fuzzylogician

Taxable, but in a different way than assistantships (for some purposes). For example, my country has a tax treaty with the US under which assistantships are exempts up to a certain amount but fellowships are completely exempt regardless of the amount. For US citizens this difference in the source of funding doesn't matter, afaik.

ProspectStu,, This is uncalled for and unnecessarily hurtful. The reply you got to your original question from Mary Queen of Scotch is thoughtful, unlike your reply to it here. Stop using such language, as it will not be tolerated any further.

It's not a problem. I received multiple I20s from schools whose offers I did not accept. I didn't do anything with the forms (didn't return them), and only followed up on the I-20 from the school I ended up attending. I've never encountered any problems because of this. However, if you've already decided on a school you should inform the other school you're not going there so they can (maybe) accept someone who is now on their waitlist.

Glad to hear your study is approved, I just wish the contact information and the informed consent would be given up front, not at the very end. Those things should come first, not last. But I suppose if this was approved by your university's IRB board then my problem is with them, not your study, so I'll be happy to help with your survey!

I think that should be fine. What I've heard is not a good idea is to change your immigration status from tourist to student without leaving the country, but if you leave and re-enter then that should work. Just make sure the immigration officer uses the correct visa for each entry (waiver for first, F1 for second) so you're in the correct status all of the time.

One of the basic requirements of running experiments includes identifying yourself as a researcher. I don't understand how you were able to get IRB approval to run this survey without this component. I'd be happy to fill out your survey once you properly identify yourself.

Please stop posting these negative comments. They help no one and they make the conversation very unpleasant.

Please don't cross-post. The other post has been deleted.

I first took all the courses required by my program for credit, then since finishing my requirements I usually sit in on 1-2 additional classes per semester. I choose them purely according to interest; the people on my committee are people who I meet with for research purposes, not (necessarily) the ones whose classes I take. I think it's a good idea to first do the courses you need and only then the additional ones you want, because as you'll find out time for research is scarce and precious. You may have to pass on a course you really want to take or you may have to miss some/not do the readings/ etc, because research must take precedence over courses -- but you can only do that if you are not a full student in the course. Better to get the stuff you need to do out of the way early, because you'll only get busier after that.

Why don't you start and see how the first semester or year goes? You can start with the goal in mind of continuing to the PhD and plan your courses/research accordingly but declare some time (after first semester and again after the first year) to reevaluate. You may start with research right away but publishing takes some time, so I bet that if you stop to reconsider after the first semester you'll have a much better understanding of how you like research. However, without having read the article you linked to, with very few exception, you don't do a PhD to become rich or famous. You do it because you love research; you'll probably make more money with less effort if you get an MS and find a job in industry. As you read in many advice columns, if you can see yourself doing something else - do that. If you're already going to grad school, my advice is more conservative - try it and see. You don't need to decide now, do you?

Any kind of arrangement where you feel you need to keep information secret from one/both institutions is dishonest and frankly a terrible(!) idea. You'll burn bridges in your field and furthermore might get into legal trouble because you'll be abusing one institution's good intentions. Do you think no one will find out that you were being funded and advised by one school but ended up double-enrolling and receiving your degree from another school? Who would want to hire someone with such a track record of abuse and dishonesty? The only way this kind of arrangement could work is if you're upfront about it and somehow arrange for supervision from both schools with some kind of partial residency requirement at both. I'm guessing that it'll be too complicated and will not work out because it'd be a bureaucratic nightmare for both schools. BUT, lying and cheating is no way to solve this problem.

Normally, I'd choose the stellar letter. An ok letter from someone famous is not going to do you half as much good as a very strong, detailed letter from someone less famous who knows you well. The important question is whether the person who will write you the stronger letter is qualified to recommend you for what you are applying for - if it's a PhD program and this person doesn't have a PhD, how can they be confident that you'll succeed in one? Presumably they don't have a lot of experience sending people to graduate school who successfully completed the program. So you want to ask yourself how the letter will be perceived. If the recommendation, while good, won't be perceived as serious or carrying much weight, the ok letter from the famous professor might be better.

In my department I would ask an admin person, not a professor. Maybe try them? They might also be less involved in whatever politics is going on in your department.

Normally you get approved on the spot and the consul will keep your passport in order to place the visa in it; you'll be asked to pay for a messenger service that will return it to you or sometimes you can come pick your passport up from the embassy yourself. For some fields of study the wait is longer because of a process called TAL (Technology Alert List). If your research is in a field the Americans worry might be used to create war-related technologies (this is a vague description, read more online) they will want more information and will perform a security check before they approve you. In that case, the wait might be several weeks long. I don't have personal experience with TAL, however, so maybe other posters can give more accurate information.

Ask your potential advisor. The answer will differ from program to program (possibly even at the advisor-level). At my program admitted students don't interact with professors until the arrive in the Fall, so once you're admitted there is close to 5 months of silence until suddenly you start getting updates from staff and faculty some time in July/August.

As lewin00 says, ask officials at your school and don't trust answers you get here, or it may end up costing you a lot of money! I've never heard of anyone having to pay back a stipend they received in good faith, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does happen sometimes under some circumstances (I can imagine some situations but I have no real knowledge of anything aside from what lewin00 pointed out so I'll refrain from speculation).

Many students in my program are roommates with other students from the program. In my experience, if it doesn't work out it has nothing to do with the concerns that were raised here but simply because of personality mismatches that would have happened even if the roommates were "complete strangers." It has to do with expectations from the shared living situation, and sometimes people have different opinions about such things as when/how much to clean, how late is too late to cook, can a boyfriend/girlfriend stay over and how often, the frequency of parties and visits from friends, eating each other's food, buying/reimbursing shared supplies for the apt, division of chores, etc. I had a roommate from my program (but a different cohort) for three years and it worked out great for both of us, because before we even started looking for an apartment we took the time to talk about things like the ones I mentioned and we made sure we had similar thoughts about shared living situations.

This is a good straightforward opening but it's a little vague. Why are you a good fit? Why does the emphasis on social justice interest you? Expand to make this more compelling. Also, replace the last sentence: While at Your U, I hope to work with Prof X, whose expertise in the field of blah complements my interest in blah-related thing. (maybe say more about your interests, maybe mention more than just one prof.). You gave a broad defintion of your interest, then a truism that is not a research interest. Say more about what you want to study, where, why, what community, etc. This, too, is vague. Can you say more about what in your education is relevant to your proposed studies? This will be easier to do once you actually spell out what you want to study. The first and second sentences could be tightened up a little. face a new culture --> adapt to? Most importantly, it has shown me that many times we silence voices simply because of slight differences this is potentially interesting (seems to be at the heart of your interests) but is quite vague. What do you mean by this statement? Can you give examples? Can you show ways you will study this or help fix this? Why is it interesting? groupthink is this a technical term? if not, change it to something more formal. Here again, I wanted to know more. How will you enhance people's lives? How will you give voices to those who are silenced? Having read this whole essay, I still don't know who you are referring to, where they are, how they are silenced, and how you think you can change that (or study that, for that matter). At least some of these things should be clear. This is a Masters program; you should propose an area of research that is manageable - define the who, where, how, why (or some subset of those questions) to show that you can make use of the education you'll get and develop a successful project.

Wow, my conference experience has been very different. I would wear something like you suggested for the casual days for my presentation (dress pants and blouse or nice sweater, cardigan or blazer; high heels that I get out of as soon as I'm done with the presentation). The rest of the time I normally wear a dark jeans with a nice blouse and flats or a low boot. I think I'm probably closer to the lower end of how people dress for conferences but I've never felt like I stand out in my field. People go completely casual sometimes; the only people who really dress up are those who are on the job market and are having interviews.

Congratulations on your acceptances! Are the organizers the same or different across the two sessions you'll be presenting at? The easiest thing to do if you haven't already replied to the notification emails and confirmed your attendance at the conference is to simply mention the other talk when you reply to the emails. Otherwise I might just wait and see, unless it's a very large conference and it'd be hard for the organizers to spot it if you are scheduled to be in two places at the same time; in that case they might appreciate the heads up.

There is also useful advice in old the threads and

I've never done this myself but I imagine you do something along the lines of the direct approach you outlined, but maybe a more refined version. I might say "I really want to attend your school but I find the financial package to be difficult to handle. School Y has offered me funding in the amount of $XX (or: $ZZ more than you are offering) and I believe that that would make attending School Y financially wiser. However, I would still prefer School X for many other reasons so I am wondering if there is any way you could increase my offer to match that of School Y." This is to be done (1) if you actually are interested in School X, and (2) if you know that they have the ability to raise offers (or at least you don't know that they can't); you may want to ask something less strong if you feel you might get a better offer but not as good as School Y's. So it's really a question of what kind of offer would make you happy. I think asking for that quite directly is the best strategy.

I'm with the previous posters. In your situation, I think I'd choose school Y.

That would indeed be a bad way to go about getting your question answered. But you can certainly contact this potential advisor and ask him/her to put in you touch with some of his/her current advisees. Once you have those contacts, email them with questions and maybe ask to talk to these students on skype. A professor is likelier to give you names of happy students rather than disgruntled students, so part of your job when talking to these students will be to ask who this professor's past students were, if anyone has quit or changed advisors recently in the department and with this particular advisor, and how the student thinks the general student body feels about the program - are people generally progressing on time, are many students dropping out or leaving with a MA, are many people changing advisors (and can you do that? -- you could ask this as a positive question because it's good to know anyway). Many of these are informational and you could ask in an email. Then you also want to ask about the professor's advising style (possibly better done on the phone but also possible in an email), how many current/past students they take a year, when reecnt alums are now, how often they meet with the professor. Also possibly interesting: what they have taught recently, do they co-teach, do they co-author papers or have joint projects and with whom. Do the students know if the professor is invited to give many talks, go often to conferences, where/when they are publishing currently. You can learn a lot from just asking objective information questions.

It might depend on the bank but I was able to open an account with our university's Credit Union before I arrived (the credit union was recommended to me by many students in my department, you should ask students in your new department where they do their banking). In my case, I was able to apply online as a student at the university as soon as I got my university ID number and official acceptance, and when I arrived a debit card was already waiting for me and I could order checks and a credit card. It was very convenient.