Eigen

Probably. You'd also need some solid research experience in the area you want to do your degree in, which means you need to narrow down exactly what you want the degree in. You've listed things that are all over the place, with very little connection as far as research areas, techniques, etc.

You should look into something you really want to study. The fact that you have such a broad spread of fields seems to indicate that you're only doing it for a premed stopgap. And that's not going to make any points for schools. With your GPA, getting a good, funded MS will be about as hard as getting into med school. So you're looking at unfunded programs. A non-thesis MS won't really be good for anything but a med-school stopgap. A thesis based MS can take 2-3 years, and will require you to be really interested in your field.

Getting an MS as prep for med school is, in general, a pretty bad idea. You'll have a hard time finding a program that you can get funding at, which also makes it an expensive way to spend a few years. As was pointed out, with as divergent fields (and, I'm guessing, lack of background in those areas) as you have, it will be quite apparent that you're only applying as stepping stone. There are lots of programs that cater to this (short MS programs for pre-meds), but they're expensive cash cows for the schools, and not really worth it. Bring your GPA up, and then go work in the medical field. Get an EMT license, go work as an ambulance driver or in an emergency room for a year, and get some really solid experience, along with doctors who will write you strong letters of recommendation. You won't be able to show off your grades and academic background (and an MS won't erase low undergrad grades), but you can show that you're dedicated to the field, and get recommendations from people within the field showing you will do well in that field.

The difference would mainly be the T431, with a 1600x900 resolution, imo.

Depends on what you do. But I find for writing, screen real estate is king, up to a point. Being able to fit two pages side by side for editing layouts, or being able to open an old version on one half of the screen, and your new edits on the other. Or data on one half, and writeup on the other. Or two papers you're comparing. Or a huge data set.

Resolution isn't just about looks, though- it's about real estate. That said, none of the computers mentioned here are retina screens, so that's not really a factor. I'll second Fuzzy's rec for the T431 of the ones you listed. Looks like a very solid computer. And when you're thinking about using this a lot for years, a little bit more can be worth it.

Understood. That said, it's worth noting that while most of your options are '14-inch' screens, the measurements seem to vary. 14" is a "class" of screen sizes. Widths of the laptops (and hence, screens) varies from 12.8" (MBA) to 13.3" while height varies from 8.0" (Asus) to 9.3". If you haven't played with these in person (and you may have), the difference between a 13.3" diagonal screen and a 14" diagonal screen is ~0.35" horizontally and ~0.12" vertically, at a standard 16:9 widescreen display. In other words, I wouldn't sweat the difference too much. That said, one other really important factor to consider rather than screen size, is screen resolution, as that's more directly linked to how much you can fit on your screen. 5 of your options are all 1366x768, while the T431 is 1600x900, and the MBA 13" is 1400x900. That means of all your options, the T431 will completely display two documents side by side. It also means that you practically have more screen real estate (pixels) on both the MBA and the T431 relative to all the others. Screen size will effect (to some degree) how small things are, but differences in the order of ~1/3rd inch won't be that visible. Screen resolution will effect how much stuff you can see at one time, and I've found that to be much, much more important. I'd also suggest considering what aspect ratio you find to be most comfortable. 16:9 and 16:10 are the two resolutions you'll most consistently run into as widescreens. Personally, I find doing any word processing on 16:9 to be much more painful than 16:10, as you can fit far less vertical text on the screen at a given width (zoom). I find I constantly have to scroll up or down to read an entire paragraph, and that ends up being more of a daily frustration. I'd really encourage you (if you haven't) to go to a store that has several different models you're interested in, and spend some time working with them, to see how the size measures up. Try different every day tasks, at the distance you'll normally be from your screen, and see what's too big and what's too small.

So, you included a 13" model on your list, asked for advice about other comparable models, but didn't really want other opinions? Definitely confused. None of your posts until this last one indicate a definite minimum on screen size, especially given as one of the options I suggested is exactly the same screen size as one in your original post (3 of them, actually). Given that price was mentioned as one of your primary concerns (and screen size wasn't), I thought the suggestion of a smaller (and cheaper) 11" with an external monitor was quite a good suggestion, especially coupled with the recommendation that it works very well for myself and several other grad students. I'm sorry you didn't feel the same. You don't have to take my suggestions, but the snark seems unnecessary.

Also note that Apple prices are the same in the US and Canada- I just double checked on the Apple.ca store.

Personally, having had both larger (14, 15 & 17" laptops) and the smaller, I find that there's not a whole lot of difference. I can keep two documents up at a time on the 11" screen, and have written long review articles on it. That said, if you need extra screen real estate, it's usually a much better idea to get a smaller laptop, and an external monitor. The difference between 11, 13 & 14" really isn't all that big, imo, but it's a huge jump from those to a nice 24" widescreen for work. I personally have two on my desk at work- a 20" 4:3 LCD and a 19" widescreen turned portrait, that I use for documents I'm reading/working from.

IMO, those are all more expensive than a refurbished 13" or 11.6" Macbook Air. http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD223LL/A/refurbished-macbook-air-17ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5 is a year up from what I use, and mine works fine for all my writing, reading, and general office work. Only thing I don't use it for is molecular modeling. You can get a bigger HD version (128gb) for $799. That's the size I have, and I'm not close to full, although I do have an external HD for videos, etc. http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD231LL/A/refurbished-macbook-air-18ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5 is out of stock atm, but is the 13" starting at $849 for a 128gb HD. My wife and I both use our 11" for grad school- I supplement with a PC desktop for modeling, and she uses it exclusively.

Not MS level, although some of the students in the class were. But I had a few classes that were just midterm/final, 50% of the grade on each. Made less work for everyone, all around.

You don't have to pay tuition as long as you're getting NSF funding, including summers. Nor do you have to pay any required fees. How the institution handles paying that is up to them- NSF supplies the 12k once per year, the institution has to come up with the rest of it. My Dept Chair tried to convince our Dean that since I already had a tuition waiver, I should get the CoE for research costs, less required fees, but it didn't fly. Getting money from a school that they don't have to give you is hard! Your CO will have no influence over it, at all. NSF is very clear that the CoE goes to the school, and the school decides what to do with it.

They can't charge you, but the point of the COE is to pay as much of them as possible. The rest has to be funded by the department/school. The only times I've ever seen kickbacks are when the cost of education (tuition and fees) are less than the COE (12k). I don't think there are many places where full time tuition and fees is much less than that.

Just a thought, but is the other GA out of state? Since you mentioned it, I'm wondering if the out-of-state vs in-state tuition difference on the waiver is creating some of the differences you're seeing. It's possible that either the difference of the two is coming from a different financial source (and hence, not effecting things the same way an in-state waiver would), or that it's just a sheer monetary difference.

Is it possible that the degree matters? Masters vs PhD? Also, are they taking the same type of loan? It's strange the school would be messing with this- most schools survive in large part through federal loan money. There's no benefit to them (and some detriment) to reduce the amount of the loan you're getting, unless they're getting pressure from somewhere outside the University.

Fee waiver is definitely considered financial aid. No experience with it and loans, though.

So I overlap with molecular biology, with my primary research in biological chemistry. Mine currently has something like the following: Human Cell Culture (Growth, Transfection, in vitro drug efficacy and toxicology studies, fluorescence imaging, flow cytometry) Molecular Analysis (Western Blotting, miRNA collection and quantitation (RT-q-PCR)) I'm sure people more centrally located in biology will be able to add theirs, as well.

Not at this stage of the career. It's generally pretty common to have a "Works in Progress" section on your CV, likely up until mid-way tenure track. You have "In Preparation" when you're working on a manuscript, "Submitted" when it's been submitted, "Under Review", which means it's passed the editors desk and is out for peer review, and "Accepted/Under Revision" if it's been accepted pending major/minor/no revisions. It shows that you have data and work that is at a stage where it could be submitted, and you should be able to provide copies of said papers on request.

I would say it's a bit unethical, especially as your chances of being finished with an MS next year are pretty slim. That said, I would think it's a pretty surprising move to choose an unfunded MS at a slightly "more prestigious" school over a funded PhD. Assuming the funded PhD is a decent school, it would be a much better move for your career, financial and otherwise. An unfunded MS will generally tell people that you didn't make the cut for either a funded MS or a funded PhD program, and is the schools way of telling you they didn't really want you. Just my 2 cents.

A lot of grad school applications are highly discipline specific, so I'd suggest separating things out into at least Humanities/Social Sciences/Bio & Physical Sciences. Overall, I'd say the timeline is a bit late. Personally, I had decided on first round schools by May-June, took the GRE early August, and had my first apps done in September. This is also discipline specific, but I had 2/3 offers in hand by November, and did my school visits in December. Contacting professors is one of those things that's very discipline specific. It's really rare in STEM fields to do it until after the application process is partially through. As mentioned above, in other areas it's crucial to make those connections early, before you apply. Also, no offense, but referring people to Peterson's Guide and Princeton Review is, imo, a really, really bad place to start for research grad schools. Those group by reputation, and "ranking". In general, for grad school applications you should be going by interest. Read papers, see where those authors are, search out similar research and similar authors. Do the footwork and talk to your faculty and get word-of-mouth suggestions. Go to conferences, and see people talk in person. Similarly, I'd say 2 mos of GRE prep is overkill for most people. Take a practice test. If you do decently, don't spend much time studying- that time could be better spent in working on almost any other part of your CV or application, as GRE scores are only really helpful up to a certain point. You have learning about professors research in August, but as I mentioned above, it should be the professor's research that is drawing you to the school, rather than deciding on the school and then looking for interesting professors. I'd give way more time for SoPs- those are arguably the most important part of your application, and you want to have time to write, write, and re-write. I'd also recommend starting an application at a school as soon as applications open for the year, and immediately requesting transcripts from your school. Nothing delays an application like unanticipated bureaucracy! You want to have an application started so the school has your name on file when GRE scores and transcripts arrive. Not exactly sure what "Get your finances in place" is in February- frequently, financial offers won't go out until the offers do. Also, April is really late to be getting acceptances. The 15th is the latest you can accept, generally, and I'd anticipate getting letters in Feb-March, and making visits to schools in March and April. You also left out interviews and visits- I'm not sure if they're not typical for your discipline, which is again why I suggest discipline specifics. In the sciences, not getting a paid visit to the school would be a huge red flag- most have accepted student weekends to visit, and many also do interviews. Anyway, just my thoughts.

Then you don't really have no research experience in the area, and you should be fine.

I would say with zero research experience in the area, your chance of getting accepted for a PhD at all, much less at a top ranked school, is pretty low. That said, it depends on what you mean by no research experience in the area. Do you have research experience in a related area that will transfer? Similar techniques, etc?

Depends on the paper. Some look better left, some justified. It also depends whether I'm writing columns or whole-page. Generally, I find smaller columns lend themselves to justified, whereas full page (wider margins better) lends to left.

They can audit you, and you'd have to show receipts for the books you purchased, and that they were required for a class. If you're single, I'd say about 4-5k for federal, and being as it's Cali, another few K for state taxes, I'd guess. You can use any of a number of tax calculators out there. Also a good chance you'll need to pay estimated taxes through the year to avoid a year end penalty. 4 or 5 good threads on this from the last year.