fuzzylogician

YES! Reach out now. It's your advisor's job to help you through the process of writing a thesis, it's what she's paid for. Email her, and the sooner the better. You don't need very specific questions; tell her that you're done with the first semester and now starting to think about a thesis topic, but you're at a loss as to how to proceed. Ask for advice about the next step - how should you go about finding a topic? She may have ideas or suggest readings or she may follow up with more pointed questions about your research interests. In the meanwhile, you can start thinking about things that came up in readings or course discussions that you found interesting and try reading up on them a little bit. Maybe some interesting questions will come out of that. But whatever you do, don't be embarrassed to ask for this type of help. It's your advisor's job and you're not supposed to already know everything without her help; you've never been through a similar process before and it's precisely for this reason that you have an advisor.

If you are a strong applicant, programs will expect that you will have other choices beside them. You don't need to feel bad or apologize for this. Acknowledge receipt of the offer and as Bearcat1 suggests, tell them that you're strongly considering it and will let them know as soon as you can. Of course, only do this as long as you are truly considering the offer. As soon as you've decided to decline, sleep on it a night or two to be sure, but don't stall. The funding that has been allocated to your offer could be re-offered to someone on the wait list. (To be sure, you don't need to feel bad about holding up someone else's potential offer as long as you're truly undecided; but don't hold it up once you've made up your mind.)

If you want a career in academia, what will matter more is your research. The department you're officially affiliated with is less important, especially if you end up taking pretty much the same courses. In that case you could make a convincing argument to the effect of being an X-scholar and being able to teach the same courses as you would if you had gone to the other program. If you want to go into industry as an X-specialist, you may have a harder time convincing employers that you are indeed an X-specialist despite graduating from a Y-program. I don't know how much of an issue this is, since you didn't specify the fields and it probably would also depend on other anecdotal issues that are hard to control for. I suppose the question you should ask your professor is how his students do on the job market once they graduate so you can learn if there are implications to being affiliated with Y rather than X. All things being equal, go where the funding is.

I don't have children so take this with a grain of salt but I'd avoid bringing up any kind of information that could make you less likely to receive an offer. Once you have an offer, you should find out all the relevant information about having a family at your school, including everything from schools and family-friendly neighborhoods to general flexibility of your department to how your potential advisor feels about your having children. There is a chance, of course, that you'll find out that your potential advisor has unrealistic expectations and you can't work with him/her, in which case your offer will have to be discarded. Even in that case, however, it's better to have the offer and be the one doing the rejecting. If you disclose this information early someone who is not necessarily relevant for your future life in the department might advocate against you for these irrelevant reasons. Admissions decisions are made collectively based on many reasons and an intricate logic you can't foresee - don't give them reasons to turn you down.

For research: I have shared dropbox folders with most of my collaborators where we keep drafts of papers, abstracts and so on. It's easy to make comments in a named version of a paper so everyone can keep up with what's going on. Some projects go on googledocs, especially when we need to make pictures or graphs, or when we need a large spreadsheet. Email is useful if there are no more than 3-4 correspondents, otherwise it's easy for important information to get lost or ignored. We use skype once in a while if we aren't all in the same place but usually that's only for large developments. Otherwise smaller groups will meet in person to get parts of projects done. For service: I use email to communicate daily needs with co-organizers of events. Large files, lists and plans go in shared dropbox folders. For myself, I work with lists. Recently I've been using workflowy, and loving it. It helps me stay organized and I can share lists when necessary.

Ask about getting (partially) reimbursed from both schools. If they can provide housing and pay for part of the flight, it'll make the costs much more reasonable. Otherwise I guess it depends on your funding. It's true that in-person interviews can be better than a skype interview, but you have to ask yourself if you can afford it. Schools understand that it's expensive for international students to travel for interviews and don't hold that against them.

I agree with the others, this is good news. Assume that this is an academic essay that will be shared with others in the prospective department, and treat it as such. At the very least you should have a title and 1-2 research question(s) for your project. Use 1-2 paragraphs to motivate the question, and if you have specific resources you know you'd like to use I think it's good to list them too. It shows you're serious and know your field. Use normal formatting standards for your field. In mine, 12pt Times New Roman single-spaced works (11pt font, 1.15 or 1.5 spacing are also often used). You probably don't need to list full references for anything familiar, but make sure people understand what resources you're citing.

The statement of purpose is the essay where you list the reasons for applying to the school, your background, interests, career goals, etc. This essay can have different names at different places - some schools call it the research statement or the personal statement. As long as it's the only essay required, this is what schools will be expecting. Sometimes schools also ask for an additional essay that specifically talks about your past or reasons for getting interested in your topic - but I've never heard of a school only requiring this statement but not the research-oriented one. So, ignore the names and read the prompts. If in doubt, contact the departments and ask. But generally, if there is just one statement required it'll be the SOP regardless of what they choose to call it. In your case:

The statement of purpose is the essay where you list the reasons for applying to the school, your background, interests, career goals, etc. This essay can have different names at different places - some schools call it the research statement or the personal statement. As long as it's the only essay required, this is what schools will be expecting. Sometimes schools also ask for an additional essay that specifically talks about your past or reasons for getting interested in your topic - but I've never heard of a school only requiring this statement but not the research-oriented one. So, ignore the names and read the prompts. If in doubt, contact the departments and ask. But generally, if there is just one statement required it'll be the SOP regardless of what they choose to call it.

Start with the SOP prompts that the schools you're applying to have on their applications. Normally they have specific questions they want answered they would like answered or information they ask you to provide. Most schools will want to know (1) why you are applying for the degree (=what are your professional/academic goals that the degree will help you achieve), (2) what background/preparation you have that make you suited for the degree, (3) what specific interests do you have (research interests, professors you want to work with or problems that interest you), and (4) why you are applying to each particular school (the so-called "fit" question).

This may differ depending on program and field, but in my field I hardly think the concentration on my transcript will matter to anyone. What matters is my published work and my thesis, and my stated interests on the research statement. Since I have an academic presence as an X scholar, that's what I'm perceived as. To my knowledge, that matters more than whether I took 2 or 4 courses in X. I imagine it's different for professional programs or if for some reason you need to have "official credential X" in order to be able to teach X or to be hired as an X scholar. Generally, it's not a requirement in my field, as far as I know.

In my department TAing is part of the funding package, and after we've completed the required load we can additionally TA for pay. In that case, the salary is for the whole course, not per hour. How much time it takes depends on the course but the more time consuming ones usually take 10-15 hours a week, depending on the particular week and what assignments the students have. Normally the breakdown for such a course is something like: 3 hours lecture, 1 hour office hours, 1 hour recitation, 1-2 hours preparing for recitation, 4-5 hours grading.

I think they were in late Jan/early Feb but the acceptances were all around the same time, too. I wrote a detailed post with dates a couple of years ago on this forum, try looking it up (sorry I'm on a phone with limited search options).

1-1.5. I got interviews from UC Santa Cruz, UPenn, Brown. The first two were phone calls, and were informal. The latter was an invitation for an on-campus interview day which I declined. I know Harvard and (I think) Stanford have interviews (phone for Harvard). I was also accepted without an interview by MIT, UMass, NYU, UCLA and Rutgers. In-person interviews can be more intimidating and you know you're a finalist if they bring you there but the general idea and questions you get asked are the same. 2. Tell us about yourself, tell us about your work, tell us what you hope to study at X, why X. Anything on your application is fair game and you might get asked to talk about some work you've done or interest that you talked about in your SOP. There are good advice threads for interviews in the interviews forum and the questions linguists get asked aren't different from other fields. 3. Several universities have open house events for admitted students and if you get 2-3 of those the total reimbursement you'll get from the universities (usually in the range of $300-500 for international students) can cover the cost of an international flight. If you can't make that, you can talk to potental advisors on the phone. Same holds for interviews, Skype/phone is always an option. I think that there is less funding for reimbursement for interviews than open house events but it depends on where you applied.

I disagree. 5 sections is a ton! Do you have a contract or any document stating how many hours you are paid to work a week, and have you been keeping track of your work hours? I second crazygirl2012's suggestion to have a conversation about this with your advisor - one designed to coordinate expectations rather than directly targeted at changing your assignment. If you're comfortable doing so, explain how much work you've managed to do this semester and ask how that compares to his expectations. Ask about next semester's load and how you can improve your situation. Your department's needs may still dictate that you TA, but maybe there are ways of improving the load.

If there is any space for "other materials", yes. If they don't specifically say not to submit any unsolicited materials, also yes. If you have time and aren't sure - ask. As with any unsolicited materials, make sure the SOP helps and doesn't detract. It should be good -- spend as much time on it as you would for any other app.

You can't really add or remove a committee member without anyone asking questions. So either you can come up with some kind of an answer, or you shouldn't even attempt it. When does the committee enter your life? Do you still have a semester or two to patch things up with this professor? Or is he famous for being unforgiving and difficult when on committees? You may be worrying prematurely and more than you should. If you do attempt it, the best advice I've been given by a prof on changing committee members (of the less relevant to my work kind): invite a more relevant faculty member to join; then worry about the size of the committee; ask for advice from the chair and aim to end up with the conclusion that the size should be reduced. The person who would be naturally chosen is the one doing less relevant work.

OK, so it's something worth following up and pursuing; but you're still new in the lab and you need to be careful how you do it. Can you find a way to show (not tell) the professor what this paper says and ask him how his big plan will be different? Good ways in my opinion are either presenting the paper in a group setting, e.g. lab meeting, or setting up a meeting/guided reading session to talk about this work. If you work through it together, either he will realize that it's doing the same thing or you'll learn how it's different.

I use R. It's much more flexible than other software I've used in the past (mostly SPSS) and it's what others in my program use. It has a steeper learning curve initially than other software, but once you're past that it's also much more flexible. I still create graphs for papers in Excel, but there's not much to learn there.

Re data collection: say you'll collect data from review articles rather than collecting new data. Explain what kind of data you're collecting and where you expect to find it. I assume you'll explain how you'll use it in other parts of the proposal. Re time line, it depends on your department. Some view it as just a formality but others view the proposal as a kind of contract you make with your department about what kind of work you'll do and for how long, before you get your degree. It can help settle disagreements later (see posts on this board about advisors not letting their students graduate) so you want to make sure it reflects a reasonable plan that you can follow and that both you and your advisor can agree on. Ask more senior students in the program which it is.

There are some details missing here. Are you in a PhD program or a Masters? What year are you in? What is the project for - is it a class project or an advanced year qualifying project; or are you an RA working on your professor's project where he has funding and needs to follow a specific plan? Is the professor tenured, up for tenure soon or new? All these things might lead to different interpretations of this situation.

If you're going to have someone ghostwrite your SOP, be prepared to also pay people to write your term papers, qualifying papers, dissertation, grant applications, abstracts, proceedings papers, journal papers, progress reports, etc. I don't know about you, but I don't have the money or the time to sit down with someone and make them as familiar with the intricacies of my work as I am. Moral issues aside, it's just not practical. You can't be an academic without at least some writing skills.

I don't know if it's common or not. They contacted my PI because of an issue with my IRB - I was going to just use my department's normal protocol which is already approved (I'm not doing anything that's not covered under it) but they wanted me to have my own. So my PI was apparently told that they want to fund me but they need to straighten out the IRB problem before it can be official. I fast-tracked an IRB process right after than and then haven't heard from them since. It's been about 3-4 weeks.

Does anyone know what the process is like once your proposal has been approved? I was unofficially notified that I'm getting funded more than a month ago (they had me do a rushed IRB approval so I think they contacted me earlier than they otherwise would have) but since then no official word has come. I hear that at some point you receive the panel's comments and need to make changes - does anyone know what the timeline for that is like? When are the reviews sent, how much time do you have to reply? My experience with the NSF so far is that everything is always rushed and last-minute and I'm trying to avoid that this time. Thanks!

I think that there are two separate issues here, which I'll address in turn. First, it sounds like you need to take a more active role in your education. That's precisely what you describe your friend as doing: apply for positions, schmooze with professors, talk yourself up. Since you do less of that, I think it's not unreasonable that professors have less of an idea of your research interests, and that they associate you with your friend's interests (since you describe yourself as his sidekick). Furthermore, since your friend has obviously been successful in his past positions, you can also kind of see why he would be recommended or sought after by other professors. You need to start building a name for yourself that's similar to that. If you do a good job, I don't see why you wouldn't also be appreciated. People are recognized for work they do, not for potential they might have. Prove yourself, and people will take notice. Second (and more difficult), you need to stop comparing yourself to your friend. A fact of life is that there is always going to be someone smarter/faster/better at something than you are. If you give up as soon as you encounter such a person, you won't get very far. A fact of life is also that it's not always those smarter/better people who succeed more in life, you can affect your destiny by being active and taking initiative. Get your foot in the doorway, get to know professors and try to start collaborations - essentially do the things you say your friend is doing. Hey, maybe your friend will even be willing to talk to you about how he strikes up conversations with professors and gets these collaborations. It's something useful to learn how to do. From your story, I didn't think he was doing anything to harm you, though he may have been insensitive or oblivious when he could have helped you out. If you talk to him, that may change. ... or you may find out that you were right to distance yourself from him, but either way I think you'll use your energy better if you invest it in furthering your own causes rather than comparing yourself to others.