fuzzylogician

I doubt she is as clueless as you think, but this has got to be an incredibly difficult time for her, and staying positive in front of students (and in general) is one way of dealing with it. She needs to figure out what happens next in her life, and if she is planning to seek other employment in academia, it might still matter to her that as much comes out of current projects as possible. It sounds like she also doesn't know if she'll stay for another year, and as long as that is an option (and because it doesn't sound like there is another option, right now), she has to plan as if that's going to work out. That all said, you need to worry about your own future, so as others have suggested, first you want to line up your next PI, then discuss with him/her how to best deal with your current projects, then simply let your old PI know that you've changed PIs and this is what's going to be possible for you to do for her projects. I'm sure that this will be very hard for her, but you can't be responsible for that. Just be sure to thank her for her help and support during the time that you were in her lab, and to wish her luck and success in the future.

Oh man, so many people tweak their presentation last minute, it's nothing to be ashamed of. I bet your advisor's done it too, at some point in his life.

I don't think this crosses a boundary, it's actually a fairly common way to save costs. (A young woman sharing a room with an older man, or the other way around, is a different story.) But if you're uncomfortable, just say no. If you can do that after you've made other arrangements, you can just say "no thanks, I've already agreed to do X," or even "no thanks, I'd rather share a room with another student" or whatever.

Exactly. If you didn't win the grant, I don't see any circumstances under which it'd be ok to list it under "grants," no matter who agrees.

Well, what kind of job are we talking about? Will you need LORs from there? Will your bosses have any influence on your life once you've left, given that leaving means that you will have already gotten into school, and school is out of town? Assuming that the answer is no, they won't really have influence over you, you just feel bad (and under some circumstances if it were yes), I think you plan for what you know and not for what might be. You need a job right now and you don't know that you'll be leaving, so you are acting in good faith. If you leave in 5 months or so, that's close to 6 months, and anyway that's not something that you can worry about now. You'll figure it out and so will they. So, I'd probably take the job.

Sometimes this might happen, yes. Specifically, schools that can fund more domestic students than international students might have to consider those two groups separately. This happens mostly with public schools, since tuition should be the same for everyone at private schools. Of course, considering the groups separately doesn't have to lead to different notification times, but it might. It's also entirely possible that more domestic students than international students use this website, and that's the source of the skewed distribution of results that you're seeing. We can't really help you there. I think you will just have to wait, or at some point you might want to contact the departments in question and ask about your status. Good luck!

Hi there, this forum is not intended to assist students with their homework, but rather for students who are applying to graduate school or are currently attending graduate school, to talk about their experiences. This is a question that you should address to your instructor or TA.

My experience was that schools had a fixed sum that they would reimburse international students, usually in the $500 range, so that clearly wasn't enough for an international flight. However, I was admitted to multiple schools and was able to get those schools to all participate in the expenses, so together I had 4 schools share the costs of my travel between them, which then was basically enough. You could ask the school you've been admitted to if it could cover your expenses, but I think in all likelihood it'll be too much for them. There is harm in asking, though, as long as you are polite about it. ETA: Oh! I had this window open for an hour but it took me a while to finally finish the post, and now I see TakeruK has basically said the exact same thing...

Most likely, no. You didn't give us much to go on -- the field, even country you're applying in. But in the vast majority of cases: in the US you only need a BA, not an MA, when applying for a PhD, and it's possible to apply before you even have the BA completed as long as it's done before you enroll. If you're in an MA program and applying for the PhD program in the same school, there will usually be some procedure for applying/switching tracks during the year when you're finishing the MA. In Canada, some (most?) programs require an MA, but again it should be possible to apply before it's completed, as long as it's completed before you begin the PhD. If there is a requirement like that that you don't meet, you might be conditionally accepted and will have to show you have fulfilled all the requirements before you're officially admitted. However, you should still be able to apply.

That would be another option, too. This probably depends on the field. In mine, if there are multiple co-authors and some of them have funding from some grant that others aren't on, you'd list it that way. Might be different if it's a PI and his/her students, actually, come to think of it. So, again, your PI is going to be the source of the most accurate information for your situation.

This. Your PI will have the best and more appropriate advice. I would not list this under "grants" on your CV because you did not write the grant and you were not officially on it, you were just a student contracted to do some of the work. A good indication of this is that, if there is a paper coming out of this work, I assume that the acknowledgements footnote will include text to the effect that "this research was supported by grant #123 awarded to <PI>", and you wouldn't be mentioned there, though you will still be a co-author. So, you participated in generating the products of the research, but not in securing the funding. I have, however, listed grants that have funded projects I have participated in as part of the project description on my CV. So, for each such project, I list the PI, my main responsibilities, the project duration, and the funding agency, if any. I keep this to about 2-3 lines, and I do it in a way that's clear that the grant went to the PI, not me, but I think it's still fair to list the grant there because it's relevant to the scope and success of the project. The important thing is not to write anything that could be misinterpreted as you being dishonest or deceitful about the facts.

More relevant than whether or not your UG institution is famous is whether or not the department you are applying to knows the institution that you are from---whether they know your LOR writers, and whether they have previously had students from your institution/department who have been successful. There are occasionally excellent departments in certain fields with very famous professors in otherwise less-known schools, and there can be less-known professors and not-as-good departments in brand-name schools. It comes down to how much weight the department you are applying to can give to the different components of your application, and that will depend on whether or not they have anything to compare it to. If your LOR writers have successfully placed multiple students in your prospective program in the past, then her/his word is more likely to be trusted than if no one has ever heard of them. Also in that case, the prospective department can directly compare you to those students, to put your credentials in context. Along similar lines, if your LOR writers are famous/successful researchers with many years of training successful applicants behind then, again there is more reason to trust their evaluation of you. Also important, but not related to brand names: your ability to talk about your research experience in depth, explain what you have done and why it matters, and what you want to do in the future (= that is, your ability to write a compelling SOP). Admissions committees know where the good programs are and who the leading researchers in their field are. These have some correspondence to brand names, if for no other reason than that those schools usually have more resources and therefore they are able to hire more/better researchers and support their students better, but the brand name itself isn't what matters.

I am going to lock this thread for a bit to let everyone cool off. It's not very helpful to tone-police other posters, and this conversation is going in a bad and counter-productive direction. I will say this -- kameldinho: this board doesn't have a functionality that can prevent a user from viewing or posting in a particular thread, and I am not seeing any indication in your profile that you have been banned or that your posting privileges more generally have been restricted, so I'm not entirely sure what happened there. PM me if you want to try and figure this out.

I mean, it's what you expect. You save on costs, but you give up on privacy. Some roommate situations are such that your roommates also become your friends, so you might cook meals or go out together occasionally. More often, probably, you each have your own lives and aside from seeing each other in the hallway or kitchen, you won't interact too much. Advantages? mostly saving money. Also, if you are a person who needs to be around other people or gets lonely, it's instant company. If you have plants or pets, they might take care of them if you have to travel. Disadvantages? If all goes well, you're mostly giving up on privacy. Your roommate might have friends over when you want to sleep, or a boyfriend/girlfriend might hang out more than you like, or they might play their music too loud, or they might take over the bathroom just when you need to use it or finish all the hot water, that kind of thing. Usually, if people are reasonable, you can work that out. If things go bad, well, that can take on all kinds of shapes. You can read horror stories online from here until next year. People not paying their share of the bills on time, eating your food, causing damage, stealing, renting out shares space for extra money at your expense, doing illegal things, being extremely loud with complete disregard for your well being, not doing any housework, the list goes on. These things are unlikely and there are ways to minimize the risk of them, but obviously there are no 100% guarantees. You can read up online about how to be careful of Craigslist scams and such like, and there are ways of choosing your roommates carefully. The internet is full of advice, and I am fairly certain you can find some here too, if you use the search function. Many students live with roommates and make it work, so I'm sure you could too.

Thanks! Conclusions from the first two weeks for class: The first week I was dressing more formally so I brought nicer shoes and changed right before class. It was alright, but a bit of a pain to carry extra shoes around all day. Later I took the formality down a notch and did the untucking of the pants from the shoes thing, and that worked fine too. My boots tend to get dirty quickly, but as long as I take care of them, I think this will be the solution most of the time. I know! as someone who grew up in place with no snow, I'm always surprised by all the things I'd never thought about. Like, it stays on the ground and has to be somewhere, so there is less space on the sidewalk and you can't jaywalk as much because there's snow all along the sidewalk separating it from the street. It's the little things...

I think this is mostly a question of who you are as a researcher and what your needs are of the advising relationship. In my opinion, having a strong advising relationship that you are happy with is absolutely crucial for maintaining your health and being successful in graduate school. Some people, like rising_star, are happy with the hands-off approach, and would therefore be happy with an advisor like yours, OP. I personally enjoyed meeting with my advisors on a regular basis, usually once a week or every other week, and I could count on them to read and comment on my ongoing work, conference abstracts, etc. For me, this was a much better arrangement, just based on my personality and theirs. I can also count on my advisors to write numerous glowing (I am told by those who read them) letters of recommendation for grants, jobs, etc. I don't think any particular advising style is better than any others, I think it's all about compatibility between how you work best and what your advisor can give you. Since it's only been a semester, it might be worth giving it more time. That said, if this is how the professor operates with all of their students, and you aren't happy with that, then if it were me, I would consider switching to a new advisor soon. Since you're only in your first year, you have more than enough time to change the direction of your research. The topic you choose should still be something you care about, but personally if I had to choose between my favorite topic with an advisor I don't quite get along with and a less favorite (but still interesting!) topic with an advisor I enjoy talking to, I would choose the latter. Your dissertation research will be the first step in a long research career, it's not the final thing you get to say. You can grow and expand in different directions post-PhD, and to me, being happy means being more successful, so having a better chance of getting to pursue all those other ideas. So, I would think a possible next step is to talk to more senior students of your advisor's about how s/he operates with them and whether they enjoy it, and similarly, if you can, with senior students of the advisor you're considering switching to. Also, if you're unsure about your compatibility with this other advisor, this is something to figure out before you make any drastic moves. Then, you'll need to sit down and think about what you need out of your advisor, and what happens if s/he can't give you some of the things you'd ideally like to have, and at the same time about whether the topics you'd work on with each potential advisor are exciting and appealing to you. If you can't have everything, you'll need to choose what matters more.

It's possible, but wouldn't be my first guess. Not knowing more, I'd guess that there was a technical problem with the website some time close to the deadline and some applicants couldn't submit their applications on time, leading to an extended deadline. Another reason for deadline extensions is if there was severe weather affecting a large part of the country so that even though the application website was functioning, many potential applicants were unable to use their electronic devices to submit the applications on time.

Hi, just letting you know that I edited your subject line so you hopefully get more interested readers. For future reference: 'mock the interview' = make fun of the interview (so, not what you wanted to say); 'do a mock interview' = do a practice interview (so, I assume what you mean here). Good luck with your interview!

I'm in a different field but some questions that I bet are relevant are: what year are you? would this be your first independent project, or have you done others? Also, more generally, what is the atmosphere like in your group -- are students encouraged to develop their own ideas and follow them through, or do they have to clear them with the PI before getting started, or is everything handed down from the PI? Seems like these would be relevant bits of information for how to think about your situation. And I'd also bet that at the end of the day the answer will be that it depends and practices vary across fields and labs. But I'll leave that for people with more relevant experience

So, depending on what you would be doing as part of the assistantship, you might say that you are proficient with various word-processing and text-editing software, or maybe that you're proficient with the online library tools at that school. If there is a component of video or sound editing or software specific to your field that you know how to use (e.g. R or SPSS), those are good to mention. If there is equipment that's used (projectors? whatever else is used in a classroom?) and you know how to use it, that's worth mentioning. Anything that could be useful for this position is fair game. If you don't think this position requires too much technology proficiency, then it's probably just a generic field that's part of the application because they use that system for all kinds of positions. I wouldn't worry about it.

No worries, happy to help

From the Applications FAQ: Should I waive my right to view my letter? Yes. Your letter will be taken more seriously if your recommenders are free to write their honest opinion of you without fear of retaliation on your part. If you do not waive your right to view the letters, they may be assigned less weight or even ignored by the adcom. Some professors will show you a copy of the letter anyway, and many others might not. You should only ask professors who you trust to write strong, positive letters on your behalf, and expect that you may never see them. How much adcom members will care about this will depend on the particular person and situation, so we can't know for a fact if it will matter or not (or how much). It's the conventional wisdom that you should waive your rights, because it could make a difference, and you don't want to do anything to hurt your application. It's worth noting that if you don't waive your right, you will only have access to LORs that are in your student file -- meaning that you have to be admitted to and enrolled at a school to be able to view the LORs that were submitted to it. If you're rejected, you don't have a right to view the LORs then (FERPA doesn't cover that). So, if you're concerned about a bad letter, this is not the best way to find out if you're right. And if you're just curious, well, then, too bad. I've never viewed a letter submitted on my behalf by anyone, including over the years letters by 4 profs for grad admissions and another 8 profs for fellowships/grants/jobs. Such is life. I know the letters are good, because people have told me as much in interviews, and I trust my recommenders to do a good job.

No, but that's probably because I don't think there are too many cases where students get clear feedback about what got them rejected in the first place. I also think it's often not the case that there was just one particular thing that got someone rejected, as opposed to a collection of things that add up, the weight given to the LORs (if the right to view them is not waived) then casting extra doubt on an application that already had some question marks attached to it.

This sounds like a relatively common way of doing things, but the precise steps one needs to take change from program to program, so if you're not sure, you'll need to consult with someone from your program. Maybe try asking a senior student who's just gone through the relevant steps, or your department's admin person or the DGS. In general, you shouldn't necessarily trust your advisor for these technical requirement questions; advisors know how to help you with your research, but they are sometimes ignorant of official program requirements.

Yes, I'd say it's a concern, both in terms of the environment in your department and in the geographical area that you'll be living in (and those two are often related). How much of a concern it would be depends on the individual. At this point, since you've already submitted all your applications (I assume), I would advise to wait and see what your outcomes are. Then you can read up on the geographical area of the schools you've been admitted to, and you can visit the schools to get a sense of what they're like. You could (carefully!) bring up the issue of politics with students when you get a chance to chat with them when faculty aren't around.