rising_star

If you'd have to pay out of state tuition out of pocket, I'd move on to other offers. If you can get a TA/RA that will cover the out of state portion, then it's much more reasonable to consider attending.

Changing (or just freshening up) in the bathroom is a fantastic idea. Do this while you're still in the secure side of the airport and you won't even have to worry about them seeing you before you're ready. I highly recommend it. Pop a breath mint, double check your hair and makeup, and maybe change clothes if need be.

I would never email a POI to ask about an admissions decision. There was one school way back when I applied to PhD programs that took forever for anyone to hear. We're talking early March for acceptances. I was already visiting other programs and was kinda concerned that I hadn't gotten in. Well, a visiting speaker in my department happened to be friends with that POI and came up with the brilliant idea over drinks that ze and another prof from my dept should just call up my POI and ask about my application. I am forever grateful that the POI didn't answer the phone. Also, I got in and ended up going to work with that POI for my PhD. *shrug* Just be patient and wait.

I've never been asked officially to do this. But, I would think about things like research experience, GPA, SOP, research fit, and personality, especially if I'd be working closely with this person in a lab for several years. You want someone that's smart, has some research experience or is eager to learn, and has interests that align with the lab and the work you're already doing or plan to do. I have GPA in there but, having a high GPA doesn't mean someone will be good at research just like a low GPA doesn't mean someone will be bad at research. Hope this helps!

Are you talking overall rankings or rankings in your subfield? IMO, that matters a great deal. A school might be top 20 overall but top 5 for your subfield, in which case it might be better than going to a school that's top 10 overall but weaker in your subfield... I'm not in psych but, when deciding between schools in the top 15, I went with advisor fit above else. And I don't just mean fit in terms of research interests and personality because there were several of those (I'd met many of my POIs before I applied for the PhD at conferences) but I went with the best known name, even though this person was at a slightly lower ranked school (so going to #14 instead of #5 or #8).

Make sure you participate in classes but without dominating the discussion. You want to show that you've done the reading, can think critically, and are a good writer in the classroom because that's what people remember just as much (if not more sometimes) than the remember the out of class stuff. I have students in my office all the time but the rec letters tend to focus on the academics and research, not how much I enjoy talking to them about semi-random things on a Tuesday afternoon.

I would just browse Amazon and Etsy...

Funded > not funded. Also, if it's not a degree that will help you get where you want, then why spend time on it?

Definitely consider the future. If going to City of Hope would mean not being able to do the research you want or get the training you need, then it's really not a good option for you.

I'm also unfamiliar with grad schools doing an employment verification. They would probably only contact your recommenders if they knew the person who wrote the letter. Otherwise, I don't think anyone really cares very much about where you worked or when.

How new are the programs? If anyone has graduated, you should be able to find out where they are working now. In addition, you might want to look at where people are publishing in the program (as in, the current grad students) to get a sense of whether they'll be competitive once they go on the market. For me (and I'm in a different field), it's all about the advisor. Some advisors have great placement records, others not so much. You have to do some digging either way, since some of that could be student's choice (as in, student doesn't want a R1 job or wants a government job or is stuck in the region for family reasons) affecting the placement record. If the faculty have come from other great programs, check to see what their former students are doing now.

It really shouldn't take you a week to prepare for an interview. All you need to do is be familiar with your research, have some idea about how it might intersect with the profs there and the research they're doing, and be capable of articulating these things clearly. Oh, and you know, where clean clothes, be generally agreeable, and not get drunk. A week is plenty of time.

You could be meeting anyone and everyone. Prepare for all of the faculty in the department, plus whomever is in a related department whose interests intersect with yours. That should keep you busy while you wait.

Did the master's program offer you funding? If it did, I would go and then try to gain experience through a summer internship or part-time job while you're in the program. If it didn't offer you funding, then definitely defer and try to do something else before going.

Oh, I get including in-text citations and not full ones. I meant that not including any references (parenthetical or otherwise) would be plagiarism and thus highly problematic.

This really depends on the school. Some schools want the best applicants, and don't even really think about who they will work with at the admissions stage. Other programs require you to list POIs on your application and then let those POIs rank the applications as part of their admissions process. Does fit matter? Of course it does. If the adcom reads your SOP and can't even plausibly come up with three names to serve on your committee, that's not a good thing for you. Or, they could let you in and expect you to just figure it out somehow. *shrug* Who really knows? (And I say this as someone that has had peeks into the admissions process in multiple departments and on more than one occasion).

CNN and other sites have cost of living comparison calculators you can use, where you put in the salary in one place along with the other location and then it tells you what the salary equivalent in the second place would be. I did that to get a basic sense, but then also asked grad students what they pay in rent and if they can live comfortably on their salary. Obviously, part of this will depend on how far you're willing to commute since prices tend to be cheaper in rural areas. If you have a family to move, you'll also probably want to consider the school systems and how much it would cost to rent/buy in a good school district.

Waiting and hoping is really all you can do. This question has come up a lot this year, more than in years past IIRC. I wonder why that might be...

Be prepared to ask them questions and to answer questions. Interviews are (or should be) a two-way street. If they haven't put a presentation on your schedule or told you about one, then you won't be expected to give any sort of formal presentation. You should be prepared to discuss your research interests regardless.

You can also read books published by academic presses to familiarize yourself with PhD level writing. And write, write, write, write, write. Then revise a bunch.

It definitely sounds genuine to me. Obviously, you should wait to see about your other offers first. But, a funded MA can be a great step to a PhD. I'm in a field where pretty much everyone does a MA before a PhD and I have to say that doing so made me a better PhD student. Good luck!

Declining these isn't the same as declining an interview. If the programs don't do interviews, an all-expenses-paid visit usually means you're going to be accepted. Sometimes they happen because you're being considered for a Graduate School/Division wide fellowship, which wants people to visit for recruitment purposes. Is there any particular why you won't be visiting? It seems to me like if you're seriously considering attending that school, you should take the chance to visit on their dime, regardless of whether its before or after you've gotten an official admissions decision.

lyrehc, asking to be called "Professor __" is an interesting one. In some departments, doing so is not the norm and thus using that would potentially put you in an awkward position, in part because that's not what students are used to. I have heard of grad students going by Ms./Mr. in the classroom, which is more common in the Southern USA and/or when the instructor is young. For books on pedagogy, classics are McKeachie's. Another great reference is Student Engagement Techniques by Elizabeth Barkley. Both can really help you figure out not only what you should be doing but how to design useful classroom activities. There's another great book on teaching your first course in a college setting but I can't remember the title now. That book walks you through what to do week by week in a super helpful way.

Yea, you'll need to look for Title VI centers. There's a list online that you can consult.

If/when you get to the stage of job interviews, you'll realize that getting a finalized itinerary more than three days before you leave is awesome. You'll know the dates before that but not what will be happening until much closer. The same is true of graduate program interviews.