timuralp

What I'm saying is I can't find those described anywhere and the IRS handbook does not describe any exceptions to the rules that you're talking about. Can you give an example of such a fellowship? If you mean TA or RA duties, then yes, they are classified as payment for services. However, if you are paid from a fellowship, like I was for the first year of graduate studies, the required textbooks and whatever else related to education expenses is not counted against income. That's what I was trying to point out. While you're right that $500-$1000 (probably more like $100-$500) per semester may be a small amount, but it still could save a few tens or a hundred bucks. To some it makes a difference.

Ok, at this point the argument degrades into semantics. I'm gonna go with the IRS quote on this: "Example 1 Tammy Graves receives a $6,000 fellowship grant that is not designated for any specific use. Tammy is a degree candidate. She spends $5,500 for tuition and $500 for her personal expenses. Tammy is required to include $500 in income." The wording is such that it implies the other $5,500 are not included in income and not reported and not taxable. Here are some excerpts from the IRS about this: "A scholarship or fellowship is tax free only if: • You are a candidate for a degree at an eligible educational institution, and • You use the scholarship or fellowship to pay qualified education expenses. where the expenses are: • Tuition and fees required to enroll at or attend an eligible educational institution, and • Course-related expenses, such as fees, books, supplies, and equipment that are required for the courses at the eligible educational institution. These items must be required of all students in your course of instruction." So, yes, there are tax free scholarships but none of the funds can be used for living expenses. Then about what is taxable: "If your scholarship or fellowship does not meet the requirements described earlier, it is taxable. The following amounts received may be taxable. • Amounts used to pay expenses that do not qualify. • Payments for services. • Scholarship prizes." This implies that if you receive a scholarship for $6,000, then spend $5,000 on tuition, the taxable amount is $1,000. A stipend for RA or TA would be payment for service. The exception for the payments for services is: "You do not have to include in income part of any scholarship or fellowship that represents payment for teaching, research, or other services if you receive the amount under: • The National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program, or • The Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship and Financial Assistance Program, and you: • Are a candidate for a degree at an eligible educational institution, and • Use that part of the scholarship or fellowship to pay qualified education expenses." Of course, if the taxable amount in the scholarship/fellowship is such that you don't have to file a return, none of it has to be reported. It sounded like you were talking about tuition deduction, which applies to income. However, scholarship funds used to pay tuition aren't reported as income.

As mentioned by IRS, fellowship funds used for paying tuition or for buying items directly related to the degree in progress (e.g. textbooks for classes) are tax exempt. The textbook case is not very special As others have noted, and I know first hand, the university will not deduct taxes if the student is supported by a fellowship grant, i.e. the taxes are not taken out and it's up to the student to sort it out. I say it because it's not clear what the source of the stipend is and the person asking the question did not elaborate on that. It's good to be aware of the fact that it could turn out to be that way.

To answer the poster's question, yes. Your stipend is income and taxed as such, both at the state and federal level. First google hit about this issue from the IRS should answer all your question about the federal taxes. Check with the state about the state tax laws. Withholding also depends on how you get paid. If you're getting paid from a fellowship, taxes will not be withheld and you will need to file estimated quarterly taxes. You may also need to file those with the state. There is also a penalty for not doing so (some percentage of the would've been collected tax). Finally, there is some leeway with that, as I think you get a break for some period of time if you transitioned from having the taxes withheld to not having that. If you see that not enough or too much tax is being taken out, you can adjust it by submitting an updated W4 form and adjusting the allowances.

If you're looking for a PhD in systems, that's pretty much exactly what it means. Moreover, with graduate studies, everyone knows who you are - every subfield is tiny, so it only matters that you do good work and doing good work is more likely at a place with a strong publication record at top tier conferences. Now honestly, would you go to a school that publishes less because to the people outside your field the name sounds more prestigious? That seems like a horrible reason! By the way, I forgot to ask, how do you define top notch? Also, what resources are you talking about? As a grad student, doing research, your resources are tied to your advisor's grant money, which is correlated with publications. Let me quote from that page, now: "Most Computer Science graduate students are admitted in the MS/PhD track. That means they are intending to work toward a PhD, but will acquire a masters degree along the way." Compare this with other schools where most graduate students are admitted into a terminal masters program. "Financial support for most MS-only students comes in the form of half or full assistantships" -- this part means that you can apply for TA/RA positions, but RA is subject to agreeing with a faculty member and students with guaranteed funding are handed the TA jobs first. So, yes, you could apply and get admitted to MS only and then hope that there are spots left after the guaranteed funding students for you. Most likely, you'll be forking over some amount of money to the school. Finally, I feel like this is far enough off-topic at this point, as the person asking this question is not actually interested in Yale CS anymore anyway.

Well, he's in systems and Yale doesn't exactly have a strong publication record in systems. I just went through the systems group and there is one guy in DB, one guy who hasn't published this year (or taking the time to update the page), and one guy publishing in mobile stuff. The other people that there were links to are doing EE stuff. The networking group has one guy in it, who is the same guy as the mobile stuff guy on the systems page. The DB group has 2 guys, both of whom are listed under systems and one of them is the guy that doesn't have any 2010 publications. There is one PL guy who's actively publishing. It appears the theory group also has people publishing, but I don't know anything about that field to make any judgment. The MS only applicants part is because a number of schools are not looking to admit MS candidates, because more often than not it does not benefit the ongoing research. There have been students who were admitted and left with MS, but the grad school committee would not be willing to give money to applicants who are going to do that. I know of other schools that do the same thing. At the same time, there are other schools that admit majority terminal masters students, out of all grad students admitted. If you're pursuing that, personally, I feel like you could try to find a job that would pay for a part time masters. I am aware of a few companies that would be happy to do that.

Heh I guess I really need to define "fits research interests" better. I went by the possible advisors I could work with and am happy where I ended up. What you described is what I meant by "fits research interests". The teaching aspect sounds plausible to me. I do wonder, however, how much this can also be offset by the better name school aspect. For example, would it be something that a candidate from Princeton can still overcome when applying for such positions? Is the experience something that is also learnt on the job? Personally, I feel like teaching is in a big part talent and if one doesn't posses the talent for it, there's not much one can do. I know at my current institution graduate students seldom teach whole courses, but rather frequently TA, which involves leading discussions. Nonetheless, I am aware of at least one who successfully applied for a primarily teaching job at a small liberal arts college. I know at my undergrad school of another student who did the same. I don't know if these schools are desperate or something, but it did not seem to me that way. Also, I know some schools have a guest lecture by a prospective applicant as a means of evaluating teaching ability. I did not mean to imply that graduate school is all about a prestigious diploma. I was more incredulous that one would willfully snub the possibility without exploring it further. The rankings/prestige/name are not everything, but if a school has the potential to be a good research match, funding, and fulfillment of goals, I'd think it should be at least considered. And the fitting in better socially is an unknown factor until the campus visit, so it's hard to consider it as a way to pick the schools to apply to. Thanks for a measured response So as not to make another post: The point about big fish in a small pond or smaller fish in a big pond is very field dependent. I am one of 3 students working with my advisor. I don't believe either one of us is going to get extra help or a proverbial shaft. I believe a lot of it comes back to what research you've done, papers you've published, internships you've been at. As far as I can tell those are the best ways to find people interested in you and your work, who can offer you a job.

I think this whole thread got derailed in a hurry. My original point (and I think also that of American in Beijing) was that attending a more "prestigious" (define it any way you want: Ivy league, higher ranked, more funding, etc) will not close any doors and should open more options. The objection expressed thus far (aside from what the inquiry stated) was that the candidates from such schools have attitudes and are snooty and thus don't get offered positions. While I believe there are cases like that, I'm failing to see the causal relationship that going to a prestigious school will necessarily result in the said attitude. Moreover, the point was to encourage the person who asked the original question not to prematurely close the doors on what could otherwise be good opportunities. If there are reasons that you can think of for not attending a school that is more prestigious, fits the applicant's research interests, and provides funding, I would be very interested in hearing them. The one reason that I could find was expressed by the person asking about this and it was that he/she would feel more rewarded/find it more beneficial to research and society at large when teaching students from commonly under-served background and thus would be more apt to choose a school of lesser ranking/prestige. My response was that maybe a school where work with such students is more limited, would in the long run provide more opportunities for this kind of work and that it's better to be overqualified. Without getting into the whole discussion about what it takes to teach at a community college, what drawbacks do you see to this?

By that logic no grad student should ever work with an untenured professor, as they could not get it at the review. No guarantees there either. However, a lot of students work with young professors and do fine with it.

Looking at the executive summary, there was no variance mentioned. The survey covered 822 schools, with only 19% being doctorate granting institutions. I don't think the averages tell the whole picture here and I couldn't find the data by the degree granting status. I think in averaging quite a bit of information was lost. Maybe some of these concerns are addressed in the full report, but I don't really want to pay for it. I just did a quick comparison between UMass Dartmouth and UMass Amherst and an assistant professor in CS at Amherst made ~118,000 and a full professor at Dartmouth made ~114,000. Another full professor at UMass made ~122,000. The difference between department chairs at the two schools was: almost 90,000! (~120,000 vs ~209,000). It seems to me there is a big difference. I'd expect it to vary by state, but clearly in certain states it's big. I guess computer science is one of those. I know the same is true about a lot of engineering fields. Universities tried to get rid of tenure and often ended up with rebelling faculties. Politics in the academe are very tricky. Personally, I think 5-7 year contracts with the early extension option would be great and would also relieve the stress of the pre-tenure years - something I find to be completely backwards. If you're mad already about the lost wages, maybe it'd be worthwhile to purse the said wages? I feel that money can't be a consideration when deciding grad school vs job.

My school does the same. There is actually no coverage limit and no fees for grad students to pay (co-pay is included in the health fee that the department pays). The one thing I found is that I needed to get the slightly better dental plan, because the free one does not cover cavities, so just two of those ran me $500. Vision also has to be separate and runs about $10/month. Overall, I'm happy with it and think it's reasonable and I guess it also doesn't answer your question. You could probably shop around outside the university for insurance, but I doubt you'd find a much better deal.

Out of curiosity, what's the variance in this data? You mentioned that private schools pay more, but what about top public research schools? Is the data skewed at all by the disproportionate number of smaller schools? I don't know about other fields and the opportunities there, but at least in CS the money is not the biggest problem in drawing talent. Consulting is a very common way to supplement the salary and it's not uncommon to turn research projects into entrepreneurial ventures during a sabbatical.

Haha the paint game is crazy! I just do a weekly game of soccer, weekly game of basketball, running a couple of days in between, and some lifting in the gym for my back and upper body. You could do the least equipment-needy workout of just push ups. There also ab exercises that won't take too much time, but will tire you out. After-dinner run sounds a little painful though. How about a just-before-dinner run? Also, I found my running buddy last year on craigslist. I would recommend it for finding workout/running partners.

Interesting. At the two institutions I was familiar with, where the practice was popular, there were always many (> 5) candidates for the positions and they were staffed come first day of the semester. Sometimes, they were not staffed with well qualified people, but that's a different story. Your point, though, is that there just is not enough emphasis to make the positions competitive and focus on filling the teaching needs. I know in CS, associate professors are looking at 100k+ at some schools and start around 70k, I believe. At least in my field, I feel that having options is a great thing and there is less of a flood of talent, as the industry happily gobbles up the willing students. In the end, I hope people don't pick the world of academe for money or vacations or job stability. I know that's a bit naive, but it'd be great if it were true

Without getting into the tenure discussion, I wanted to make one point about the adjuncts and lecturer positions. I feel that in a number of disciplines, after receiving the PhD, the only option is a career in academe, if one wishes to remain in the same field. As the number of positions, tenured or otherwise, is limited and doesn't grow very quickly (and, for tenured positions, the turnover rate is very low), there is an abundance of people possessing the degrees in the field with no jobs. I think that if there were very few people taking up the adjunct position, the salary and benefits would increase. As is, it seems there is a large supply and not very high demand, hence low benefits and salary. The universities have no incentive to increase compensation, as long as that's the case. I don't see a good way to solve this supply/demand problem, aside from cutting back on PhD programs. Of course, no one would go for that anyway. I'd be curious what the other opinions on that are. To just comment on the article, I have personally seen a number of cases where the faculty stopped publishing after tenure and, sometimes, even putting any effort in teaching (not sure if they ever did, however). To me, a number of the concerns raised, rang very true. I'm not sure which parts of it were terribly insulting though. I guess the comment on what academics do with their time is most likely, but, in reality, some really don't do anything with their time. // I edited this post to include more thoughts, rather than making another one I think the job security issues are real, but I don't think they're irresolvable through contracts. A request for early contract extension when a multi-year grant is received is a possibility, for instance. At that point, the university has real money incentive to retain the researcher.

A common thing to do is to make a page on your school space. Some students make their pages elsewhere. The school space benefit is that it is clearly the "official" page, at least for the time being, and people can easily track you down. I need to update mine... now you reminded me of more small tasks to do

I think this may be a difference between sciences and humanities? Or may be not. Either way, in my own experience, every professor and grad student that I've talked to when I was applying told me that you apply to PhD if you like doing research. The reasoning is that since one has to work a lot of hours on just one problem for a publication that few people read, one has to be excited about it to get through it. Having been in grad school for 2 years, if I were not passionate/excited about the research work I'm doing, I can honestly say I would not still be here. At the same time, if one were to ask me where I see myself in 5 years, I'm not sure. The only thing I'm certain of is that right now I really enjoy research work and I would like to continue it after I graduate. That does not mean it won't change. My point earlier was that a lot of things can change once you enter a program: maybe you find you absolutely hate PhD; maybe you'd rather be focusing on a different topic, etc. I was expressing my concern over setting yourself up on a career plan that may not be the one you'd be happy with in a few years and that options are good. I'm sorry if it was too blunt. Sure. My disbelief lies in that I don't see why a top 20 or top 10 school would not have people doing the same thing. As my advisor in undergrad said, you apply to a department, but really you care about the few individuals. Great, both to being ok with being at a "worse" school and wanting to make a bigger impact at that level and having your answers. I think the confusion stemmed from what sounded like making the choice of not even considering the "top" programs, whatever they are in your field. I did not see this discourse as either unpleasant or ill intended. That is precisely my sentiment. Thank you for clearly expressing it more eloquently than I could I, for one, chose a reasonably lower ranked school only because I thought it fit my research interests better. I am not regretting that choice for a moment, but still if I went back, I would apply to all the same schools and meet the same people and have the same conversations. That experience was tremendously valuable in figuring out what it is I really want to do.

Fair enough, but then UMass for example takes in largest money in State Appropriation. Still, it's in the top 10 for AI. I would argue it's still an "elite" school in that regard. Then, as far as Michigan State goes, their biggest income is actually from Student Fees and not State Appropriations. Sounds like it's less of a "state" school than you think it is. Sure, its appropriations may be higher than UM, but the biggest way they pay for themselves is Tuition+Fees, which is a way private schools raise money to pay for expenses. So, once again, I'm not sure how you differentiate. Further, at least in sciences, the bulk of funding IS from government research grants. NIH+NSF pay for most research happening at the University of Michigan. My point is that at the end of the day this distinction to me seems silly and to say that "Ivies" are elite is not quite right. Sure, that's what I was trying to point out. I honestly feel like thinking about where to work before even being in grad school is just a little bit too far ahead. Further, I think it's easier to get the job being overqualified than underqualified and, finally, not to be terribly cynical, but very few people's theses make even the slightest difference in anyone's life and most of the time just sit on a dusty shelf.

Ok, now I'm confused. What is a "state" school? Which of the following are state schools: Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UMass, Wisconsin, UIUC, University of Washington? Because last time I checked they were all "state" schools and are all in top 10-20, for various subfields. By the way, once again, at least in CS, there are a lot of college professor jobs that require very little or no research at all. These are the jobs at liberal arts colleges, community colleges, etc. The course load is quite a bit heavier, but all you do is teach.

This may be different in your particular field, but the following is true in mine: at any school you find both kinds of advisors. We have a few people who have small armies of grad students, where the interaction is often group meetings, however most still try to meet with the students in smaller groups too (usually in pairs or so) and some still even make time to meet with students individually. At the same time, there are professors who have fewer students( < 5-7) and spend a lot of time working with them. There are also ones that have few students and don't spend as much time with them. My point is that the amount of time often depends on the group dynamic and the professors and the setup. I wouldn't discard any school only because of the reputation of a few people. Hope this is somewhat helpful.

"Some places, for instance some unnamed top schools, will admit lots of students with no money. Do not be lured by a big name school that has no money for you. That is a huge mistake." That kind of thing. I didn't apply to one school only because of things related to that and their policies on research, etc.

Grad school admissions are a bit of a crap shoot. For instance, a not so impressive GPA/GRE scores are easily overcome with research experience and a great letter of recommendation. If you get a letter from someone who is either at a school you're applying to or graduated from there, it helps even more (although, you could argue it shouldn't). When I applied, I went through the top-20 schools in my area with the professors and they highlighted the schools I should get into with reasonable certainty, ones where it's a toss up, and ones that were a reach. They also pointed out some schools that were ranked highly but should not be considered for application, because of their admission reputation. Now, to highlight that it's a crapshoot, at the time I applied to: #2, #4, #5, #7, #11, #13, #14, #15, if I recall correctly, and got into, with full funding, #5, #7, #11, and #14. The problem is that every year, even if you're a great candidate, the professors in your area may or may not be looking for students. Further, if you're not as great of a candidate but somehow few people applied in your field and there is a new faculty or a lot of students graduating, you may find yourself with much better chances at an offer. Finally, the rankings and even the people, won't tell you which school is best for YOU. But you can figure that out when you visit. Sometimes, after a visit, you're left thinking "Who would I ever work with here? It looked so great on paper!". Don't get set on any one school, visit each one with open mind, see how it feels and you'll figure it out.

This is general advice: ask your professors. When I was applying to grad school they had the best knowledge/advice/people to consider at the different schools. I asked 3 different ones and made a list of 8 schools. All in all, pretty painless and by far the best way to go about it. Also, most students don't have a clear area of focus picked out before coming into grad school and a fair share change advisors, but you might want to at list consider the broader terms: HCI vs Theory vs NLP and pick one of those. I'm not sure what software you're going to write while pursuing Theory of Computation in depth, but those sort of goals are too far removed at this point anyway. Finally, there is a reason grad student code is grad student code. If you're interested in graduating somewhat on time, you won't have time to make your code "production quality", unless you're writing something very small. When you have a research project that's between 5,000 and 10,000 lines of code, getting it to work with good results is often a challenge in of itself, barring the whole "I want others to use it" aspect.

The point about exercise... is definitely true for some and different fields are different. It's good to strive to exercise daily, but when I had weeks of sleeping 4 hours a night and expecting to do more work to fix bugs and get results every day, exercise was not high on the list. Once things calm down a bit, I find myself going to the gym again and partaking in the regular soccer and basketball games. Paper/quals/piles of projects can wreak havoc to any schedule you have set. I don't know of any students in my particular area that manage to sustain their normal schedules around submission times.

Looking through it, the hobby advice is a very good one - maybe the most important one. It's important to get your mind off things, otherwise you're at serious risk of burning out.