Graduate Student Council
--Caltech--

This survey will take no more than 3 minutes.

Please take a few moments to fill out this survey. The Graduate Student Council is conducting this survey in an effort to improve the advising system, and provide a resource for incoming students in selecting an advisor. The results of this survey are posted at http://labreviews.caltech.edu.

Remember that your responses will be kept anonymous and used only to generate aggregate statistics (we will wait for at least 3 surveys from different individuals before making the data available to the public). Please fill out a separate survey for each Principal Investigator with whom you have worked, including any with whom you did not finish your degree.

A. Are you a...?

Graduate Student
Alumnus/a
B. Principal Investigator:
C. Department:
D. How long were you this P.I.'s advisee?
E. Gender (Optional) ?      Male      Female     

Please click to rank your advisor/lab from 1 to 5 on each of the following items (note: 5 is not necessarily better or worse than 1; rather, the ratings are intended to provide descriptions of an advisor/lab that can help a student pick the best match for him/her). You may answer any question for which you do not have an answer -or do not want to answer- with 'N/A'.

Unless otherwise specified,
1 means little or not much and 5 means a lot or much.

1. How available was your advisor when you wanted to meet with him/her?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
2. Was your advisor hands off (1) or hands on (5)?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
3. Was your advisor more inclined to support experimental work (1), theory and modeling (5) or both (3)?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
4. How much freedom did students have to choose their own research project?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
5. Did you have a thesis committee?
Yes No
6. How much freedom did your supervisor give students to select faculty members for their thesis committee?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
7. How effective was your advisor at laying out a plan of what needed to be done for you to get your thesis done?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
8. How much did you value the advice of your advisor (e.g. has great ideas, is a great troubleshooter…)?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
9. How much mentorship did senior students and postdocs provide in this lab?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
10. How willing was your advisor to support you, advocate for you and push for your advancement?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
11. How encouraging was your advisor about sending his/her students to conferences?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
12. How hard (1) or easy (5) was it for you to get the financial support for purchases you needed to pursue your thesis work?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
13. How effective and fair was your advisor at resolving conflicts?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
14. How highly do you regard the personal ethic of your advisor?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
15. How warm was the advisor/advisee relationship in this lab?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
16. How collaborative was the atmosphere of this lab?
1 2 3 4 5 N/A
17. Did you graduate with a degree from this lab?
Yes No
18. How many years did it take to graduate?
2 3 4 5 6 7 8+ N/A