fuzzylogician

Some pointers for various aspects of moving to the US below. There's lots more if you search this forum.

You should be searching schools based on research interests, not rankings. What do you want to study in grad school? If you can't answer that question, you need to pause and seriously think about why you want to apply for a PhD in the first place. If you have a well-defined area of research, you want to find the schools where the top researchers in that field are teaching and apply there. As for post-PhD prospects, that really depends on what you want to do. If it's academia, what's going to matter most is your own research, then I would say your advisor's reputation and connections, then your department's, then your school's reputation. For industry jobs, the school's name might matter more because employers won't know individual people as well, but if they are hiring political scientists on a regular basis, they will still know where the good programs are.

I don't know anything about your field but as a general rule, any chance any of those think tanks have public websites with information about its employees, or is there another way to reach them? A major question is who gets hired to do the jobs that you want to do, or more specifically what kind of education they have. If they all have local degrees, that's your answer right there. Or if tend to recruit through internships and otherwise it's very hard to get a job there, again that's another reason to go for the local degree. But if you will have odds that are just as good with the non-local degree, I think not going into debt is obviously the better choice.

Interesting. I once got in the "comments and suggestions for improvement" section of a end of year teaching survey this comment: "the TA is too short, can't reach top of blackboard." (yeah, thanks, I'll definitely work on fixing that for next time...) So, can't help you there, but I'm curious! I wouldn't be surprised if looking older in any way, height or otherwise, is a factor. This is happening to me less and less over the years, and I suppose has some correlation to how often I get carded these days.

^ Absolutely. I am also often surprised by the "I'll settle for a less than ideal location for the next 5 years of my life because then I'll be able to get a better job" sentiment, which seems to forget that people will almost always have more options to choose from when it comes to graduate school than when it comes to the academic job market, even if they are the very top players. The chances that you will have to spend a few years in a less than ideal location for your first job (or three; assuming that you are lucky enough to get a job in the first place!) are incredibly high. Research fit that's good on paper means very little when you live in a place that makes you unhappy, trust me.

I think a much more accurate description of the facts is that young posters, who are just now applying, often seem to only care about ranking/research fit and nothing else. The more experienced posters on this site, those who are actually in grad school or have graduated, consistently stress the importance of factors like location, the weather, your personal and social life, in addition to research fit. I've certainly expressed that opinion in the past.

You mean like being asked to write an essay on the spot during an interview? I've never heard of that happening before. I'd imagine you'd at least be given some guidelines like length and topics, but if it's completely free then I guess the obvious answer is to go with something you've already spent some time thinking about and maybe even writing about, not a brand new topic, and that you'd approach it the same as any exam that asks you to write an essay; I'm sure you've done those before.

Journals have submission guidelines for authors that discuss issues like formatting, length requirements, and such. Sometimes it can be a bit hard to find, but I've never seen a journal that didn't have such a guide. Look for links like "for authors" or "submission guidelines." If you can't find one, look for the guidelines for the journal's publisher on the publisher's webpage.

It happens to all of us that a ball somehow gets dropped and an email goes unanswered for longer than it should. I wouldn't worry too much, I'd only recommend responding promptly to any reply you get, even if it's just "Thanks! Looking forward to my visit."

Do it! Otherwise you'll continue stressing up until you actually meet him at the open house. Your wording is fine.

Here is some information that I think should help: http://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/students/training/f-1/new_program. I would recommend you address this question to the office or international students at your current school, to be on the safe side.

They clearly said yes, you can take the TOEFl after their deadline. If you are admitted, they won't be able to officially make you an offer until after they have your scores, so they say to send them the scores as soon as you get them.

You think maybe it would have been relevant to mention that postdoc positions came up in your prior conversations with these POIs, so it doesn't sound like you're suggesting that it's a good idea for people who've never had such a conversation to suddenly bring it up? Your justification before we pointed out the absurdity of it was "I honestly never thought about it either until a friend of mine joked about it." So yeah, without this additional background, it's on the ridiculous side. And "I unfortunately am going to have to decline the offer presented to me by XYZ. While this decision was extremely difficult and I was excited at the prospect of working with you, I have decided to go elsewhere" sounds like it was taken from one of those form rejection emails you might get from a school, but isn't how I would advise anyone to write a POI. Not that I think that it's such a big deal, just not how I would advise anyone to do it. I have no idea what that comment about teaching is doing there, and I didn't say anything about dropout rates, so I don't have much to add there either.

Sadly, I don't think this is a situation you solve or fix, it's a situation you do your best to get out of as fast as possible, as quietly as possible. I am not at all surprised that having a lab meeting to discuss with everyone how your advisor has feelings for another student didn't solve the problem (frankly I'm surprised that meeting even happened). The fact that he is having personal problems complicates matters, because that would be hard to bring to the administration's attention and ask that they do something about. You could decide to document the problems in your lab and then find a way to complain (e.g. through an ombudsperson). But you are not even an MS student; the process will be long and hard, and the result will likely hurt your chances of getting into a graduate program, and probably won't happen in time to actually improve your life. You might still want to collect this evidence and pass it along after you leave, but I am sorry to say that I believe complaining could be dangerous to your career, and it's questionable how likely it is to solve the problem. One thing to consider is to ask yourself if you think anyone is already aware, at least to some degree, and is ignoring it, or if everyone is completely oblivious to any problem. Also relevant: is the professor tenured? is the department head someone who you trust -- someone who is active and trying to improve the department, or someone who is more interested in keeping the status quo? On a practical level, you have to decide where you would rather be next year and what has the greatest chances of helping you get into PhD programs. It sounds like you do have options, but maybe not ones you are very excited about. You need to decide whether they would be better or worse than staying in the same lab another year. If you have to stay in your lab another year, the most important thing to get out of it is a strong letter from your advisor. It's hard to see how you do that and also complain, so it's possible that you'll need to keep your head down and do the work, keeping in mind that it's only a year and hopefully then you'll move on to a better lab. I'm sorry I am not more optimistic, but in these situations, it's the person with the least power that has the most to lose.

What kind of timeline are we talking about here? They emailed, then a month of silence? Or they emailed 3 days ago and you're anxious? This process takes time and also differs by school and field, so it's a bit hard to give you more insight. It could be that they need to get the approval of the admissions committee before moving forward or that it's just taking time because admissions isn't the only thing on their to-do list and something else took priority, or any number of other things.

I think saying that is fine, especially when it's someone who you've established a relationship with. Make sure the email is sincere and personalized. I still think that sending a "rejection" email to the professor that reads like the formulaic email that students sometimes get from schools is ill advised. You need to be careful with your tone, which can be hard to do if you don't know your audience very well. The email above reads to me somewhere between naive and ridiculous, which is not the impression you want to make.

It's only been two days. Give it more time. Once a week has passed, then you can try again. Check also to see if it's spring break at your POI's school, because if it is, it might be why s/he is slower. Might also be midterm season, again a reason for a slowdown.

Some of it comes from experience, through making those mistakes. You sit down and decide what is important for you in your life. It can be anything -- evenings with the spouse, time off with friends, X hours of sleep a night, cooking and eating healthy food, whatever. Then you think through what that means in terms of actual time and actions that need to be taken, and you prioritize them. If you need to, you actually schedule them in your calendar. Then you can't commit to doing anything else during those times, because they are already booked. You think about your goals and how far you're willing to go to achieve them. For me, not going into debt was a basic requirement of any graduate degree. Searching for a job, there were some compromises I was willing to make and some that I wasn't, so I chose not to apply to jobs that were an absolute 'no' for whatever reason, regardless of what anyone else said I should do. You realize that you need to do what makes you happy and to hell with what anyone else might think. So if you want to be a clinician and for that you need a masters, then that's what you should do. What's the point in getting a PhD in the first place? I don't understand why that's even a question. You don't need it, so don't do it. You could have years of on the job experience, you'd be making more money, you'd be saving toward your retirement, and you would not be doing a degree you don't need -- all good things. That's the best way to get to your goal, so who cares if there is another irrelevant degree out there? You're also not getting a law degree or a teaching certificate either, and I assume you're not concerned about that? So why is the PhD different? Going after goals one after the other without even thinking about whether they make any sense is just a sign that you haven't taken the time to really sort through your life. You need to slow down and define your goals, then actually think about how you get there. Only do the things that make sense, not the things that look good on paper, because you live your life in the real world, not on paper. In the end, no one will care if you have a PhD or not. What's most important is that you are happy.

Also, this: http://www.colinphillips.net/?p=3023 (called Web presence for linguists, but relevant to everyone in academia)

It's fine to ask junior and senior faculty, but don't expect everyone to be completely honest, and don't expect them to even know. They might think they'll be there now but then e.g. a change in health or other personal circumstances (or for younger faculty: being recruited by another university, change in a spouse's employment status, tenure decisions, etc) might cause a change of plans. Beyond that, even if they do have a plan, if they haven't shared it with the administration and their colleagues yet, they will probably not be interested in sharing it with prospective students. So asking "will your retire in the next 5 years" or some version of that isn't as effective in getting you the information you are after as "Do you see yourself chairing committees over the next 5 years?". And beyond asking the faculty themselves, you could also ask students if they have any reason to believe that the faculty might retire. But at the end of the day, accept that you won't have perfect information on this question.

Yep, I would also suggest addressing the bigger issue of how to effectively communicate with your advisor, beyond this one situation. I won't repeat the good advice that you've already been given, which I agree with. One other thing I didn't see above but I've found to be useful is not to send new emails each time but to forward/reply to the same email again and again. This way you create a record of your prior attempts to get in touch with her, and it'd be harder for her to claim that you sprung it on her last minute (though not impossible, I've seen it all). Then when you send the follow up email, instead of saying "I sent you an email last week, I haven't heard back so I am just checking in to see if you got it" you actually refer to the content that's quoted in your current email and just repeat the highlights. It also helps her because then everything is in one place and she doesn't have to go fishing in her inbox for another email that's a week old.

I think you underestimate people's capacity to spend time on meaningless chores such as color-coding the schools in their signatures. I do believe people do this themselves.

One way to go about it is to ask when would be a good time for you to schedule a meeting to go over his comments together and plan the next step in your project (if there is one). Say something about wanting to plan ahead and ask when will be a good time to start thinking about scheduling the meeting, because you realize it might take time to find a timeslot that works for everyone.

I started having a website some time during my Masters program or maybe early in my PhD program, I can't remember anymore. I do remember that the earliest versions were basically just one page, with a short bio (research interests, contact info, a picture), link to my CV, and a research section with updates on talks and papers. It didn't make a lot of sense to have separate pages because they would have been pretty sparse. These days my website has 6 different pages: the top page has basically all the same stuff I listed above, except that the research section is just selected recent/upcoming papers and presentations from the last maybe 6-12 months. I have an about page with more details on my interests and my academic ancestry; a publications page with links to all my papers and talk handouts; a research page that tells more of a narrative about the different projects I'm involved in and lists projects by interest, so I have short blurbs that say roughly "This project goes after question X. X is important because blah. The main findings are ABC," then I list all the papers that have come out of that project; I have a teaching page with syllabi and short blurbs for courses I've developed and materials for some of them; and I have a personal page with some non-academic info about myself and some etymology, because there is something interesting to say about both my first name and last name, and people get curious. Some people in my field also link to their social media accounts. I personally don't, though I'm not hard to find. I don't know of anyone who keeps a real blog as part of their website, but some (usually more prominent people) have blogs alongside their website.

Hi there, this forum is for students applying to graduate school, it's not for help with homework. You should either talk to your lecturer, nice or not, or find another, more appropriate online community to help you. For what it's worth, I doubt anyone will solve all this for you. There are probably over a dozen questions here and you have not indicated that you have made any effort to solve this yourself. A better approach is to ask more specifically about the places where you are stuck, instead of posting the entire assignment as-is.