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.

I'll note that IU parking enforcement is very good at giving out citations. This is even before any sort of plate reader. They are also great at towing when you are where you shouldn't be (at the stadium Friday nights of home football games, etc.) The 7 AM comment is just an estimate. It could be 8 AM. There's a couple of lots near the history department (across the street) with EM-S spots and a lot with some spots by the Atwater Eye Clinic. I don't know where other lots are but IU has a thing where you can look it up. I rarely ever saw any spots open in EM-S at Atwater at 9 AM, but I never actually tried to get them (I had an EM-P). There are also CH passes if you live on campus so you can park in CH lots. There are generally waitlists to get those but I don't know if there is a priority system or not. Most people are much happier if they can walk, bike, take the IU shuttles, or the city buses that run frequently (e.g. the 6 route) to school. As I said, some housing places also have their own shuttles to school, but they are usually targeted towards undergraduates.

It depends on the parking pass. An ST pass (pretty cheap) lets you park at the stadium area only and then you take a shuttle from there. The shuttles run very often and go all around campus, but can also be crowded at peak times. Stadium area also means you have to move your vehicle out of the stadium when there's home football games (some Friday nights) and can be annoying if there are home basketball games as they won't let you in without paying cash (but those are usually at night and if you're already parked, you're okay). EM-S (if eligible) lets you park in various lots but has limited parking available so you generally have to arrive early (e.g. 7 AM). You can also park where ST parks. EM-P (if eligible) is expensive but lets you basically park anywhere other than disabled/metered spots, including the garages for free. However, the non-garage EM-P spots also fill up but there's way more of them than EM-S. There's always room in the garages, though. Basically, if you live in certain areas where transit is not ideal (West side, etc.), you'll at least want an ST pass so you can park somewhere. There are available parking options for free around, but it's usually on the street somewhere or at certain apartment complexes/businesses. It's usually much better to try to live somewhere where transit is convenient or within walking distance. Parking at the stadium is kind of annoying at times, EM-S has few spots, and EM-P is quite expensive. As for complexes, Google reviews are probably fine for most of them. If you don't like the partying scene (undergraduates, mainly) stay away from the stadium area. If the place provides a shuttle, it is more than likely geared towards undergraduates. Some graduates like to avoid those places. I'm not sure what buildings are considered graduate housing on IU. I assume Campus View, Redbud, or Eigenmann or something else in that area. They're a bit far to walk to most classes but it's manageable. I think one of the shuttles goes by there too.

The questions are answered here: https://cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution Effectively, if you accept a funded offer and turn it down before April 15, you just need to tell them. After April 15, they must officially release you. Also, offers after April 15 are conditional based on not having accepted another offer or having been released from any offer. I don't know how enforceable any of this is, e.g. how would they know about other offers unless you tell them?

Lab experience will greatly help a PhD application and, in general, is just as or more important than grades (as long as grades are reasonable). But, there's no way to know whether it's better to do 1 or 2 years. If grades are going to drop significantly by doing it in 1 year, then do it in 2, especially if staying another year results in more publications.

A loan of $5000 isn't really a big deal in the long run, if it's the school you prefer. I also want to point out that while the IU Media School might be newer, IU is a major university (not some small local school) so I wouldn't let that deter you. However, you could reach out to the program and see if you could be put into contact with former students to talk about their experiences or look around on Linkedin and ask people, etc. I suspect that some of the programs are also not new (journalism, etc.) I seem to recall that it's just the Media School that is newer but the individual programs generally existed before. I'd consider the cost of living in the places, though. $1500 in Bloomington is doable (I live there) but it's not a lot of money and would likely need roommates or other money for it to be affordable. $1500 in Chapel Hill or $1700 at Syracuse could be worse if the areas are more expensive. This might affect your ability to do other things that you want.

Are any of the programs offering anything for living expenses? It can be fairly expensive to live in some of those cities and if you need loans to cover that, that's can be a lot of money. If you're ultimately going for a PhD or job prospects aren't great (hard to get a job or low pay), then taking on a lot of loans might not make sense. Bloomington is small compared to the other places (although IU is very large), but it's big enough that you're not missing out on anything for daily life. It's also close enough to Indianapolis (1 hour or so) with shuttles multiple times per day that you can do things you might only be able to do in larger cities (concerts, plays, airport, etc.) There's also plenty of people who post on the IU classifieds about offering rides and such to even places like Chicago. Beyond that, it's fairly friendly without a car (in US terms) because it's not huge. There are frequent student shuttles/city buses to go to the major places in town and it doesn't take that long to get anywhere. I wouldn't let "remoteness" deter you unless you really want to live in a major city. Ultimately, I think it's important to evaluate what you want to do after and then might better inform you. Getting a job might change your choice versus getting a PhD due to networking issues, job locations, etc.

It's really about how you frame it. If you say, "I worked in a hospital to see if I was interested in medical school but didn't like the long hours", then I wouldn't put that. But if you say, "Through volunteering in a hospital, I found that I had a passion for neuroscience", then that would be great to put.

Somebody in some other thread said that their school rescinded offers, which is a bit surprising to me. I guess there's no real way to tell what a school will do until they do it, but you can probably email them and ask if they have any plans (might wait a week or 2 first).

There really can't be a plan because nobody knows when visa processing will start. If it's within the next month or 2, it's probably fine, but if it takes longer, then it might be too late. The US is projected to not have hit the worst of the virus yet so it could be a bit. Odds are the school would probably defer admission if there are visa issues, though.

Funded offers generally have an April 15th deadline but non-funded offers can vary by program.