fuzzylogician

I don't think anyone is going to do a close edit at this point, because so much has to change. If you want more feedback, show us that you've actually listened to what we've already said. In particular, reread your statement and ask yourself the following about each sentence: can any (or many) applicants say this? If what you've said is so general or vague that anyone could have said it, it's not setting your apart from the other applicants and it's not telling the school why it should accept you in particular. Revise those parts to be specific and about you, or get rid of them because they aren't helping you. Some very generic information (e.g., that you got a BA in [blah]) can be gleaned from your transcripts, and will be shared by most of those who apply. So, for example, your second paragraph doesn't say anything specific or too helpful. Either you have something more to say than just basically "I have a BA in [a relevant field]" or remove/shorten it to basically say just that and concentrate on saying more about what you learned from your Masters. In fact, do that latter part regardless. Also say more about what you want to study during your PhD. What *specifically* do you want to study, and how *specifically* will the school in question help you study that? This is where you should also say more about which professors could support your research interests, and how what they do intersects with what you want to do. Once you give your essay this very serious once-over, that is when it would make sense to anyone here on the forum to give you more detailed feedback.

You already got good comments on what you posted here. The text requires serious editing by a native speaker and in places it is generic and needs more specification. Why do you need me to repeat what you've already been told? You know exactly what you need to do next.

If the application is asking for just one of these documents, it's usually the same one in terms of content and expectations. Closely read the instructions given by each school to make sure that you actually address what they ask you to.

In addition to rising_star's correct comment above, I want to add that this is also not necessarily true. I would agree that comments and an invitation to work with the professor indicate that she is invested and that is great. But I really don't think there is any reason to think that the comments mean that the paper could be publishable. This is something to explicitly ask the professor about, not assume. I have given students As on papers that I don't think are publishable, and I've received As on papers of my own that I believe couldn't be publishable no matter how much I would have worked on them. The standards for a class paper are just different. I also don't think it is the case that there is some "publishable vs. crappy" distinction (without lots of additional categories inbetween) or that any A class paper is (or could be) publishable.

It's probably worth to keep in mind that your interests may shift,* so an important aspect of a good school is that it could not only support your current interests but also allow you to grow in various directions. Maybe a school isn't perfect for what you are studying right now, but if it has several researchers in close areas, it could be a great choice nonetheless. Another question has to do with resources more generally: does a school have the labs/libraries/whatever here that you need for your research? Is it generous with funding? That's another consideration. To the extent that you can find out, is the environment positive and supportive? Did you get along with your potential advisors at a given school (if you've had a chance to meet them)? Having a supportive environment is very important, I would say even more than having advisors whose interests most closely align with yours. Is the school in a city that you'd enjoy living in? Near attractions you like? In a location with weather you enjoy? I do think these considerations matter for one's life and are worth considering when compiling your list. Schools can sometimes be different in person than on paper. It's a good idea not to get too fixated on just one, and to keep your options open at this point in the game. * In fact, they likely will shift, it's a natural process that happens to lots of people. Moreover, it's not a good idea to start out with very narrow interests, if for no other reason than that you'll have a hard time getting published if no one else cares about what you're doing, you'll likewise have difficulty forming a committee for your dissertation, and when you go on the job market you'll have trouble getting hired if no one is hiring for the very narrow area you've chosen to specialize in. It's somewhat of a balancing act, but you want to be part of a larger community where you can enter an existing conversation with others who care about the same things.

If you post you may get some responses (perhaps from me as well), but I make no promises, sorry.

Assist you how? What is the question? No one is going to write a statement for you, and we couldn't even if we wanted to because it should be about your interests and why you are applying to that particular school.

Did other students get a grade on their papers? She may have just thought that the final grade directly implies a grade for the paper and that's enough. It is possible for her to change the grade later but I don't think it's likely. However, you will have to ask her to be sure. That said, the grade itself shouldn't matter that much. What matters is the feedback that you got and what you do with it. I think it's worth thinking about why the particular grade matters to you so much, and try to move past that. As others have said, an "A" (or even "A+") paper doesn't have to be perfect or even close to it. It could very well be unoriginal and vague. It may still require a lot of work to get anywhere near publishable, especially with early projects, and it may not be publishable at all. The fact that you got a lot of suggestions for improvement doesn't mean it wasn't a good enough paper for the purpose of the class. That's another thing you'll learn with time: the requirements for a class are different than those for theses or qualifying papers and those again are different from publications. Sometimes all you need is good enough. Not every topic you write a paper for a class on will become something you will want to engage with more deeply. Over time you'll learn to identify the point of diminishing returns for a particular paper or project, depending on your level of interest in it and where it is submitted. It doesn't have to be perfect, or even close to it.

If this is a professor is someone who you might want as an advisor or on your committee, it's worth maintaining a relationship with her and working with her on something. But this something should be a topic that you are independently interested in, with the goal of having at least a presentation if not a publication eventually coming out of the project. The training this professor is offering you suggest that she clearly cares, and you should take it as broader career training, not as particularly important for the class. As far as the class is concerned, you are done and you have your grade. Even the professor is not telling you that you are required to work on the term paper more, so you can leave it behind if you don't care for it that much. What she is offering is a lot more valuable: training in writing and developing a paper more generally. I would agree that you shouldn't do too much without her feedback, that would defeat the point. If she is away (reasonable guess in August), wait until she is back. Maybe you could turn this into an official "independent study" project that could be scheduled throughout the semester and also give you course credit.

If you do plan to use this person, I'd do it the way TakeruK suggests. Since you say you don't have other good options, that seems to be the way to go, regardless of whether or not it's ideal.

When you get paid depends on the school, but in my experience often fellowships are paid at the beginning of the month and salaries at the end of the month (or sometimes every 2 weeks). So yes, there is often a period of a few weeks at the beginning of a new program where you might not get paid yet. If you could get a loan would depend on the bank, we can't really answer that. You'd need to go into your branch and speak with someone to get a better idea of your options. Another thing you could look into and would again depend on your particular situation is getting a credit card with 0% interest for the first X months and putting some debt on it that you'd repay as soon as you got your first paycheck. And one last thing to look at (actually, I would start with this) is whether the school itself has a plan for helping students get settled in. Some schools will offer a 0% interest loan to new students to be repaid in X months, and if you can get that, it's probably your best bet. That you be something to ask your department and/or student union. I am confused, though, because given that you had to leave your current program, you would have also had to leave the States by now. Is this purely a hypothetical?

It might, but this is a question only the individual schools can answer. It's up to them to decide, they can but don't have to accept your prior education as proof of proficiency in English. Write them and ask.

Well, in that case, if it were me, I can't see myself taking on debt to get something that I could get faster and for free. But my situation is very different from yours. The question you have to ask yourself is whether it's worth the extra cost to live in a better city and get to talk to people you think you'd enjoy more. Only you can know the difference in lifestyles and colleagues, it's not something we can quantify for you. Given your lifestyle and the possible moves in your future, investing in two years of doing what you want might very well be worth it, especially if you think you could pay it off quickly. I don't know if any of this helps, because I don't think we can answer this for you, but this is the question you have to ask yourself.

What are your career prospects with each choice? Will your expected earnings allow you to pay for the extra debt of school 2 in a reasonable amount of time and leaving you enough money to live reasonably well? This should be a cost-benefit analysis but you didn't really give us the costs or the benefits.

Oh no no no, free style writing definitely does not involve multiple pauses to check literature. You put a note saying "add citation/check who said this first" or whatever and you move on, you don't get distracted. You go back to check the citations when you're feeling stuck, as a way of staying productive when not writing, but you do it as its own task that you can check off your to-do list (if you're that kind of person. I definitely am). Point being, it's not a quick errand you run between actual tasks, it's its own task and deserves to be given the appropriate attention. That aside, you can't get into a good writing groove if you are constantly stopping to verify this thing and that. Unless it's absolutely crucial to know the thing you are stuck on, you move on and you come back to it later. Just flag it. (And as I said, filling in the gaps is a good way to feel (and be) productive when writing isn't going well.) Alright, if the big picture scares you, break it up into chunks. How did problem X benefit from Z? What specifically does one have to do with the other? Now, how more generally does topic Z' inform work on X'? It's just like doing a lit review on X, assuming that you are not the first person to ever claim that X and Z are related. So, start with small local connections relevant to your own project, then how the broader topics are related and inform one another. Eventually you probably should have a unifying theme and some discussion of how studying X, Y, and Z together furthers our knowledge of [blah], but you can get to it by building up small parts that you feel more knowledgeable about. It's usually the amorphous nature of the task that scares people, it looks large and not well-defined. Starting locally and small can help with that. Until you have a good amount of text and some bits about every part of your dissertation, just don't worry about how to connect the dots. Once they are all there, you've already done 80% of the work and now you can worry about that final part, but hopefully by then it may become easier to see how to write it, because most of it is actually already there. If there are other dissertations that similarly look at X, Y, and Z, you might at this point also look at how they discuss the connections, just to see some way of going about it.

Well, mine involved two chapters based on existing papers and an additional 4 that were new (based on presentations and proceedings papers to some degree, with one that I would say was basically brand new from scratch). So the first thing I did was compile the stuff I already had in my dissertation format (Latex) just to feel like I have already accomplished something. Then I set a plan for what needed to happen roughly when, based on when I wanted to defend and working backwards, leaving time for last-minute unknowns (which definitely happened!). What I chose to do on a given day depended on my mood -- some were serious writing days, some were editing days, some were silly formatting and other troubleshooting days. I kept daily track of my progress to get a sense of whether my plan was reasonable. There were definitely days and sometimes weeks where less happened. I am going through the same kind of thing now with the book based on my dissertation, which I am basically writing in bursts -- some very good days, some not so good days. It's important to have a routine and to give it a try, but to recognize bad days and cut yourself some slack. The worst thing you can do is both waste the time and be mad at yourself. If you're not having a good day, it might be better to try to do something else for a while and be forgiving of yourself, because this will and does happen to everyone. The best thing for writers block (for me) is free-style writing. Write down anything, don't worry about how it looks or sounds, just get something on the page, even if you know you probably won't end up using any of it. It also often helps me to change my physical environment. If I have been unproductive at home for a day or two, it may be time to spend a day working in a coffee shop. If you have friends around who you can work in the same room with, the presence of someone else will sometimes help you feel more accountable. Since your dissertation is a collection of already-written papers, each of them should already have an intro and a conclusion of its own. Is there text from there you could use to say what each chapter is going to do (/did)? Can you tell the story of how they hang together? That's really all that you need to do. It doesn't need to be perfect, or even good. It needs to be done. You can do it. Edit: Oh, and congrats on the job offer, that is great!

If you have test scores that will be valid at the time of submission and through when decisions will be made, I believe that you should be fine. You can just submit the scores you have. I don't think anyone cares if the scores are valid after classes begin. That said, when in doubt, this is exactly the kind of thing where policies might change from school to school so you should just contact the schools that you will be applying to directly and ask.

I can't answer the "own data" question, that seems too field specific. Mine is different enough that I can't have an informed opinion. As for the "not earth shattering" part, that's the part you leave up to the judges. You may win and you may lose. The only thing that's sure is that if you never even try, you are not going to get anywhere. If the only thing holding you back is fear that you won't win, that's not a valid consideration as far as I am concerned. You're going to get so many rejections as part of an academic career, you need to be able to brush them off and try again. This is no different. I say, if you are proud of the work and your paper meets the competition criteria,* what's the harm in trying?** This is work that you are doing anyway and it is part of your research profile, I see no reason not to try to win awards for it. You can always choose not to highlight it in job applications and your CV later on, if your dissertation research takes you in a different direction; you are generally not required to put everything on your CV, you can choose what to concentrate on. So yeah, I'd probably go for it.*** * caveat 1: check to see if there are restrictions on authorship, source of data, or anything else relevant that may prevent you from submitting. Those do occasionally exist. ** caveat 2: in some fields it's said that you should hold your publications close to your vest until they are in print before presenting or giving away too much. You may also not want to publish too much from your dissertation if you are in a book-based field. *** really the best course of action is to consult with your advisor, who knows you, the work, and your field, the best. S/he can help you make a more informed decision than we can.

Do you already have someone lined up to replace your current advisor? If you do and it's someone who you've been meeting with regularly I can imagine saying something about how you've been having successful meeting with Prof X throughout the year and have now decided to make her your official advisor, you want to thank your current advisor for all her help and support this year, you really appreciate it. [something about how you plan to finish any current/ongoing projects with your advisor, if relevant.] If it's someone who you only *think* will be a good fit but you haven't met with her too many times, then possibly you say that your interests have shifted and are better aligned with Prof X, not your current advisor/lab, so you've decided to switch (+again, every version of this will have the "thank you for everything, much appreciated" part); if there is a way to frame a switch this way, it allows everyone to save face. This is actually true for the former situation as well. If you don't have someone new at all, I don't know that it makes sense to tell your advisor you don't want to work with her anymore, because you may end up without anyone else and then you'll be stuck. Your question is really too vague to give any specific advice.

What you suggest sounds good to me. I'd also suggest that you simply mention that you will be starting a graduate program at School in September in your email/cover letter when you submit the application.

Here is an alternative explanation that doesn't have anything to do with discrimination: you came in with a foreign degree, so you are flagged in the system as needing the exam. The system just doesn't know how to handle domestic students who go abroad. I've also seen British and Canadian friends forced to take a similar exam. The person at the ESL office may be unreasonable or just lazy and unable to deal with anything that requires original thought. Again, making unsubstantiated allegations is usually not a good first step. If you want to be taken seriously and you actually want something done about it, you need to show that you were being reasonable and friendly and tried every way to resolve the problem before escalating. So if you send that strongly worded email, I would leave out the "the only reason I can see for this" part and just strongly say "I am a native speaker, there has been a mistake" and see how the other person responds. If they insist then you could demand an explanation for why your native speaker status doesn't exempt you like it does the rest of your cohort. Again, asking, not assuming. If there is no acceptable explanation, at that point you *might* bring up the ethnicity issue, assuming that the "foreign degree --> foreign student" theory has already been tested. Before doing that, if at all possible, it would help to find out if similar issues have been raised with the ESL office in the past. All of this should be done very calmly and unemotionally, or you will not get the kind of response you want.

All I can say is this: whoever is actually correct here (and in fact, I think it's probably you), the way you are conducting yourself right now will not win you any favors. Your writing comes across as angry and emotional. You are making an unsubstantiated claim of discrimination without any documentation to back it up, and you are planning to take it to the highest levels assuming already that everyone is out to get you. For a one-year program, starting off with the reputation that this will undoubtedly win you is not a choice that I would make. If you do this at your previous MA and at your new one, eventually you will burn enough bridges or create enough of a reputation for yourself that you will later regret it. It is really always better to assume an honest error or simple incompetence, because those two are so much more prevalent than actual malevolence. Do you really not see the difference between saying "I think that there might have been a mistake, I am in fact a domestic student and a native speaker, and I believe that I should therefore be exempt from this exam" and taking this line to whoever is in charge to fix the problem, compared to "I have been targeted because of my name, you/your employees are biased against me/are out to get me/are only trying to fill seats in the class at my expense"? Any sane person will take the latter as an attack and defend against it, and will have no interest in helping you. The former is much easier for everyone to work with. This is the case even if you in fact know that the latter is true. Again, choose your battles. And learn to fight them better. Hyperbole, much? If anyone actually notices, at most they might ask about it and you say "oh yeah, funny story, because I did a Masters outside the US I was listed in the system as international, even though I'm actually domestic and a native speaker. The system was so bad, there was no way to fix it. They actually made me take this ESL course! can you believe it?" and then you both laugh and agree that bureaucracy can be bad. And I doubt anyone would ever ask; and beyond the point of PhD applications, hardly anyone will even ask for a transcript.

Given that every international person I know had to take this kind of test, I think you will have a hard time claiming discrimination. Usually if you can demonstrate that you previously studied in an English-speaking university or grew up in an English speaking country, you get exempt, but I don't think anyone has to promise you that, especially if they worry about an accent for someone who has to teach. In any event, all we are talking about right now is one exam, and the rest is a conspiracy theory that lives in your head. Can you find out what standard other international students in your program were held to? Again, discrimination would imply that everyone else was exempt and you were targeted somehow. At the moment that is not what you described. And if it's true, you should probably take a long moment to ask yourself if you want to spend 5 years in a program that you are already so unhappy with that you will go to the higher administration to complain about it before you've even started. I think that coming out with all guns blazing just for having to take the exam is what they call in some other languages shooting a mosquito with a cannon ball. It would make more sense to take the exam and see what happens. If they require that you take the course then you might ask to see the test and how it was scored and take if from there. The first person to talk to is probably the person who scored the exam and/or the head of the ESL unit. Or if you can show that others in similar situations were treated differently at this stage, you could potentially bring it up with someone. As for who to talk to, never go outside your department before you try to work things out internally. And never go over your advisor's head if there is any way you can try to talk to them first. If you do eventually need to go outside your department, I fail to see what your labor union has to do with it. The dean of the college is probably also not relevant, probably there is a dean of students who might be more helpful, or the ombusperson might help. I do want to stress that the way you are behaving now is a good way to alienate a lot of people and create bad will toward yourself. Given your experiences in the past, you may want to try to avoid that this time, especially before you've even started. You really need to learn to pick your battles, if you are going to survive this PhD. Surviving the PhD involves, among other things, having an advisor who has a good opinion of you and will go to bat for you, plus others who will write positive LORs, serve on your committee, etc. You don't want your five years there to end with a big struggle to get feedback from anyone and finish (because people will be afraid to talk to you in case you randomly (to them) lash out), and then not be able to get a job. I hope you don't think I am exaggerating, but I guarantee you that a student who sends complaints about bias to deans and unions before even talking to the department and before even beginning the program is someone who will very quickly have a reputation as a troublemaker that it is better to steer clear of.

Do you have an assigned faculty advisor? If so, I would write him/her to ask these questions. If not, write the DGS. If you were put in touch with more senior students in your department, they will also be a good source for extra information about how difficult this plan would really be. It sounds like taking these two courses together is possible but not advisable, so given your other commitments and situation, I would probably try to avoid it. Unless, of course, this second course is required and isn't going to be offered again during your time in the program, in which case you don't have much of a choice. As for what else you might take, again this would be best answered by either your advisor or more senior students. Do you know what your post-degree plans are and can you think of any particular course that might help you more than others? If not and no one has a clear suggestion, sometimes you can shop around in the first week or two of class and then make up your mind. And sometimes you just kind of guess and occasionally some courses end up being less useful than others, and that's ok too.

You know, if you use all caps it looks like you're yelling...