soundchaser Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 I'm a rising senior student from a top Canadian department. I worked with a prof for 8 months but the works were super simple and we had almost no personal interaction. I think it won't result in a letter. Now it's probably too late for me to do another RA as I'm applying for Fall 2016. How much will this hurt? Should I even put it in my SOP? I have very good grade (likely top grade in my class) and probably 3 good letters from well-publish profs who have taught me. I will write a senior thesis this winter, supervised by a faculty. But we won't be working with a supervisor before January, as in the Fall student will be trained to do research in a small class. Do I have any shot at top 10? Will it compensates my lack of research experience if I wait another year and apply with my thesis experience and supervisor letter? If not, is there anything else I could do? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thagzone Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 I'm a rising senior student from a top Canadian department. I worked with a prof for 8 months but the works were super simple and we had almost no personal interaction. I think it won't result in a letter. Now it's probably too late for me to do another RA as I'm applying for Fall 2016. How much will this hurt? Should I even put it in my SOP? I have very good grade (likely top grade in my class) and probably 3 good letters from well-publish profs who have taught me. I will write a senior thesis this winter, supervised by a faculty. But we won't be working with a supervisor before January, as in the Fall student will be trained to do research in a small class. Do I have any shot at top 10? Will it compensates my lack of research experience if I wait another year and apply with my thesis experience and supervisor letter? If not, is there anything else I could do? Thanks! Whether or not you have a shot at Top-10 or any other range depends on a lot more than what you've said here. Post a full profile (you can look around to see the format used here) and you will get a full appraisal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundchaser Posted May 23, 2015 Author Share Posted May 23, 2015 Thank you for replying. My main concern is the partial effect of not having a standard RA experience. I think I can infer the impact of other factors from my knowledge of the past placement of my department. But for the impact of not having a standard RA experience I have too little variations from the past observations to make any inference, as most people have that. But you are right, it's time to post a full profile evaluation here. Thanks for reminding me. But I still want to hear something about the impact of not having a standard RA experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Molan Posted May 24, 2015 Share Posted May 24, 2015 It depends. What adcom really looks for is your research potential. If your thesis is of decent quality and your advisor can say good things about you, you don't have to worry about lack of RA work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spivakisgod Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 It's difficult to estimate the effect of something when we highly suspect that there are interaction effects at play... Not having RA experience can mean different things for different people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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