cropop

Make sure there is some sort of legal document before you actually send any money for rent.

I would contact all schools at this point. There's not much time until the April 15 deadline.

People go to downtown San Diego for nightlife (gaslamp) and not La Jolla/University City. If the trolley to UC is open yet, then it makes it much easier to get downtown. I can't remember when they told me it would open. There is admittedly little around the UC area and La Jolla for student night life. UTC mall has been moving towards adding some things but it still wouldn't be much. UCSD sounds like a better choice for a graduate program based on your pros/cons. Most of the cons have little to do with graduate studies.

I wouldn't worry about it then. You're good. It's likely the next class (2021) that will be affected if there are any issues with COVID-19 (budget problems, etc). Schools that take too many students one year for their budget tend to take less students the next year.

That's why you ask what you can do to make your application stronger rather than ask why you got rejected. It demonstrates that you're really interested in the program (which is important) as well as potentially getting some feedback.

I would wait a little bit (a few weeks) and then email somebody who you've been in contact with that you're really interested in the program and want to know how you can improve your application for next time. Then try to keep in contact with professors you're interested in from now until you apply and keep up with their research. It can be extremely helpful to build a relationship before you apply. It's highly unlikely that you're blacklisted unless you submitted a fraudulent application.

Did they acknowledge the acceptance of your offer? If so, then it would be much harder for them to back out unless they otherwise found fraud in your application.

When I was a TA of a particular course, I was the only staff member the students ever saw and wrote all the lectures, etc. However, there are also TAs for other courses that basically do nothing (maybe just office hours) or TAs that just grade. It tends to mean different things for different courses.

There's plenty of decent places in town. Unfortunately, most of them are fairly expensive (relative to Bloomington) and difficult to afford on what a lot of programs give for a stipend (sub 20K). Note that IU still (as far as I know) charges some fees per semester so make sure you account for that in your budget. It's usually about 1K/semester depending on the program. There was talk of getting rid of that but I don't know if they did. If you find a place and you're not sure about it, feel free to post it and ask. Google reviews are generally pretty good, but you'll find a lot of them are tainted with people complaining about damage deposits. Not getting your damage deposit back is extremely common in student housing around here. Try to find places with lower deposits or stay away from housing catered to students (which is difficult if you want to live near campus). Deposits are usually less of an issue for grad students because they don't move around as much. However, the places with good reviews are usually good. Make an account at one.iu.edu if you want to browse the classifieds as soon as possible (google create IU account or something). This can be a great place to find roommates, if you want to go that route. You may also see general housing there, but only people with accounts can post so it's generally just students. The sooner you look the better as they said. There are a lot of undergraduates and the idea is to beat them to the better housing. Places tend to also harass you to sign leases for the next year really early (some as early as October but most in January/February) so places come open early and are filled early.

I would guess there will be a significant impact at many schools for these reasons and more: Budgets are going to be reduced at schools for various reasons. This includes loss of revenue from the Spring semester and so on. Less revenue means departments have less money to pay for the first year of a PhD program, which is usually department funded. It might be too late for them to do anything about it for this Fall, but that might mean they compensate by taking less people next year. Many schools will compensate for unusually large cohorts one year (which place financial strain) by taking less the next year and this is sort of a similar concept. Some schools may defer admission (or let one defer admission) for people admitted this Fall until next year. This has the potential to reduce spots next year. It's entirely possible that there could be less grants available in the future, such as government grants (NIH/NSF, etc.). There are going to be huge consequences to the economy and who knows what is going to get cut out of the federal government budget to make up for stimulus packages and so on. An interesting thing about the 2001/2008 crisis (maybe just 2008) is when the economy is doing poorly, undergraduate enrollment at universities tends to go up (because people need extra training or whatever and jobs are less lucrative). More undergraduates means more school funding and also the need for more TA to teach those undergraduates, which can mean more graduate positions. I expect that if jobs are hard to come by after this all plays out, we'll see more people go back to school or attempt to.

You would have to file an I539 to change it without leaving, I think. You can look up the processing times: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ They are long, so it's probably not worth it now. I can't find any evidence that F1 processing at the border has been suspended, but the wisest course of action is to wait for now, I imagine. Border agents generally have broad authority on making decisions. Is there any particular rush to get the F1?

You can overcome a weaker GRE with a strong application otherwise for many schools, but not for others. Not all programs look at the GRE the same way. The best bet is to find ones that don't require the GRE, which is becoming a lot of them. The thing to keep in mind is: admissions are extremely competitive at top programs. They get far more qualified applicants than they can take. You are competing against other students and they're not considering your application in a vacuum. Many students will have great GRE, great GPA, great experience, etc. and not get in. You want to make your application as strong as possible to give yourself the best chance. One other thing to note is, while it might not make much sense, some schools will still consider your undergraduate GPA even with a Master's degree.

1. Nobody knows. You could guess it might be in a few months, but it would just be a guess. The US hasn't really hit the peak of infections yet and it might be another month or more until it does. Then, things need to recover after, which might be a while. The economy already has taken a massive hit and it will get worse. School budgets are also going to be greatly affected because of loss of revenue from this semester, perhaps the summer semester, and beyond. 2. If the school offers online only (and you can get a student visa), your option is to either take it or not go, so I expect most people will take it. 3. Online courses sometimes have an additional online fee, but I would guess schools will waive it if you are attending a program that isn't normally online. 4. Attend schools in your country or try to defer your acceptance for a semester/year and find other arrangements (a job, etc.) for now. I imagine schools will come up with their plans in a month or 2 once they see what happens. But, there's nothing they can do about student visas unless the government reopens processing and/or comes up with exceptions.

Schools try to get out waitlist decisions before April 15, but waitlisted people are frequently not informed until on or after April 15. The reason is because accepted students have until April 15 to accept (in general) and if they wait until the last minute to decide, the school doesn't have much time to send out notices to waitlisted students. You can try to ask the school you would attend out of your accepted schools for a few extra days to make a decision, but it's up to them.

I imagine there may not be anything to be done if the US federal government doesn't open visa processing in time, unless they temporarily allow exceptions. Deferments are also not guaranteed because it's up to the school whether they will allow them or not. However, this is a much bigger issue than just graduate admissions because it also affects international undergraduates, which are generally a much larger population. Schools can probably afford to not take international graduate students, but many will take a huge hit in budgets if they lose international undergraduates. So, I expect them to figure something out or pressure the government (even if it's just online classes and a temporary visa waiver for a semester or something) . In summary, it seems like everyone is going to have to wait and see. I would try to come up with a backup plan, though, to sustain yourself for a year, if you need to.