MathCat

i attribute my weight loss to eating less meat. meat used to be my primary portion. now, I eat about half as i used to. i don't fluctuate very much, and i've gone down from 165 lbs to high 150s. now, if I see low 160s, I'm either over hydrated, or i need to put more time on the bike.
not a health guru, but my advice is to stay away from processed stuff, and replace it with fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. you can save time and still be healthy. it's more a matter of making the decision
 
also, it's important to point out there are good ways to lose weight and bad ones.. overworking, skipping meals, bad stress etc. are examples of unhealthy weight loss. otoh, exercise, better dieting, are good. kind of obvious, but also very important.

It could happen, but it's unlikely at my school. The whole reason of having a student start in the summer is that the prof would pay them as a summer RA and it would be a way to get some work done with the student prior to classes starting. Starting in the winter doesn't give the same advantages. So, it's less likely that someone would be willing to spend money in this way.
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But all that said, I agree with fuzzy: I think you are getting too far ahead now. At this point, without an admission offer, there is not much more you can plan ahead. Every school (and also every prof at each school) may present different options.
You do have a difficult decision ahead, and I think there are merits to both taking the 2 year job vs. risking a certain job for a grad program that will set you up for the future. It's your personal decision on how much risk you are willing to take.
My only advice I can give is that I remember from your other posts that you had to leave a graduate program early this year. I think it will be difficult to enter a new graduate program right away (that is, schools may be less likely to accept you). Usually, when you leave a program and start another, there needs to be some change evident (i.e. new experiences like a job, switching fields to something that is a better fit etc.). Starting a 2 year contract right now might not be such a bad thing. You could work for a year, gain experience, apply in 2017 for a program that will begin September 2018, 2 years from now when your contract is up. But it's your decision.

At this point your questions are pointless. The answer will depend on the particular school in question. All we can tell you are generalities, but we don't know the specifics of your case and the school. I would bet it's not as easy to have a student start earlier in the spring semester compared to the summer/fall; people generally have more free time and it's a new fiscal year so you can play with that. That said, it's just generally a lot less common for students to start in the spring, so I don't know how much experience any of us are going to have with that. And even if we could tell you that "at my school, always X", it's unclear how that would translate to what another unrelated school might say. 

Yeah, it was probably not a good idea to talk to your everyone else but your PI about the sabotage. Regardless of the validity of the concerns, pumping it through a rumour mill rather than going through professional channels undermines your case and leads to too many hurt feelings. It sounds like the comments you made about Sarah prompted your friends to behave in ways - as you said - out of your control. And now she has the opportunity to play the victim, not necessarily without justification.
I get the feeling that the sabotage described is only the tip of a whole f**ked-up iceberg of a dysfunctional lab. If the situation is really worse than this anecdote, I'd consider leaving the lab as diplomatically as possible before (i) you are fired (ii) something even worse (professionally or personally) happens. You don't want your future career tarred with what has been going on around you.

Ask him to put it in writing.

When you get paid depends on the school, but in my experience often fellowships are paid at the beginning of the month and salaries at the end of the month (or sometimes every 2 weeks). So yes, there is often a period of a few weeks at the beginning of a new program where you might not get paid yet. 
If you could get a loan would depend on the bank, we can't really answer that. You'd need to go into your branch and speak with someone to get a better idea of your options. Another thing you could look into and would again depend on your particular situation is getting a credit card with 0% interest for the first X months and putting some debt on it that you'd repay as soon as you got your first paycheck. And one last thing to look at (actually, I would start with this) is whether the school itself has a plan for helping students get settled in. Some schools will offer a 0% interest loan to new students to be repaid in X months, and if you can get that, it's probably your best bet. That you be something to ask your department and/or student union. 
I am confused, though, because given that you had to leave your current program, you would have also had to leave the States by now. Is this purely a hypothetical? 

...OK? It was their choice to take a contract for ghostwriting, which I didn't know when I accepted what I thought was an editing job. Feeling pressure to complete it doesn't make it OK to take advantage of our friendship and demand that I drop work at my assistantship. I asked them about the deadline for this project multiple times and they responded in writing to say there wasn't one and that my longer proposed timeline was fine. Then all of a sudden they're contacting me urgently at work, acting like we never made that agreement, and treating me as though I was refusing to return the project on time.
 
Working on your side project while you're on the clock at your day job is incredibly unethical and a firing offense basically everywhere. It's none of my business if someone I don't work with anymore wants to operate that way, I guess, but it's incredibly crappy to make me part of that too. "Startup" isn't some magic word that turns unethical behavior OK.
 
Also, this is far from their first round of clients. They've been accepting legitimate editing jobs for over a year.

What are your career prospects with each choice? Will your expected earnings allow you to pay for the extra debt of school 2 in a reasonable amount of time and leaving you enough money to live reasonably well? This should be a cost-benefit analysis but you didn't really give us the costs or the benefits. 

Look at the department, your interests, find a fit, apply to those schools, and I am sure if a program accepts your application, they can arrange for certain special accommodations.
 
This should not factor which schools you apply in the least bit!

If you can only walk 20-30 paces in between breaks, you need to get your health on track. Picking a grad school shouldn't be your top priority.

Well, the OP logged on asking for advice on which campuses might be more accommodating--not to be "concern-trolled" on how to lose weight. I'm sure that she knows where to find advice for weight loss. The internet is pretty big. And I've never met a fat person who was completely surprised by a) the fact that they were fat, or b. the fact that being fat isn't healthy. The world pretty much makes sure that they know this.

I second TakeruK, and politely suggest if this is a serious concern of yours, that you contact the school's disability services center just to get a feel for how slight mobility issues would play out on campus. If walking long distances is as much of a problem as you say it is, their disability services center should be able to guide you and help you with the walkability and accessibility of any given campus. They are probably much better equipped to give you suggestions than we are! Better to narrow down school choices based on actual studies/research/POIs first, and then contact the DRC before you apply. 
 
I couldn't possibly name such campuses in any helpful way without knowing your field, and I suspect I'd only be able to link you to their DRC pages even then. 

I'm not sure if it's really possible to say which places are accessible at the entire campus level. Environments can vary a lot between a single department/program. For example, my program is only one floor and not very large. The most anyone has to walk from one office/classroom to another is probably something like 100m and that's only if you are going from one end to another. The classrooms in our building are conference room style--no giant lecture halls. There are chairs (with and without armrests) and several rows of long tables (no annoying flip-desk thing that is attached to a seat). 
 
But I have no idea what other classrooms on campus look like because I rarely see them. Grad school is very different from undergrad. You don't have to rush between buildings to make it to class etc. We mostly stay in one building all day and never see anyone else from other departments on campus! I think a common experience for grad students is to be stopped by random people on campus looking for a certain building and we would have no idea what's on campus other than the few buildings we work in or visit. Our general strategy is to direct these people to an undergrad who actually knows what's going on. On many days, I go from home to my office and never even leave the building I work in until it's time to go back home--so I interact very little with the people outside of my program on these days. 
 
As for the culture, I think this also really depends on the individual programs, not the whole campus. And this will change over time as new students enter and old students graduate. Again, graduate students are generally much less involved in the whole "campus culture". In my program, there are a pretty wide range of "active" levels, just like any group of people in the world. Some people are very active and basically work out or do a sport more than once a day. Some people do a few things a few times a week. Some people mostly just do recreational stuff like play tennis, go hiking on some weekends etc. And some people don't do anything at all! 
 
I think the best way for you to judge what environments you feel comfortable in is by visiting the programs. I think you should apply to programs that you are interested in academically and worry less about what the culture is like unless you actually know people in the program and/or have visited the specific program. Otherwise, for people that are not you, it's hard for us to say where you would be comfortable or not!
 
Good luck!

I also cook several servings when I do cook, and then I can pack the leftovers to reheat in the office if I will be there late - I have had a few evening TA assignments, for example. If I'm at home, it means I don't have to spend 1 hr+ cooking every night. I don't mind eating the same thing for several days, so I don't usually freeze the leftovers, but you certainly could. I do the same for packing lunches on week days.
I bought an Instant Pot off Amazon on Prime Day (discounted to $70) and it was a great investment. You can use it as a slow cooker, or if you are home and want to cook a similar type of dish quickly, use it as a pressure cooker. I also like not having to turn on my oven in the summer.

I would tend to agree; I don't think the rescore would help.
I wouldn't take much comfort in "AW is least important" until you have conversations (preferably phone ones) with your programs about how they think about applicants' AWA scores.
If you do retake the test, you could get someone to look at some of your practice essays. There has got to be some way you're misinterpreting the tasks (unless you know you bombed them on test day).

A lot of the time grad students (especially in the sciences) aren't really students, but employees. A two week vacation allowance is what you'd get as an employee in industry, say. Two weeks vacation + one week over Christmas + federal holidays is fairly average for grad students. 
The difference you're describing also has a "cultural" component. A lot of research labs are intense places to work: the boss expects long hours (and a research output that reflects that) and short vacations. In my lab we're also expected to show up on Saturday and put in a decent working day. Usually the labs with the longer hours are the most ambitious - they want lots of results (to get funding, papers, etc) and to make a mark on the field. There is also some kind of implied or real threat hanging over the grad students about non-compliance with this work ethic (getting criticised or even kicked out of the lab).
That said. A lot of these research labs also attract very intense people. The kind of folk who want to put in long hours and see vacations as a dangerous distraction or delay to their output. The folk who want to get high-impact papers at whatever cost. It works out: the advisors and grad students both get what they want, no one has an incentive to change. 
It's up to you to decide if you want to be in that kind of lab or not. My suspicion is that if you tell your advisor you are unhappy with the hours/vacation allowance, their response will be "Well, I'm sorry to lose you...". Most bosses are set in their beliefs about what a "productive lab" should resemble and won't negotiate different treatments of different students. 

If I understand what you are describing correctly, then this is all very normal. In my field, collaborations are often with many people. Maybe not as big as labs, but the papers I've led are usually with around 10 other coauthors. Some of these coauthors contribute directly to the paper, either by providing data that they have analyzed and/or plots they have made. I trust them to have not lied to me. But in addition to the trust, it's the responsibility of the "leader" to ensure that they believe the results they have been given. So, I make sure I actually understand their work. I have my coauthors explain their analysis to me and when they do, they use citations to works that prove their method is correct. I ask questions until I am satisfied that I understand what they did and everything about their results make sense.
But you are right that I don't actually go and do the work myself. They might have said all of the correct explanations but made a mistake in the code, or in the worst case, actually just made up the results and didn't do the work at all. This is why we are all coauthors---when we collaborate, we all stand behind each other's work together. It is a necessity because one person cannot do all of the work independently. Science requires collaborations.
In this example, I am the "person A" in your analogy. I just published a paper as a "Person A" but in the last few months I have been a "Person B" or "Person C" in 3 or 4 other papers. Everyone else is in a similar situation too so no one wants to be a lying "Person B" because when they are a "Person A", they don't want their "Person B"s to be lying to them. This is why in academia, our reputation as honest researchers are so important. This is why academic honesty and integrity is so important and when you see people posting about ethically dubious things on these forums, other researchers are quick to shut it down.
The system is not perfect and there are many examples of paper retractions and careers being ruined because of bad decisions. But it does work most of the time. It's also important to choose collaborators wisely!

Someone who has overseen your research is a much better option than someone whose class you've taken.

Do you have an assigned faculty advisor? If so, I would write him/her to ask these questions. If not, write the DGS. If you were put in touch with more senior students in your department, they will also be a good source for extra information about how difficult this plan would really be. It sounds like taking these two courses together is possible but not advisable, so given your other commitments and situation, I would probably try to avoid it. Unless, of course, this second course is required and isn't going to be offered again during your time in the program, in which case you don't have much of a choice. As for what else you might take, again this would be best answered by either your advisor or more senior students. Do you know what your post-degree plans are and can you think of any particular course that might help you more than others? If not and no one has a clear suggestion, sometimes you can shop around in the first week or two of class and then make up your mind. And sometimes you just kind of guess and occasionally some courses end up being less useful than others, and that's ok too.  

Oh my god... This made me want to change my answer.When people ask what I'm researching... And I say "alpha particle thermochronology" the most awesome question I get about 95% of the time is
 
"Oh, so you're like, really smart... huh?"

It's better to assume it was an accident than to assume malice without outside evidence. In the meantime, definitely have someone forward you the email. Or, if someone is going to reply-all, make sure they add you to the thread. 

To my knowledge the AW score is the least important of the GRE scores, especially if you are also submitting a writing sample (and a TOEFL score, if you are international). I would not pay for a re-score because I can't imagine a 2.5 going up much beyond a 3, if at all, and both scores are pretty bad. So either you retake the exam, or you live with the score. The one thing you might want to find out is whether any school you are applying to has (unofficial) cutoffs that this score could cause a problem with. If not, I would probably let it sit, given that you've taken the test twice already and both times your scores were pretty low. But it's a hard call. 

I think people need to stop imagining academia as a vacuum of perfect rational objectivity. Because it's bad for science (in the German sense). To be a good scientist, you need to understand that you cannot be objective, because you are a person, and the work you do is affected by your biases, whether consciously or unconsciously. 
Of course your political and religious leanings will affect your job application, as will your syntax, or the way you dress, or what Professor X heard about you from Grad Student Y at a conference they attended. Job applications are a holistic process, which means that they look at everything. It is the same in any other industry. If you do dumb shit, like go out with your political views like guns blazing in places where this is neither needed nor appreciated (like your application materials), or write incendiary tweets under your real name, or attack students of your university at protest rallies, your views will affect you more than is necessary. On the other hand, if you can express yourself clearly and respectfully and, generally, do what Kipling recommends in his famous poem, you will ceteris paribus be in the same boat as everyone else.

At most top LACs, they'd be wondering why the hell Johny decided to include his religious and political perspectives in his application. And, that failure to understand how job applications work would be a reason to toss the app, regardless of the religious or political leanings stated because it shows that the applicant doesn't understand the institution to which they are applying.
And, for the record, it's always better to show rather than tell. So rather than saying "I'd be fine with working with people from diverse backgrounds", every single person applying should make it clear how they have successfully done so in the future or what skills they have which have enabled them to do this. Again, this is regardless of one's background. 
(Oh, and I had to Google Hillsdale because I've never even heard of it. I don't generally Google undergrad college names when reading applications because I just don't care. I care far more about the PhD, research, teaching areas, and teaching experience.)

Another thing to realize is that just because members of your cohort are being supported by their parents doesn't mean its affordable.  Their parents may be living way beyond their means, maxing out credit cards, taking out loans, etc and their kid has no idea (or doesn't care).  I've known plenty of students who thought the parental gravy train would never end and all of a sudden it did because their parents reached a point of no return.  Those students are then in for a rude awakening as they realize they know nothing about money management and there is no way they can maintain the lifestyle they're used to with zero income while being a full time student.