fuzzylogician

Yes, it's not okay to lie to your advisors, and yes, you are likely burning a bridge with A and C. This bridge was already burning for a long time, and you are not doing anything to put it out. I understand that you didn't want to do the experiment while you were working on your dissertation because you were busy and stressed out. But as I recall, you did agree to do it later, and it's in all of your interests to do it to get a publication that from your description sounded like it would be high-impact. Since A and C are out of funding, I'm not all that surprised that they need this paper, and frankly you made a promise, used them (and from their perspective, perhaps manipulated them and B to graduate), and then are reneging on your promise, so I can see why they would be upset. (Not saying this is what happened, but I can see how they would see it this way.) I can also see your side and the money part, but on your own admission, that's not why you're dragging your feet. I think in all fairness to your PhD advisors who still depend on you, you need to finish this project. They are worried that with this new job you'll just move on and never finish the experiment, and that could have a detrimental effect on their careers, so it's not surprising that they're not all that happy for you or congratulating you. Can you understand where they're coming from?

Why do you want the PhD, then? UofM aside, what's the purpose of the degree if not an academic career? Do you want a job that requires this degree? If not, you shouldn't be applying at all; and if you are, then you should ask yourself if this degree at this department will prepare you for this career and whether this department has placement records in this career that make you confident (at least as confident as one can be) that it'll lead you where you want to go.

No such thing exists. Different fields disseminate their knowledge in different ways. In some, most work is uploaded to repositories such as arXiv (the linguistic equivalent is LingBuzz), but at the end of the day you need to peruse the TOCs and contents of the major journals in each field, and stay informed about the work presented at major conferences, to stay on top of what's going on in a certain (sub)field. It's utterly impossible to do this for all fields and subfields. One needs to specialize in something -- both to know what venues to look at (major journals, conferences, repositories), and simply to keep up with the amount of new knowledge that's being generated every day.

Time away from the work also helps a lot, so you can come at it from a fresh perspective. I've used the Abode "Read Out Loud" feature (under View). Works alright, kind of painful for formulas, but otherwise not bad at all.

Seconding the writing center advice. If your problem is with the discussion, you might ask yourself if you have a plan before you start writing. You have described your project and findings, now your goal is to communicate how to situate them in a broader context, how we should interpret them, what really matters out of what you found, and what we should take away from that to inform our science more broadly. It's useful to sit down and sketch in bullet points what the main points to be discussed are. E.g., finding 1 -- teaches us that [blah], is evidence against [this thing], lead to broader conclusion that [something]. Same for other findings. Now, are there themes? Group the discussion so you stress those recurring themes instead of scattering them. Remember that your goal is to tell the most compelling story; that may not (very often, is not) your personal story of how you made the discovery, which means that you may not introduce everything in the chronological order of which experiment happened first. Work by main conclusions and themes instead. Create that sketch on a piece of paper *before* you start writing and have a plan and a skeleton for your chapter. This should help with repetitiveness and with scattered ideas that are hard to pinpoint.

You could list: Manuscript Submitted In revisions Accepted/Forthcoming In press I would not list anything that doesn't exist and which you wouldn't share with someone if asked (so, no proposals for papers you haven't written yet, even if the proposal is accepted). My ms are existing full papers that haven't found a home yet. I list the former three under "manuscripts" since they're not yet accepted, and the latter two along with my papers that are already out under "peer-reviewed publications", since they're officially accepted and it's just a matter of having them in print (which in my field can sometimes take a few years!). I list my conference proceedings under "non-peer reviewed publications", and that would be a place for that other paper you describe. Whether you want to list it is up to you, and you may have a different answer now than, say, five years from now. The main thing to make sure of is that it's clear which listings on your CV are accepted/published peer-reviewed publications and which are not. Some people think they're beefing up their CV by listing manuscripts and non-peer review pubs together with their actual accepted papers all in one list, but I think it detracts. Everyone knows exactly how to evaluate a manuscript in prep vs a published paper, so they're not fooling anyone, just making their actual pubs harder to find.

An easy place to start: remove all adjectives and adverbs. Does the text change? 99% of the time, the answer is 'no' and the extra embellishment is unnecessary. A second step: remove hedges: I would like to propose that..., it would appear that [blah] might be the case --> [blah], etc. Writing papers can be hard. When you got started, did you sit down with your advisor and discuss the overall structure and main point(s) of the thesis? If you haven't, even though it sounds like you're fairly advanced, it would be very useful to stop and do this. Existing text aside, what are you trying to convey to your reader? How do you plan to structure the argument(s)? What does the reader need to know at each step, to understand what you're telling them? If you've done this already, go back to your plans and ask yourself how you're doing with respect to your plans. Things always change along the way, but it's also good to remind yourself of where you started and where you want to go. The thing about edits is that they get into the nitty gritty details and you can easily forget the forest for the trees. Take a step back to remind yourself of the bigger picture. Then make a pass with this in mind. For each sentence/paragraph, does it need to be there or can it be cut? If it stays, what's it doing there? Is it doing its job well or can it be trimmed? Maybe it'd serve you better in another part of the essay. It's useful to read things out loud or have them read to you (there's software that will do that for you). It's also often helpful to print things out and read them on paper as opposed to on the screen. At the end of the day, you have to learn by doing, there is no other way. Look back at edits you've gotten: are there common themes to things that get corrected in your writing? Are there things you particularly appreciate about other people's writing that you can emulate in your own writing? I find that going back and forth between the details and the big picture helps me avoid some frustrations.

Seconding this. Please keep the conversation civil.

A sub-thread that has taken off in an inappropriate direction was removed here. Please keep the conversation on topic and civil.

Why not, if you would appreciate having him/her there.

One imagines that it'd be relevant to know what your post-PhD goals are. Do you want a career in academia or in industry? Does the topic you study in grad school matter for a career in industry, if that's your choice? From my perspective in academia, the topic you work on has some effect on your career path in the sense of what kinds of jobs you can apply for. It doesn't entirely box you in, if you are able to tell a good story about why you want to switch topics (in case you do), or if you cultivate side projects of the right kinds, but it does to some extent determine the natural path forward for you. Your advisor has a great impact in terms of helping you through while in school and in terms of connections and support after you graduate. Your advisor and group also have an impact on your wellbeing and mental health; it's hard to get up in the morning and go to a workplace you are unhappy in, and that's more likely to happen because of a personality mismatch than because of your research topic, assuming that it's at least in the ballpark of what you want. I personally would much prefer the better advisor fit than the better research question fit, if you ask me.

I've applied for an H1B in a third country I was working in but was not a citizen of, and had no problems. The process was exactly the same as when applying in my home country. I think the main reason you're advised not to apply in a third country is for fear of getting "stuck" there if you're denied (and actually, these days, even if you're approved it can take a while to get your passport back with the stamp). It's also possible for the embassy/consulate in the third country not to agree to do interviews with non-citizens, but if you are legally in the country working, you shouldn't have any trouble. I'd suggest verifying with the MIT ISO that this is okay, and then just going ahead and booking an appointment with the Australian embassy near you.

You'll need to ask the relevant department that you've interested in. There is no one answer that fits all departments or all universities. Since you didn't tell us what department you're asking about, we can't really say anything more insightful. If I had to guess, it may be possible, but it'd be a bad idea to enroll in too many classes or to take classes outside your required classes if you want to maintain good standing in your program. One class per semester (or likely year) is the most that would make sense, if this were allowed.

This is normal; don't submit to another journal without hearing back from this journal one way or the other. At this point, withdrawing without getting feedback would be in poor taste. If you decide to give up on this journal, make sure you withdraw first and get someone to acknowledge you've done so. Never have the same paper submitted to more than one venue at a time. You could follow up again soon (once every two weeks sounds reasonable). Talk to your advisor about what to expect in terms of turnover times.

If the PhD isn't a passion when you get started, there's a not insubstantial chance that you'll have a hard time completing the degree. A PhD is a marathon; it's hard, even when you're very passionate about the work. It's even harder if you're only doing it because it's some kind of default, or better than your current alternatives. I'd strongly recommend finding out more about your potential advisor and future research directions. Notice: a PhD is a research-based degree. It's not clear to me how much an MPH prepares you for that, nor how much research experience you already have. You should know (as best one can, really) this is what you want going in.

What @Eigen said. The only times I've gotten personalized rejection emails have been after campus visits for TT faculty positions, and even then not always. They always came from people who I already had a longstanding relationship with and who I would continue to be seeing professionally and working with for years. I don't think it's at all common to send personalized rejections at the graduate school application stage.

A guess: it's not so much about your grades as your research, which you didn't mention. Maybe they think your research isn't as strong or your interests aren't as good a fit as some other applicants.

Not to disrupt a more general discussion, just pointing out that the thread was started over 5 months ago, and the OP hasn't visited it for the last 4.5 months or so. It's not clear that they are still in need of advice on this issue.

Personally I can't imagine how I'd do my work without access to some electronic device, but maybe that's just me lacking in imagination. I write, read, create slides and teaching materials, do stats, create experimental items, and probably do 17 other things a day, on my laptop. I quickly search through pdfs for data (instead of lugging around whole printed papers, not to mention the waste of paper if I printed everything I thought I might want to read at some point), and I take notes directly on my pdf, which are saved and displayed in my bibliography manager for easy access. I use the internet to quickly browse for papers on topics I am discussing with students or that might help me in writing/reading/etc. I take notes on my computer for meetings (and as a student, I did the same for classes). I know people who got by with an iPad most most days, especially if they had a portable keyboard. Speaking for myself, I prefer to have my laptop with me. It doesn't have to be ultraportable, but I think some kind of device you can take with you to classes, talks, etc is pretty important. The only way I can imagine this working for you is if you come to campus solely for classes, take notes on paper, and then do everything else from home. That's a good way to miss out on a lot. You'll likely have an office and you'll benefit from working on campus beyond just during class time. Not to mention that even for classes and meetings, a way to access papers and data at a quick click of a button will be very useful.

OP, you're an adult. You get to live your own life and make your own decisions. Your parents don't get to make your decisions for you and they won't live your life for you. It seems to me that you came into your BA wanting a certain career, and having pursued some education and practical training in it, you've discovered it's not what you want. You've also discovered a new passion. Tell your parents that. A PhD would be funded, as you say, so you won't go into debt. And you'll have career options in and outside of academia. You don't have to justify yourself to them, but it's good to have answers to some question they may ask (what kind of jobs, how much do they pay, how long is the training, what schools are you considering). You may also want to think about what you want to tell them as far as personal questions go (when you might start a family, where you might live, etc). Understand their concerns for you and that they want what's best for you, but stand your ground that it's your life and your decision to make. Also keep in mind that while this decision has been brewing for a while inside your head, it's going to come as a surprise to them. Give them the space to digest what you're telling them.

Some obvious cons: You'll be the guinea pig; lots of trial and error will be carried out on your back. For example, new coursework. Workload that may be too high or too low. The selection process for new students may be more prone to error (admitting some students who aren't a good fit; perhaps the strongest students won't apply for the first few years of the program, so the applicant pool may be limited). No institutional memory. No one ahead of you to ask how to do things. Some procedures may not even exist and will be invented as the program goes along. Depending on the staff, your instructors may have less experience in mentoring and advising of graduate students. No TAs (again, no one in a cohort above you). The program won't have any reputation, meaning that you can't assess their success rate and others can't tell how good the program is at training students. This may lead to difficulties on the job market down the line. This may be mitigated if the profs in the program have successfully trained students at other institutions, but still. Fewer connections, possibly fewer funding resources to start out with, including maybe lab space or equipment. Depending on your field, this may be more or less of an issue. Some pros that come to mind: Lots of freedom to shape your own education. Probably more opportunities to be involved in TAing and perhaps informing decisions about the coursework in the program more generally. Perhaps the ability to be involved in writing grants and securing funding for the program. Perhaps more funding for travel and research, assuming that the program starts small and with some seed money. If you do well, they may have an interest in having you travel to present your work. If relevant, more sway in new faculty hiring decisions. Your advisors and other professors will have a vested interest in your success even more than usual, as one of the first students trained in the program.

No one will think you're weird for arriving with multiple suitcases. You could look into overseas shipping, which is usually slow but cheap. If you have an address for your residence hall, you get ship stuff out before you even move, or you can have someone send you stuff once you're there. So have a plan for what you'll need to get started, and also try to figure out what will already be there. Lots of apartments are at least partially furnished. Do you need towels and sheets of your own? Maybe having just one is enough to get started. I would personally not bring furniture or kitchen supplies. You also don't necessarily know that your winter clothes will be warm enough, unless you are moving to a familiar climate. You could take one coat with you but not pack it. Most things you should probably just buy here; there are thrift stores and dollar stores to get you started, or things might be supplied by a residence hall or a roommate might have them. Bring stuff you can't replace: pictures, some stuff to remind you of home, a bit of memorabilia. Other stuff you can replace.

Some of the programs I was admitted to never sent anything more official than an email. In fact, I had to ask my grad secretary to write one up to help me in the apartment search. You can ask if there's an official letter, if you need it for some reason, but there may not be one. Or it may just take a bit longer to arrive, since it may need to go through some official channels that may be outside your department's control. Either way, you're admitted. Congrats!

I'm surprised and confused that you keep insisting that you're giving accurate information when people *in the field* are telling you otherwise. Funding varies quite a bit across fields even within the same school. OP, I'd pay more attention to what people who actually know your field are telling you. Aside from that, I'd also recommend getting in touch with some current students at this potential program to see how they make do with this stipend. It sounds on the low side to me.

Have you been in touch with your POI before? It's probably more useful to be in touch with whoever is doing admissions, since they are more likely to have influence over the decision making process. But it can't hurt to also reach out to your POI in case they also have some say in it. Not that I can make you any promises, but this is one of those "what have you got to lose" situations. Be professional and polite, but in general you can't really harm your case since you basically already have a 'no' now. All that can happen is it stays that way (no harm) or it switches to a 'yes' (improvement).