cropop

It's not an issue of prerequisites per se but that you, as a candidate, enrolled in a bunch of graduate classes and then did not complete them. Most graduate programs have great concerns about the ability of applicants to complete a PhD program because they tend to be rigorous and quite a commitment (compared to other degrees). By enrolling in an MA program then not completing it, you are demonstrating to them that you might not be able to complete a PhD program, especially when these classes are in the semester immediately before the PhD program begins (disregarding summer). I'm not saying that they will for sure rescind an acceptance just that it is a possibility and might not be worth the risk, especially if there's no real valid explanation for it (but you may have one). They generally look at transcripts to verify you've completed the degrees you said you have and may look at the individual course-work. In your case, it is probably going to be assumed you'd complete the MA when they evaluate you as an applicant (not to meet prerequisites but for general suitability).

You would likely have to finish the program because you'll have to send in transcripts from all programs you've attended (unofficial on application, official when accepted) and a bunch of W grades right before you enter a challenging PhD program will be a giant red-flag and perhaps result in a withdrawal of your admission (because it would be under the assumption you complete the MA).

Just ask what the expectations are for a course reader.

I would phrase it differently and ask that PI (for example) that you are really interested in the school and working in their lab but if they have any recommendations on how it could be made more affordable to live. Generally, schools aren't going to match offers directly because they have rules to follow and the stipend amount probably isn't up to them (set at department level or higher). This is especially so for the first year when you are working on a training grant. What you might be able to get is subsidized housing (the program can sponsor people to get into housing, i.e. bypass the waitlist) or perhaps a fellowship on top of the stipend. The best I would expect is some help with the housing situation, but that might not happen either. Sometimes PIs will offer higher stipends once you are actually in their lab (and done with rotations), but this isn't super common. People generally have to apply for and receive outside funding to get a higher amount (NSF grants, etc.)

You can sometimes get TA positions if you push for it. I was originally offered an unfunded MS but ended up with a full TA position with waiver/stipend because I asked for it. I also ended up with a summer fellowship just because I asked. Schools aren't always forthcoming about what they can actually do and neither of these opportunities were advertised anywhere. Obviously this will vary by school/program, but you can sometimes get pretty far if you start emailing around and asking people at the school and show passion and initiative. So, you can start by emailing an advisor (PI or sometimes the program will have a program advisor) and expressing interest in TA, RA, GA, or explain that you really want to attend but are hoping to make it more affordable and see if they can point you towards somebody at the program who you can talk to and so on. That's how I did it.

It would be appropriate to send out an email to the admissions officer asking for a status update.

Deferment is usually requested by the student. If they want to admit you but can't, they'll likely admit you but say they don't have funding because the can't is usually funding related. Each school will have their own policy. You generally would have to have a good reason for it (temporary medical issue, etc. stressing the temporary). Some schools will allow it and some won't and it will likely only be for a year if they do.

You might be able to create an IU account now if you know your student number. The student number probably isn't on the CAS site but it might have been in your acceptance letter or something. You can also try https://access.iu.edu/UniversityId/Lookup I know when I applied in the past (years ago), I was given a student number immediately upon applying but I have no idea if it still works that way with the CAS setup. Once you have an ID, you can create an account https://one.iu.edu/task/iu/create-my-first-iu-account Once you have an account, you can go to one.iu.edu and look at the classifieds for roommates: https://classifieds.iu.edu/classifieds/postings There is an /r/indianauniversity subreddit, but it tends to delete posts about roommates. Feel free to PM if you have questions about IU/Bloomington.

It would probably be reasonable to email them and ask for a status update because it has been over a month for you.

The school itself isn't likely to do anything negative but they might decide to defer international admits until a later semester or something. It will be up to individual schools on how they will handle it depending on how long the crisis lasts. Some schools have already mentioned what they'll do and some haven't. However, one could expect that visa applications might not be approved or be delayed if things continue. Many foreign nationals are currently barred from entering the US (Europe, China, Iran, etc.). I'd expect that if this happened, the school would work with you to find an accommodation.

When was the "last interview weekend"? I really don't know what they're doing. I'm not in contact with them or anything. I'm sure more invites will go out based on what rcon said but I have no idea if that's domestic or international. I just saw that they had denied some international students on the status page but no domestic students have been denied on there so far.

They don't inform them for acceptances or denials and I don't think they're really ever contacted at all (could be certain programs where they contact references, but I've never heard of it).

They're not going to think you're uninterested because of no contact for a few weeks, unless they explicitly asked you to respond to something (acceptance notice, follow-up, interview request, etc). In general, it's normal to not have contact with schools for months. One circumstance that I might email them for is if you see that other students have received notifications from the school (acceptances, denials, etc) and you haven't (after a few weeks). You can email them and ask for a status update. Another would be if you received unofficial notice that you were accepted (as with the other post you made) and it's been 2-3 weeks and you're still waiting on an official notice. However, note that it is somewhat normal for official notices to take some time (especially with many campuses closing due to COVID-19). But, it can't hurt to check in on things after those few weeks.

I'm not sure UMMS does it like that as you can switch tracks when you go there, if you want to. From my understanding, they ranked students, picked the top x to invite initially, dealt with international separately (they want about 33% international), and now are just waiting to finish the rest of the domestic students.

I doubt any program has an idea of what they'll do about it yet because it's somewhat unclear how bad the situation will get or how long it will last. I also wouldn't be surprised if visa applications are delayed as a result, but that's not really up to the school and they'll have little to no control over it. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if schools don't come up with alternative arrangements, such as deferred admittance, etc.

Don't accept the offer without funding. That implies you're willing to go regardless of the funding. Just reply to the notice and say something to the effect that you're interested in attending if funding becomes available.

Look around and see if you can take the course somewhere else (e.g. online or a local school) and then once you find something, contact the program and see if it will meet their requirements. Often, programs will let you take "missing" classes while in grad school as part of your electives or whatever, so I'm not sure why it's not the case here when they already decided to accept you. If you're not having luck, reiterate that you really want to attend the program, offer to take the class while there, and ask for advice or options.

It doesn't seem like a usual application process, but I don't see why you would interpret that as anything else but an acceptance. Likely, you were accepted by the department and you are just waiting for the graduate school to send out the official acceptance, which is common.

The stats are fine. The problem is, there's a lot of other applicants that will have similar/better stats (far more than the program will actually accept). If you're not getting interviews at all (assuming interviews are common in the field), I would look into improving your PS/SOP (or whatever you had to write) because they're critical. You can also evaluate how good your recommendations are (I know you normally can't read them, but try to decide whether they'd be strong recommendations, whether the recommender was a good choice, etc.) If interviews aren't common in that field, then you need to contact PIs well before applicant deadlines and develop relationships. You can do this anyway and it helps (but isn't required).

You would apply for Fall 2021 and send what transcripts you have, which is likely just the undergraduate ones. However, many schools will let you later send in an updated transcript, so you can potentially send in a fall transcript from grad school. You should also have an opportunity to note that you're working on a MA, what classes are you are taking and plan to take, etc. (whether in personal statement, on the app itself, or other ways). You can easily get recommendations from grad school, if you want. Most apps aren't due until around the start of December, so that's basically a full semester. You can also start building relationships sooner, as in offer to volunteer in labs over the summer or things like that. The only reason to wait is if your undergraduate transcript is very poor or your undergraduate recommendations are poor and you can't get new ones. You should be able to get grad recommendations easily enough (go to office hours, work on projects, be active in class, etc.), but not much you can do to overcome bad undergraduate grades without better graduate grades. But, I would still apply anyway under this circumstance and see what happens because grades are only part of it (same with recommendations, GRE, etc.)

Just to update my post: I think at this stage, the strike is causing a disruption even if it wasn't before. The strike has grown now that the TAs were fired. A lot of classes are getting cancelled and so on. I also wouldn't be surprised if they were hesitant about committing to certain financial support (especially non-STEM PhDs) because of the uncertainty over this. STEM stipends probably won't change much (because they're generally already higher), but if the other ones go up, that might affect how many students they can take depending on the source of the money.

They don't.

It's common to ask for a status update but I might be wary about explaining that you already have an acceptance. Just say something like you really want the opportunity to attend there and you are asking for a status update.

I guess that wave of rejections must have been people who didn't interview?

Search the results page for how the school did things in past years. This might give you some insight into whether they send decisions all at once or tend to send them in batches. Note that just because they did something previously, doesn't mean they will always do it that way.