fuzzylogician

As someone who has a weird (for English speakers) first name and last name, my experience has been that session chairs always find me before my talk to ask how to pronounce my name. When I chair sessions I do the same - find out how the speaker wants to be introduced and also how the title of their talk should be pronounced if it contains unfamiliar/foreign words. This is one thing you don't need to worry about.

I agree with this. What you could do instead of sending an attachment is to make a very basic website where you upload your CV (in text form, not as a file, to make it easiest to access). Professors are probably likelier to click on a link than to open a file anyway.

The opening paragraph itself is one of the last things you should worry about. Start with writing the body of the essay and polish that part. Once that is ready it'll be easier to write an appropriate beginning, although that remains one of the trickiest and most difficult parts of the statement. Generally, I believe in keeping things professional. I think that starting with one's research interests is the best strategy because really that's what the adcom wants to know about each student when they pick up their SOP -- and that of course should be followed by an explanation of why you are ready to take on the research program that you propose and why the school you applied to is the best place to do that in. I would also not advise being too unconventional, but I suppose that depends on what you mean by that. Again, my advice is to keep things professional.

Therefore, reiterating my previous advice: 1) find out if it's customary in your field to list conferences attended. We've learned that it's fine in English, but it may not be in other fields. 2) clearly separate "conferences attended" from "conference presentations" (and possibly from "service").

In that case, if your recommenders don't know much about the field you're entering or the schools you've chosen, it may be wise to provide them with a clear list of preferences and reasons for those preferences. At best, your letter writers will use the reasons you listed in your letter, making it stronger and more personal. At worst, they'll ignore them. Seems like you have nothing to lose by providing the list, in my opinion, Here are some random links to previous discussions about mentioning other schools you're applying to:

This comes up year after year after year .. you can try and search for previous threads that asked this very question. It won't hurt you to name other schools, as long as there is a general consistency among them. Schools know that they are (usually) not the only place applicants apply to and they're not too troubled by that. They ask this question to gather statistics about their competition. Later, if you're accepted and decline their offer, they may be again interested in knowing whose offer you accepted -- for the exact same reason. By knowing which other schools most of their applicants are considering they can try and understand how to make their own program more attractive (placing it on par with close competitors). As long as your list does not look like you're all over the place - applying to unrelated departments or to vastly differently ranked ones, don't worry about it. Well, most of the time professors only write one letter for each applicant and then tweak it for each school. The part that takes more time is the attached form they have to fill out for each application, which they can't just copy-paste. I don't think it would backfire to indicate preferences but I wouldn't tell them that the reason you're stating those preferences is in case the slack off and don't have enough time to invest in your letters. I'd go about in more of an advice-seeking way. Request a meeting with them to ask about where you should apply. Tell them what your preferences are (and why) and ask if they make sense. You may get some interesting input about your list, or your opinions may be confirmed. Either way, you won't lose by going about it that way.

Your GPA may not be the highest, but it should get you past most (all?) initial cutoffs. A +1200 GRE score should also be high enough to get you past cutoffs. If you are not blindly cut from the pack, you have a great chance of standing out once your application packet gets read by the admissions committee. You have an excellent background in research which should translate into amazingly strong letters of recommendation. If you invest the time, you should be able to write a strong statement of purpose (where I would suggest to concentrate solely on the great things you've achieved, and not to make any excuses for your grades) -- LORs, the SOP, a strong publication as a writing sample - these are all much more important than grades when admissions to top programs is concerned. Training a graduate student costs a lot of money and can be a great risk if said student has no previous research experience and no demonstrated success at research. Research is very different than taking classes, as I'm sure you know. If a student turns out not to be a good fit for a program or for research in general, the program will lose the time and money invested in that student and will be left one student short in that year. That's why the "intangible" parts of the application are so much more important that demonstrating book-smarts. If you take the time to pick schools that fit your interests and demonstrate that clearly in your SOP, you should do very well in the coming application cycle. It's all about getting your application read by someone and not automatically cut, and once that happens I think you have a great chance to succeed.

This is an old thread but since it's been resurrected -- it'd be a good idea to find out whether or not it's customary in your field to list conferences you just attended but did not present at in your CV. In my field no one lists such conferences. If you volunteered to help at a conference that could go under service, but having a heading in your CV that says conferences and listing under it ones you did not present at is very misleading, in my opinion.

This is a good thing to ask current students in your program. They will be able to tell you which local banks are accessible and have good deals for students. Some universities have their own credit unions, which can also be very convenient. They will definitely know how to deal with students and they sometimes have less strict requirements for e.g. getting a regular (non-secured) credit card. If all you need is a checking account and a savings account, that could be a good option. Larger banks might be able to offer more sophisticated services, but the question is whether or not you'll need them.

I studied for the GRE by myself and didn't think a course was necessary. It's really only necessary if you need an organized schedule or an outside motivation to make you study, but if you can diligently study on your alone then I don't think the course can teach you anything you can't study alone from books. For vocab, I learned the most by making my own flash cards, instead of buying ready-made ones. I used a vocab book and also added any word I encountered in practice tests or elsewhere if I wasn't sure what its meaning was. Like is usually the case with these things, I don't think I saw more than 3-4 of the these words on the actual test, but I still found it useful in general to study that way. It gave me a good indication of possible meanings of words I didn't know based on their roots. Roots are very important, by the way, they allow you to guess a word's general meaning even if you never encountered it before--which is perhaps even more useful than memorizing random words and hoping that they appear on the test.

Yes, and that's exactly why my post starts with the words:

Most of the students in my department live with other students, not necessarily from the same year. I live with someone who is a year ahead of me. Most of the time it works out great for everybody, but of course it can sometimes cause difficulties -- just like any roommate situation.

My commute is 15 minutes by bike, 25-35 minutes by bus/subway. I like not living too close to campus, I actually enjoy having somewhat of a commute - some time I spend every day listening to music or reading a book and not working. I agree, though, that living too far away from campus can be difficult too. It depends both on the way you commute and the distance you have to travel. For me an hour would be too much, but 40-45 minutes is still reasonable.

Seems about right. You need to have a valid visa to enter the US. Once you're in the States, all you need is a valid DS-2019 to remain in status, the visa can expire. The next time you leave the US, you'll have to get a new visa. That means that you had better plan to go home next time you leave the US (as opposed to going to some conference or going on a visit to some other country) because normally only the embassy in your home country will agree to issue you a new visa. But personally I still think that this is a better option than flying home just to get a new visa when you don't even need it right now. Again, you should run all this by your ISO to make sure you're not doing anything that can cause you immigration trouble in the future. I believe this is all perfectly legal and legitimate, but you should get a second opinion about these matters from someone who understands the law better than we here do.

Oh, I see. I should have knows that you are not at the point of taking quals yet, sorry about the confusion! I guess given this policy the question is whether you still want to fight to join that department, and how likely that fight is to succeed. You need to ask yourself how likely you are to pass this exam; it may be hard to know now and you most certainly don't need to reply to that here. But it's one consideration in the decision that you should think through. Maybe that's also a place to consult with the potential PI. What is the PI's assessment of your chance to join the department given the difficulties? It doesn't sound like anyone has anything against you personally so if you can prove that you are different then you should get different treatment than those other students. The other important question is what happens if they don't let you join the department after all. Does you work for that year count toward something? Can the PI still remain your PI, be on your committee, advise your research? Also, are there other department that you could join where you could still do the kind of research you want to do? From what you write it doesn't seem like you absolutely have to join a department to begin with, but there are probably some advantages to doing so. There should be people in your program whose job it is to help you progress through the program. There are probably also people whose job it is to coordinate with the different programs. Seek them out. Come up with a plan of what you want to do in grad school and ask them for help figuring out the best way to do it. Definitely don't give up yet!

I'm so sorry, Tall Chai Latte:( but you are not alone, you have us here on the GradCafe! I'm not entirely sure I understood the situation - you failed the exam and therefore they refused to let you join this one lab, but you could still join other labs? In any event, leaving the program and switching to another PhD program does not sound like a good solution to your problem. If you had other good options that you turned down previously, maybe you should contact those PIs and explain your situation. Hopefully one or more of them can still offer you a spot. Or, even better, if your would-be PI is interested in having you, which it sounds like (s)he is, maybe you could enlist him/her to fight on your behalf so that you could still join the lab? maybe you could be on some kind of provisional status until you pass the exam? Is there a director of graduate studies or someone else who could help? these kinds of decisions can sometimes be reversed if the student is persistent. Don't take it as a final decision, just as a temporary (fixable) setback. Maybe you should take some time off to absorb this..? it can be a shock to get refused a position like this, and you should not be making big decision in this state. Give yourself permission to be sad, but then after a while it'll be time to come up with a plan and fight to fix this. I can't believe it's come to the point of leaving the program. Hang in there!

In general the answers all depend on the specific program, but here are the answers for my program: - We take 4 classes in the Fall of the first year, three classes and an independent study in the Spring. Then we can make our own schedule; most people will spread the remaining classes over their second and third year, possibly with some leftovers for the fourth year (we are extremely an course-heavy program). I took 4 classes for credit in my 3rd semester, 2 + 1 as a listener in my 4th (and I also TAed). Next fall I hope to take 2 classes for credit, two as a listener and TA, or take 3 for credit + 1 as a listener. The normal workload is 3 classes, or 2 + TAship. Depending on the classes it's sometimes not too bad to do 4 in one semester, although I would not recommend it. - In our department we only have to TA two semesters during our whole residency. We can choose when we want to do it, an email goes out with the openings before each semester and we reply with out availability. The rest of the time we are funded by the department without any service required. We can TA for additional courses for money, again, we just reply to the email that goes out before the semester. It's also possible to approach an instructor in person and ask to be their TA -- that can sometime help get a desired position too. As for RAship, that's strictly on a personal level. You get hired and payed by a certain professor who has funding, so you have to go to them in person and ask for the job. - Our first-years never TA. The first semester is also normally too busy for research -- that begins in the second semester. - There's a whole thread about this, as rising_star points out. My advice: prioritize, learn to say no, and make time for hobbies, proper meals and sleep. As for the additional question: people don't normally take classes in the summer. Since we're payed for 10 months out of the year (9 regular + 1 month summer funding), a lot of people go away for extended periods over the summer. Those who stay mostly work on their research.

Three weeks should be enough time in most cases, unless you're studying something the Americans deem "sensitive" (e.g. some kinds of engineering, biology, etc) or you've had immigration problems in the past. If you schedule your interview for the beginning of that 3-week period, you should have more than enough time to get your passport and visa back from the embassy before you have to return to the US. The main problem could be scheduling the interview -- summer is a busy time of year for the American embassy in many countries. If you know when you expect to be home, try and schedule the interview as soon as possible (once you have your I20 and SEVIS number). Also, if you're in the US right now on a student visa, you could consult with the international student office at your new school and ask whether or not they recommend a change of status. You only need a visa to reenter the US if you leave the country. If you stay in the US the whole summer, you should be able to just change status (maybe even not that if you're already on a student visa, but those kinds of details are beyond my knowledge). You'll then need to get the visa the next time you leave the US. It's not always advisable to do a change status within the US, especially from a tourist visa to a student visa, but your case may be different. So, that may be something to look into too.

Thank you!! I didn't know about this option. Here is my referral: http://db.tt/NYO9P0h

If you've already decided to go and you're not going to change your mind then I don't see why you need to go. Enough people get to a new city in the summer, get settled into a good apartment and do just fine. You also have contacts in your new city so there's really nothing to worry about. I agree that in theory it's always to visit than not, but given other considerations I don't think that it's worth the money in this case.

There's an active thread on Officially Grads that you may want to look at:

Practice, practice, practice. I used to visibly shake from just the thought of speaking up in class but I slowly trained myself to be able to teach and present at conferences. It's an unavoidable part of academia so I try to embrace it and learn to perform as best I can. Now I don't worry about it anymore when I'm teaching or presenting something small in class, but I still get nervous before conference presentations. In fact, I presented at two conferences just this month, so I can tell you what worked for me as I was preparing for these talks. First off, I worked and reworked my slides several times and got feedback from several professors and colleagues. I also presented these slides in less formal settings twice and in a more formal setting (a well-attended practice talk) once. I find that it helps me to start out by writing a full 'script' of the talk as I go through the slides to make sure that the order I present them in makes sense. But since--as others have noted--it's impossible to stay completely on script, I then turned these notes into bullet points where important keywords are marked with bold large font. I break my notes up such that natural breaks in the sentence flow are marked by line breaks, and that also makes it easier to recover my train of thought if I start rambling of forget what I was going to say. I also try to prepare in advance for whatever questions I can think of, including adding 'appendix' slides just in case. In general, when I attend other people's talks I try and collect good "I don't know" and "(this comment made no sense) hmm, interesting, thank you, maybe we can discuss this in more detail after the talk" answers. People respond to these types of questions/comments in different ways and I try to remember the ones I appreciated the most and use them when I would otherwise just be baffled. I normally iterate through my slides enough times in advance that by the time I actually present, I don't need my notes at all anymore, although it's still useful to have them just in case. For me, that's an important part of being confident in what I say. I've gotten good feedback on my recent presentations so I think my preparation worked, even though in the end all I can remember is where I forgot to say something or how my timing was off in several places or how I could have given a better answer than I did to some question or other. But friends tell my I sounded confident and the talk had a good flow, and I guess no one can know where I could have presented my argument a little better or what I didn't quite have time to say. On the technical eve-of-the-talk front, - unless you can handle your liquor, don't drink the night before your talk - get enough sleep - dress comfortably - don't eat and drink too much before your session - remember to breath. Take a bottle of water and force yourself to take small sips between slides if you have to. - take notes of interesting questions. Otherwise you might forget useful discussions. - afterwards, don't be too critical of yourself.

In my program everybody says the first year is the worst in terms of work load but I don't think they're right. It's definitely different than the other years - much more structure, more assignments and readings and less (read: ' almost no') time for research. That all can be very stressful. In subsequent years we're free to build our schedule and do research at our leisure, but I don't think I'm working any less than in I did in my first year. If anything, I'm working more. But the nature of the work is different and the ability to control my time makes it more bearable. The one important thing to learn in graduate school is time management. With it, it's also important to learn to say 'no'. There are just too many demands on my time and some things I just can't do, or can't do within the original time frame. I've learned to prioritize - some things I decide I won't even try to get done, others I decide to only invest X amount of time in - even if it means the final product is less than perfect (that's especially true for assorted class assignments). I try not to over-invest in my TAship so I keep careful track of how long I spend on my work and try not to overdo it, although sometimes that's difficult. The one thing to remember is that you'll have time for what you decide is important. If you make time for a social life, for breaks, for exercise - then you'll have time for those things. If all you do is work - you'll get tired and depressed and won't be able to keep it up. It's important to actively take time off, have hobbies, do other things. It's all a matter or deciding what's important.