Eigen

What Waddle said. Basically, there are two months of the year where it works out that you get 3 payments- usually some combination of first day of the month, middle of the month, last day of the month.

Every two weeks, on a Friday... We get payed with all the faculty and staff. I realized I didn't mention it, but I'm on a 12 month stipend, so we get 26 2-week pay periods per year.

If you look in the city guide section, or search, there's already a thread on New Orleans housing. If you have more personal/detailed questions, feel free to PM me. Housing is a bit on thte expensive side, but there's plenty available. I pay $950 for a larger one bedroom for myself and my wife. The real way to cut costs is to find a roommate and go in on one of the larger place, two or three bedroom houses are proportionately much cheaper to rent than one bedroom houses. Most housing is single houses, duplexes or triplexes... Not nearly as much in e way of apartment complexes in the uptown area. As to the quality of the program... That would be better answered in a different subforum, I would think.

They wouldn't give you a 1099... A 1099 is for interest earned. Do you perhaps mean a 1098? That's for education expenses. Many schools opt out of directly deducting taxes from stipend payments, opting instead to let the student file the taxes themselves. The benefit of this method is that you don't have to pay SS/Medicare... In almost every case, however, you are legally required to pay taxes on the stipend. You just have to report it yourself instead of your employer reporting it... It goes under "unearned income", with the notation "SCH" for scholarship next to it. Refer to the IRS publication on Scholarships and Fellowships for more information on how, exactly, to report it. For instance, my school only reports income from assistantships... All fellowship stipends are left up to the student to report. Sadly, most of the tax breaks for education are for undergraduate education... This year I wasn't eligible for any educational tax breaks. Tuition and Fees can be directly deducted from your stipend as "untaxable income", since it's paying for education... But books, etc. do not count as "valid" educational expenses according to the IRS. Also note that technically a tuition waiver counts as income... But then you pay tuition out of it, so it's "untaxable" income, but still must be reported. Married, living off of one fellowship (my income), I payed about $600 in Federal and $400 in state taxes this year. My wife started grad school this spring, I expect to pay around $4000 in federal taxes next year. All of my single friends are paying around $3000-$4000 on their stipends, to give you a rough feel. If your school does not take taxes out of your stipend checks, and you will owe over $1000 by the end of the year, you will need to pay quarterly taxes or you will have to pay a penalty at the end of the year. Basically, in the eyes of the IRS you count as self-employed. This is why I urge everyone to use one of the tax calculators out there and see what you'll owe... You really want to avoid paying the penalty by doing quarterly taxes if you can.

You can use some tax calculators (TurboTax has a decent one online) to estimate how much you'll pay at the end of next year so you can budget for it.

Even if your fellowship doesn't have taxes taken out of the paycheck directly, you still have to pay taxes on it... You report it as "unearned income", as opposed to "earned income". There's a whole IRS publication on scholarships/fellowships, if you want to know more.

Eh. I didn't take the Chem GRE, and it didn't cause me any problems. If it's not required, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

You haven't really given us enough to go on. From your stats, you aren't a particularly strong candidate, but you aren't really weak either, which means there are probably about a hundred schools that are possibilities for you- that's a lot to narrow down without much more specific information about your research interests. Your AW score was definitely on the low side, and I think that sparks more worry with an international student than it would otherwise. Because of this, your SoP will need to be very clean and well written, imo. 5 mos of research experience is a start, but it's on the low side. Most of my cohort had several years of research experience when they applied, and I'm at a lower ranked school, all things considered. The really worrying fact, to me, is that you don't think you'll get strong reference letters... And those are very important. You're focusing on what schools you can get into based on your GRE/TOEFL, Grades... And those really aren't the factors that will decide your admission. Fit, letters of rec, and SoPs will be the determining factors in most cases. That said, fit and your research interests will go a long way towards overcoming these issues, and give you a wide range (>100) of potential schools that you'd have a shot at, I'd say. Schools with a greater than 98% chance of admittance, though? It's too hit or miss for that. You *really* need to decide between experimental and theoretical, though, as most departments lean one way or the other with their faculty in physical chem, from what I've seen.

Excellent. I gathered when talking to my CO that a lot of the finer points of the fellowship disbursement are up to the institution (CO), and so it's always a good idea to go to them first.

Most of the entrance exams aren't that bad. Our school had them, but it wasn't "pass or take the class", but rather "if you don't pass them, you can't jump straight into a graduate class in that discipline".

Other than some minimum requirements, the only other thing that can come into play is some measure of politics between the departments and the dean. But yeah, if the departments recommending you for admission, unless something happens and funding falls through, you shouldn't have any problems.

No idea. My understanding from talking to my CO was that you couldn't change your start date (fall/summer) after your first pick; some of the passages you've highlighted suggest otherwise. You really should talk to your campuses CO, they're the ones that have the power to make a lot of these calls, and also the ones that have dealt with these issues before.

I'm glad to hear it worked out... Graduate classes outside of your area can be really hit or miss. My work is all in biological chemistry, and I took a graduate quantum mechanics class my first semester... It was quite a stretch! The difference between undergrad classes and first tier graduate classes can be huge sometimes, and really emphasize those slight differences/weak points in coursework that really weren't that big at the undergrad level.

It's all about the practice, as others have said. I just finished helping one of my undergraduates prepare for an end of the semester research talk, and what I told him, basically, was that it gets easier the more you do it. Look for opportunities to give talks, especially in low key environments. I just started a school wide graduate student colloquium series, and one of the main purposes is helping people get practice speaking in public. No undergrads are allowed, and no professors, so it's a nice calm environment where we can give talks to our peers, but not necessarily people we know very well. It's not to say I still don't get butterflies before I give a talk, but I've really noticed the anxiety get less and less over the years. Each talk you give is one more experience, and one more time that things haven't gone too badly for you to remember in the future. I'm not a fan of memorizing talks (it's easy for those watching to tell), but I am a fan of obsessively practicing talks before you give them- at least until you're comfortable enough to do it more off-the-hip. When I was getting ready for my thesis defense, I probably gave the entire hour presentation to an empty room 6 or 8 times in the two days before the defense. It was a bit different/more refined each time, but it got me very used to what I was going to be saying, how my words meshed with my presentation, and speaking in general. Everytime someone in my group has to give a presentation (department seminar, conference, etc.), we get the group together for them to practice at least once, but usually several times before the actual talk. It helps them get familiar not only with the talk, but also gives them a chance to hear and field questions before the event.

Depends on the school/program. In my program, a single C puts you on academic probation, and can be grounds for dismissal (although that almost never happens). Most other programs in Chemistry that I know of are similar- a B+ is sending you a message, a B- is the lowest grade you can get without other consequences. :edit:: I just checked our handbook for specifics: One B- is possible probation, two B- grades is automatic probation/possible dismissal, 1 grade any lower than a B- (C+ or below) is automatic probation with the possibility for outright dismissal.

The letter will probably come from the graduate school (not department) in most cases, and I doubt the initial letter was completely generic. There's a good chance you'll be accepted, but a departmental recommendation for acceptance doesn't always ensure acceptance- the Dean of the school gets the last day. I'd just keep in close contact with someone at the department, but there's not really anything they can do to hurry the process along much.

My guess is a combination of moderation (Jorge was the sole moderator on Proceedings, and quite busy) as well as the fact that the comic and the attached store draws more attention from spam.

Yes, the spam is the reason for the old/new forums. Last September or so, the spam got bad enough that Jorge shut down the official forums. Subsequently, some forum members started a forum of their own. The official forums came back online a few months ago, but now seem to the target of continual spam again (800 or so posts per forum per day). phorummers dot freeforums dotorg is the new address- we're being quite careful to try not to distribute the actual address of the site lest the spam follow us. New moderation procedures are helping with that a bit, however. The new forums are a bit more active, mostly just because the regulars got used to posting there over the 6 mos that the official forums were down. I will note that in accordance with the OP, I don't find either Proceedings or CHE to have much useful for applicants, although they can be great resources for current grad students.

I visit 4 academic forums on a regular (read:daily) basis: Gradcafe, PhDComics Proceedings (old) PhDComics Proceedings (new), and the Chronicle of Higher Education forum. I find that they fall pretty much into three stages: Gradcafe is primarily applicant-related, PhDcomics (both) are mostly current grad students, and CHE is mostly faculty. Because of this, I visit them for different reasons: I come to GradCafe mostly to help out people applying to graduate school. I didn't find the site until I was here, but I think it's a great resource for people who have questions about grad school, applications, research, etc. I go to the PhDcomics forums to find grad students to relate to- I agree that they can be a bit sillier, they're mostly a place to blow off steam. That said, while the Vortex can be quite silly, the On Academia subforum has some of the best references of any of the three- specifically the place to exchange full text papers between universities. I use it as much as I use our interlibrary loan system. And if I want to complain/vent about advisors, colleagues, research, etc... I'll go to PhDcomics over any of the others. I read the CHE forums to get a perspective on what's coming, what the trends are in higher education- listening to people who are post-docs, TT faculty, tenured faculty and administrators talk about the relative struggles of their positions is quite enlightening. I find the three together provides a nice trend- where I was, where I am, and where I will be. That's not to say that each forum doesn't have some place for the other stages to talk- and indeed there are some great faculty and post-docs that post regularly at PhDcomics- but the forums each have a primary audience.

Most programs are pretty flexible in courses you can take, etc.- I can't comment on Stanford EE specifically, but I know my school lets you take almost half your courses from outside your discipline. Most schools just require courses to be "approved by your advisor", so if he/she is ok with letting you take more CS courses, you probably can. I know I can take classes at our medical school for credit in my Chemistry program- as well as physics, math, biology & engineering courses.

Two completely different programs, different admissions, etc. You can't just switch to another area like you can in undergrad unless the two are in the same department- and not always then. You were accepted to the EE MS program, the computer science program would have different parameters for acceptance. You could try applying to the CS program next application cycle and see how that works for you. The EE department would probably not be too happy with this, however- although since it's just a masters, it might be a bit less of a problem. Alternatively, you might be able to work on a project that has significant CS emphasis (if you can find the right advisor), but your degree would still be in EE.

The reason the scores are far apart isn't because the verbal is too hard, in my opinion, but rather because the math section is way too easy. Perfect scores are considered the "norm" and what you need to be competitive in any of the physical sciences/engineering, and that's just absurd. It's quite different from the more reasonable scores (high 600s to 700s) that are considered competitive in liberal arts. I didn't find the passages in the GRE very convoluted or hard to follow, but that was just my personal opinion. And I think the point is well made that the passages should be quite dense, as that is the norm in academic writing- maximizing the information with a minimum amount of text. No, it wasn't... It was quite funny- and a nice illustration of his point. I am of the opinion that bold, italics and underlines for emphasis have no place in scholarly writing... Just as they haven't found a place in popular writing. The idea is that you should be able to drive home your point via word choice and sentence structure without the need to resort to such glaring techniques as bold, italics, and underlines in the body of your work. The use of headings was also mentioned, but the GRE passages really aren't long enough to necessitate headings, in my opinion.

The relationship aspect can be difficult, but I think it's a matter of setting priorities. My wife's just finishing the first semester of her PhD and I'm just finishing my second year. There are plenty of times where it's hard to make time for doing something together- either I have an experiment running late, or she does, or she has a test coming up, or I'm in the middle of drafting a paper... Or when we do have time, we're both tired and don't really feel like *doing* anything. But I think it's well possible, and I'd say our relationship is stronger than it was when I started.

I bought a refurb, and it was in great shape. They replace the battery/outer shell, and test to make sure everything else is in good working order. In some ways, the reburb's have better QC than the new models, since they're more rigorously tested.

It varies from school to school. In my case, my fellowship didn't start until the actual academic year started, but since my PI wanted me to start early he payed the intervening month and a half out of his grants as an RAship, so that might be an option in your case as well.