[Offer榜] 1st Offer @ TAMU Biology - TA + 背景 + 陶瓷过程明细（已收录） [复制链接]

melop
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电梯直达

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发表于 2009-2-3 09:25:17 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

本帖最后由 iq28 于 2009-2-4 13:27 编辑

昨天出去观鸟，看到一对喜鹊了，心里还想着是不是有啥好事，果然今天早上一看手机TAMU 生物系来了封信，标题是Admission to Texas A&M，大喜。打开一看，就是早两天面试过的项目，教授本来说两个星期的，没想周一上班就收到了，看来这个教授果然不是干招生活的。。。

喜鹊 Pica pica ，2009-02-02摄于白云山

Congratulations! I am happy to tell you that your application to theBiology Department's doctoral program has been approved by the GraduateRecruiting & Admissions Committee. The formal offer and contractletter describing the support you have been awarded along with somedetails regarding health insurance and dates of our orientation programwill be mailed to you at a later date.

Briefly, you will be offered support as a graduate teaching assistantwith a stipend of $22,020 per year ($1,835 per month). In addition tothe assistantship, a scholarship will pay tuition and fees for theFall, Spring and Summer semesters of your first year.

I hope you will join our graduate program.  If I can be of any furtherassistance to you in making your decision, please do not hesitate tocontact me or the Graduate Program Coordinator

背景：
中大 GPA 3.51(自家算法), GRE 600 + 800 + 5 （第一次：480 + 720 + 3.5）, TOEFL R 29 L 30 S 24 W 30,
中文核心二作一篇，英文一作正审稿，有两本书的挂名，3年本科研究（说是这样说。。。对于内容。。。汗。。。）
推荐信两封本校老师，一封澳大利亚某博物馆的博士。。。

面经之前发了，在这里：https://bbs.gter.net/thread-913297-1-1.html

第一个offer终于盼到了，希望大家都有好归宿！

=================================
又：为了回报gter，把跟这所学校的两个教授的陶瓷内容公开(把具体的姓名隐去了)，供大家参考：

Prof. 1
我的陶瓷信：
Opportunity of graduate study at your lab on sympatric speciation
Dear Professor Prof1,

   hello! My name is melop, I'm a student with B.Sc. in biologyfrom China and I'm currently looking for opportunities of graduatestudy. After visited your website and readingsome of your papers(esp. Prof1 et al., 2003 on sympatric speciation <--个性化内容), Ifound your research to be exciting and my interests in evolution,sexual selection, sympatric speciation and ichthyology might fit inyour lab. Therefore I'm writing to enquire for possible opportunity ofgraduate study at your lab. <-- 模板
   I am generally intrigued by evolutionary biology andvertebrate biology(especially ornithology and ichthyology, which arelife-longinterests, and for the latter I had accumulated some experienceduring undergraduate study). Among various problems in evolution, I'mmost interested insexual selection and sympatric speciation, which might be facilitatedbyhighly developed sensory and neural systems in vertebrates. By readingsome literatures of another model system, the cichilids, I found thatsexual imprinting could serve an important role in shaping the female'smate choice in those taxa. Nevertheless, the molecular andneurobiological basis for such phenomenon was not clearly established. <--模板
   Prof1 (2003) combined theoretical simulation, microsatelitemarkers and molecular phylogeny to elucidate sympatric speciation inseahorses. It would be interesting to see how different signals maycontribute to assortative mating besides body size (for instance,chemical signals are now being investigated by GraduateStudent1 in your lab),and a more robust phylogeny might provide a more convincing support forsympatric speciation in seahorses. <--个性化内容

   Enclosed please also find my CV, a statement of interest, and samples of ms, which I hope would help your assessment. <---模板
   Thank you a lot for spending time to read my note, and I'm looking forward to hearing back from you.  <--模板

Best regards,
melop
附件为CV, PS 和手稿

教授4天后回信：
melop,

It sounds like your interests would fit well in my lab.  I will havespace in my lab for one person in the Fall of 2009, so I'd like toencourage you to apply to our department.  The Department of Biologyhas a committee that evaluates the applications, conducts interviews(either by phone or in person), and makes the ultimate decisionregarding acceptance into our graduate program. <---此处应为模板

I don't currently have anyone working on speciation in syngnathids, sothat topic would certainly be a possibility.  We are also working on alot of other topics related to molecular evolution and sexualselection, so you wouldn't have to decide exactly what you want to workon for a while until after you've had some time to think about thepossibilities. <-- 此段应为个性化内容

I keep an eye out for your application. <-- 客套

Best wishes,

我的回信，礼貌表示感谢：
Hi Professor Prof1,

It was a pleasure to receive your note and I'm glad to know my interests would fit in your lab.
  My ideas on speciation was just preliminary, so I would be happy toexplore possibilities of other projects related to molecular evolutionand sexual selection if I'm admitted to the program.
Considering the prestige of TAMUand the program, admission and teaching assistantship position might bequite competitive to obtain. I would go ahead applying if I'm able toperform well in the up-coming GRE tests and look forward to joiningyour group.

Best wishes,
Melop.

==========================
Prof. 2
Opportunity of graduate study at your lab
Dear Professor Prof2,

   hello! My name is Melop, I'm a student with B.Sc. in biologyfrom China and I'm currently looking for opportunities of graduatestudy. I visited your website about a year ago, after readingsome of your papers(eg. Prof2 et Sb.else, 2006 <--个性化内容) and the descriptionon your webpage, I found your research to be exciting and my interestsin evolution, behavioral biology and ichthyology might fit in your lab.Therefore I'm writing to enquire for possible opportunity of graduatestudy at your lab.<--模板
   I am generally intrigued by evolutionary biology andvertebrate biology(especially ornithology and ichthyology, which arelife-longinterests, and for the latter I had accumulated some experienceduring undergraduate study). Among various problems in evolution, I'mmost interested insexual selection and sympatric speciation, which might be facilitatedbyhighly developed sensory and neural systems in vertebrates. By readingsome literatures of another model system, the cichilids, I found thatsexual imprinting could serve an important role in shaping the female'smate choice in those taxa. Nevertheless, the molecular andneurobiological basis for such phenomenon was not clearly established.To the contrary, as described in Prof2 et Sb.Else (2006), despiteof the primitive plumage of the males, some females do prefer longerswords, and specific colorations, which might imply a strong geneticfactor in female mate choice in sword tails. Therefore, it could beinteresting to utilize techs such as DNA microarray to narrow down therelevant loci responsible for female mate choice. Being a hobbyist inaquarium, I've observed that female swordtails exhibit male traits(eg.extention of swords) when males were removed. It would interesting toexplore what factors(visual, olfactory or combined) triggered the sexchange. <--少量模板加个性化内容
   Enclosed please also find my CV, a statement of interest, and samples of ms, which I hope would help your assessment.
   Thank you a lot for spending time to read my note, and I'm looking forward to hearing back from you.

Best regards,
Melop.

教授2天后就回信
Melop,

Thanks for your interest! You have a very impressive track record and seem like an excellent candidate for graduate study.  It is unlikely that I can take any additional students this coming fall, as I already have a prospective student who is likely to join the lab then; but I very much encourage you to apply to our Biology program here at TAMU.  You may also want to check out our interdisciplinary program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at eeb.tamu.edu .

Just a note, female swordtails don’t undergo functional sex change; they just get masculinized (like older human females) with age.
<--整封回信不是模板

Best wishes,

Prof.2

我的回信：
Dear Professor Prof2,

   thank you for the prompt reply to my request! I would try to contact other potential advisors at TAMU.And thanks for pointing out that female swordtails don't undergofunctional sex change, though I would like to look further on whethersuch masculinization could be triggered by lacking of males(it seems soin my aquarium).

Sincerely yours,
Melop.

事实上，我是先联系Prof.2的，也是在他说不要人了以后才转去联系Prof.1。但其实我的兴趣跟Prof2更加接近。事实证明，对我兴趣最大的、最后面试我的还是Prof.2，而且他也说正在申请项目，到了我去的第二年、也就是经过第一年的rotation以后，就可能可以把我收了，或者和Prof1 coadvise。所以专门去套方向和兴趣相合的教授可能会得到较好的回应。希望对大家有帮助！