).</p>
<p>Professor X,
What if the B’s in graduate school come from language training and not to actual history or literature courses? For example, I am studying Middle Eastern history, and most of my grad school B’s come from my Arabic courses. In your opinion, does this look just as bad? Thank you for your advice.</p>
<p>a comment on graduate grades in the sciences.
NSF and NIH fellowship applications do take seriously the grades given in graduate school. Afterall, you are training for a doctorate in a field-
You are training to be “the cutting edge expert”, not someone moderately proficient. The point of demanding coursework or requirement for strong GPA is to distinguish between those that do not have the passion and expertise for research at the doctorate level.</p>
<p>As for those who say you’re getting paid to do research and not to stress about coursework-If you are unaware of the field, your research probably will not have the required significance and impact to be funded (or cited).</p>
I’m a Math/Econ double major with Psych, so I’ve taken a few math probability theory sequences along with a Psychology intermediate research methods/stats course. Is there any other specific class I should be looking at?</p>