Ditto that comment. What got my interest was the goals statement that the individual wrote as part of their application. Not only was it well-written, but it was right in line with the focus of my program. I asked numerous faculty about it and decided to go out on a limb and give the student the opportunity. Except for a lot of re-writing, the student was the best I¹ve had. By the fourth manuscript, their writing was much improved.
Steve On 9/4/14, 7:55 AM, "Judith S. Weis" <jw...@andromeda.rutgers.edu> wrote: >Yes, but.... >I have had a number of foreign students who could not write English very >well and I had to do a lot of re-writing on their dissertations - but the >research itself was excellent and we produced many publications. Just more >work on the major professor's part. > > > > >> I agree with this assessment - especially since some small liberal arts >> colleges engage in grade inflation - GPA's are not always reliable. I >> think there is considerable value to the GRE scores and having a minimum >> is useful. Above that, scores vary widely and are not always predictive >> of ultimate success. The most important thing that should be assessed - >> and the GREs do not do an adequate job here - is writing ability. Even >> mediocre students can complete a research project and muddle through the >> data analysis, but when it comes to writing, the grain and chafe fall >> into two distinct piles. The worse thing you can do for your career is >> to take on mediocre students with poor writing skills. If a project is >> never published then it will count for zero to your CV and career >> development. I suggest getting the student to send you a writing >> sample, or evaluate their writing skills based on the materials they >> have submitted. >> Mitch Cruzan >> >> >> On 9/3/2014 6:07 AM, Gary Grossman wrote: >>> I think that we all look at this issue from a personal perspective, >>> especially those that did well on standardized tests, and I've had >>>this >>> same argument with colleagues for 30 years, including the exact same >>> situation where the student was up for a competitive assistantship with >>> a >>> mediocre GRE score and a senior-authored publication in an >>>international >>> journal. You don't tell us how low the score was and I'd be concerned >>>if >>> it >>> was a low quantitative score, because grad students need to have a good >>> quantitative background. But for researchers, publications are the >>>sine >>> quo non and render a low GRE score moot, provided the student actually >>> earned the senior authorship (we don't have that info either and I view >>> senior authorship differently than junior authorship, especially if >>> there >>> are more than two authors). The one valid argument that the "keepers >>>of >>> the gates" regarding the GRE is that it is the one evaluator that is >>> equivalent across all applications,i.e., as faculty we don't have the >>> time >>> to evaluate if an A at Furman University is the equivalent of an A at >>> Chapel Hill. But in the end I've found that the GRE isn't very >>> indicative >>> of performance by a researcher (I mean really, how could it be, it >>> contains >>> no information on motivation, persistence, intuition or many other >>> characteristics that great researchers have). In fact, I've seen some >>>of >>> the biggest flops as graduate students come from students with very >>>high >>> GRE scores --- they just happen to be good at taking standardized tests >>> but >>> not necessarily at research. My own story -- I took the GRE in 1975 >>>and >>> earned somewhere between 1150 and 1190 can't remember exactly, but I do >>> remember it was a mediocre score. I have 110+ journal articles, >>> including >>> multiple papers in Am. Nat, Ecology, Ecol. Monogr, Oecologia, >>>Freshwater >>> Biol. etc. The math is pretty easy to do <g>. cheers, g2 >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Alex M. L >>><stenella.fronta...@yahoo.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Last weekend I got into a long discussion on the value of GRE score in >>>> a >>>> PhD >>>> student. As the 2015 applicants start, I open up the discussion to the >>>> community: >>>> >>>> I have a female student that has both a Masters (thesis) and >>>> publication >>>> with >>>> several years research experience. However, her GRE score are quite >>>> poor. >>>> Should I really pass up a seemingly great applicant because of low >>>> scores? >>>> >>>> If a student has a biology Masters or a publication... do GRE scores >>>> matter? >>>> Have we not moved past GRE scores when picking the next round of PhD >>>> researchers for our lab(s)? >>>> >>>> If you have a personal story of low scores and still attaining your >>>>PhD >>>> or >>>> accepting a similar student... I would love to hear from you! >>>> >>>> Cheers! >>>> Alex M.L >>>> >>> >>> >> >> -- >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Mitch Cruzan >> Professor of Biology >> Portland State University >> Department of Biology, SRTC rm 246, PO Box 751 >> Portland, OR 97207 USA >> http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/ >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>
