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Yes our stipend is taxable - its been my experience that the University withholds around $350 in federal and state taxes per month - that's the bad news. The good news about this is that when it comes to filing taxes at tax time, I'm usually due a refund of a few hundred dollars.

It only covers water. I spend more on heat than on electricity in the winter, but at worse, my combined heat + electricity is less than 150.

Yes, it's enough to get by and you'll need to budget well. My wife and I get by on my stipend alone, but my rent is <800.

I would try to avoid this. I remember having the same question when I was writing my SoP and eventually didn't include any references. If you're talking about seminal papers, then adcoms are probably already familiar with them. Plus, the SoP is supposed to be about you, so I would advise against taking valuable space in your SoP to talk about other people's work.

2) I am an international grad student here and when I moved I had signed my lease and scanned and emailed it. I think most places have some way of dealing with this issue, since there are so many international students here. 3) The town isn't dominated by undergrads, especially not in the summer months. You'll be able to find many quiet spots away from the 'party scene'. Just avoid living in a place(house/apt etc) that has a lot of undergrads and you'll be fine.

The SPH buildings are on Central Campus but I've known people who are in SPH and live on Northwood - it's UM's on campus grad student housing, and take the school bus to Central. This is very doable (it's about a 15 min travel between campuses by bus). I don't live near Central myself, so I'm not very familiar with housing options there, but I don't see a lot of complexes - mainly houses where students rent rooms. I think $400 should be doable - you'll definitely need roommates. I haven't tried https://offcampushousing.umich.edu/ before, but it looks like an option. One thing to keep in mind is that there isn't a big grocery store within walking distance of Central Campus, but there is the Kroger on North Campus as CanRes mentions. People who live on Central and don't have a car tend to take the bus when grocery shopping.

Don't sell yourself short - I absolutely think you can get admitted to a good PhD program with your qualifications. Berkeley would be very unlikely but the other schools you listed are possibilities for a PhD application. You may not have good research experience, but that is not absolutely necessary, What is necessary though is that you can show enough promise to convince the admissions committee that you're worth a shot. To do so, think about a problem (i.e. not just an area, but a specific problem or problems) that you would be interested in working on in grad school. Find out as much as you can about it, and about the researchers working in that area. Apply only to schools that have profs actively working on the problem(s) you are interested in and when you write your SoPs write as if you are writing to those profs. By this I mean, write with detail about your problem and with enough grasp of the issues involved with the problem that you can get the attention of the profs at that schools who are working in that area. So my advice to you would be, if you eventually want a PhD, apply directly to PhD programs - even if you don't have stellar (or even much) research experience.

There's always Craigslist and just looking at apartment complexes in the area. I'd caution against waiting until late summer/fall to look for housing - by then you'd likely only find pricier options.

I agree with this. Your GRE scores are one of the least important parts of your application. How strong do you think your recommendation letters and your statement of purpose are? Those are much more important than your GRE.

A tip I've found helpful is to write out your talk before. Not for the purpose of memorizing it, but to make sure you've thought out how you want to say things and how you transition between slides. And of course, practice, practice, practice giving your presentation.

Woohoo! Congrats!

@ghanada Both are very doable. Lots of students live in Ypsilanti and drive to campus since housing is cheaper there. Also it's about a 15 min bus ride to Central from North Campus, so that's doable too.

Careful with waiting until the summer to find an apartment for fall. A couple friends of mine did that last year and ended up with places that were relatively expensive.

That sounds interesting. I'll give it try - thanks!