Eigen

It's a really nice crowd of grad students, and they seem to get along with the faculty really well.

I prefer accepting first, and then telling the others that I've accepted another offer.

I would also say, and I'm not sure about social sciences, but that one of the problems with coming from a top lab at a top school isn't necessarily expectations but competition. If you're in a large lab, with several people going on the market the same year (likely), chances are the PI isn't going to write letters for you all saying you're the best student he's had. Sometimes, a very strong letter (best student in the last 15 years, etc) from a well respected PI at a slightly lower ranked school is going to be a lot more beneficial in landing jobs and post-docs than a "good" letter from a PI at a top school. Regardless, at least in my field, the degree and letters are never going to do anything more than get your application considered. They won't get you the job. The might get you an interview, or a more in depth look at your research proposals, but the hiring decision is going to be based on your portfolio of work and your proposals, as well as your personality and fit with the institution.

I think there's also an important divide here between "lab" disciplines and non-lab disciplines here. It generally follows the humanities/sciences divide, but there are some lab-based social sciences and non-lab based sciences as well. For lab-based fields, the advisor and dissertation chair has a much more personal stake in driving the research, and graduate students function as both employees and co-workers as well as graduate students. Here, younger faculty have a large need for graduate students to help them get research off the ground, and it's a boon to productivity. For non-"lab" based fields, the advisor doesn't usually have as personal of a stake in the research (and is not always published on advisees papers). Similarly, young faculty are often encouraged not to be dissertation chairs, and to take more minor rolls on committees, as graduating students isn't as important for Tenure, and it's seen as a detriment to research productivity. For this latter point, you can find plenty of advice to young faculty on the CHE forums about avoiding taking advising/chair positions for the first few years, and ideally until Tenure.

Yup, kinda hard to avoid douchery in a thread when it's on the OP. Oh, and also, great job up voting yourself!

So you went with preemptive douchery, so people weren't douches?

Hey Lucy: Yes, with the clarifications it does seem very dodgy. In my field grad/undergrad and professor/grad relationships aren't that uncommon, and I've seen a number that are legitimate and on the up-and-up.... But you definitely run into the ones that are in serious gray areas. I completely agree that the person is putting themselves in a bad spot with this, and could potentially lose quite a bit. I'm not sure if it was myself what I'd do at this point- I probably wouldn't say anything unless I had a strong feeling there was something under-the-table going on, and even then you want to be careful to do it in a way that won't cause blowback onto you. I'd be glad to discuss more specifically in PMs, it's always a hard situation to be in.

More important than the prestige of the PhD is the prestige of the Post-Doc. You don't mention if you're interested in academic or industry jobs, as it will be different either way. But publish good research, go to national conferences, network, and land yourself a top-5 postdoc if you want to go that route. My school is relatively unknown, but I've gotten to meet and network well with the absolute top people in my field, and should be well placed for a good post-doc if I go that route. And it's the last school before you apply for jobs that will carry the most weight (ie, post-doc).

As I've mentioned, at one of the schools I've attended, it wouldn't be. There was no policy against it, including requiring reporting.

Just to respond to this, it will be University dependent. We had no TA workshop when I started, mandatory or otherwise. We also never got a copy of any official university policies or handbooks. I naively didn't even know they existed until about a year and a half in, at which point I wondered why in the world my department or school wouldn't have made them more obvious.

There are excuses because the OP is being nosy. There's no evidence that the situation is causing harm, and the OP isn't directly related to the situation in any way. Were there allegations of some sort of favoritism or problems, it might be different. Also, as mentioned, and as I've asked, is the OP sure that the professor teaching the class doesn't know? Going to the Dean or DGS about something like this without a solid reason will not hold any grad student in good stead. A reason of "but it's not following the rules" really isn't a good reason, without showing some harm or worry of harm. And even then, the person to talk to would be, imo, the graduate student. It's easy to say "Hey, I noticed you're dating so-and-so. I'm not sure if you know, but all relationships have to be reported- I'd hate to see you get in trouble.". That's the collegial thing to do, assuming that it was a non-intentional or non-malicious error on their part. Depending on what they say, you could then go to the professor teaching the class and let them know.

So very many people are assuming things based on very little information.

To the OP: You mention it hasn't been reported. Do you know this for a fact? Or if some of the other undergraduates know there's a relationship, and this was a pre-existing relationship, might not the professor in the class already know? Are you sure the TA is grading the students work solely, without any input/oversight from the professor? If so, I'd be kinda curious how you found all this out.

In general, it's not polite to post a question, get an answer, and retract the question. It prevents other applicants, in the future, from getting any use out of the thread.

Except, as has been pointed out, they were in a relationship before they were in this situation. There can be a power balance, but it's usually minimized in situations where there's an existing relationship (ie, dating) before the student is in the TAs class.

TakeruK's summary on this is very well written. Just adding that this would not be against policies at my current school, although it would have been at my past school (not reporting). It's well possible the graduate student came from a school with no reporting policy, and doesn't realize that's the policy at the current school? Perhaps instead of reporting them, you should give him/her a heads up? Also, how does this effect you? Are you in the class? Did someone report it to you, and you feel like you should now do something about it? With the description of "creepy train-wreck", it personally comes across to me like you're nosing into someone else's personal life. This isn't an obvious case of a TA taking advantage of a student in their class for grades/perks, what with it being an existing relationship and them living together. You assume they met in a previous class, but they could have just as easily met through mutual friends, through a hobby, or out around town.

I will add that our very best students (overall) are the ones who are older than average, on a consistent basis.

It's a large factor of life circumstances. I think a lot of my visible maturing came when my dad passed away, and I had to take over a large portion of the operations of our farm in addition to school, work out how to handle his estate, help my mom plan out the finances, etc. I'd been putting myself through school already, but that was a huge step in having to really take responsibility for things without a safety net. It really struck me when about 3 mos after he died, we had a major hurricane coming through. I'd prepared for hurricanes before, but never been solely responsible for getting a whole farm set up to weather one. To me the biggest consideration in how responsible for life you feel is the safety net you have for you. Even if you're out on your own, do you have a home you could move back to if everything fell apart? Or are you really on your own, and any mistakes you make you will have to deal with them with the resources you have?

I don't think it's necessarily a negative, but I think the usual worry is the lack of surrounding life skills for younger applicants- it's something I've seen be a problem for some of our admits that are on the younger end. You're more frequently going to have to take charge of a project as a grad student, and as such people skills, networking, meeting people who can train you and help you out are important, as is being assertive enough to get what you need done. Being able to be self confident and communicate readily and easily with a roomfull of faculty is a huge benefit, and can even be a necessity. Similarly, there's a maturity that comes with experience in learning when not to push an issue, when to be overly humble or self-effacing, and how and when to pick your battles- with your PI, with collaborators, with the administration, with labmates, etc. You seem to have good relations with a lot of PIs, so people skills and maturity may not be a problem, but I think it drives a lot of the reticence that accompanies applications from younger applicants.

Wow, sorry to hear it. I do the computer care on 3 MBAs (Mine, wife's and my mom's), and all have had no issues over the last 3-4 years. Every day use, even in the field, and still rock solid daily use and battery life.

I still don't get how this is pressuring a candidate into something? Would you elaborate?

And there are a growing number of schools and programs that call it a qualifying exam, but in fact do something like a grant proposal + defense to your committee, that's more akin to a prospectus proposal than an exam.

IMO, when you use traditionally biasing or inflammatory words (as I mentioned above), you slant the argument and it's no longer an even sided debate. It leans toward the side of hyperbole to prove a point, and colors the discussion of the points at hand. Hence, while not hateful, I do find such language inflammatory in terms of a balanced debate.

They offered him a bonus if he would commit to coming. He committed to coming. Legally, he can still get out of it. But it means going back on his word. I'm not seeing how this is in any way the departments fault. They went out of their way to get him an extra good package, were honest with him for what they'd need, and he accepted under those conditions. IMO, this is the time act like an adult, and realize that you will have to make hard decisions. And that the way out of those hard decisions isn't stringing someone else along. Grad school funding is a negotiation. Schools want good students, students want acceptance and good funding. If you're willing to take an early good funding package, that's great. You made your choice. If you want to hold out for a better acceptance at the risk of someone else getting that extra special funding package, that's also your choice. I consistently see applicants trying to bring "fairness" and "pressured", and "forced" into this, and I'm really not sure that those types of terms regularly have a role in these discussions. Especially in a case like this, where the department was very honest and upfront with the OP.

It's well possible. To me, this is very late in the season for universities to still be making financial offers, especially in the sciences. My year, I had two fellowship offers by December. Generally, schools make offers as early as they can to good candidates. I would see this as being a bit under the table if it was a multi-year fellowship, or if it was the only funding offered. But it wasn't. It was just slightly more money for the first year, with no service. It's nice, and it's a nice hook IF the OP had really wanted to go to OSU. That's the type of students these offers are meant for- the ones that know where they want to go. The department would have been fine if he'd said he didn't want the fellowship, but would still like an assistantship, and needed time to decide. The department getting pressure to submit a name doesn't imply an early deadline for decision. It means the department may need a few weeks to go through all of their candidates and find one that wants the fellowship. And we're getting really late for them to still be giving out fellowships, honestly. I don't know any CGS universities that don't try to have everything in by March 15th, so candidates have a solid month to consider offers and decide. If the OP hadn't wanted it, they still want to get that fellowship offer out to their second (or third) choice in time for it to be a part of their decision.