nushi

hey everyone... ?
I'm presently studying as an international student in my first year PhD in america... i'm considering to transfer to another university, so i'm seeking your advice...
the university i'm in right now provides me with a first year fellowship & then an assistantship... however, professors here don't do research in the field that i want to do my dissertation in... & furthermore, the one professor here who's the closest to the line of research i want to do, turned out to be very "dictational", & is not open to the student synthesizing ideas & providing criticisms of their own - & this makes me feel shackled in my creativity & depressed...
however, the line of research i want to specialize in, is very rare... it's the world-systems evolution & analysis, within sociology... so far, i only found 2 universities, each one having only one single professor doing this kind of research, so i'm applying to them now...
but i'm not sure if i should apply to other universities as well, even though they may have no professors specializing in this research, but they may have more diversified specializations & a larger number of professors who are more open-minded than the professor here in my present university... the department i'm studying in right now, has a very small number of professors, with a very limited number of areas of research...
but i also feel shy, that after they provided me with funding, i'd leave them to another university...
what's your advice? should i apply to transfer to other universities (other than these two that i'm applying to right now), just for the sake of studying with more diversified & open-minded professors?

Hi,
I think I might be later to this conversation, but I wanted to clarify that international students are ineligible for federal financial aid (FAFSA). This aid is usually a loan offered to citizens and permanent residents, who later do have to pay it back to the government. We, as international students, can apply for scholarships and grants including teaching and research assistantships, on-campus jobs up to 20 hours/week, and definitely are considered for funding (separate from federal financial aid) in graduate school.
I hope this helps!

I am not sure if it will lower your chances, but I think visiting the school would be a good experience. Seeing the campus will allow you to envision yourself there. You want to like the place where you will be spending 4-5 years at. It sucks that they won't cover the expenses of the trip, though.
However, they seem interested in you, so I don't think video chatting with them instead will lower your chances.

I think they're referring to the fact that a lot of students take out loans because moving expenses can be expensive. I think I spent around $1500 to move my stuff via a storage pod + first month's rent + deposit + car rental + gas money to move. A lot of people take out a loan because they can't afford that cost out of pocket and a lot of programs don't pay out a stipend until 2-4 weeks after classes start. I think that's why they stress initial living expenses and federal financial aid within those sentences.

I think the page you found relates to Undergraduates. I think this is the page you were referring to?

Funding at the Graduate level is not dependent on Federal Financial Aid. The only time that Federal Financial Aid would have any impact is if you wanted to take out any student loans. Federal Aid is handled by the Student Financial Services office. Funding at the Graduate level is determined by the Grad School or the individual academic departments. As a Graduate student, you would still be eligible for Graduate funding.

Hello,
I'm M.Sc. in electrical engineering (graduate in 2010) with average 85/100 (GPA 3.4? ) and undergraduate avg 78/100 (GPA 3?) from a federal university in Brazil.  I have 5 publications, around 12 years experience in power company.  
In the last years, I've been interested and dedicating some of my time in computer science studies so I interested in applying to positions for Ph.D. in computer science or electrical engineering. I've tried mostly in Europe (Netherlands, France, Switzerland, England)
I've been applying for some months but no luck. What should I do to improve my chances? 
 
 

You're welcome -- sorry, I don't really know anything else about it.

@nushi, I would talk to current grad students and ask them if they think there will still be good rentals available if you wait until you arrive. 

I thought  it is easier and more typical to sign a lease 1-3 months in advance unless it is for big metropolitan areas. Available leases are up online as soon as the previous tenants give their vacancy notice 60-90 days before the end of their leases, so it might be hard to get a lease on the spot after you arrived. Plus the process of settling down also takes time.
Several apartment rating websites as well as generic rating forums (google, yelp) might have reviews and pictures on the apartment units you searched. I have found those quite reliable. Another way to identify desirable apartment units is to ask your senior friends who are already there or on forums like this for recommendations.

It does not have a high ranking.
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/sociology-rankings
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2016/sociology
 

This is a great idea!  Here are some that I'll add too:
One of my professor's recommended this blog to me http://theprofessorisin.com there are so many great articles in this for people at all levels of academia and she's very easy to read.  
Also as a first source for some theory backgrounds, I've used this as a first source through grad school so far (I know the match up between Anth and Soc isn't perfect but we do have some overlap and this give you the whole background which is nice). https://anthropology.ua.edu/cultures/cultures.php 

Great list! I love JLM's advice on grad school, there's more to check out on his website if people are interested. To add on: 
Sam Perry's (Chicago grad; University of Oklahoma AP) advice on the job market is pretty good: https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/job-market-tough-love-from-sam-perry/ Org theory has many interesting discussions about grad school, how to succeed in grad school etc. Julie Posselt's book, Inside Graduate Admission, gives you a good insider's account of how admissions works: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088696

Hi all,
Over the last several days I've discovered a wealth of resources on the Internet for new graduate students, many of them directly relevant to sociology. I hope this list benefits others as much as it is helping me prepare for the challenges - and enjoyment - to come. 
How to Get the Mentoring You Want: A Guide for Graduate Students (University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School): http://www.rackham.umich.edu/downloads/publications/mentoring.pdf
Grad Skool Roolz: Everything You Need to Know about Academia from Admissions to Tenure, by Fabio Rojas (Sociology at Indiana): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/93455
No More Lame Prosems: Professional Development Seminars in Sociology, by Chris Uggen (Sociology at Minnesota) and Heather Hlvaka, Sociology at Marquette): http://users.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/uggen_hlavka_ch_08.pdf
Talk given to the First Year Graduate Student Proseminar at the University of California, Berkeley, Sociology Department, Fall 2007 (John Levi Martin, Sociology at Chicago ): http://home.uchicago.edu/~jlmartin/Talks/Notes on talk to graduate students at proseminar.pdf
How to Survive Your First Year of Graduate School in Economics, by Matthew Pearson (Economics): https://law.vanderbilt.edu/phd/How_to_Survive_1st_Year.pdf
How to Publish, by Kwan Choi (Economics): http://www.roie.org/how.htm
Info and Advice for Graduate Students (University of Maryland, Economics): http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~limao/graduate_info.pdf
Advice for First-Year Ph.D. Students in Economics at Cornell: http://www.economics.cornell.edu/graduate-program/gsafe/advice-first-year-phd-students-economics-cornell
Reflections on Surviving the Academic Job Market (R. Karl Rethemeyer, Public Affairs at Albany): http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/gateway_docs/job_market_resources/2014/ReflectionsJobMrkt_AoM_July14.pdf
Graduate School Success by PhDs.org: http://www.phds.org/graduate-school-success 
Peter Bearman's AMA - Sociology Job Market Rumors: http://www.socjobrumors.com/topic/peter-bearmans-ama
Looking forward to reading others' discoveries as well!

You can and should directly ask the department about the placement of their recent graduates. For many departments, this information is available on their website. As far as the ranking in your discipline, you may want to ask on the Sociology forum or read older posts there to get a sense of the relevant ranking.

Whether or not deferral is possible is entirely program-specific. You'll have to contact the department which admitted you and ask them to get an answer about whether you can defer your offer to another year. You should also ask if the funding offer will be the same if you do defer to next year.
As far as ranking, for grad school, the university's overall ranking is far less important than the ranking in your particular field IF you're interested in an academic career in the US/Canada. People know the best programs in your field and they'll know that something like University of Wisconsin is strong in your field even if it isn't the strongest/highest ranked university as a whole. If you're planning to go back to Egypt or not pursue a faculty position, then the name of the university may matter. Some questions to ask yourself: How well known is the Australian institution in Egypt? In other countries? How highly ranked is the department/program to which you were admitted in the US (top 10? top 25? top 50?)? Where do graduates of the US program typically find employment? Do any of those employment options appeal to you? Where do graduates of the Australian program typically find employment? Do any of those employment options appeal to you? 
Hopefully that's a helpful starting point.

I agree with @lemma, either reject or defer the American admission. Knowingly applying for a program when you have already accepted an offer from a US institution can burn many bridges. In addition, it does not reflect well on your professional behavior, even to the Australian program. Remember that a lot of people are invested in your American offer (including LoRs writers). 
Have you considered doing a postdoc in the Australian institution? You can use your PhD years to build connections and work collaboratively so that when you graduate you have a network there to further your professional interests. 

Can you defer (or reject) the American offer, find work as a research assistant in Egypt and then wait for the outcome in Australia? Presumably if you don't get admitted (the easy part) and receive a scholarship (the harder part) you can reapply in the American system a year later. One year probably isn't the biggest deal especially if you can find relevant work in the interim to boost your CV. 
I'm not going to ask why you prefer the Australian program, because I assume you've done your research and this is something you really want. Australian and American PhD programs are very different structurally, and Australia and the US are also very different places to live in among developed nations, so I can see why you might have a strong preference even before research is concerned. 

Yes, it would be bad. Why would you prefer the Australian program?

MAs are less often funded. 
Do you know what your goals are for this degree? Is it getting a PhD or a job in your field? Can you find out what alums of both programs are doing, and in particular whether they've been successful in achieving whatever it is that you are aiming for? 
In general, a non-accredited program would be a concern for me, and on the other hand I'd be encouraged by the fact that students at the other program seem to only have good things to say about their program. It definitely isn't always that way. 
Unless I'm confused, you don't actually have two ways. You have one option in hand and one you are only hoping for. Have you tried to figure out (a) how likely you are to be accepted on a second try, and (b) if you can defer your current acceptance? 

Is the offer at the office building school a good offer? Is it a great program in your field, with a good reputation? If it's a professional program, is there the potential for good professional connections?
Pretty campuses are nice, but they definitely shouldn't be a primary consideration for choosing a graduate program. If the other program is a great one, I wouldn't decline the offer on the hopes that you might get admitted to the other program.

It seems to me that given your circumstances, it'd be very risky to decline one offer without another one in hand (and no word on your chances of getting admitted on a second attempt), if you can't apply elsewhere outside these two options. Personally, I like pretty things and I *do* think that a welcoming campus can have a positive effect on students. However, I don't think it's necessarily a deciding factor in this kind of decision given your current parameters. There are some things you haven't mentioned yet, though. For example, is this a MA or PhD? Are you funded? How do you like the people you'll be working with? Also, is there an option of deferring your acceptance by a year so you can try again with the safety fallback of the offer you already have? If not, if aside from the office building you have a good, funded offer with advisors you like, I would say you should take it. I don't think there will be anything stopping you from working in the pretty library at the other school, if it's nearby. People work off-campus at various locations all the time. You don't have to spend too much time at the less attractive office. That alone wouldn't cause me to decline my sole, reasonable offer. 

Ok, this is kind of a shallow thing to care about... But I have always wanted to go to a real campus, like the classic beautiful brick or stone old campus with ivy growing on it. There's a school out here that embodies this. It's BEAUTIFUL. I love being there, it's everything I want in a school (in terms of the aesthetic and daily living part of things, although they're also a stellar school). The problem is, I was rejected from the program I applied to...
I could reapply in the spring, after getting some more work experience. I don't really know why they rejected me, so I don't know if trying again would be fruitless.
I got into another school though. It's in an office building, brand new, 2 stories, and located downtown right in the heart of the city. There's no cafeteria, the library is a single room (not this), there's a small student lounge that I'm sure no one really uses. It's fine, but it's just not the same. AT ALL.
Should I stop being so shallow and go to the other school (assuming all things are equal, because that's a whole other consideration and I'd rather stay focused on the one at hand), or should I hold out (maybe defer if they let me?) and try to get into this dream campus school one last time? I know the answer seems obvious, but realistically, waiting a whole year would be tough for various reasons. I already got into the office building school (no more interviews or applications! yay), and there's always a chance I wouldn't get into the dream campus school a second time. So where then would that leave me? School-less. I can't move, so applying elsewhere and spreading my options out isn't an option.
Any advice or creative thoughts around this problem? Please don't just lecture me on having shallow concerns, this is just one of my many considerations for what I should do...

Well, as Warelin said, it's better we don't accept the offer until April 15th, so we could wait till the very end to see if our wait-listed situation hopefully turns into an acceptance, & not getting into trouble rejecting the other university after we chose to accept their offer!
The problem is that our wait-listed position gets an acceptance AFTER April 15th, when we had to accept the other offer right before it!
Hope everything goes well with us 

April 15th is the deadline to accept funded offers. Offers without funding are not included in the April 15 resolution. Withdrawing from a university (after April 15) after previously accepting an offer requires written permission from that university in order to be released in order to accept another offer. It is not recommended that you accept two offers. While it is legal to accept two offers, it can result in burned bridges as academia is very small and based on connections.

The April 15 resolution regarding this addresses what I said below:

"Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution. In those instances in which a student accepts an offer before April 15, and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer."
 

Hey! I'm in the same boat and am also stressing!! I just got an offer from a university I really like, but which is not my first choice, and I am waitlisted at one of my top choices and am waiting to hear back from the other top choice. Third choice is pressuring me to accept ASAP and I feel like I have no choice but to accept and then maybe say no later if I get in to the other schools (which feels icky to me, but I really don't know what else to do). Solidarity, and hope you figure out your situation soon!