fuzzylogician

Those are two completely unrelated questions. For the first one, that sounds either like a research assistantship that you'd get paid for, or just plain old research that you participate in because that's the main purpose of a PhD. I've taken research "credits" on occasion because as an international student I needed to take a certain number of units in order to meet my visa requirements. The research was my own, not my advisor's (whenever I helped with someone else's research as an assistant, I got paid). As for scheduling research, the answer to this question shifted with time. The first year of my PhD program was very course heavy, with not a lot of research required. We were only expected to start working on our first research project in the second semester of first year. With time that balance shifted significantly, and of course in later years there were no more courses and the bulk of our time was (supposed to be) dedicated to research. I honestly can't remember what I did in my first year anymore, I probably worked on my project a couple of times a week, at least the day before/the day of meeting my advisor (we had weekly meetings), the day after, and some other random day(s) of the week. Research is not a linear process and I always have more than one project going, so I find it hard to say I spent X time on X days working on this project or that. I think the more general answer really depends. I try to keep my most productive hours for research and schedule other activities around it. Obviously that's harder in the coursework phase because no one is going to reschedule a class because you would rather be writing. But overall it's good to do something research-related every day, although I think everyone will admit to unproductive days where nothing really happens, even though it really should.

You know, this may be one of those times where differences between fields might matter. I don't know what field you're in so it's a bit hard to say. In mine, because there are enough schools that don't offer a linguistics BA in the first place, you see a good number of people from less known schools (and with degrees in related fields but not necessarily linguistics) accepted to the top schools in the field and doing quite well. There are also lots of international students, usually from schools that you will not have heard of. What matters most is prior research experience and LORs (plus the SOP and writing sample, and of course exams, to some extent). I don't think the pedigree of your undergraduate or Masters degree is usually discussed as a major factor on its own; it comes in through these other factors I mentioned -- schools with better programs will better train their students and offer them more resources, and the letter writers will be better known and usually better trusted than someone you've never heard of. You seem to imply that GW is not a "respected" program in your field. I don't exactly know what that means. At the end of the day, it's all about your research and whether you can convince a school that they are a good place for you to be for a PhD. If you have reason to think that GW can't give you the training you need then perhaps you shouldn't attend it, but then I'm a bit confused about why you applied there in the first place. Again, I think it's important to get a good sense of where students from GW (and Rutgers) tend to go for their PhDs, concentrating specifically on what students of your potential advisor(s) do, and I'd also advise you to talk to Rutgers about potential funding opportunities.

TAing while studying is something a lot of people can successfully navigate and I am sure you could too. Yes, it would obviously distract from your studies (you won't be able to devote 100% of your time to your studies if you also teach), but it's worth it to avoid serious debt, in my opinion. Have you tried reaching out to Rutgers to see if there is any way they can match the funding or offer you a TAship? I would try that, but if they can't do anything, the large difference in potential debt would probably make me choose GW, if I were you. The questions of ranking and overall impact on the field are less important in my opinion (especially for a masters), so it comes down to whether GW can reasonably support your interests and help you prepare for applying for a PhD. Have you tried looking at their past placement record? That could give you a good indication of whether their students usually find their way to funded PhD positions or not. Since that is the ultimate goal, that should be the driving factor. If GW students (specifically, those who worked with your potential advisor) went on to strong PhD programs that you might be interested in joining, that would settle the question, I think.

While the professor's experience matters somewhat,* what matters a whole lot more is what they can actually say about you. You want people who can attest to your research abilities, who have a positive opinion of you as a student and person, who can compare you to other students of theirs who have successfully gone through PhD programs and say that you are at least as good as those other individuals, if not better. As such, I think Prof 3 has very limited utility, he can't speak to your ability to succeed in a CS program at all, and you say that he can't say much about your academic abilities in any other field, either. Your nice personality is not going to get you into grad school, and it doesn't sound like this professor can write about much beyond just that. Your REU mentor sounds like a good option. Your Prof 2 is a decent option, but not the best. It'd be good if you could develop somewhat more of a relationship with him over the fall so he knows you better than just as a student in one of his classes. I think you need to look for one other (better) option. Maybe it could be your supervisor at work, if your work is relevant to your studies (and especially if your boss has an advanced degree or can otherwise say something about your suitability for a PhD). Otherwise, you might want to start identifying another professor who could write you a letter, although the fact that they will have only known you for less than a semester when they will have to write the letter makes this option again less than ideal. * Although yes, having writers who don't even have a PhD is a bad idea in general.

Impossible? No. Likely? Also probably no. It depends on a whole variety of factors including what you're willing to compromise on, what you count as "close", how good you are, and to a great extent, how lucky you are. Right out of grad school it can be very hard to choose where you live, you need to go where the opportunities are. So one thing I've seen people do is decide that they want to be back in some area by X date, or they will look for other employment. Being able to do this obviously depends on your personal circumstances, so your mileage may vary.

I'm with @Eigen. I think it's important to have some degree of satisfaction with what you do, and it's good to start out with a reasonable level of interest in your research project (but I think at some point in the development and writing of every large project, there will come a time when you hate it all, no matter how much you liked it initially). However, I think that this fantasy that you should only work on what you "love" or only what you are passionate about is a good way to set yourself up for disappointment. In every job you end up doing some things you like less, and research is no exception. I am not advocating for doing something you hate, but I am saying you need to have perspective. There are other factors that matter just as much as the topic, including your fit with your advisor, funding, where there is data, where there is interest in your field more broadly and what jobs are out there, and to some extent, luck. I've said more than once that I'd choose working with an advisor with a better fit but a less interesting topic over the other arrangement any time. This also holds now that I've graduated for picking topics that allow me to talk to those people who I enjoy having around me the most, even if it's a topic that I might not otherwise ever choose. You don't have to have your dream project right now -- certainly not for a Masters and I would argue also not necessarily for your PhD. I view my work in a much more pragmatic way; I have a broad set of interests, and what I pursue at a given time is influenced in large part by the people around me who I talk to and what their interests are, where the money is and what gets funded these days, what gets accepted at conferences, what job ads say they want (and who actually gets hired at the end of the day, a somewhat different metric), and what I actually have time and access to data for. I wouldn't do things I absolutely hate (for very long, if I can help it), but there are definitely things on my wish-list that I am not getting to right now because I think the time just isn't right.

I think this question routinely confuses people. Since you can't change it now, I would simply see if it comes up in the interview, and if so then explain that you misunderstood the question. You submitted documents stating that your school will fund you along with your application, and you'll bring copies along with you too to show that there is no problem, so I don't think this should be grounds for refusal of the visa. It's a simple mistake and I am sure you are not the first one to make it. I know this isn't going to make you feel a whole lot better, but I don't think there is a whole lot more that you can do right now.

Yes, there is a decent chance that if you are asked to leave your program, it will affect your internship, especially since you are an international student. As such, if you are asked to leave your program, you will need to immediately leave the US. As for speaking with your professors, I would ask for an in-person meeting to discuss your grades, and in that meeting go over what you've done and ask if there is any chance that you could be given a chance to earn extra credit to increase your final grade in the relevant course. Do this with all of the professors who you've taken classes with this semester, and hope that one of them takes pity on you. If you do somehow succeed in doing this, in future years I'd recommend being much more on top of your grades *during* the semester, so you can head off trouble long before it gets to this stage.

These are questions for someone who knows you and your research, not for random internet strangers who know nothing about you. Coming up with a good research question and doing a comprehensive lit review are two of the most important steps of doing research, and is not something that anyone here will just do for you. If you don't have an official supervisor, schedule meetings with those professors in your department who share interests with you to talk about your research proposal. Talk to more advanced students. Find out what other resources your department offers to help with the process. It seems unlikely that you would be left on your own to write an entire proposal without any feedback from anyone in your department.

I would talk to your potential advisor about this and see if you can recruit him to help you with moving to this other school. I also think that you have nothing to lose by contacting that school to ask if there is any chance that you could still accept their offer, even though you rejected it previously, because the fact that this professor is moving there (which you were not aware of at the time of making the decision) has made them now your top choice. At some schools this may still be possible, but none of us here can tell you. If you do this, it's better to have this professor's support. Either way, there should be a way to do this discreetly in such a way that the current school whose offer you accepted does not need to know. If and when you have this other acceptance and you choose to go to your advisor's new school, then you can politely let the old school know and explain that it's all about this professor. If done in a professional manner, any reasonable person should understand. Edit: If I remember correctly, at my old PhD school July 1 was an important deadline for some fiscal matters. I'd see if you can look into as soon as you can, in case some budgets are finalized over the summer and can't be changed later (or at least, it would be easier to change them now than later).

Check out The Bank section of the board for some grants and fellowship you might be eligible for. Details will depend on your field and other qualifications. There are probably some dissertation completion grants that could be worth looking into, as well as some field-specific ones. Another thing you might do is look at the CVs of young postdocs or professors in your field to see what kinds of grants they've been getting, and you should ask your advisor what options s/he can think of. I don't necessarily think there is a problem with graduating before your grant period is up, but you could also consider sticking around your program for longer than strictly necessary if you do have the funding, and you don't already have a better job lined up.

Based on zero relevant experience: I imagine with that set of circumstances I would do everything in my power to be done before the new baby arrives. I think things will get more complicated if you wait and the chances of not finishing increase. Even if you choose to wait with the filing date until a later date, I think that the goal should be to work hard now and make as much progress as possible. If you aren't planning on a career in academia, I think you just want to write something that's good enough and be done with it. The quality of your dissertation isn't going to matter that much if you go into industry. If you can do that before you have your baby, that's probably best. Things are obviously different if you do hope to stay in academia, but only in the sense that what counts as "good enough" will be different, not (in my opinion) in the sense that you really want to write to do a good enough job to get you to the next level and not a whole lot more. As for wanting to stick around to do more research/teaching before you graduate, can't you still get the bulk of the dissertation (or all of it) out of the way early but still find a way to stay a bit longer as a student and not officially file? I'd think about that separately than how fast you'd want to get the dissertation done. But if you're leaving your field, there is something to be said for getting that first job and having more relevant experience, as opposed to staying a student for a bit longer, because it's going to end soon enough either way. (And all this said, kudos to you for getting your PhD with two toddlers and a baby on the way!)

See here:

It sounds like what you need to do most is grow up. You are acting like a child, and it's not surprising that your parents still feel like they can treat you as one. This is your life, not theirs. You are financially independent of your parents, so you don't need to do everything they say. That said, I don't think there is any point in deliberately doing things just out of spite. It doesn't sound like you are in a place in your life where you should be making life-altering decisions that you can't take back, including both cutting off your parents and leaving your studies without a clear plan of what happens next. Life changes that really work are done slowly and incrementally, and with a plan. That is what I think you should aim for. I think the first order of business is for you to start developing some kind of life beyond just what your parents want you to have. What are your hobbies and interests? I am sure that there are things that you can do and clubs on campus that won't require you to spend money; that could be a good way of starting to create a life for yourself. Your time and is yours to choose what to do with. It sounds like you've been devoting 100% of your time to your studies, but that's a choice. You can choose to spend some of that time on yourself, in a variety of ways, including making time for your hobbies, making new friends, joining meetup groups, sleeping, or whatever else works for you. This doesn't mean you need to fully stop your studies, but it does mean that you might want to slow down a bit. Being able to combine work and life, and prioritizing what matters for you, is another aspect of being an adult. A prerequisite to that that I think you might need to work on is finding out what you really want, and that is step one for you. At the same time as developing a personal life, making friends, starting to date, etc., you should also think about your professional life. Suppose you don't complete your PhD -- a fully valid decision -- what happens next? You might know what you don't want to do, but do you know what you would replace that with? What are your career goals? What do you want to do once you graduate, and are you right now studying for a degree that will get you there? Find out what resources exist on your campus and take advantage of them. Career centers can be very useful and they are often underutilized by graduate students. Are you taking the right courses and developing the right skills for what you want to do? Should you be taking something else, getting internships, etc? This is another thing that you should have a clear idea of before you make any decisions about dropping out or leaving with a Masters. You can stop at any time, but coming back will be difficult once you leave, so you want to make sure you're making a decision that's really right for you, and that you're making it for the right reasons and not out of anger or out of spite for your parents. I understand the sentiment that people at the wellness center are useless, but I really think you need to talk to someone. Wanting to hit a stranger for your perceived opinion of who they are and hating your parents and thinking about taking drastic measures in how you interact with them are both things that you'd benefit from talking to someone about. Not to mention actually starting to discover who you are and what you want to do with your life. Doing that can be a difficult process and requires a certain amount of compatibility between personalities, so even if you spoke to someone who wasn't a good fit (and certainly if you just have this opinion without ever having tried to talk to anyone!), it's worth trying again.

Definitely talk to your advisor, and I would consider talking to this professor too (but consult with your advisor and tread lightly, politics are important here!). It may be that there is enough out there for two people to work on, and, better still, you may have found a potential collaborator that could make your life much better down the line. It's always nice to be able to engage with others and have a conversation. On the other hand, it may be very dangerous, depending on the topic, the field, and the people involved, especially given the power differential between you and the professor, and depending on your post-PhD ambitions. In my field it does happen that more than one person comes up with basically the same idea at roughly the same time. I can think of more than one case where even though technically one paper/dissertation came out before the other (up to a year or two earlier), since the two discoveries were made independently, we end up citing both, and everyone goes on to be successful and have their papers recognized. But we are not a book-based field, and a lot depends on norms in your field. There is an obvious danger of ending up with nothing (technically) original, and if you are in a field where no one will cite or publish your work if there is a predecessor, that could end very badly. Talk to your elders and listen carefully.

As general advice, I would recommend not applying to any school that you would not choose to attend if it were the only one that accepted you. You would be wasting your money and everybody's time. That said, yes, it happens, often with people asking for a deferral and hoping that a second application cycle would be more successful and using said school as backup. Again, this is not something that I would recommend, and it's totally up to the school whether or not they would grant a deferral.

One would assume based on where these are posted that they are GRE essays.

1) I think it's worth discussing *very* briefly, as in "I dealt with (serious) health problems while completing my BA, which affected my grades. However, as can be seen my MA GPA, I have since conquered those problems" or some such. If there is space in a particular application for a supplemental essay, it could also go there instead of in the SOP. If you are getting a LOR from someone from your undergrad, you can have them explain in slightly more detail what the problem was ("it was cancer"). Hopefully that person will have only good things to say about a person who battles cancer and is also able to finish a BA at the same time ("despite his/her low grades, I was very impressed by @orphic_mel528's ability to cope with his/her treatments and still remain a student in good standing. His/her grades do not reflect his/her abilities. [insert some specific story about success despite difficulty]"). 2) I think that --again -- this is worth discussing briefly. "My undergraduate degree in Psychology sparked an interest in English (through my coursework/thesis/whatever). I then pursued that interest further during my MA studies at University. [For my thesis, I studied blah. More details about MA]." It's always best if you can paint a coherent picture of your past and how it's led you to where you are now. Since that picture isn't necessarily obvious from just looking at your credentials, you should help your readers see it. It doesn't need to be elaborate, and you don't need to give all the details. So, definitely do not take us through your entire life story, and don't feel like you need to give everything in chronological order. It's sufficient to just give the conclusion and some short summary of how you got there. Unless your BA is really relevant, I'd keep the discussion of the BA short and concentrate more on the MA and what you did and learned from it.

Well, the fact that you haven't received any positive replies is not good news. It would suggest that you are mass-emailing professors (and others who shouldn't be emailed at all, like grad students and grad offices) and not actually doing your research and emailing those who would be a good fit. Professors are very good at detecting these emails and will not respond kindly, if they respond at all. If you do this, it would suggest that you might take a similar approach to applications and to your SOP, and if you did that then there is a decent chance that you'll spend a lot of money and end up with no acceptances and/or no funding. I'd suggest spending some time trying to understand why your current approach isn't working and fixing it. As for whether you need a professor to agree to take you on as a student before you apply, that depends on the field. In some fields it's customary to do so, while in others you don't usually contact the professors at all until after you're admitted. So having a positive interaction would have been great, but it could be that the lack thereof is ok and you could still apply and be successful, if you have a strong SOP, LORs, experience, etc. Without knowing more about your field and credentials, I can't say.

It should come up in the SOP, assuming it's at least somewhat related to your current/future interests. I'd imagine at least one LOR writer would be aware of it and write about it in his/her letter. And you could use it as a writing sample, but of course you don't have to (especially if it's co-authored and it's not clear what your contribution is as opposed to other team members*). * This advice is subject to variation by field and since you didn't mention yours, take this with a grain of salt.

Assuming this is a follow up post on this older one, it doesn't look good: You never replied to questions that you were asked in that post so I am not sure what to expect. We are not really in a position to be able to help you here. Maybe you can get one (or more) of your professors to give you a higher grade, either through a reconsideration of your current efforts or through some extra credit they'd be willing to give you. If not, I can't think of other options you might have, given that there is already a history of bad grades here. You probably can't appeal to a one-time problem that caused a temporary dip in your grades, and you say in your older post that there are no other mitigating circumstances. Professors don't usually like to give students grades they didn't earn, nor give them exceptional opportunities to earn extra credit, since that is unfair to the other students in the class (as your professor said). That said, you have nothing to lose by asking. I'd try everyone you had a class with this semester and hope that at least one of them feels sorry for you.

Seems to me that the correct response would have been "I'd like to remain involved, if that's ok, since it was my idea, as you recall from our email exchange in April. This is something I have personal experience with and care a lot about" or some such. Don't give up and walk away just because someone else is involved. And you can't expect people not to take your ideas and run with them if you're collaborating with them, that's what collaborations are all about. If you can't stand anyone touching your ideas, don't share them with anyone. But I'd hardly call this a case of someone stealing your idea. (This said, if your colleague is someone who you don't like or enjoying being around, then best you can do is find ways to respectfully back out of being around him, but I wouldn't do it at the expense of my professional life.)

I don't know about anyone else, but I am very confused. Your post assumes so much background knowledge that we don't have. What field are you in? I understand that the MA is en route to a PhD in that same field? What is the book series thing and how is it relevant? Your thesis is not going to be in the series, right? Are we just talking about cosmetics, or something more? You have a main advisor and a committee? Who gets to decide/approve your topic? This sounds like a late stage where the thesis is already written based on something you've agreed upon, and maybe now you don't like it anymore? Did you talk to anyone about that - now or earlier? And why should we think your committee doesn't know what it's doing, given that you only have good things to say about your advisor? The advice to do less and keep stuff for later is usually good and worth taking, even if it's hard for you to see it now. Same for how to phrase arguments and what directions to take. I just wonder why you are posting here instead of talking to your committee about their advice to clarify why you're telling you to do the things that they are telling you to do.

This is not first hand experience, but my field's society (the Linguistic Society of America) has a committee on the status of women in our field, and one of the (many) things it does is monitor things like student/alumni ratios, hiring, conference presentations, journal publications, and more. Informally, there's even been some numbers circulating about who is asking questions in conference Q&As. Maybe there is something similar in your field that you could look into. They might even have a website with at least some relevant information.

Yes. There are different opinions on this, but it is one obvious way to demonstrate fit. I think it's important to mention particular professors who could be your advisors. In some fields, it's also customary to contact them ahead of time to verify that they will agree to take you as a student. (You'll need to ask someone about norms in your field,) Yes, *briefly* (and 100% positively and without throwing around blame and accusations). It would raise a red flag and you need to provide an explanation. As discussed in other posts, you would benefit from having a LOR writer discuss this in their letter, be it your former advisor (preferably) or someone else (if your advisor will not write a good letter).