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Unless a PhD without a masters will mess up your chances to get a faculty position in your country, I still recommend that you not try to get a MS here first. Most of the good schools in the US will not have a MS program. I still recommend contacting faculty within your field of interest about getting a tech position to work in for ~2 years. This type of position will prepare you for graduate school in the US, and it will probably give you better ties that will enable you to get into a better PhD program. I am not sure how difficult it is to get a tech position from abroad in the US though. I have seen people from all over the world in these type of positions though.

The exception to my advice is if you think that you may apply to PhD programs back home or possibly in Europe where you likely need a MS before you can get into the PhD program

Masters programs are very rare and not really useful in the us. Ones in things like bioinformatics are more common, but still not very popular. One school I was at had the bioinformatics masters, but you had to be enrolled in the PhD program to do it.

Why are you getting a masters? If you want to get a doctorate eventually, I would just apply to PhD programs now. A masters degree did not decrease the amount of course work you had to take in a doctorate program. If you want to get a PhD abroad, then you will need the masters probably. If you are not sure about getting a PhD yet and want more experience in the US to decide, just try to find a tech position in a us lab. This will also increase your chances of getting into the program at that school in most cases.

Good luck

Duke and Durham historically have bad relations. Durham was mainly a Tobacco manufacturing city and was a fairly poor area. Duke is a rich kids school. This is claimed to be the reason behind the crime. Some people in the community will come by and target people in the Duke area. We probably heard about 2-5 armed robbery reports in this area/month. Most of the time it was people doing stuff that common sense suggests one should avoid (e.g like walking home alone at 2am in a bad area. There were even some drive by shootings at the hospital. There have been strings of more crime: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2332198/

If you use common sense, then Durham really is not too bad. It helps if you live in more safe area. I lived there for several years and I did not see anything myself. I used common sense and moved my car to center of campus before it was dark and tried to not walk in areas that I should not after dark. You do have to be careful in that city in general. If you make a wrong turn, you can end up in very bad looking areas. You just need to use common sense and treat Durham like you would any large city (even though it is only a medium sized city)

Durham and Chapel Hill are close to each other, but Chapel Hill is a safe area. I had friends there and they were always scared to come to Durham. Durham has a bad reputation. Chapel Hill is college town, and people love that area. Most of the students there live in neighboring areas like Cary. They have a better public transit system I believe. If I remember right, parking was bad at UNC, so people like to use public transit there. It has been awhile since I interviewed at UNC, so I could be wrong about parking there. UNC is one of the best public schools in the US, so it would be a good place to get a degree from. Raleigh is not too bad either.

In general this whole area is a pretty nice area to live. They have small, medium and large cities. You can live in the type of place that you prefer to live, and go visit the other types when you want. Raleigh and Durham sprawl and do not have the big city feel (e.g. a downtown, skyscrapers, etc). There are a lot of 2 lane roads surrounded by trees and an occasional business or home. Durham at least has a lot of parks and trails for people to use. You are also two hours from the NC coast (good beaches) and three hours from Asheville and mountains.

Anyone know if NIH has any funding policies regarding how to fund these or not? Can PIs fund 2-3month projects on grants?

Anyone know if NIH has any funding policies regarding how to fund these or not? Can PIs fund 2-3month projects on grants?

Duke and Durham historically have bad relations. Durham was mainly a Tobacco manufacturing city and was a fairly poor area. Duke is a rich kids school. This is claimed to be the reason behind the crime. Some people in the community will come by and target people in the Duke area. We probably heard about 2-5 armed robbery reports in this area/month. Most of the time it was people doing stuff that common sense suggests one should avoid (e.g like walking home alone at 2am in a bad area. There were even some drive by shootings at the hospital. There have been strings of more crime: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2332198/

If you use common sense, then Durham really is not too bad. It helps if you live in more safe area. I lived there for several years and I did not see anything myself. I used common sense and moved my car to center of campus before it was dark and tried to not walk in areas that I should not after dark. You do have to be careful in that city in general. If you make a wrong turn, you can end up in very bad looking areas. You just need to use common sense and treat Durham like you would any large city (even though it is only a medium sized city)

Durham and Chapel Hill are close to each other, but Chapel Hill is a safe area. I had friends there and they were always scared to come to Durham. Durham has a bad reputation. Chapel Hill is college town, and people love that area. Most of the students there live in neighboring areas like Cary. They have a better public transit system I believe. If I remember right, parking was bad at UNC, so people like to use public transit there. It has been awhile since I interviewed at UNC, so I could be wrong about parking there. UNC is one of the best public schools in the US, so it would be a good place to get a degree from. Raleigh is not too bad either.

In general this whole area is a pretty nice area to live. They have small, medium and large cities. You can live in the type of place that you prefer to live, and go visit the other types when you want. Raleigh and Durham sprawl and do not have the big city feel (e.g. a downtown, skyscrapers, etc). There are a lot of 2 lane roads surrounded by trees and an occasional business or home. Durham at least has a lot of parks and trails for people to use. You are also two hours from the NC coast (good beaches) and three hours from Asheville and mountains.

Masters programs are very rare and not really useful in the us. Ones in things like bioinformatics are more common, but still not very popular. One school I was at had the bioinformatics masters, but you had to be enrolled in the PhD program to do it.

Why are you getting a masters? If you want to get a doctorate eventually, I would just apply to PhD programs now. A masters degree did not decrease the amount of course work you had to take in a doctorate program. If you want to get a PhD abroad, then you will need the masters probably. If you are not sure about getting a PhD yet and want more experience in the US to decide, just try to find a tech position in a us lab. This will also increase your chances of getting into the program at that school in most cases.

Good luck

You might try to talk to them about your chances of rescheduling. When I applied several years ago, I had one last minute one to schedule and I was booked solid. I told them I had conflicts but was extremely interested in their program. They gave me the option to go separately, but I was able to schedule it so I only missed part of the weekend. I had one interview that ended on Thursday and the other school's normally scheduled weekend started on Thursday. I arranged to leave the first one slightly early. I was allowed to fly in late Thursday night to the other and I missed some of the Thursday activities (was like an orientation, dinner, and tour or something like that). They were very nice about it, and they even had three graduate students take me out for dinner at like 9-10PM when I landed. I also got accepted there. Just make sure that you are very kind about it and express that you are very interested in the program.

I would not worry about conflicts until you get them though.

Letting you do it probably depends on the school. Some schools have a lot of group presentations and meals. Other places it is more individualized. The individualized ones may be more likely to do it. I would not bother with this though unless you are extremely interested in both of them. If you get a lot of interviews, I would consider dropping some of them too. They spend a lot of time and money recruiting you, and you should not waste their time if they are already out of the running.

If there are safety schools that really interest you, I would note their interviews dates. I think that I wrote mapped out all the published interview dates for my schools when I was organizing it. I think that I applied to like 18 schools. If you are lucky, you will get some early January interviews. Schedule them as early as you can and avoid more popular dates. For example if they give you January 18, February 3, and february 20 dates. Ten schools have february 20 dates and 5 have January 18. 2 have February3. Schedule them on the 3rd. Avoid scheduling stuff for the date that corresponds to the 10 weekends as long as you can. I would also try to schedule a safety earlier too. Once you get an acceptance, you can be picky about other invites. I had one that I loved before the 15th of January when I applied, and it made the process a lot easier.

If you are seriously interested in both schools and you cant reschedule, I would suggest that you look at the program and talk to faculty and students at both places if you can before making a decision. If you have a flight scheduled already, keep that program over the other one.

You might try to talk to them about your chances of rescheduling. When I applied several years ago, I had one last minute one to schedule and I was booked solid. I told them I had conflicts but was extremely interested in their program. They gave me the option to go separately, but I was able to schedule it so I only missed part of the weekend. I had one interview that ended on Thursday and the other school's normally scheduled weekend started on Thursday. I arranged to leave the first one slightly early. I was allowed to fly in late Thursday night to the other and I missed some of the Thursday activities (was like an orientation, dinner, and tour or something like that). They were very nice about it, and they even had three graduate students take me out for dinner at like 9-10PM when I landed. I also got accepted there. Just make sure that you are very kind about it and express that you are very interested in the program.

I would not worry about conflicts until you get them though.

Letting you do it probably depends on the school. Some schools have a lot of group presentations and meals. Other places it is more individualized. The individualized ones may be more likely to do it. I would not bother with this though unless you are extremely interested in both of them. If you get a lot of interviews, I would consider dropping some of them too. They spend a lot of time and money recruiting you, and you should not waste their time if they are already out of the running.

If there are safety schools that really interest you, I would note their interviews dates. I think that I wrote mapped out all the published interview dates for my schools when I was organizing it. I think that I applied to like 18 schools. If you are lucky, you will get some early January interviews. Schedule them as early as you can and avoid more popular dates. For example if they give you January 18, February 3, and february 20 dates. Ten schools have february 20 dates and 5 have January 18. 2 have February3. Schedule them on the 3rd. Avoid scheduling stuff for the date that corresponds to the 10 weekends as long as you can. I would also try to schedule a safety earlier too. Once you get an acceptance, you can be picky about other invites. I had one that I loved before the 15th of January when I applied, and it made the process a lot easier.

If you are seriously interested in both schools and you cant reschedule, I would suggest that you look at the program and talk to faculty and students at both places if you can before making a decision. If you have a flight scheduled already, keep that program over the other one.