lecturesonnothing

Thanks so much for this – this is really helpful! I've just been notified that my I-20 is coming on Monday, so am making a start on filling out the DS-160. A couple of issues I've run into: – Is there a definitive answer for what I should put in answer to the question about who's paying for my "trip"? I know this has been asked before on here, but the answers didn't seem conclusive. Should I put myself (as I'll be paying for my flights), or my university (who'll be covering my living expenses once I'm there)? – I don't have an address in the US yet: the school I'm going to don't give out grad housing offers for another few weeks, but I want to get my visa application underway and schedule an interview ASAP as I'm planning to move over there in mid-late August. Is it acceptable to do something like put the university's address, or do I need to wait until I've got an apartment sorted (and thereby have a mad last-minute scramble to get my visa sorted just before I'm due to fly out there)?

Hi everyone, I have something of a niche question regarding the whole morass of bureaucratic confusion that constitutes the tax rules for international grad students: I'm wondering if anyone who's been in the same situation could let me know how things work. I'm from the UK and will be starting my PhD in the US in September of this year. As far as I can work out, I'll be a nonresident for tax purposes (at least for the first few years), so will pay federal and state income taxes on my stipend but will be exempt from Medicare and social security contributions. So far, so clear. However, this means that I'll still be a tax resident in the UK. In the UK, PhD stipends aren't taxable. However, if I was earning the same income from a job in the UK as I'll be getting for my PhD stipend, I'd pay quite a bit more tax than I will be paying in the US. Therefore, I might potentially be asked to pay the difference to the UK tax authorities. What I'd like to establish, then, is whether the UK tax authorities will tax me based on their own rules about what counts as taxable income, or whether they'll follow the rules of the country in which I'm earning the income. (Also, in case anyone thinks I'm getting my knickers in a twist about what might turn out to be a pretty small sum of money, I've had two different jobs between the start of this tax year and the date I move to the US: I'm currently giving away a pretty hefty chunk of my pay cheque in tax, but seeing as my earnings from April through to August will come below the tax threshold, I should be due a fairly sizeable rebate if HMRC don't treat my US stipend as taxable.)

@It's Me Thanks so much for your advice, and for kicking me out of my procrastination – I bit the bullet and emailed my POI and the director of grad admissions this morning. It was a bit of a painful experience to close the door on a potentially great future for good, but at least it's over with; I got a brief reply from the professor I'd been in touch with saying that he's disappointed to hear I'm not coming but is sure I have good reasons for my decision. Don't think I've burnt any bridges too badly. Slightly annoyingly, the online decision system forces you to say where you're going instead, which is a little difficult when I've got two offers still on the table, one of them very fresh! I'm focusing on doing every bit of research I possibly can about Columbia over the next few days; I don't want to take too long over the decision, as I'm aware there are other people waitlisted! I'd (wrongly, it turns out) taken my waitlist email from Columbia as a 'soft rejection', and for various reasons it's the place I was least confident of getting an offer from when applying, so it takes some adjustment to suddenly get used to the idea that it's actually on the table. I see from your signature that you've had a fair few offers: guess you must be having an even tougher time than me deciding/having to turn down all but one of them? (Also, congrats to @mmmarimba on your offers, and for having got through the tough process of deciding between them!)

So Columbia just threw a pretty big spanner in the works. Got notified I was waitlisted there a few weeks ago, didn't think too much of it and got on with visiting and choosing between Cornell and Chicago, and thought I'd come to a decision which I was preparing to notify them about this week (I won't say publicly which way I've decided to go unless you push me really hard!). Now Columbia have emailed again to check whether or not I've accepted another offer yet, reaffirming their interest in my application, and telling me to expect news soon. Obviously they haven't actually made me an offer yet, but their having sent that email means it's at least on the cards as a serious possibility. I haven't researched their program as closely as Cornell or Chicago, and was intimidated by the vast FAQs page on their website into not contacting anyone there before applying; I applied largely based on reputation, interest in a couple of faculty members' work, and location. It seems hard to turn down somewhere with that big a reputation (especially in my area of interest: twentieth-century studies/critical theory), and that good a location, without some serious consideration; but time is running out, and I'd wanted to finalise my decision by the end of this week, so as to give whoever's waitlisted at the place I'm turning down a couple of weeks to consider and respond to their offer. (Also, I'm really not looking forward to turning down the school I'm thinking of turning down. I had some really great conversations and email correspondence with the professor I'd been interested in working with there, he seems very keen to work with me, and he's someone I definitely want to keep in touch with and on good terms with, but for various reasons I've decided the other program and school is a better fit more broadly. I don't even have the eas(y/ier) get-out card of funding considerations: the offers I've received are pretty comparable. Anyone have any thoughts on rejecting an offer, especially in a small field like ours, without burning bridges?)

Also congrats to the Columbia admits! Seems there's a few people active on here who applied. I got an email from them yesterday evening informing me I'd been waitlisted. This leaves UCLA as the only school out of five that I'm yet to hear a squeak from since putting in my application, which is surprising seeing as theirs was by far the earliest deadline. I noticed someone posted on the results page that they'd been invited for an interview about a month ago: anyone else had any news from them? My transcripts got horribly delayed in the post, but I didn't even get so much as a one-line acknowledgement when I emailed to apologise for the delay, and they've never confirmed they arrived.

Also keen to reopen the discussion for this year – I received my offer on Friday! Like the poster above, I'm excited and apprehensive in equal measure: I've spent my entire life either in big cities or within 90 minutes' travel of London, so Ithaca seems a bit scarily remote. I'm a fan of the whole college-town idea on the whole, having enjoyed my time studying for undergrad and masters degrees in Oxford, but at least from there you can escape to London for the day (or even for an evening out) if everything's starting to feel a bit small and claustrophobic. The research side of things at Cornell seems like a great fit, and I've got a potential advisor who seems really supportive and enthusiastic (as well as being a big up-and-coming name in my field). From what I've gleaned so far from photos online and Google Street View, Ithaca and the Cornell campus seem like a beautiful environment to live and work in for a few years; I've never experienced anything as cold as it gets in winter, but coming from England I'm well used to it getting dark at 4pm! So, it really is just the isolation issue that's bugging me. Do grad students tend to escape to NYC much in practice? I'd also be interested to know what the options are like for accommodation: I'm not hugely keen on living in graduate housing (unless people can convince me otherwise), but would ideally like to share a house or apartment with two or three other like-minded people. Finally, what's the situation re. driving? Is it pretty much necessary to have a car in Ithaca if you want to have something approaching an independent life? (Bear in mind: I'll be 25 when I start, and have had a couple of years out of full-time study, so am keen not to spend all of my free time doing campus-based/'studenty' things.) I don't currently have a licence (though I do know how to drive a car – long story), but if it's going to make a major difference to my quality of life then I'm prepared to put some effort into getting one over the next few months before I go out there.

Thanks – that's really helpful to know. I'm having to do the interview in my lunch break from work, which isn't ideal, but it sounds like it won't be too intense!

Had an email from UPenn this afternoon inviting me for a ten-minute Skype interview. Anyone have any ideas what this might entail? As I said a few posts further up, I wasn't aware when I applied that any of my schools did interviews, so it's caught me a little off guard! (Also, best of luck to everyone who's waiting, and congrats to those who've been accepted/waitlisted so far – it seems like decisions have been coming thick and fast this week...)

Surprised to see that someone has an interview invite from UCLA. I applied there but don't remember reading anything about interviews being part of the process! Wasn't holding out a great deal of hope for UCLA even before I saw that: I had a really positive conversation with a professor from there a couple of months back, but I've heard that they don't tend to admit too many international students, and I know another non-US applicant who's a really strong candidate and probably a better fit than me. I also noticed from reading the results page that people had interviews in previous years for Columbia and UPenn, two of the other places I've applied; again, I didn't notice any info on the departments' websites stating that we could expect to be interviewed. Is it meant to be just taken as read that shortlisted applicants are likely to have interviews? Definitely feeling like the clueless foreigner right now.

Yes, I know it's pretty normal for them to ask – but I definitely filled out the question on the application (they even quoted my response in their email!) so was surprised to have them email to confirm that what I'd already told them was correct! Never expected it to be anything more to them than 'nice-to-know' background info. For what it's worth, I'm really keen to go this particular school and if pressed I'd probably say it's my top choice, so I really hope they don't see that I've applied to other prestigious programs and assume that I don't really want to go there. Even weirder, they offer the same fellowship package to everyone who's accepted...

Sent in most of my applications a few weeks ago and I've just had the first of what I'm sure will be many heart-stopping/jaw-dropping emails. Turns out that one of the schools I've applied to are starting to review applications and want to double-check that the list of other places I've applied to is correct and up-to-date. (The first line of the email which flashed up on my phone read just like a stock rejection letter: I'm still recovering.) Any ideas why they'd be concerned enough about this information to email people to confirm it's accurate?

I'm in the same boat: did my undergrad and masters in a humanities subject in the UK (by the look of your signature, maybe even at the same university as you?) and have just submitted applications to several US universities. I completely get how difficult it is, when over here you're encouraged even at masters level to think of yourself very much as a specialist in a particular topic or subfield! I also got cautioned by a professor in one of the departments I'm applying to not to be too specific at this stage, so I've been trying to strike the balance of showing that I have proper research interests and an understanding of where I sit in relation to my field, without being too precocious or prematurely narrowly-focused. I have no idea whether I've done the right thing, but based on my instincts, and pieces of advice I picked up from current US grad students and professors, I talked about my academic background, gave a brief summary of the topics and ideas I explored in my masters, then suggested possible ways I might build on those interests (without tying myself down to a specific project), and then attempted to make the case for why those interests/questions/theoretical orientations would be a good fit with that department (and one or two specific professors) in particular. One thing I'm a bit worried about is that US masters degrees seem to involve producing a much longer and more in-depth piece of research for their "thesis" than we do for our "dissertation" (which, for my programme at least, was 13-14,000 words, about the length of a very long journal article). I'm hoping they don't get unrealistic expectations about how much research I've already done.

Submitted UCLA (that was a couple of weeks back – what's with their ridiculously early deadline?), Chicago, UPenn, and Columbia; still got Cornell to do but their deadline's not for another month. About to email UCLA to apologise on behalf of USPS that my transcripts (yes, they require paper ones straight away) seem to still be stuck at LA airport three weeks after I posted them... Hoping the weird limbo period between submitting and waiting to hear anything isn't too torturous! I'm working in a 9-to-5 office job on my year out but have been spending basically all of my evenings and weekends for the last couple of months either working on applications, reading articles by my POIs, or feeling guilty for not working on them! Not sure what to do with all this free time now: might start working on setting up a 'Plan B' in case I don't get in anywhere.

Just saw this three months later (as I'm literally about to submit my applications) – if you're still interested, then sure! I'm in Oxford so not exactly far. Definitely starting to learn from this whole process that George Bernard Shaw or whoever it was had a point about us being "divided by a common language" – except that sometimes the language isn't that common either. Really hope I've managed to make my applications communicate and look good despite the cultural differences!

OK, I take your point! I was just explaining why I'd phrased it the way I had, not arguing with what you'd said the first time around. It's really useful to know about these differences; thanks again!