fuzzylogician

Generally it makes a difference whether you get payed for 9 months out of the year, or 12. It's much easier to go away if you are not being payed over the summer. You should ask current students, preferably internationals, what they do. I don't think there should be a problem with people going home for an extended visit when they live far away and the ticket is expensive, but that's something that may change depending on program and discipline.

You're an adult. You don't need to study for a degree that you don't want, and there is no rational reason to think that it (or any other more advanced degree in fine arts) will earn you a 100K salary. Even if it could, you shouldn't do it if it'll make you unhappy. You need to stand up for yourself and learn to say NO. Maybe you also need to put some physical distance between yourself and your mother, and in addition it would be advisable to think ahead and come up with a plan for what you'll do after you graduate. If you don't want to go to school -- don't. Get a job and live your life.

Well, periods of more and of less motivation come and go. I think it's totally understandable in your situation, and I honestly don't think it'll be the worst thing ever if you get a bad grade on a meaningless paper. As long as you still meet all of your requirements and graduate on time, I don't see the harm in a little bit of slacking off. In fact, I think an important piece of advice for anyone starting grad school is to learn to manage one's time, which may include spending less time on less important tasks, even at the cost of a lower grade or a less-than-desirable final product, as long as the important stuff gets done. The important stuff includes taking time off to rest and for personal purposes (as well as research and other more important work-related activities). So, this may not be helping, but as long as you are doing what you need to graduate on time and move on to grad school without a hitch, I don't think senioritis is all that terribly bad. It's a much better time to slack off than when grad school starts. You want to be well-rested and motivated then.

Marriage is almost unavoidable. The only other way I know of is to get permission for an extended stay on a B1 visa, which can sometimes be available for unmarried partners. But it would mean that your girlfriend would not be able to work, study or do anything else that a tourist is not allowed to do. I would not recommend this option at all.

Asking for an extension and asking to be released from your obligation will both invariably convey to the school that it's not your top choice. But schools know that they're not everyone's top choice, for all kinds of reasons. If they agree to release you from your obligation, I agree that it will not make them too happy and it may burn some bridges, but if you do it right most profs should be able to understand your considerations. You have to decide if your top choice is worth it. Re: asking for an extension, you just tell them that you're still waiting to hear back from some of the other schools you applied to and that you'd like to have all of your results before you make a decision. They may go for it, or they may not, but obviously they'll know that they are not your top choice. Re: self-funding, could you repay that kind of debt and is it worth it? It's your call. Different people are comfortable with different levels of risk.

I think you need to contact your school and ask. I agree that it makes no sense to go into debt for a graduate writing degree and I think that you're making a sensible choice in trying to find other sources of funding. Deferral policies change from school to school, though, so it's hard to tell what your school will say. One would think that if they're not offering you any funding then it shouldn't be a problem for them to let you defer, but who knows. There may be different policies for before and after April 15 (although it shouldn't make a difference for unfunded offers) -- so I'd suggest not waiting too long before you contact the school.

Can you get an extension of the decision deadline from the safety school? Would you be able to fund your education yourself if you end up not getting funded by your top choice at all? In your shoes I would probably choose the safety school, because I could never afford to fund school myself (I also don't think it's a right move, anyway). If funding becomes available at your top choice after you've accepted the other offer, you can inquire about being released from your obligation there. I think many times a school won't keep you if you express a desire to go elsewhere.

It depends on the email, the time of day, the day of week and generally how busy I am vs. what the email is asking. I usually try to answer students' emails by the next day; I find that answering too fast has the effect of making them ask me every little thing instead of trying to deal with their problems themselves. I definitely don't think it's rude to take evenings and weekends off to myself and not rushing to answer emails at those times. I usually answer professors' emails as soon as I see them, because they don't normally require that much work (check my calendar for availability, attach a file they asked for - that sort of thing). Other emails - administrative issues and such, I try to get done within a day or two of getting them. In general, I try to keep my inbox as empty as possible [right now it's down to 13]. I only keep emails there that I still have to deal with, the rest get labeled and archived. It makes it much easier to keep track of everything.

I've recently had to ponder this very question myself; I thought that the templates my university provides are actually quite nice looking, but having the university logo on every slide is just a bit too much for my taste. I did use the university colors similarly to the design of the official slides and I put the logo on the first slide, but generally I prefer to keep it as simple as possible.

Forgive me from citing wikipedia here, but I think it'll do for our present purposes; An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the opponent advocating the premise. Now read just the text you cited, not even the thoughtful comment that followed it. "That's a bit naive." "That" would be the content of your claim, not you personally. You (in person) don't interest me at all, it's the posts that I am arguing with. The reason I write is in the hopes that others will benefit from the exchange of ideas, even if you don't want to learn from them. I'd appreciate it if you did not misrepresent my intentions. Beneath you to reply to posts "that contain ad hominem arguments" ... the nerve of some people.

....and that's my cue to leave the discussion. If you want to argue about the content of my posts, I think you will have noticed that I take the time to reply and that I provide the reasoning behind my arguments. If you want to get hung up on the form of the reply, and selectively cite only parts of the post (as you often do, btw, and I should have protested earlier and ask for full replies to all of my points and not selected half-points that you misrepresent) - then I am done. I hope that you can step back and read this thread again for its merit later on, and that others will benefit from whatever ideas were exchanged in it so far.

If the letter you got says that you get a "tuition remittance and stipend", then yes, you are funded. If it doesn't mention anything about funding, you should definitely go ahead and ask! It's not rude, it only sensible to have a financial plan for the next 5+ years of your life and I don't see why anyone should be upset by your question. Just inquire generally about the funding offer; if the letter says you'll get a stipend, ask how high it is and ask to be put in touch with current students to make sure it'll enough to cover your basic needs. Ask about health insurance, about summer funding, maybe also about travel funding for conferences and such. These are all important aspects of the offer that you should have before you decide. And congrats on the acceptance!

That's a bit naive. If you're thinking of the GPA and GRE, the quality of the education applicants in different schools in different countries receive vary widely. Even within the same institution, I'm sure you know that the same class can be wonderful or terrible based on the instructor who teaches it. Grades can be curved up or down, and in any case they don't reflect true knowledge of a field. The GRE tests all kinds of things, but knowledge of your (anyone's) chosen field is certainly not one of them. A select publication or writing sample also cannot hope to provide the adcom with an objective measure of your knowledge of the field. It'll likely be a very narrow assessment of a very narrow problem (as it should be! papers and publications are not about conveying to the world everything you know about your field). The opinions of your teachers about what you learned in school is no less objective than all of those other measures. Together with them, they provide the adcom with a more complete picture of your training. Yes, some luck is involved. That is true. Some measure of luck is also involved in the GRE and in the grade you get for a class you took in semester X with prof Y whose exam was or was not more difficult than in other years or than you would get in another institution. So those also depend not only on the student but also on the person who wrote the test, for example, or the TA who wrote the grading key and decided to be more or less lenient. Truly objective criteria just do not exist. However, the opinions of those you work with can teach the adcom much more about who you are as a researcher and a student than your grades. You need to understand that as you move forward in the academic world, these subjective measures become increasingly important and in many cases replace those things that you are calling objective criteria. Research is based on the exchange of ideas, on peer-reviews. These are not uniform by any means, let me tell you. You can get terribly conflicting comments from different reviewers who have read the exact same text. Not everyone has the expertise to judge the many kinds of work that they encounter in the process of assessing applicants for jobs, grants, etc., and even those who do have the expertise do not necessarily have the same opinions of all the work. If such a consensus existed, academia would not -- and so people rely on the summaries and recommendations of others quite often when they evaluate candidates. So the writing sample and publications are not objective. Nor is the SOP, I'm sure you'll agree. And so we conclude that is not such thing as an objective measure, which is why the application asks for many different things that cover different aspects of your work that are relevant to your fit and possible success within the graduate program that you're applying to. You can think of the LOR as a form of peer review -- one of many that will come in your academic life -- but a favorable one, where you get to choose your reviewers.

If it's at all possible, I think you should visit. Not because of what the professor at school A might think, but because you should make the most informed decision you can--which involves gathering all of the information that you possibly can. Given what you describe right now I would advise you to choose school B, but I still think it makes sense to know all you need about school A before you make that choice. Don't feel bad about taking someone else's spot, as long as you are not decided. Campus visits can cause significant changes of opinion, so I don't think you can and should decide until you visit. Once you visit and make a choice -- yes, don't wait to inform the other school so they can move down their list and admit someone else. But before then, it's your offer, you earned it, and you shouldn't feel bad about taking your time to seriously weigh it against your other options.

I'm not sure why you think that LORs get social skills accurately but other skills inaccurately. Why aren't both equally subjective opinions? (is there such a thing as an objective opinion?) Why do you think that these opinions are the most important factor in grad school admissions, and why are they an unfair criterion? Yes, LORs are indeed very important, because they are a direct testament from active researchers within your field that your work is creative, independent, innovative -- and yes, that you'll fit socially in a research community. But LORs are paired with the SOP, where you tell your own story of your work, and with the writing sample, which is a more direct indication of your ability--and you obviously choose the best such indication and you polish your SOP until it shines.. It's not three random people who you choose to render an opinion about you and your work. It's the three people who you have worked closest with you and who know your work the best. Why would they not have a high opinion of the merit of the work, not only what you vaguely call social skills? Presenting work, listening to criticism, revising -- those are all social in nature but they are important professional skills. The people you meet with on a regular basis should have a good idea of how you do in these important academic areas, and other aspects of your application packet just can't provide this information.

Research is a social activity. In many cases it involves teams collaborating on projects, brainstorming, commenting on colleagues' work, presenting your own work. You don't work in a vacuum. Even if your research only requires a pen and paper and nothing else, you still depend on others for peer reviews, for acceptance to conferences, even for proofreading your texts. The difference between work that has not been read by others and one that has been extensively presented to peers and commented on by them is enormous. It is important to get other people's opinions, to hear from others who have different fields of expertise or theoretical or methodological orientations, etc. There are also other social obligations in academia, not least among them service and teaching. There are also very mundane things like having someone to bounce ideas off of, or help you figure out why your script is not compiling, or what could have possibly gone wrong with your latest experiment to make the data look so strange, or cover for you when you are sick but have to teach - just to name a few examples. Not to mention that people in general do not enjoy working with people who don't respect them. You appear to have a low opinion of your current teachers and future colleagues and peers, which could affect those who will be working with you. That is exactly the kind of thing a good LOR should warn against, and which will not come through your own words and evaluations of yourself, nor from your grades. It does matter what those who are in charge of your training think of your level of success. It does matter how creative they think you are, and how likely you are to be able to complete the course of studies of a rigorous graduate degree. With all due respect, you haven't been through the program and your high opinion of yourself is not enough by itself. Even if you are exceedingly brilliant, if you are unpleasant to work with, you could have trouble finding a school, appropriate mentors to work with at whatever school does accept you, and subsequently a job (by the way, you'll need reference letters for those future jobs, grants and promotions if you hope to stay in academia). On the other hand, if you are creative and productive, there is no reason why that should not come across in your LORs.If you've used your resources wisely, presented and received comments about your work from your teachers, then they should be familiar enough with it to praise it as it deserves. The evaluation of experienced researchers is an important part of the LOR and pertains to the merits of your work, not to your social skills. Both are important. An admissions committee may read the finished product of one of your works which you submit as a writing sample, and its members may even become excited and search for other publications by you, but they cannot be as familiar with your work process as your LOR writers, and honestly I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to read multiple works by the many applicants that they get, when they could read summaries and opinions about that work written by trusted colleagues who have been through the graduate school process and have successfully emerged out the other end.

I believe that it's never too late to change, but some times it's harder than others. It's hardest when you don't have a clear vision of what you want to change to. I think rising_star's advice is very sound. Finish the degree you started, and you can do your soul searching once you're further along in the program, toward its end. Once you start changing and walking away from what you've already achieved it'll be much harder to go back and finish it. From my own experience, it's much more practical to choose a topic that's reasonable in its dimensions and that your advisor is excited about, even if you are not in love with it, than to work on a topic that your advisor does not fully support but that you are more excited about. [i wish someone had given me this advice when I was doing my MA, it would have saved me a lot of heartache]. Of course, ideally, you can sit down with your advisor and find a topic that you are both excited about.

I see I got you upset but still I haven't gotten you to think enough about what you're saying. I'll say this and then stop because I don't think I'm getting through here. You have your cause and effect the wrong way. 'Fit' is about choosing schools that match your interests, not about choosing interests that match many schools. Grad school is a very difficult endeavor of 5 years or more, leading to a career in your chosen field. If you choose to work on a certain topic because it is popular, and not because you love researching it, you won't make it through, or you will be unhappy. Good luck with all your future choices.

Sorry for being blunt but developing better data-analysis skills may also help you achieve your grad school dreams. Specifically, your poll says "Research interests that "fit" the department" -- that to me does not by any means suggest that you should choose your research interests based on the mainstream. It means that you should choose the schools you apply to based on the interests that you have so far developed. Once you define your own interests--which is actually very hard to do, as many discover during the process of writing the SOP--THEN you research universities and as in [a] and find the ones that fit you. As for [c]- you should also aim to get your research experience in your chosen field, if you can, but really the exact project is often less important than just having the experience and the resulting LOR. Other than what you've already listed, remember that you need three letters. So yes, it's good to have a strong working relationship with one prof who you are doing research with, but you need to keep in mind that you'll need two others. Go to office hours, make sure you have options among the tenured or tenure-track faculty. As for how many schools to apply to.. well, it depends on how many of them fit your interests, and on other outside factors that may or may not play a role for you - like weather, job opportunities for SO, proximity to family and friends, etc.

Getting good LORs is nothing like preparing for the GREs, the comparison that you are making is too simplistic. Again, which LOR to choose depends on the content of the letter that you will get. The content matters more than the writer. All things being equal, you'd want the famous writer, or else someone who has ties to the department that you are applying to. But things are rarely equal, and in general the stronger letter is better than the the weaker one from the more famous writer.

LORs from someone famous vs. from someone rather anonymous: what is the content of these letters? I'd take a detailed, glowing recommendation from a less know prof over a 'did well in class' letter from a bigshot any time. Other than that, it's fit and research experience for me.

It sometimes comes up in the context of where we visited before making a decision and who we met while on our visit. I don't think anyone has ever asked me how many schools I applied to or how many schools accepted me. In fact, this issue only comes up during admissions cycles, when prospective students are visiting and asking questions about the department and how to make their decision. It never came up when I just started grad school -- it just wasn't relevant then. In any event, being rejected from other schools is NOTHING to be ashamed of. In the end you and your cohort were all made the same offer and you all chose to accept it, and that's all that matters. There's no reason why anyone should feel superior just because they turned down other offers. Anyone who would feel superior will not be someone you would want as a friend anyway.

Hmm, I actually haven't gone vegetable-and-fruit shopping in a while.. I get a box of fruit and vegetables delivered to my house every other week (costs $29 and contains a good amount for one person). Here is a link to the company website, in case you are interested: http://www.bostonorg....com/index.html If I remember correctly tomatoes can cost $3-5 a pound (=.45 kilo!); apples, carrots, cucumbers would be $2-3 maybe, cabbage and beets I don't know, I would guess 1-2. Any kind of berries, cherries, kiwis, melons, pineapple -- my favorite fruits -- can easily be about 4-5 dollars a pound. It's crazy. It's possible to buy cheaper if you go to farmers' markets. I imagine the prices also vary quite a bit, and I live in an expensive town.

Still, just the staples are expensive. And you want to have more than just the bare minimum--you'd want to have some basics in the cupboard that can sustain you beyond the weekly stop at the grocery store. Groceries can be more or less expensive, depending on what you eat. Organic can be expensive; I find that vegetables are very expensive, meat is less expensive.. but in the beginning you want to buy some fundamentals to keep in the fridge and that will cost more than other weekly trips to the store later on.

Well, the flight ticket, for one. If you need to stay in a hotel a few days while you search for an apartment, that's another. Furnishing a whole apartment, buying all the groceries, cleaning supplies and whatnot that you need to get set up. Renting a truck for transporting your new ikea furniture. Down payments on phones, internet, other services. There are a lot of unexpected expenses when you move to a new country and basically start from scratch.