Stacey asked for advice about graduate school. One could write a book on
this topic! And, in fact, at least one person has: Richard W. Moore's
book Winning the Ph.D. Game: How to Get into and out of Graduate School
with a Ph.D. and a Job was published by Dodd, Mead & Co in 1985. Some
of the statistics are out of date, but it still has lots of good advice.
Judith Gibber
Dept of Biological Sciences
Columbia University
New York NY