ohgoodness

I spent a year in montreal working and enjoying myself and I can say is that it is a great, great place to be. Great community, great city with the best entertainment and culture scene you can imagine (beats toronto) and great campus. You have QUEM, Concordia and McGill all downtown so it sure is a student city. It's easy, safe and accessible. I've lived/spent time in Toronto, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Kingston and Montreal beats 'em all by far. If you are able to find a place in the Plateau / Mont-Royal area then you'll be right in the middle of young hip montreal and should be able to find a room/apartment for a cheap sum.

Since most of us tick all those boxes then the GRE can become the dividing factor. If you can prove that your intangibles beats other applicants for that position then a lower (not very low) GRE would not be an issue. Remember that fit is important. My GRE was far from stellar and I would probably have been more competitive with a higher score but I still got into my #1 choice where I fit perfectly.

Yup! Perfect way to share that final 1% of your personal life with the almighty eye.

Ah yes silly me. I digress anywho

It was always a question of utility-maximizing. Do some required reading or get really drunk and post things on grad cafe. Ain't no explanation to taste oh no.

They'll be headlining a festival in Stockholm this summer... So strange... Alas I think it was the wrong word to use. In my native country (not russia but the other socialist country) we used that literal phrase for any rhetorical device used as bait. Such as walking into a AA-meeting and arguing that alcoholism is simply a matter of wanting to quit and so on. Just to clarify what I meant. This is also a really good read: http://books.google.se/books?id=j2MnzWmIbyAC&lpg=PA95&ots=mCEpCWf826&dq=gary%20becker%20and%20his%20%20blindspots&pg=PA95#v=onepage&q=gary%20becker%20and%20his%20%20blindspots&f=false

I'm terribly sorry but you made a sweeping statement about gender discrimination which I took serious offence to since I saw it as an ill-supported fire starter.

I was pointing to the fact that all the possible pathways up until a made decision are heavily conditioned for both men and women thus I find most decisions related to parenthood and employment to be redundant points. Simply the decision is the result of a process. True that you have been adding layers of culture and history to the thread but I still see your inherent logic as rational choice. Logically within the context of the female homemaker-male breadwinner world (such as our contemporary) the ability to demand further child-rearing resources as income rises would lead to an even greater gender divide as the only utility-maximizing decision existing is to maximize male employment. Even something as small as a 5% gender wage would do that. This is the basic and fundamental critique to the Becker's new home economics paradigm and it still stands.

Not long ago it was reasonable to assume that a person of any colour except white could neither read nor write. The result of acting upon this premise would obviously result in statistical discrimination yet according to the idea of "decoding signals of behavioural patterns" it would not be a strange nor bad thing. Funny idea in my world

It was a rather strange point to make since my argument was that there are other factors at play behind discrimination than the actual decisions as such. Within the model that you are arguing for - I see absolutely no agent of change whatsoever. Things will change as they change. Either you argue for the possibility of errors in the system (the non-rational actor) or you do not see change as a possibility either.

Where and how do you see such change occurring? Seeing that the gender divide is a rather strong factor when it comes to structuring pathways, possible options and possible utility it seems rather strange to argue that men will, all of a sudden, demand these amenities rather than increasing their possible wage development?

A) The number of issues that I have with calling that a "report" are too many to even recall but making any argument using quantitative data without a) presenting the proper source of data (i.e. more than "Source: BLS") and b. not providing any methodological breakdown for their "adjusted" gap should be dismissed straight away. Another major problem I have with that report would be that they see part-time female employment as as intervening factor. Median usual weekly earnings of full-time workers does not really present an accurate representation of the american labor market with regards to gender discrimination. The selection bias is huge.

One of my major flaws when discussing anything is that I do not believe anything we do in the 21th century to be biological or god-given. I'm sorta down the road where our societies are strong enough to polish away what could be essential differences thus all of our choices are conditioned through social forces. That does not answer your question, however, - for various reasons I could see a strong force being the rewards associated to the female-homemaker and male-breadwinner typology that pushes women on average to feel more strongly to be involved with their children. This is not a biological construct however. I think one of the major points of this was the it would make more sense for a smaller company to actually use the gender information when hiring since it will be significantly harder to move around employees to cover for the person missing time within the choirs of parenthood. Small companies could see a hiring as the penultimate investment that has to pay off 100% whereas larger companies are able to rotate people thus maximising their utility of each employee, despite some missing time here and there.

This is true for the issue of income progression effect (the gender wage gap question) but not true for the idea of "I think this is compelling evidence that the era of deliberate discrimination against women in the labor market is largely over -- I could be persuaded otherwise on more argument. "

Thus in logic you state that men are able to become parents without incurring any form of penalty, actually becoming a parent tends to be correlated with increased occupational attainment for various reasons, whereas women are stuck between a rock and a hard place. One of the aspects of discrimination (one of many) is that there is virtually zero support within most companies and workplaces, along with zero institutional support for that enable men to see and take the decision to stay at home. The motherhood penalty is not a question of individual agency but the result and artefact of socio-cultural and structural factors. 14 weeks (100%) 6 before birth, 12/14 months (65%, but not more than 1.800 Euro/month) (14 only for single mothers)[citation needed] 84% 12/14 months (65%, but not more than 1.800 Euro/month) (14 only for single mothers/fathers or if both mothers and fathers take parental leave, so called "partner months") Until child turns 3 Until child turns 3 Must have public health insurance for part of paid leave, rest of paid leave paid by employer

Just a good FYI: http://gess.uni-mannheim.de/CDSS/Admission/CDSS_Application_Intake_2013.pdf

Reading is good for you. There is compelling evidence that the era of deliberate discrimination against women is as commonplace today as 20 years ago. Statistical discrimination is to me 100% deliberate. Mandel, H., and Semyonov, M. Family policy, wage structures, and gender gaps: Sources of earnings inequality in 20 countries. Am. Sociol. Rev. 70:949–967, 2005. Datta Gupta, N., and Smith, N. Children and Career Interruptions: The Family Gap in Denmark. Discussion Papers 263. Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, 2001. Mandel, H., and Semyonov, M. A welfare state paradox: State interventions and women’s employment opportunities in 22 countries. Am. J. Sociol. 111(6):1910–1949, 2006. Misra, J., Budig, M. J., and Moller, S. Work-family policies and poverty for partnered and single women in Europe and North America. Gend. Soc. 21(6):804–827, 2007 Aisenbrey, Silke, Marie Evertsson and Daniela Grunow. 2009. ”Is there a Career Penalty for Mothers’ Time Out? A Comparison of Germany, Sweden and the United States.” Social Forces 88: 573-606. (34 p.) or this one, which is a classic in my world, No Exit, No Voice: Women's Economic Dependency and the Welfare State or just this simple ppt: http://db.tt/cl0GDaDz

http://sweden.usembassy.gov/consulate/niv/apply/checklist3.html This is a pretty good walk-through of what a Swede needs. and this is Cornells info page: http://www.isso.cornell.edu/students/comingtocornell.php Both has been very helpful for me. I'm almost done with my prep!

I would be a very interested rentee if you do so ^^ I accepted my Cornell offer and have done my budget already (I have pneumonia atm so planning ftw). As far as I can see it - it would be very possible to live a good life in Ithaca if you budget properly and stick to it. My offer said "With good opportunities for summer employment" and if that comes through then - all is great.

Just my two cents coming from the advice that I have gotten from my professors who are recent hires. Teaching experience is a good thing to have if you want to stay in the academic field. It is solid experience and training in an area that will be a big part of your future so TAing is good. I got a two year scholarship but will be pushing for TAing afterwards just because I would love to teach and see myself as an associate professor within a 10 year period. Excellent publications, a great letter of recommendation and key experiences will be very important here. Quality will always beat quantity, especially in this case, so I would say that there is no reason to push for a upper limit yet. also - isnt NSF only possible to get during the first year of your studies? so it would cover very little

"As always, U.S. News advises students to use the rankings to supplement—not substitute—careful thought. The rankings should only be used as one tool to choose the right graduate school or program—not as the only factor driving the final choice."

I had a full paragraph in my SOP regarding research experience which summarizes the work that I did in an official capacity: being a research assistant in different projects. From that I had a paragraph on my independent work within the context of the MA thesis. The RA paragraph was mostly "I have done this this this this and learnt this this this which will help me become a mature researcher and a competent member of an academic environment" whereas the independent work paragraph was more "my background, academic and professional experiences culminated in my MA thesis where I use these methods, theories, data to come up with these results". Perhaps we should set up one of those threads with applicant profiles for future generations to come.

Wow 27,500! Congrats!! I had a skype with Cornell today and was notified that I got a scholarship (thanks to scandinavia) for the first year, which means no extra heavy work load! So if anyone is looking for a roomie in Ithaca - here I am!

Dont worry I've already spent 2 years in Saskatoon, 1 in Seattle and 6 months in St Paul.. and I'm from Sweden - we invented the art of bad beer.. and you know - for all the bad jokes about Sweden = Socialism.. You try and take a social science class in Sweden without having to listen to 2 hours of "the neo-liberals are destroying the world; we have to reform and get lots of redistributive policies in place. Ask ourselves "why dun you have ice cream and what does this do for inequality?". Intellectual sandbox.. (albeit in a weird and foreign language but still true)

Done and accepted the offer! Only have to take care of the emigration process now...