Taeyers

I'm sorry that I have nothing actually insightful to add, but when I saw 90 minute commute with traffic each way, I was like "let me stop you right there..." "Dream school" is all good and peachy, but could you really see yourself being happy commuting for 3 hours/day presumably approximately 5 days/week for the whole duration of a PhD?? I'm asking this as someone who commutes an hour each way (but I don't even have to drive since I've switched to the bus)... It can be a tremendous drain on your time, energy, and mood. Compounded with the fact that the cost of living is so high and your spouse would struggle the most there, this would be a dream I would let pass me by. Truthfully, I can't begin to weigh custody issues because it's something so removed from my own experiences and family is extremely personal. Either school 2 or 3 would be reasonable choices depending on that very personal factor and how confident you feel about getting external funding. Sounds like you've got a very tough choice on your hands. Good luck OP! ETA: I also noticed but then promptly forgot about the full tuition at the ABD stages. Now I'm remembering because that's very important. Is this common in your field? If not, even though it might be a pro that the program would allow you to continue straight to PhD, that's not a PhD program I would want. Graduate tuition can be very expensive and the ABD stage can be lengthy. In a high COL area to boot, this prospect would be too stressful for me personally. Are the PhD programs at the other two school similar, or do they fund their PhD students for the duration of the degree? You sound like a very strong applicant, so having to reapply might not be a big obstacle for you...

3 comments: 1) Since your application season is now and you're not even in the program yet, I'd say this is a decidedly darker region of the moral gray area. You're trying to deceive the program from the very start and knowingly occupying resources that they want to put toward PhD students in return for PhD-level accomplishments (that is many more years of work and a bigger research project/footprint) [ETA: I suppose this application season might be for the second program (you didn't specify) but that's still ethically not much better if there's nothing wrong with your current program except for the rank (which you should have known about when you accepted)] 2) not all PhD programs award a Master's to someone who doesn't finish. If you were in my program and said after 2 years that you want to leave, you might not be taking a Master's with you. 3) you would not be a successful student with a Master's degree applying for PhDs. You would be a former PhD student who, for whatever reason, couldn't or chose not to complete the last program where you were admitted and funded. You would be relying on letters of rec from people you left holding the shitty end of the stick. I personally would never attempt what you're considering, both for ethical reasons and because of the very real risks. I would much sooner skip a year and apply again.

I definitely agree with you inclination to be honest and not abuse her offer to support you as an applicant. Even though you're not technically obligated to join her lab if accepted, do consider that you're dealing with real people who won't think too highly of you if you're admitted under the premise of intending to work with her and then promptly turn around and go to an unrelated lab. It would be a pretty bad plan to start your time in that department by burning that bridge and potentially making yourself look like you would mislead others for personal gain, especially considering that you have an offer you would be happy to take from another great program.

I have no informed advice, but I wanted to offer my sympathy, because that does sound awkward and confusing. I suppose my next step would be to contact the primary contact person for each program individually (whether it's the director of graduate studies or their assistant or whoever else) and just mentioned that you hadn't heard back and are still interested in meeting. Maybe every person you replied to thought someone else would contact you with the answers, or maybe someone forgot that it was on their to do list.

Well, to be fair, there's a whole lot of room between having to make large payments on loans and completely ignoring them. I pay the interest on my loans every month and put a decent chunk toward the principal, but if I didn't have the money to do that for a month or two, it's absolutely not a big deal because I'm not obligated to pay. To say that deferring loan payments is a slippery slope to a 6-figure debt, ruined credit/bankruptcy, and difficulty starting a family is a bit extreme [ETA: not that it's not sometimes true, you're right, but it's up to the loan holder to act appropriately to avoid these pitfalls, and many do]. Those could be arguments against any loan deferment ever, but I think all of us who have loans can agree that it's generally a good thing for exactly the flexibility I mentioned above. Anyway, I was only mentioning it because the assumption that private loans don't defer is not necessarily true and I thought that OP could use that information. The rest of the advice operates on the premise that OP has already weighed whether or not a PhD is a good idea and decided to pursue it because it is. Like I mentioned before, all that advice should be taken with a big grain of salt if the financial aspect is not the only potential reason to turn down the offer.

This is exactly what crossed my mind too. I wanted to upvote you, but apparently I already ran out today OP, at the point where the professor has to specifically tell you that you must come in for a few hours every afternoon to get something done or you won't be allowed to graduate, you have to consider whether you're not entirely blameless. A few hours in the afternoon is beyond reasonable, since most PhD students are indeed expected to be present and working hard at least 40 hours/week. If you did actually do that for 5+ years and have simply run out of things to do for your project, I could sympathize with your side, but until proven otherwise the professor's request doesn't sound unreasonable at all. I also wanted to clarify that blackmail is typically the act of holding some personal knowledge the he has over your head in order to force you to act against your best interests in return for him keeping the knowledge secret. It doesn't sound from the rest of your explanation like that's what's happening. It sounds like you find it distressing and harassing to be told that he needs you to do more work before he can let you graduate, and extreme situations of this sort certainly qualify as abusive, but that in itself is not blackmail. Lastly, I just want to emphasize that the decision of whether you're ready to graduate or you need help is not entirely yours to make. The reason we PhD students are in a position of being so dependent upon advisors is that often we need someone more experienced to gauge our readiness to move on or our need for help. I'm fairly sure that if my PI told me to do work with another student that would help me and I responded that I didn't ask for and don't need help, he would not be the least bit interested in accepting that answer and walking away.

Not only that, but the $30k stipends I've heard of are either from extremely selective programs or in areas where the cost of living is astronomical. We get $26k, and that's pretty good. I don't know that I would have skipped out on grad school for a year just for the chance to get a few thousand more. I don't know what field you're applying in (you say the project is in engineering, but that wording implies that you're elsewhere), but what if the stipends you're offered next year are about the same? The opportunity cost of waiting, and the direct costs of applying and interviewing again, might outweigh that chunk of change. On the other hand, if this is compounded by you not being that excited about the program in general, or maybe having the opportunity to significantly or entirely pay down the loan in a year, ignore the above. I have private loans (federal were not an option at the time) and they are also deferred for grad school.

Sorry to hear things turned out like that. I'm sure your POIs did support you as much as they reasonably could, but to answer your question, sometimes that factor just isn't enough to outweigh others. Without a doubt, both I and my good friend in my cohort had strong support from someone either on the adcom or with strong influence. However, two of the handful of recruits that my program brought in this year had strong POIs pushing for their acceptance (one is even our department head), but they were both waitlisted. Instead, other recruits who just wowed everyone in terms of personality and passion about research were offered admission, even without strong support from a particular POI. Sometimes that's just the way it works. There was nothing actually wrong with the waitlisted recruits, and if compared against a different set of applicants, they might have been top picks for admission. Hopefully that will be the case at your other schools. You sound like a very strong applicant, so chalk this up to your bad luck, or just someone else's really good luck with that particular committee.

I remember hearing about this for the first time. Ridiculous. I worry that it's partially nonsense like this that makes the general public lash out with such hostility against tenure. It's not meant to protect lunacy or assholery, but unfortunately gets treated as such.

Thanks for posting about this. It's an interesting case without a doubt. It seems pretty clear from my reading that McAdams was pushing a much larger agenda than the writer linked in the OP was willing to acknowledge. I find myself entirely in agreement with the points made in the dean's letter to McAdams explaining the reasons for tenure termination. McAdams wasn't exercising the academic freedom that tenure is meant to protect. In this and previous instances, seems like he was trying to hide behind tenure while dragging the names of people whose political and social ideologies he disagrees with through the mud, undoubtedly knowing that they would face threats and disproportionately vile backlash from readers who agree with McAdams and disagree with the students he named. Tenure does not justify or protect petty bullying, and he decided to continue anyway, in spite of previous reprimands. Good riddance...

I would think that for any student in a statistics class, not knowing what the word "trend" means by the time they're taking an exam would have to be the result of negligence. How is it possible for this to be the first time the student has seen this word during the course? Yes, this particular student was at a disadvantage, but in theory he or she should be prepared and dedicated to learning basic coursework terms in a foreign language when starting a whole program in that language. However, if the term had been anything that they might reasonably not have seen multiple times before, that would be a different story. Ultimately, I go with my gut feeling. I can usually tell when I'm being taken advantage of, and in those cases I have no problem choosing to be largely unhelpful. If the student is truly confused though, I would do my best to either give a synonym or rephrase the whole question, depending on which is less likely to indicate which answers may or may not be correct. For what it's worth, I once TA'd for a science professor who allowed all international students to have their phones out during (multiple choice) exams, and we were responsible for walking around during the exam and making sure that they had Google translate on the screens and not something else. I can't overemphasize how much I disagreed with this policy, so maybe I'm particularly jaded.

I'm lame and just got in touch with people the quickest way I knew how. Texted mom (who would immediately tell anyone else in the family who should know) and husband, emailed one recommendation writer, Facebooked another, and the third was the person who gave me the news right after the admission committee meeting ended. I tend to avoid drawing attention, so I only told the people whom it would affect in some noticeable way and those involved in the application process. I always worry that making a big thing out of my happy news is the easiest way to set myself up for disappointment in the reactions (whether the reactions are underwhelming in enthusiasm or just confused before getting the point). The nice side of this approach is that when the people hearing the news react very happily and excitedly, that feels extra awesome. Since I know that I didn't project an expectation of that reaction, I can tell how truly excited that person is. ETA: I do like the suggestion of getting a mug or sweater from your institution of choice, if you can wait that long to spill the beans. That's a really cute idea.

I'm not an applicant any more, but when I was, I had only applied to one institution. Recruitment (that's what we call our interview event) that year was the first one the program had ever done in lieu of just bringing in individual applicants for interviews. It was one full day (9 am to 10 pm) that was pretty fun. This year, as a current student, I got to be pretty involved in the organization of a more elaborate 2 day recruitment event and spent lots of time with the applicants in a handful of social settings. Truthfully, it was TONS of fun. My program is small and tight-knit, so getting together for drinks is fun any time, but especially when the department pays and we're making new friends. I'm already excited to do it again next year, and the icing on the cake is that my 3 favorite applicants from this year's event are the ones picked to receive offers. YAY!

That is not how it works in my program. If 10 interview offers are extended and 8 accept the interview while 2 decline, the interview weekend will have 8 attendees. Those who decline are not replaced. I agree with others to cancel the interview at the school that hasn't spent money on you yet, but follow through with the other one. Just look at it as a valuable networking experience and an investment in the cause of not pissing anyone off.

I also immediately thought of smartphone typos. I send emails from my phone all the time and have to proofread them multiple times because I often find mistakes that I would never make on a computer.

Thanks, I appreciate it. It's been very rough and has caused a number of small mental breakdowns as she cycles between looking promising and suddenly getting much worse. Not to mention the financial drain of making sure that we've tried every reasonable option that veterinary medicine has to offer her... But I'm very lucky to work with multiple supportive and highly compassionate people in my department and graduate program.

My class schedule is a hot steaming pile of a mess. There is almost no regularity to it. I was prepared to be a good sport about it, but new weekly scheduling commitments just got added on (and ran into multiple conflicts with other commitments, so currently being revised), and now I'm pretty cranky. Probably wouldn't feel as frustrating if I wasn't preparing for the possibility of needing to euthanize my sick dog any day now while desperately grasping for any signs that she's getting better, but that's my situation right now, and it sucks a big one.

Being on my last rotation, I wanted to add a couple things: Pro - aside from fostering future collaborations with other PIs, you also have the opportunity to check out potential members for your thesis committee and connect with many other grad students and postdocs who can help you in smaller ways. One of my rotations was extremely useful as far as getting to know a lot of people whose technical skills have been and could continue to be a great resource. Pro - if more than one PI wants you, you will be in a position of greater power with respect to negotiable things that could motivate you to join one of their labs. I know this sounds a little awkward, and I certainly don't mean that in any manipulative or twisted way, but I'm watching it play out in my case right now. It could also be pretty awkward to be aggressively "courted", so I suppose that's a potential con. Alternately, you could end up in a neat co-advisorship situation, and there are a few important ways this could help you. Pro - I've learned a lot about different PI management approaches, and it's been far more enlightening than I expected. I feel like my decision will be much better informed now, and I won't be as likely to wonder if everyone else has it better on days when my PI drives me bananas (because this will definitely happen anywhere, no matter how good the PI). Con - feeling like a vagrant for a little while. Important detail - my program has 3 required rotations, and I think they do say something along the lines of each rotation being about a semester. But in reality, we first year students have easily negotiated rotations as short as 8 weeks and on average 10-12 weeks, so it definitely will not take a year and a half. The deadline for choosing a lab is the end of the summer (so one full year, or 3 academic semesters including the summer), but that allows time for up to 4 or even 5 rotations "just in case". March-April is about when 2 of us will be starting in our permanent labs. One student decided to do one semester/rotation just because, but she's unusual that way.

Feeling powerfully sorry for myself on account of having to get up at 5:30 for a hellish final tomorrow morning. On the bright side, after that final I get to go to breakfast with the other first years, be done with this semester, and then get 2 weeks off. On the less bright side, the true final for this hellish class will be the written prelim in May, and even thinking about having to review the insane amount of difficult material for 8 hours worth of essay exam in 5 months makes me want to scrap everything and start over in a different life.

I was in the same situation as you: I applied to the same place two years in a row, and the percentiles had changed between applications and after I had my score report sent to the school. I figured I needed to report the new percentiles (they were ever so slightly better too), and since I didn't want to worry about stumping anyone with a mismatch between self-reported percentiles and the official report, I just re-ordered the report. Probably didn't need to do that (and I don't necessarily advise that you do the same), but it saved me any worries about it later...

Ladies: My take on business casual was a fitted fully buttoned neutral cardigan (nothing baggy/worn-looking/questionably sized for my frame) over bootcut dress pants (not tucked in/belted), and black booties with a slight wedge heel. Now, I only have experience interviewing at one school because it's the only place I applied, so I don't have that much information on how this compares to many others. However, I emailed the admin assistant of the department to find out that the dress code was business casual, and apparently no one else did, because I was the only woman not wearing a suit. However, we were all in pants. Being in a science where skirts are not even allowed in the lab, it doesn't ever cross my mind to wear a skirt unless someone specifically bring it up, so this may have been field-specific. I think it turned out fine though, because I felt more comfortable and "normal" in my more relaxed attire, and I think it came across in my interviews when I got grilled a bit. It was also pretty funny because the DGS and a couple other faculty members are very casual, and I'm glad I didn't show up in a suit to interview with someone wearing jeans. Point of the story is: find clothes that make you feel like a dressier and more put-together version of yourself, because comfort is very important in an interview, and don't hesitate to ask about the dress code if none is given. One important thing to remember to bring: a sufficiently structured bag that can still hold a water bottle. I was very glad to have mine with me. Stress can give you serious dry mouth issues. Hair-wise, I just tried my best to get it out of my face and didn't worry about other features. As far as unusual colors and styles, I find most scientists are pretty tolerant and don't hold it against you, but it definitely shouldn't need to be constantly brushed away from the face.

Come to think of it, I know a professor like that too. She has been at my institution her entire career (about to retire) and she's very successful here. And I also want to encourage separating staying at the same institution from staying in the same lab. I'm staying in my perfect-for-me department but switching PIs and subfields.

I'm fairly certain that at least a good dozen of other factors are more important in the success of a job search than getting the PhD from the undergrad institution or a different one. Two of those extremely important factors would be publications and letters of recommendation. If the OP finds herself at an institution where she's the most likely to thrive as a graduate student and produce great publications and glowing references from faculty she's already familiar with, it would be irresponsible to rule it out because her undergrad degree was awarded there. I found myself in the same situation, and I have no doubts that my choice was the best for me.