DRMF

If you have a rough school list, look at their application requirements and see if they explicitly state who can write you letters. As a rule of thumb your recommenders should be people who know you as a future scholar/scientist. Some application portals will explicitly say if these people need to hold faculty (and not "staff") positions or certain degrees. If the wording is vague you can email their program director to double check. Your first 2 look like solid choices (if you've worked in any sort of lab for years, the ad com would want to see a letter from that PI regardless of the specific research area). I think some, maybe not all, ad coms will consider the choir director a bit odd. If you believe the first 2 letters will be strong, I'd play safe and find an "average" 3rd recommender, who may not know you super well but is either a nice person or well known in the field. Again each school may want to see different things, some may even encourage you to include one LOR who can comment on your non-academic qualities. It's also never a bad idea to have at least 4 people ready to write for you, just in case one falls ill / ghosts you. Some applications will allow an optional 4th letter. For your reference I was at an info session for Stanford's biosciences phd program, which irrc accepts an extra optional rec letter, so I asked if they'd like to see a letter from a community service organization that I'd worked with for 4 years. The answer was a clear no.

Email the program director / whoever emailed you with the offer to ask. Just be polite and to the point.

Which has nothing to do with Trump's announcement on immigration halt. The user I was replying to thought this "immigration halt" would have to be lifted for international students to come to school, showing that they probably didn't know what the word immigrant means in legal contexts.

International students are NOT immigrants. To get most types of visas you explicitly CANNOT want to immigrate. By definition you're in the US as a temporary guest to do a specific thing (education, tourism, visiting a family member etc.) and are not here to stay.

If someone currently lives there, they should definitely be able and willing to Facetime or Zoom with you to show you the place. Also ask them to whom the security deposit check would be addressed to - it should be the name of a management or leasing company, and you can look up whether that's legit.

This is UChicago's all-campus email about the financial prospect of the university. https://coronavirusupdates.uchicago.edu/apr-7-email-update-2/ Slowed academic hiring and suspended staff hiring (with exceptions) - I think that'd imply that some postdocs would stay another year who'd otherwise have gotten faculty jobs, and that same PI/department may not have the funding to take a new student. Similarly, college/master's grads who'd planned to apply for "staff" jobs (e.g. research technician) now have fewer options and may apply for more grad schools. Also some departments' funding source depends heavily on tuition paid by international students, many of whom won't be able to enroll and thus won't pay tuition. This is not even accounting for everything else going on outside academia. There was a post earlier (not necessarily in your field) where one of OP's offers *rescinded* the funding package, which is highly unusual and reflects how much funding strain that school is experiencing - you bet that program will admit fewer students next year. I do think areas more related to the pandemic e.g. infectious disease/public health may see a different trend, but overall it's likely that acceptances will go down.

Given the pandemic some delays are expected, but your descriptions of Cincinnati and Oklahoma State sound like they really should have let you know already, esp Oklahoma State. Have you tried contacting an alternative person (e.g. program director rather than admin assistant)? Or if they offer a phone number online, just call. At this point it doesn't really hurt even if it shows your despair..

What's your post-graduation plan (job vs phd) and does your dream program have a history of offering better career outcomes? How would the student loan measure against your ability to pay it off in the years following? Remember there's possibility of a recession in the US due to the pandemic, job prospect for the next 1-2 years may not be what you'd expected, and PhD apps are likely to be more competitive as well. Have you explored alternative funding opportunities at the dream school? I heard some people had even ask a program to match funding packages from other schools.

I think in this particular case it's probably safer to go with university-affiliated housing. Even if it's more expensive, or known to have subpar conditions/amenities, you know who you're dealing with and the university's office is not going to disappear on you or go bankrupt or whatever. If the school decides to go remote for fall, they're more likely to be flexible with you breaking the lease than the average landlord. You'll only live there for one year and then you can move somewhere you love next summer. And just think about all the international students in all of history who never get to do in-person tours before signing their first lease in the US. You probably know a few. The vast majority do fine. You can in fact contact agents who specialize in leasing to international students, since they're more familiar with the virtual touring format.

Have you tried contacting any of them? If these programs typically do interviews, you should just assume it's a reject. It's only 10 days from the national deadline for admitted students to decide which funded offer they're taking - they're probably not expecting to do "interviews, offer, wait for your decision" all in 10 days.

Think about how fast you typically form meaningful friendships with others and how you would picture yourself living at either place. Have you thought about what the campus vibe and city life are like at the faraway place vs home? What's your #1 hobby, and are you equally able to keep it going at both places? Do current students at either program say that they feel they have a great support network? Are there non-academic student organization and opportunities to bond with others in the program / school? (Soccer? Ballroom dance? Board game night? Knitting??) Also depends on your field and how "social" in nature your studies will be. If your thesis will involve collaborating with many different people across disciplines, or interviewing subjects, that's a very different kind of PhD from sitting alone in your office staring at your computer 14 hours a day. Do you know your adviser yet? Are they known to, you know, invite students to Thanksgiving lunch at their house, or let trainees take time off when things aren't working out? I'm an international student so I don't what to say from personal experience lol

This is not how you ask for help. List out all the pros and cons that you're currently considering, which factors you think matter the most to you, which aspects you're already sure about and which you're not familiar with. Then others can help you weigh your options or offer information/share their experience.

Well technically the only thing you need to do is log in to your admissions portal, find the question "are you attending" and click "no". That form may also ask you which school you ended up choosing and why etc. Now typically you would also email the program director, as well as other faculty / admin people who you've been in contact with, to let them know that you've decided to go somewhere else. It doesn't have to be long, just say you are grateful for their offer, but after serious considerations you've found school X to be the best fit for your graduate career. If it applies, say that you'll keep them in mind when thinking of a postdoc (or any sort of next stop in your academic career).

It's a Facebook page where people post stuff anonymously. Posts are mostly from UChicago college students, though nothing stops other members or non-affiliates from contributing/trolling. So I don't get my UChicago news from a real news outlet is what I meant.

I think the idea is that the actions taken by any organization during this time would reflect their long-held attitudes towards students and their ability to respond to any unexpected disruption. But yes I agree most of what's happening reflects uchicago's response as a whole. That still is a factor to consider when someone is thinking about attending though. Also my understanding of the shortened quarter is that was planned beforehand and not in response to the pandemic - I may be wrong, I get most of my uchicago-related news from Uchicago Secrets nowadays.

Are you expected to start rotations right after school starts? Or do you have a month or two with just classes before people start rotating? Program can range widely in their timelines. My program highly encourages us to wait and figure things out, and most of us started rotating in November/December, partly because our department retreat is late October and that's a good opportunity to get a sense of who's doing what and taking students. Not the case for a similar program here, I feel like they start rotations in late Sept/Oct. And many of the guest seminar speakers are surprised by how late we start rotations lol. Since you're worried some of your favorite faculty may be well sought after, I'd also start by connecting with their current students (like on FB, through a mutual friend etc. - you already work on campus so you probably know someone). Ask about their experience in the lab, and also how/when they recommend you contact the PI. Or maybe just go to department happy hours / social gatherings and see if you could bump into the PI and chat with them over beer.

I would include it in both your resume and personal statement. My current (immunology) program has a required short clinical course where we shadow clinicians specialized in immunology-related diseases. If you're into translational research, I think the adcom should see such experiences as a positive. I echo others in that you should think strategically about how you frame it. I personally wouldn't devote a whole paragraph to it in the personal statement, but instead use it as a jumping point - explain how it's motivated you to do research, kept you grounded, helped you understand where the field is at and which areas are in dire need of new ideas, etc. For the resume I would put it somewhere further down, in "experiences" or "activities" or "community services", so it doesn't steal the spotlight of your research stuff up top.

I'm not sure I understand you here - perhaps you can clarify regarding the "extra 10k" and "smaller fellowship". Usually when a program says you're guaranteed 5 years of funding, it means the 1st year the money comes from the program/department/school, and once you choose your lab, the PI would pay for your stipend out of their grants for 2nd year and on. To the PI, you're still associated with a financial burden (grad students are typically considered sources of cheap, but not free, labor). I did not get into either school so I can't offer specific insights. At the end of the day you want to make sure you won't be financially struggling, packed in a 2bed apartment with 5 people who don't get along, or thinking constantly about budgeting when you could focus on work. Beyond that, assuming "quite a lot" isn't an option, I personally wouldn't care if I have "a bit" versus "quite a bit" left in my account every month. Money aside, I would really go with research interests, and if you haven't done so you should make sure that the faculty who really excited you during interviews at Stanford represents real opportunities, i.e. positive lab culture, compatible mentorship style, they're not retiring, no funding or time management issues, they don't have multiple students compete for the same project, lab alums are happy and end up where they want to be etc.

If you try applying for the TAship, when will you know whether you've got the job? Do you know roughly what the chance is? From what I can understand you're an international student who currently don't have a US visa - in order to apply for one, you need to prove you have money to cover your tuition and living expenses for at least 1 year. If you cannot secure a paid TAship by the time of visa application (i.e. the I-20 mailed to you by UIC does NOT indicate that you're receiving funding from the school), and you don't have the money saved in the bank, you won't even be granted a visa. I guess there are sketchy ways around it, but I would still consider it a real possibility that you won't be allowed into the US in the first place, not to mention being stranded there. In the end it depends on the strength of your financial safety net. If you have family members who can help you (even grudgingly) through this situation, or a property/investment that can be sold in the worst case to fund your education, it's up to you to decide whether it's worth it. If you have none of these last resort options, I would not bank on the TAship.

That looks good to me.

Also remember that current students could be a good resource. I was deciding between 2 schools and told that to one of the program directors, who connected me with a current student who also was considering these two when they were in my shoes. If you're considering non-academic jobs, the city environment / industry opportunities around may also make a big difference. For NY schools, make sure to consider MONEY. I don't know about your program, but when I applied to NYU for Immunology, they would have paid me $32-33k/year with no subsidized housing, compared to Sloan Kettering which would have paid me $38-39k/year WITH subsidized housing (40% off market price in a building 1 block away from lab).

Remdesivir? https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191

First of all, you as a person can never to rejected. Your application - that is, a specific version of a tiny fraction of what constitutes you as a human being - was seen by a few fallible fellow humans, and regrettably they considered it to be not among the top, say, 20% of all applications this year. You are very, very far from what one would reasonably call "a complete failure". Secondly, "I'm the same person next year" - it may be true that deep down you won't change much in a year, but your application materials as well as the external environment could change quite a bit. Things to consider: - Any manuscript coming out with your name on it? Any ongoing project looking promising, that may result in a paper/conference/poster in the next few months, or a rec letter from a more renowned collaborator PI? - Could you have planned your school list better? Perhaps more umbrella programs rather than field-specific ones? Can anyone who knows your professionally offer any advice? - You may ask for feedback from schools that rejected you, and some will actually give solid points for improvement or tell you why you weren't offered a place. - Sometimes it really isn't you. Competition pool / program funding situation / research interest fit at specific schools could all happen to line up unfavorably (e.g. "last year we over yielded so this year we can only afford fewer students". One school I applied to had an issue with their visa sponsorship and literally couldn't admit a single international student that year). Maybe next year one school will get a big grant to build a center specifically studying what you want to study, and they will have double the usual slots. - All in all, there's merit in reflection and perseverance. Next year you'll be a more resilient person because you took the rejections well, thought deeply about yourself, improved, and are now ready to stand up where you fell. I was asked more than once by interviewers about how I mentally/emotionally deal with stress and failure (which are both inevitable in one's PhD career) - when you go on that interview, you'll have a compelling story to tell. It sounds like you know what to do practically (look at jobs, spring enrollment, etc.), so I just hope you find a way to feel better. Take time to decompress, don't lose hope (for both this and next cycle), gather the emotional energy and actually do what you need to do. Feel free to DM me if you'd like more specific feedback or just want to chat.

If I were you I'd just email all these 5 schools. They usually will let you know whether they're sending out more interview invites, and some will let you know of your specific application's status. It could also be a good idea to check the Results page for the same schools' records in the last 2 cycles, to see how late they sent their last batch of interviews. I applied to 13 programs last cycle, got 6 interview invites, and all were received by mid Jan - obviously your apps could be reviewed at a different pace. I would take the advice of faculty members within the context of how familiar they are with admissions. I've heard of a few cases where PIs misjudged their own undergrads' application outcomes, sometimes because they themselves aren't actively involved in reading applications at their own school - but also possibly because they knew the applicants as people, whereas these other schools' adcoms only got to know them on paper. And yes, I think some preliminary search into Master's or tech jobs would be wise.

It surely won't change the outcome of your application, it's just a matter of how soon you get to know it. You will find plenty of people on TGC posting "I emailed them and they said all invites were sent out" or "they said they're still reviewing my application". Whether it's a good idea for your mental health to chase down every school that didn't let you know your app status, that's for you to decide. Unless you say something rude or unprofessional in your email, they're not gonna go "Meh, this guy sends us too many emails / sounds too desperate so we'll reject him". I can't think of anything else happening as a result of such inquiries - did you have something specific in mind?