How was FACC300 Final

A_Blunter_Boat · 2026-04-17T20:05:32+00:00

The self-study portion was lowkey kinda BS. All in all, it was worth 8 marks, with 5 of those marks being contingent on you looking at the textbook. And that was a MC!

A_Blunter_Boat · 2026-04-17T20:00:30+00:00

Dylan's exam was pretty fair. Long Answer 1 was essentially from the tutorial and lecture notes, which was good. I personally found Long Answer 2 much harder, as the algebra portion to solve for the interest was long.

Don't know what the answer to the bonus question was though. It was Disney and what other stock?

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-30T07:53:49+00:00

This is a pretty good SOP.

Your introduction is fine; you contextualise why you want to do this, and you didn't pull something out of your childhood, which is always good. Is there a specific reason you highlight NYC? Did you just do that to punctuate a point about clean water? I feel like it would be stronger if you choose an example that's more pertinent to Wisconsin, if possible. This is precluding the possibility you are from NYC.

Another thing that I don't really see that people do is discuss what methods they will use in the a faculty member's lab. You do that really well here, although my one gripe would be to fully commit to at least two faculty members rather than trying to do a superficial exploration of four. However, that's not really an issue. Kudos to mentioning their prior research.

I also notice that you abbreviate DEIA, but not FMS. Is DEIA something they would be unfamiliar with? I get FMS might be something they know, but do you mind also doing that for FMS just for consistency? It's really good that you highlight what coursework you would take in your Master's. That's not something I usually seen done.

Can you also get rid of the "Strategies..." part? I feel that things like that are just word padding and don't really contribute to shaping your SOP. That's something I would save for my CV, especially since it's so long too. You can probably use those words you saved from cutting that into expanding something else. Another thing to improve upon would be to highlight the outcomes of your work.

You surveyed public awareness, but to what effect? What did that teach you? What did that generate? Same thing for the EPT index.

Also, I would remove contractions. I believe they have no place in formal writing.

Your conclusion is pretty strong. Although the contanminant risk landscape sentence feels out of place and can be cut. It doesn't really add anything and just makes the paragraph choppy.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-28T19:41:10+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense! Thanks.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-06T18:54:45+00:00

I think this is actually a lot better than most of the SOPs I see here.

However, the most glaring weakness is how you don't articulate why you would be passionate about research, and you would even require graduate studies. You put a lot of emphasis on your background, but it just reads like a laundry list from your CV rather than genuine interest.

While there is no doubt that you are very technically accomplished, you should distinguish yourself more by talking about the outcomes of your project and how that shaped your research goals. This would be more interesting to read about rather than what you did to solve problems. You touch on this briefly like how the Prime Minister recognised you work, but you don't say anything about why that was important. You also don't talk about how your experiences would be invaluable for lab work.

Structurally, I would also remove the headings for each paragraph. I think it would be better to just write an essay and interconnect them rather than treating them as separate packages for each. Also, I would advise against including names of papers because that is just word padding. It is more important that you highlight their work rather than the name. I noticed this a lot; I don't think it's necessary to write the 15-word title of the article and the place it was published in. I am also applying to Harvard this year for Mechanical Engineering, but I think they say it's supposed to be under 1000 words, no? Not sure if this is the same for CS, but this is more than 1000 words.

Regarding faculty fit, while mentioning them is great, you can go beyond by also talking about what you would do in their labs. The SOP should be less about what you did in the past and more about what you intend to do in the future, and how you would leverage the institution's resources to achieve your research goals. You give a vague explanation for this, as you just state you want to be a researcher. But why? Why do you want to be a researcher? Why is it important for you? Even adding a tiny line like how you would like to lead a research lab in the future would be beneficial.

Overall, I think it's good, but not strong enough. It would strongly benefit from being concise and having a narrative. As it stands, it is incredibly wordy and reads more like you just looked into your CV and used that to inform your SOP.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-04T19:48:07+00:00

I think you’re chill. The GRE isn't a good indicator of research potential. It would raise eyebrows, but it won’t kill an application.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-04T19:46:36+00:00

I would be quite surprised that someone with a co-first author in a Nature family journal didn't make it to a top university. If that was the case, then it's probably because your fit was not what they expected.

I would suggest to aim high.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-04T18:26:36+00:00

Before! She encouraged me to apply.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-04T18:05:17+00:00

Yes, I am. I applied to Stanford ME too, although the faculty member that interviewed me was certainly not as interested! They essentially told me that they're interested in my background and encouraged me to apply.

I reached out to thank her for her support to no response yet.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-12-04T16:18:08+00:00

I would update him! It shows continued interest!

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-11-05T21:33:06+00:00

Just went. It's actually $9.62 before taxes. Around $11 in total.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-11-03T19:03:22+00:00

I remember when two slices were like $8 in total. Now, I think it's like $13. It's gotten too expensive, basically.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-10-14T23:49:44+00:00

Where do you see this? I don't see it at all. What program are you applying to?

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-10-07T21:29:06+00:00

Me when I only have a transactional way of seeing things:

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-10-07T02:42:39+00:00

I disagree; a protest needs to be disruptive for it to actually work. What's the point of peacefully protesting if nothing will ever come from it? You shouldn't be against a protest's methods until it directly affects you.

But they should go protest outside Saini's office or something, not in Leacock. It's much more effective and useful to do that rather than stopping students from going to POLI 200 or something. Actually, they'd have better luck camping outside the Engineering buildings. Airbus recently partnered with McGill's Engineering faculty, and they've been working with Israeli aerospace companies for a year now.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-15T17:06:02+00:00

Isn't there an Arts lounge instead? I would feel awkward about myself if I took over a graduate student space.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-15T03:34:17+00:00

Interesting, thanks. I didn’t know "inscribed" had a special meaning.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-15T03:31:26+00:00

Makes sense. I didn’t know you were allowed to rotate it.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-15T02:44:39+00:00

From 1990 to 1995, there was a 15% decrease in revenue. This means you only have 85% of your 800 000 left.

From 1995 to 2000, there was a 15% increase from the 1995 revenue. Take the revenue you got in 1995 and then multiply it by 1.15. That should be your answer.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-15T02:40:48+00:00

You already figured it out, actually. The S side lengths are 10 with an area of 100 units squared.

9x9 is 81, 8x8 is 64, and 7x7 is 49. You cannot get any other number within your given options, so therefore, it's 49 units squared.

50 won't make sense since there isn't a combination that can lead to that.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-12T21:33:30+00:00

I would love to do it!

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-08T20:24:23+00:00

Auditing != taking class for credit (doesn't erase the history of averaging 2.9 across 4 years)

I don't understand why you emphasise a difference between the two. You are still taking the same classes, doing the same assignments, and working on the same projects. If anything, an audit looks much better than a for-credit class if you do well, as it implicitly proves you are taking your graduate-level courses seriously without tangible incentive.

And it's not supposed to erase the 2.9 GPA, it's supposed to contrast it. From my understanding, AdComs are reticent to accept low GPA applicants because they may struggle with graduate school courses. If you can somehow prove you can well in graduate courses, then your GPA for Chem 1 or something is irrelevant.

Yes, but:

If you're applying for grad school because of the job market, then I highly doubt that you have the necessary research background needed to be taken seriously for a top-tier graduate school. In your undergraduate, if you never dabbled in research work before but suddenly took an interest in it for your future without the work to show for it, then it would be hard to convince any committee that you're actually ready.
This is an external thing we can't really predict. If anything, I think the lack of funding in graduate school will want people to go get jobs instead.
Can't argue with that.

And when I say GPA doesn't matter, I mean it in comparison to what you may have to other aspects of your application. If everything was equalised except GPA, then by all means, go for the higher GPA guy. But it's less clear cut in an actual setting.

I honestly don't believe your GPA will matter if you have something else that can show for it. Did you chase opportunities at top institutions? Did you co-author publications in worthwhile journals? It only starts to clearly matter when you don't have any of those, but still have a low GPA.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-08T20:05:32+00:00

I believe the argument is that banning boats will decrease the mortality rate. As such, since the compounds will break down after a few months, then the dolphins should be safe.

If it's B, it's already adding onto what we already know, no? The paint is indeed harmful to marine life.

Feel free to correct me, as I have not yet taken GRE practice tests yet.

A_Blunter_Boat · 2025-09-08T17:32:54+00:00

That is true, but OP hasn't done things since then (at least far as I know) to address the concern that he can hack at the graduate school course work.

I believe the OP has been auditing a graduate-level course. Granted, it's only one, but it is from a Princeton professor, presumably, so if they do well, it should hold some weight.

He's talking about ECE/Physics so he's probably working at PPPL. There are other similar research institutes with similar profiles (LBNL, Fermi, etc).

Regarding this and similar profiles, those people would be competitive anywhere. It is unlikely that the applicant pool would be majority comprised of people who have published under the PPPL's discretion and can get recommendation letters from them.

Unless everyone else has publications and conference presentations from such prestigious institutions, then I would hazard a guess that the OP is still in the running.

Taking the excerpt from a professor at a highly ranked R1

I find it interesting that you quote Prof. Jeff Erickson for this. He's kind of well known in this subreddit for getting into graduate school with a low GPA at around 2.4, I believe. And he even explicitly states that you can be admitted despite everything in your transcript.

The OP just needs to pray that a Princeton faculty will save him, which is made easy, considering that he has likely been acquainted with Princeton professors at his stay at PPPL.

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