ashcanpete

I got the GRFP this year, and I'm thrilled but I now have a kinda tricky decision/situation with funding to deal with. This is my second year in my PhD program (started the program Fall 2014) and so I was already being funded by an institutional training grant. Now that I have the NSF, I was expecting a raise (NSF stipend is ~$4500 more than the base stipend in my program). However, the training grant director wants me to put my NSF on reserve until the training grant funds run out. Unfortunately, it's a two year training grant, and I only started it at the beginning of my second year last October (right before applying for the NSF). Thus, my training grant funding won't run out until the beginning of my fourth year. This presents 2 problems: 1. I won't get my $4500/yr raise for another 1.5 years. 2. If I take less than 6 years to graduate, I'll lose some NSF money. For instance, if I were to take only 5 years, I'd directly lose $4500 out of my pocket. I don't think this happens that often at my school, I've been informed that most people get the NSF as an undergrad or first year, so they aren't on training grants yet. The only other person this happened to in my department was only on a one-year training grant, so it wasn't a problem of actually losing money in the long term. I'm pretty sure I can go against my department's recommendation and start my NSF tenure earlier (this fall for instance). However, if this is going to be looked very badly upon, it might be better to just wait for my training grant to run out and risk losing some money. I think most schools that are in more expensive cities (SF, NYC) have stipends close to the NSF anyway, so this probably isn't an issue there. But for me, at least part of the NSF's allure was the 15% raise that came along with it, and I really don't want to give part of that up or postpone it 1.5 years if I don't have to. Obviously, none of us went to grad school for the money, but I think a 15% raise would go a long way towards making my time here much more enjoyable and would relieve a lot of financial stress. Has anyone else had this problem, and what did you do about it? Also any general advice would be great, as I've never really encountered a situation where my financial interests are opposed to my department's.

Accepted at UChicago! Excited to be in the windy city next year!

I don't think it is a budget constraint for the Penn Biology interviws. Most US schools typically accept about 80% of the domestic interviewees (there are expections, e.g. Columbia). In other words, most schools already invite close to the minimum number of students the they can for on-campus interviews (probably because of budget constraints). As such, these interview weekends are largely there for recruitment purposes. If they're going to do a pre-screening round on Skype, then that would actually add to the expenditures of the interview process (taking up several professors time is expensive). My guess is they really wanted to interview more people at least at a basic level before essentially admitting them by inviting them to the on-campus interview, so they added in this "first round" of Skype interviews. If they do some Skype interviews as the only round (like it sounds like they are doing at Syracuse), of course that would save some money. In that case I don't know what fraction of people would be accepted afterwards. They could keep the ratio similar to the on-campus numbers, but it could also be a more selective process because of the lesser cost per interview. Very weird that would give out 2 different types of invites to domestic applicants. Are you located really far from Syracuse, MackF? Edit: Nevermind just saw you listed PA in your sig. Strange about this, maybe its up to the professors that are doing the interviews. Could be you just happened to get matched to some PIs that prefer Skype interviews.

Yeah I totally agree with what mop said, this happens all the time. At my Northwestern NUIN interview weekend, I got scheduled for 2 people I didn't request, and both were fine. Also, one of my interviews got switched to a different PI (but another one I requested) about 2 hours before the interviews started. And then, about 5 min before my first interview there, they discovered that the PI was out of town (and he didn't tell anyone, lol). They switched me to someone I hadn't asked for, but it was totally fine and I enjoyed hearing about his research and telling him about mine. In the end, I liked all of my interviews, and it all worked out great. (I got accepted!) I've been told that they mainly want to see if you can converse intelligently about science in general. They're not necessarily interested in discussing every detail of your or their research. Anyway, don't sweat it too much, they really just want to get to know you, so just relax and be yourself.

If you've totally made up your mind, then yes I'd say cancel. However, if there's even a small chance you may attend these other schools, don't feel bad at all about interviewing there. Yes, you will likely take up some PIs' time and there is some possibility that you'll prevent someone else from being interviewed (not likely though, this is what post-interview wait-lists are for). But consider the substantial time and effort you've committed to each school you applied to (not to mention the years of effort required to become an acceptable applicant even before you apply).You have fully earned the right to interview at every school that invites you, and you shouldn't feel guilty, even if its just to check out the campus and meet potential future collaborators. Also, that plane ticket is already booked, so that is a sunk cost at this point.

Lol, I know what you mean. I applied to 10 schools, only 2 of which are in Chicago (or the Midwest for that matter). The 2 interviews I've got so far are Northwestern and University of Chicago, so its looking like the windy city for me next year!

I've just interviewed at Northwestern for NUIN last weekend. They originally gave me the option of three interview dates: "NUIN's three admissions/recruiting events are scheduled for: January 16-17, January 30-31, and February 20-21." They told us we will get our decisions sometime before this Friday. Those of us that aren't admitted will likely be waitlisted, but they might reject some applicants, and some applicants might turn down the acceptance right away. If that happens, I'm guessing they will probably send out new invites to meet the total number of qualified candidates they need. However, I think those newly invited people will be at a disadvantage and may end up waitlisted unless they do really well in their interviews (i.e. they have to do better than the people that got waitlisted from the first round of interviews). Also, I don't know if all the invites to the last 2 interview sessions are confirmed, though I think they are (the email I got back in December specifically said to respond as soon as possible). If some people declined their interviews, that would also open up spots for more invitations to be sent out, but that may already have happened by now. Either way, I'm fairly confident that all of the initial invites have been sent, so if you haven't heard anything yet, I'd consider yourself waitlisted. They get a lot of highly qualified applicants, so the difference between the waitlist and the interviewees is almost just random chance (and for all I know, I was at the very bottom of the pile of people that got the initial interviews). Having not heard a rejection yet is a good sign that they want to hold on to you in case another spot opens up. If you do get an interview at this point, make sure you really present yourself well. At least on paper, they've judged you to be at "the back of the pack" and so you'll need to make a good impression to avoid getting waitlisted after the interview. EDIT: Actually I don't see that any rejections have been sent out yet, so that's probably bad if you haven't heard anything. If they do send out a bunch of rejections and you don't get one, then you're on the waitlist and you have a decent chance at getting an interview. TL/DR - If you haven't heard anything yet, its unlikely you'll get an invite. However, if they send out rejections and you don't get one, then you'd be waitlisted, and should have a reasonable chance to get an interview.

Hey evrad, which program are you talking about at NYU? There is the NYU Sackler Neuroscience and Physiology Program and the NYU Neural Science Program. Or are you talking about both programs? I know they have a joint committee this year, but I received a rejection that looked specific to the Neuroscience and Physiology Program. Also, I know some people have actually received an invite (I'm assuming Neural Science) back in late December, and then got the same rejection I got in mid January. I haven't heard anything from the Neural Science program, so its unclear if I'm still in the running for a 2nd round invite in February.

That is definitely something you can ask, and I don't think it would offend anyone. I might first try to ask related questions instead like: how many grad students are in your lab now, how many post-docs? If the lab seems big, I'd ask how many papers are you typically working on at any one time, that seems like a lot of projects you have going. . . and see what they say. I think its even better to ask a grad student/post-doc in their lab, you might get a more direct answer. Keep in mind that some PIs may present themselves differently in an interview than when you are working in their lab (I think its pretty rare, but I've met a few people that had a PI like this). I'd try to get opinions from multiple people before I made any judgments. Also,be aware that people can be very polarized in their opinions of PIs, so everything heard second-hand should be taken with a grain of salt.

How did you find this out? Last thing I saw about Stanford Biophysics was this post yesterday:

Yeah looks like they were all sent out at around 5pm EST. Check this thread:

Any word on whether Columbia Neurobiology and Behavior is still reviewing applications? My assumption is that since the first interview weekend is next week, they would have sent them all, but I'm seeing invites as late as Jan 16 last year, and Jan 24 in 2011.

Thanks for the info, looks like I can cross Rockefeller off my list. I'm sure they looked at each email, just probably sent them all in one big group. aba1984, thanks for the encouragement, but I think in this case it's more certain, Rockefeller already announced they would send out all the invites tonight.

Congrats guys! I didn't get anything, guess they didn't send out the rejections at the same time. Was it a mass email, did both of your invites have the same timestamp?

Lol I know what you mean. Universities should offer credit for "Grad School Apps 101". I feel like I've read enough papers investigating the PIs at various schools to warrant some credit hours!