Eigen

You could always work out h and m indices on the faculty you want to work with, although those are pretty rough measures. Personally, I didn't really take rankings into account at all.

They don't notify some people and then others. All of the GRFP awards are announced at the same time, and posted on their website. The e-mails go out sometime the next day. And from my understanding, there isn't a way for "half" of the fellows to be selected, that's not in line with how the selection process works. All of the applicants are ranked, and then at the end the top X are given awards.

Ours is bimonthly, but I've actually heard of some places that pay it by semester. I think monthly and bimonthly are most common, however. One thing I'd make sure to ask is whether it stays constant throughout the year- I found out my first summer that our payments got cut by about 30% each check in the summer. The yearly total was what it should have been, it just wasn't evenly distributed.

The Lamy Safari is supposed to be a very nice, solid every day fountain pen. I've also heard very good things about Noodler's ink- especially their bulletproof black- supposedly, it even lets you write on paper as thin as newsprint on both sides, and is completely waterproof.

You're assuming that the school is a signatory of the agreement. There are a fair number that aren't. But yes, it does put students in a difficult situation. The best way to handle it is to ask for an extension without putting any pressure on the school, and see if they grant it. You want to get results with as little "fight": as possible, ideally.

I think you missed the part at the bottom of the page, asterisked, where it says "This resolution applies to offers of financial support only, not to offers of admission". A school can give you as little time as they want to decide whether to accept an offer of admission or not, the only thing the resolution refers to is the financial part. And as to vague, in my mind any sentence that ends with "intent", or speaks to a "general spirit" is deliberately vague. It's a loose agreement and set of guidelines, not a specific and binding legal document. That, combined with the fact that it only covers a portion of the admission game (financial offers, not admission), and the fact that it's a resolution and not a binding agreement make it vague.

::shrugs:: think whatever you want, those comments were from experience and listening to our adcom talking about how variable the number of students can be.

Not to be blunt or rude, but if you have any written communication, please don't let it look like the above. If I received something like that from a prospective graduate student, I might seriously consider talking to my PI about them.

So much of it varies year to year. If a school has a couple of new hires, or someone wants to expand their lab, they might take in half again as many students as a normal year. If a batch of students hasn't graduated, and there aren't many lab slots avaiable, it might be half the number of usual applicants.

I really, really want an MP3 of that song.

Just as an aside, the council of graduate studies line on April 15th is completely non-enforceable, and pulling that card with a school will not help matters much. It's a loose agreement, and a school loses nothing by not following it. Schools sign the resolution in general support, but it's not a binding agreement. Even the wording of the resolution is quite vague. It's also worth noting that the same resolution prohibits students from withdrawing an acceptance to attend another school without obtaining written permission from the school in question, and also prohibits any school from accepting a student without obtaining that permission. This is another part of the resolution that a surprising number of schools (and grad students) don't follow. On the other hand, telling them that you really can't make an informed decision until all your offers are in, and asking for an extension might work out quite nicely.

None of that has changed. Effectively, the credit was an addition to your stipend. Since it wasn't paid normally (ie, a paycheck) it wasn't taxed. Hence, it's additional income that has yet to be taxed, so it needs to be reported and paid for. The 1098 shows how much you were paid (tuition waivers+that credit), and then how much your tuition costs were. If you paid for fees out of pocket, you can plug that into turbotax and take it as a deduction. There's no difference between how they're doing it with the 1098 and if they'd just added that amount to one of your paychecks.

Actually, from what I recall of the tax documents on GA/TA stuff, payments towards a health plan count as income for tax purposes, since it's not directly a benefit of employment, but rather an increased compensation to help cover a cost. It's part of a stipend or grant that isn't paying for required tuition, fees or supplies, so it's taxable. IE, if you got health insurance as part of your employment, it wouldn't be taxed. But you aren't. You're getting an increase to your stipend to help pay for part of your healthcare. Ours is the same way- it's not really a reduced cost to the student health plan, but rather that our department increases the stipends of those GAs on the health plan to help out with paying for it.

I agree that it can't hurt, just keep in mind that most schools will probably want you to retake that course when you get to grad school. That said, if you've already applied, then it's not like you're going to finish the course before they review applications, so I'm not sure it would be a huge benefit, either.

For our department, we pay when we take prospectives out, and we get reimbursed at some point in the future.

I'd say it's a decent bet to try to wait things out another week or so, and then maybe call/send an e-mail just to check. I think mid-February is a decent date to use as a marker.

Yeah, I was still on scholarship so I figured I might as well spend the time taking fun classes that I wouldn't take otherwise.

I didn't find it that hard to focus, but I was taking almost all out-of-discipline classes. I didn't have any classes in my discipline left that I hadn't taken, so I took a folklore/folk music class, an upper level humanities capstone, and the tech writing course I'd put off. It was an exceptionally easy semester, but also very differently paced than previous ones, so it was easier to keep focus. I was also writing and defending my thesis, however, so that was something to keep focused on, but not exactly studying for tests. I did have a couple of other interest-based classes I sat in on (a graduate stat mech class in our physics department, some math theory classes). Not officially audits (too much paperwork), but fun.

It's not unusual to see a time range in responses, I don't think, as faculty work their way through a pile. People they really want get admissions, people they have easily decided they don't want get rejections, and there are probably some that they feel aren't first choices, but might work out in the end- those get wait listed early on.

IMO, the quintessential graduate student youtube video (at least for sciences) is Baylor College of Medicines "Bad Project". It's worth finding and watching, and even those not in the lab sciences can probably relate to a lot of it.

This is in some ways discipline specific, but I'd say <10-20% is pretty average in the sciences, even at lower tier schools. Most schools, however, it's going to be hard to find applications #s and acceptance rates without some inside information.

One other thing I wanted to add (personal pet peeve, not that I expect you to do this): Don't start a conversation and leave the grad student hanging. There's nothing like taking a half hour or so to write out a detailed, thoughtful piece to a prospective graduate student only to wait several weeks to get a reply, or even to never hear back from them.

Personally, the main reason I use Turbotax is that it's really easy to just clone your information after the first year. And on a 1040EZ, half of the time is filling in information. When it comes to books/required fees and deductions, I figure that I'll claim what I think are legitimately required, and if audited, we'll see how it goes. It's not like the deduction causes an enormous reduction in tax burden.

From the perspective of a graduate student answering a prospective's questions: 1. Ask almost anything. We were all there at one point, we understand that there are a lot of questions. I've been asked everything from how well living in the city works on what we're paid to what the dirt is in our department. 2. My PI asks me my opinion of prospective graduate students, so they're definitely playing a roll in it. Mostly, you don't want to come off as someone they wouldn't want to work with. 3. Yes. I'm very candid about this, partially because I've been there, and partially because if you come, I'll be working with you for the next 3-4 years. And if you don't like our PIs style, you will not be enjoyable to work with. 4. More informal than a prof, but you wan't to be careful not to be too informal- treat them as a colleague. Personally, I'd start out more formally, and feel out that particular grad student as the back-and-forth progresses. The prospectives that have given bad impressions have predominately either not seemed at all interested in the work or grad school, or have seemed like they're trying to get by with as little work as possible. I doubt you will come across as either of those, from your post. When a prospective student asks if they can come in (lab science) at 10, leave at 4, and take 3 day weekends- that's a bad impression. If you're asking whether or not you'll be expected to work 80 hour weeks, that isn't. Most grad students have a vested interest in bringing in and welcoming prospective grad students that will add to the lab and be fun and invigorating colleagues down the road. You'll be working more closely with other grad students than your prof, most of the time, so a good mesh of personalities is also beneficial.

Sorry it took me a bit to respond. I really like the MBA. I got one of the last generation refurbished models (11.6/2/128) for about $800, and am quite happy. The SSD makes a huge difference in speed, and I love that it turns on instantly when I open the lid. I don't know how much I'd like the MBA as my only computer, but as a companion to a desktop, it works great. If I was getting one as my only computer, I'd probably go with the newer version refurb, and a 13"- you can get a 1.86 dual core i5 processor with 4 gigs of ram and a 128 gig SSD for $1100, and it should make a very portable, snappy main computer. I have a desktop at my office that I use for bulk storage, as well as doing any graphics intensive work, modeling, etc., so the MBA is mostly a portable machine for writing and trips. I can also see myself doing most of the formatting/image work for papers on my desktop instead of the MBA as well- bigger screen, beefier computer overall.