rising_star

Without knowing what field you're in, this is pretty difficult to answer. Are you in a master's program or a PhD program? What kind of job are you hoping to get after you finish?

It all depends on how many schools you apply to. When I applied to PhD programs, I went 7/7.

You should decide when you're ready. It's not wrong to wait until after you visit. But, if you already know you won't go, there's no need to wait until Monday, especially since a lot of faculty check email on the weekends (and especially this time of year).

This post is for people to post resources that they think will help others deciding between or looking to learn more about particular places. BankRate's Cost of Living Calculator is a good one: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

What you do with your apartment really depends. In a college town, it can be difficult to find a summer subletter, plus you have to be secure that they won't steal/damage your stuff/apartment. It's also difficult to find 9 month leases. I've always just paid my rent through the summer. This summer, I'll probably do the same.

Hal, if you're at AAG, you should go to the talks and parties of the departments you're interested in. I'm not sure where you've applied but a lot of the older PhD programs have parties. Signs will be posted somewhere.

Public universities are not for profit so they aren't paying taxes anyway. They have tuition because, presumably, not everyone has tuition remission in every program at the university. That said, most schools have some sort of tuition remission (90%, full, all but a nominal amount, etc.) for graduate students with a teaching or research assistantship.

I would explore the possibility of being able to leave Cornell with a MS after 2-3 years if you decide the PhD isn't for you. I don't know much about your field but, my mom has a PhD and has never had an academic job. Her PhD gives her the ability to supervise teams and has, at times, helped her command a slightly higher salary even when taking a job that isn't directly related to her previous work experience.

I recommend moving lots of topics, without leaving the shadow topics behind. It confuses people. Or you can delete random posts. That's fun too!

I've always been completely open about where else I applied. But, honestly, my discipline is small and if you read my SOP you could easily guess what other schools I'd be interested in. The reaction I got was often one of surprise that two schools were on the list (one was a safety, one is strong in my region of interest but not overall) and that a couple other ones weren't on the list. I don't think it hurt my admissions or funding anywhere. In the end, a lot of prospective advisors know one another so I kept things cordial when I turned down offers because I know those guys (and yes, they are all men) are going to be the people that are going to be reviewing my publications, discussing my conference papers, etc. in the future. If your research interests are narrow, it's likely that your prospective advisor at one school can guess where else you probably applied, so why not tell them? Honestly, they really do just want to know what their competition is. It helps them evaluate the status of their program and make decisions about how to be/stay competitive in the future.

Yes. It was definitely the deadline I was given when I applied to MA programs (which are almost always funded in my discipline).

You have to play up how the language training you'll be able to get with the FLAS will benefit your graduate school plans, how it will help with your research, how it's necessary for your research, etc. Then again, I'm 0/1 on FLAS applications.

In all fairness, the economic climate has really changed that dynamic. My department would *love* to be able to support people who want to visit. We also want to have paper and working copier. As it stands, we've had our budget cut twice already this year... So we want to recruit, we love to recruit, but unless all the current grads put $25 out of their stipend in a pot, it ain't gonna happen. So don't hold it against schools that can't pay for a recruitment visit. Endowments have shrunk, budgets have been cut, bank accounts are frozen in failed banks, etc.

You can try but you may not be successful. ec86, I think they're the same in prestige. The named fellowships come a donor that requests the award be named after them or they are designated in the name of someone famous from the university.

The MSW is a professional program so I think the rules are different. You can always email the graduate school and ask.

Email the Director of Graduate Studies in the department. You may also want to let your future advisor know.

Where in the CGS resolution does it say that it only applies to "funded Ph.D. offers"?

I doubt it. I never applied to any schools that seemed distant so I can't really answer this. Process-challenged, I did encounter. The visit went fine and I loved the school.

Vegas will be a catastrophe for AAG in so many ways. The last thing geographers need is a place with attractions and lots of bars.

Or it could be that it's a lot of time/energy to email with 15 prospective students on top of doing your research, teaching, preparing for conferences, and advising your current students... It's not like the only job of a faculty this time of year is to roll out the red carpet for prospective students. I say that as someone that has an advisor who is VERY invested in his grad students but often takes 24-48 hours to reply to emails and, even then, the response is usually brief (and exactly what you needed to hear). His emails often come across as indifferent but that's the way he is over email. If you met him in person, you'd realize that he cares about his graduate students a lot and, to use your terms, always gives a shit when we need guidance on the dissertation.

The program I'm in is pretty hands off when it comes to recruiting. That said, I've been nothing but warmly welcomed since I got here (and I didn't visit so I have no clue what the reception then would've been).

You do realize that unless you include a quote from the post you're responding to, it's impossible for anyone to do much more than guess at what specifically you're responding to, right? This isn't a site where your post appears directly below the one you're replying to, unless you happen to be the first (chronologically) to reply. Or has that changed and I missed it? Has anyone posted to say that they think the site should keep its focus on admissions and not include topics related to graduate student life? If so, certainly not that I can see. So I guess my assumption is based on what I've read in this discussion, which makes it less of an assumption and more of a deduction based on reading. Because there already isn't enough time for the moderators of this site to keep up with all the spam, double posts, reported posts, and posts made to the wrong section. I wish I still had the time to keep up with it like I used to but, I don't. I doubt anyone really and truly does. An unregulated forum would be a huge problem (which you'd understand if you realized that every time I log on, I deal with almost every single one of the problems listed above, and that the other mods feel the same way every time they log on). From a user perspective, maybe it would be great, maybe it would all die off in July and the work would be for naught. From the mod perspective, it involves a lot of extra work that you barely even see.

I think the "obvious choice" is the one that feels most right to you. We can't tell you that, unfortunately. As far as the stipend difference, you also want to consider state, city, and federal income taxes. In particular, the extra $10K may turn out to not be so much after you're in another tax bracket and all that. You also want to find out about health insurance and fees, both of which will take money out of your paycheck and can range from $100/semester to $900/semester, depending on the school.

I've found that you can never assume that people have noticed or read the things you might expect. In particular, you didn't say anything in your original post about subdividing Officially Grads. Apparently, I, and everyone else, are supposed to infer that you know of and dislike the current Officially Grads forum. In general, things work much better when people are specific, rather than just saying "TA life, RA life, Submitting Grants, Submitting Papers", which actually sounds a lot like the current description of Officially Grads. The original point, whether you know this or not, was for this website to serve as a place to discuss admissions and post results in a searchable format (originally done in an Excel spreadsheet, believe it or not). It's interesting that everyone has assumed that the best thing would be to expand to graduate student life, without considering whether that has ever been the intent or purpose of the site.

When I applied to MA programs, I did not ask my undergrad thesis advisor for a letter of recommendation. I got in with funding at 4 of 6 schools. Your mileage may vary, of course, but not having your advisor write one isn't automatically the kiss of death.