Thinking of grad school at Colorado?

Great! We're delighted you are interested in our program. First off, you might have some questions about the Boulder area and being a grad student at Colorado. The Department of Geological Sciences maintains a page with all the regular info on it , and a CU page has some links to what's around the Boulder area. And if you've come looking here, there is a decent chance you are interested in working in geophysics; if so, you should look into the geophysics program--you can't be directly admitted to the program, but you might well get your degree there. And the Geophysics program also points out the range of expertise in geophysics across campus.

Some common questions:

Are there are projects available?

For an M.S., it sort of depends. Unlike some other researchers, I don't have a pile of canned, ready-to-go projects that can easily be turned into a masters. Since much of my program is field-centered, there needs to be some funding source available for those kind of projects. We have a large collection of seismological data that can be studied, so there is nearly always something to be done there, but if there is not separate funding, a student working on that would probably have to be a teaching assistant for at least some part of their time here.

In contrast, for a Ph.D. there is enough time to get funding, and I am always open to ideas on projects that are a good combination of my research interests and your interests. So the existence of a project isn't an important precondition; it is quite possible that we will build something to suit. You can go directly for a Ph.D. without a master's; whether you should try this or not depends on you and your background.

That said, right now (fall, 2007) there are a few irons in the fire:

• With the advent of EarthScope, it is likely there will be seismological field experiments at times over the next several years. We are funded to do seismological work in the Sierra for EarthScope- fieldwork ended late summer 2007 and there is associated geodynamic work within a Continental Dynamics project; there is some student support available. I hope to be doing work in the southern Great Basin and the San Juan Mountains of Colorado further down the road. We also hope to return to New Zealand to finish up work there on the Marlborough Fault Zone. These experiments are seismology based and field based. There can also be a geodynamic component to this.
• I have been interested in the evolution of the Cretaceous seaway, in particular the extremely thick sediment pile in Colorado and Wyoming and its relationship to the Laramide orogeny. A proposal is going in (November or December 2007) to collect the details needed and come up with a geodynamic interpretation.
• There might be some outgrowths of some older work on slip partitioning and paleomag that might be coming up, but there is not specific student support in the near term.

What support is provided?

Depends. Ideally we get research grants and you get paid as a research assistant. Of course, getting a fellowship is better still (see below). But often in the first year or so a teaching assistantship is a likely means of support.

What are you looking for?

Nobody is perfect so don't fret if you may not fit everything, but demonstrating responsibility, having a quantitative background, and being a self starter all count. It is nice to see a year or more of physics, calculus as well as some geology, but these vary from school to school.

What can I do to improve my chances?

For starters, apply for any scholarships you can. All too often students worry about which program before thinking about the money, but the deadlines for fellowships are frequently earlier. There are some listed on the departmental page and the deadlines on some are quite early (October and November of the year before you would start graduate school). Four external fellowships that are pretty prominent in Earth Science are National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships (deadline 6 Nov 2007) , National Physical Science Consortium Graduate Fellowships (deadline near Nov. 5), Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellowship (deadline near 1 Nov.), and National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (deadline near Jan. 7). Think about what you want to do and what your goals are: these may all change, but if you never think about them, you'll probably not get very far. Communicate these to us in your application if not sooner. Identifying a faculty member you want to work with and getting in touch with him or her is a good idea. If you are in Boulder, drop by and say hi. Here at CU, admission is largely decided by a faculty member's interest.

What is going on with my application?

This can get involved. The short answer is that our process gets drawn out for a large number of reasons, and most frequently you should know if we will or will not admit you sometime in February. Financial support might take longer to ascertain; keep in touch (particularly once you know you are admitted) and we'll try and let you know what is likely to happen. It can be a frustrating wait for all involved but usually turns out OK.

I'm from outside the U.S. Can I apply?

Yes. Our system in the past forced students or grants supporting them to pay high tuitions; that policy has been changed and foreign students no longer cost so much if supported as a teaching assistant or research assistant. However, the international student office tends to be slow in processing materials and so you would be wise to get your application in early and to be sure to let faculty you think you would work with aware of your application.

Please send mail to cjones@cires.colorado.edu if you encounter any problems or have suggestions.

C. H. Jones | CIRES | Dept. of Geological Sciences | Univ. of Colorado at Boulder

Last modified at October 1, 2007 11:46 AM