fuzzylogician

I think we can agree on the following: - Staying with someone who doesn't want to have you as advisor for an entire PhD is ill-advised. - However, it is best to part on good terms. It remains to be seen what that means in this case. It may mean sticking through the MS or it may not. But that consideration should be taken into account either way. Other important considerations are the OP's well-being and his/her next steps, once there is a decision about what those are. - If New Prof is an option, of course the OP has to talk to him directly and it's not enough to rely on rumors you hear from first-year students. However, I don't think that talking about being "rejected" by another professor is useful here. It's more appropriate to think of this as a classic case of incompatibility between advisor and advisee. That doesn't imply that the OP can't do good work, or at least that's not what the OP writes in his/her post. Again, I would approach NP in good faith and let him decide if he thinks there is potential for an advising relationship there or not. Don't overthink it and don't anticipate his considerations without letting him run his own calculations. You have to be your own champion; if you don't have your best interests at heart, who will? - Going to law school would be a drastic and unnecessary step at this point.

I respectfully disagree. He has explicitly said he doesn't want the OP as a PhD student; a PhD is a long process with its inherent ups and down even on the best of terms, and starting out with someone who's already said he doesn't think you're good enough can't lead to anything good. OP -- it sounds like the best course of action if you want to stay in your program might be to switch to working with New-Professor. Trust NP to know who he wants in his lab, and don't worry about not being able to give anything in return. You'll learn what you need to learn and start producing work soon enough. If NP is good with that, you should be, too. If you have compatible work styles and you have his support, I think that's a much better solution than begging someone who's said they don't want to be your advisor anymore to stay on. The MS option sounds unappealing, so staying in the PhD program some other way seems like the way to go. If you can't stay in your program, maybe transferring (often, reapplying from scratch) is the only way to go. Law school is obviously another option, but that's quite a leap from where you are now. Maybe you should look at more local solutions first.

You'll have other letters supporting aspects of your application that he might not? He knows you and agrees to write you a strong letter, and his name carries weight? Seems like an obvious person to ask for a letter from. I know that the culture in Europe is different than in the States with regard to how effusive the letter is, but that's a well-known fact that the adcom will know as well. I can't imagine that this uber-famous professor has never placed other students in US programs -- meaning that he's written letters of recommendation that at the very least didn't impede people's chances, and in all likelihood did more than that. Which is to say, I doubt that he's unaware of how important letters are. LORs are ubiquitous in all stages of an academic's career -- for grad school, postdocs, jobs, grants, fellowships, tenure, promotion to full prof -- and I assure you that he's written hundreds of them. Just ask him like you would anyone else ('would you be able to write a strong letter in support of my application?'), and don't worry about things you can't control.

I assume this full name of the degree appears somewhere on the program's website? Just do what they do.

I'd write "I have a master's degree in biology". I'd also not worry that much, because this isn't going to be important. Or, I'd use google to find pages such as this one: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/masters-degree-or-masters-degree/ and that one: http://coe.unm.edu/uploads/docs/writing-studio/09-capitalization-page.pdf.

Usually it means 11:59pm on the day of the deadline. When in doubt, it's always good to ask the relevant people in charge. And if and when you organize a conference or something else with a strict submission deadline yourself, remember this moment and explicitly say 11:59pm EST, to avoid confusion

Thanks, I needed a good joke to end the day on.

I wouldn't disclose, but you have to ask yourself what you'll do if you get in. I can't imagine anyone will appreciate offering you admissions, only to hear that you already had an offer in hand from a law school and decided to take it; if so, why waste everyone's time? On the other hand, if that's what you end up doing, the bridge you might burn probably isn't one you'll be planning to walk on any time soon. And there are ways of declining where the school will never find out that you already had this offer from last year. It's fully expected that strong applicants will have multiple offers to choose from and will decline some very good opportunities in favor of others. So yeah, I just wouldn't provide information that wasn't asked for, because there is some chance, however small, that it might hurt you. This said, the question of whether you should apply to grad school in the first place is one that you should be asking yourself regardless of anything else -- what's the point of applying? Law school and a PhD are two very different career paths, and you should not go down either one if you're not convinced that's what you want. It's hard enough even when you are sure.

An explanation like "my advisor doesn't believe in A's" isn't going to get you very far. I wouldn't mention it. You are implying that you did A work but didn't get an A grade, but that's just your evaluation of the situation and no one else can know if that's true. Since you're getting a letter from your advisor, hopefully the letter will say that you're a strong candidate and that will take care of it. If you're concerned, you might ask her to explicitly discuss your grades and performance, but it's generally much better coming from her than from you.

You've submitted everything? Some schools are very slow updating their online systems; some never do. If you're very concerned, you can email the schools and ask if the documents have arrived. If you can, just wait it out and don't worry.

1. No one can make you any promises, but for most graduate degrees in the US all you need is a BA, not an MA. That means that many schools will accept you even if you never finish your current masters degree. You do need to have a completed bachelors degree, however, so if you won't have that by the time the US program starts, you'll most likely have to defer or reapply next year. 2. If you apply to a school knowing that you can't attend because you don't meet the admissions criteria, they might not appreciate it. If circumstances change and you have to defer or reapply, I assume that most would be understanding. It's hard to say more without knowing the particular details of your case. I would suggest that you contact the schools that you are planning to apply to directly and ask if you would satisfy their admissions criteria, given your current situation. As I said, we can't make you any promises, but if the problem is with completing your MA, and your BA is done, you might not have a problem at all.

Roughly 7-8 months ago, several people on this board spent a lot of time trying to help you with another proposal. I really hope this is not the same one, but you should already have some experience at this point, so maybe you can be more specific: what are you looking for? Have you asked your adsivor about this? Have you looked for resources within your program -- a student handbook or similar texts? Have you tried asking your advisor for examples of successful proposals from previous students? Have you tried asking other students in your program for their approved proposals? Have you checked the library for submitted papers (to use their structure as a guide for an outline)? Those resources will be much more useful than random outlines you might find online, which may or may not be what your particular program is looking for.

Often, PhD programs prepare people to go into academia, not industry. For some professors, this may mean that if you don't go into academia, it's a waste of time and resources to invest in you. Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone, but since you don't know who has what opinion, it's better not to say anything that might affect your acceptance chances.

I think it's perfectly fine to edit the thesis to incorporate comments you got or simply for style and/or content. You wouldn't be able to say "this is my undergraduate thesis" but there is no reason you couldn't say "this is a revised version of my thesis". In fact, it's even advised to take commentary seriously and edit accordingly, so on one should be concerned at all, and there is no reason for you to hide the fact that you edited the paper.* * More generally, no one's first draft of any paper is the same as their final version. Unlike in undergrad where you write a paper and then forget about it, it's different once you start doing research. Everyone revises their work multiple time to incorporate edits requested by co-authors, reviewers, editors, etc.

Your interests are far enough removed from mine that I don't think I can give good advice on particular programs you should apply to, but my main suggestion is to go back to your thesis, flip all the way to the end, and start looking through the bibliography. Who are the people who are doing interesting and relevant work who you've cited? Where do they teach? Who do they work with and who do they cite in their papers? Where do those people teach? At those programs you've now identified, are there are least 2-3 people who you could work with? Are those programs located in decent locations and do they give their students decent funding? That's where you want to go. If you have specific questions about potential programs, once you've identified some, I may be able to help more. In the meanwhile, don't sell yourself short! Most people won't have publications at this point in their career. You have a good GPA and interesting experience. It sounds like you'll have good LORs. As long as you can write a compelling SOP, I think you'll have a chance at getting in!

I started with my research question, then expanded on my interests more generally. I had all kinds of attempts at so-called "hooks" but those all were liked by some but not others so eventually I gave up and went with a straight and to the point approach.

These UC diversity statements are there to identify students who might qualify for special scholarships; it's not even entirely clear that they are read by the departments. At least when I was looking into this, the programs I was applying to said it wasn't an important component in the decision. I can't promise you that that's also true in your case, but I do think it's safe to think that this is one of the less important documents, so don't stress about it too much (but of course you should still aim to write a good statement, just don't worry about your entire future resting on this, because it really doesn't).

Try giving it to a trusted professor to read. If that's not possible, give it to a friend or two. There is always a danger that tone doesn't come across as you hope when it's in writing, and you don't want to alienate people because of that. For the same reason, I always advise against having jokes in your statements. They are rarely as successful as you might think. I would personally tone it down, or at least pay very close attention to what your readers are telling you about how successful the language is. If anyone expresses any doubt, take that as a reason to be careful.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that more programs don't post these stats, but the stats alone aren't going to be enough, even if they were posted. You'd want to know why people left -- were they struggling financially? did they discover that they hate teaching and don't enjoy research enough? were they not doing good work and asked to leave? did they get another job? did their interests change and therefore they decided to reapply to another school that is a better fit? Some of those replies would be a lot more worrisome than others. Also, again, it's very important to know if the people who are there are happy and whether they are successful once they graduate, whatever that means for them (job in academia, job in industry, lateral move to administration, think tank, non-profit, etc.). These are all things that it'd be difficult for you to learn about as an applicant, unfortunately. Speaking for myself, I would not be nearly as forthcoming with a random student who hasn't even applied yet than with one of the small number of admitted applicants who could very well become a student at my institution next year. More generally, you just wouldn't know who to ask, at this point. This may mean that your best bet at the moment is simply to apply to programs based on fit, location, funding, and whatever other important considerations you have, and then you'll have to ask these extra questions once you have your decisions back. At that point, students and faculty will reach out to you to recruit you, and you may have a chance to visit the school in person. It's more obvious to know how you'd ask about completion rates and placement; for happiness, you might ask (faculty and students!) if students seem to work in their offices or in common spaces, or if they tend to work from home or the library; if students show up for talks and reading groups on a regular basis; if things tend to be organized by students or faculty (active student participation and involvement = they care more, which would generally be a positive); if there are any regular social events that students and/or faculty participate in; if students tend to be roommates with each others; and if they collaborate with each other and with faculty. Students tend to be very forthcoming, especially if you ask the right questions.

The whole point of the guarantor is that if the tenant doesn't pay, the landlord can go after them for any missed payments or damages. It shouldn't happen that the guarantor get approached before the tenant does. That said, I don't think anyone can guarantee that you won't get tangled up with an unethical landlord who tries to do something they shouldn't, and the very nature of the contract will put your friend in a difficult position if something does happen. Whatever you might say or think, you're asking someone for a big favor. You might have all the best intentions in the world, but they are still on the hook if anything happens so there is a risk involved.

1. I would use the singular pronoun. If you find that lacking, you might just add, "under the supervision of X, I did [blah]". 2. It's fine to use the real name. I'd also make sure you give an English version of the name. And although you didn't ask, it's better if it doesn't feel like name dropping but is actually relevant to the larger point you are making.

The goal of the sample is to showcase (i) your writing and (ii) your research ability. So ideally, you have a paper that lays out a question or puzzle, does some lit review and discusses what we already know and why this issue is important, does some novel work to answer the question or solve the puzzle, then discusses the results, what they teach us, and how it should affect our thinking going forward. Many students will not have something quite like this from their undergraduate degree, so they'll end up picking something that is the closest. It's important that the paper is well written and ideally you want at least one professor to have read and commented on it, and for you to have integrated the changes they recommend. It's also important that the paper actually showcases some original thoughts, and isn't just you summarizing what others have said without adding anything of your own. All this said, I would not recommend submitting unfinished work, that would not look good. In terms of how long the paper should be, this varies quite a bit; if nothing more is said, I'd go for roughly 20 pages, but probably anywhere from 15 to 25 would be fine (but keep in mind that there are great differences between fields and here I could be totally off, because engineering could be very different from what I am familiar with, in the social sciences. If in doubt, ask the department.)

I don't think the rates are nearly as high in linguistics. This is something that you should figure out specifically for the programs that you're applying to. At least for the programs I have any knowledge of, the vast majority fund all their PhD students for the duration of the program, and people who drop out do so for reasons of incompatibility. Some might be asked to leave, some just decide it's not for them, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. If you decide something isn't for you or you are told by your supervisors that you aren't doing work that would allow you to find employment, there is no reason to stay an extra few years and complete the degree, you're better off finding something else to do. These situations aren't many, though they exist, but it's not close to half the students anywhere I have know of, and again, I don't know that it's necessarily all bad. A much more pressing question is: at the schools you are considering, are people graduating at a decent rate and are they finding jobs? and while they are at the program, are they happy?

Since it's been a week, you could go ahead and send a reminder. Or you might wait until next Monday and follow up then. 7-10 days is a good time to wait between sending the email and the reminder. You follow up by forwarding the email and saying something like "Dear Prof. X, I'm not sure if the email below reached you, but just in case I thought I'd follow up. Looking forward to hearing from you! -me" or some such (so, pretend maybe they lost the email and just send it again). If you have to send another email, I would advise not sending unsolicited materials with the initial request. Propose to send everything (and list what those things are), but only send them if you are asked to. For now, all you can do is wait and see. If you are physically near the university, you could propose coming to office hours to chat to the professor, so they can remind themselves of you and attach a face to the name. It's really hard as a professor when you get requests from students who never participated, especially in a large class. When this happens to me, I have to decline. If I don't remember the student, they never participated or came to office hours, and the TA (not me) graded their work, I really can't say anything other than "X took my class and got [grade]." I can't even be sure they were in the classroom any of the time, and I have no opinion about what kind of student they are or if they have potential to succeed in grad school. It'd be an extremely weak letter, and I don't want to do that to anyone. If you have to ask for a letter from a professor in a similar situation, you really have to help them help you: it's better if you choose a class where the professor did the actual grading (if there were assignments), or where you wrote a final paper you could send them along with their comments. If you gave a presentation and have the materials, that helps. And if you can come by their office and chat, that helps too. Absent all those things, I personally would not agree to write a letter in that situation. If this is really where you're at, maybe the solution is to have two letters from your job and only one from the university, and hope that you can find someone who agrees to write you a 'did well in class' letter if you are upfront about needing the letter just for the formal requirement, but you know that it won't be a strong letter.

Yep, the reason is that there are rules and procedures, and it's never a good idea to go over someone's head to their boss without talking to them first. If you go to the dean, the first thing s/he will do is ask if you've tried talking to your department first and resolving this problem in-house. A grading issue will eventually need to be resolved by the department, not the dean, so there is no avoiding talking to them and getting their opinion on it. It's always better if you resolve things locally rather than escalate (which going to the dean would be interpreted as!). When you take drastic measures, you want documented proof that you've tried to do things the right way first and your efforts were rebuffed or ignored, otherwise your actions may be misinterpreted as overreacting and not following institutional norms, which will hurt your case that you are in the right and they are in the wrong. At the end of the day, grades are subjective and it's hard to believe that someone will force your professor to give you a grade they disagree with, so it's important to stay calm and document that there is a real issue here. You want to appear as someone calm and reasonable, who has a real issue, and is doing everything by the book to get it solved.