juilletmercredi

^That's absolutely correct. These programs are often used as "cash cow" programs, used to fund other programs in the department/school and overhead. Now, that doesn't mean that the program isn't excellent, rigorous, or useful - Columbia's MBA program is also a cash cow program, in that it's expensive and they rarely provide any scholarships or aid aside from loans. But it's still a well-respected degree that will get you a good job upon graduation. If the Ivy League program is the clinical psychology MA at Columbia, I wouldn't recommend that. I don't have direct experience with it, but I know a few people who went through it and they had mixed to negative reactions to the program. I do not get the sense that they give you individualized attention or that they mentor you with the research skills necessary to go to a good program; students get it there, if they want it, but you have to specifically seek it out - not guaranteed.

So, from your signature I gather that you are in mechanical engineering. UIUC is a top 10 school in mechanical engineering. Sure, Stanford is a great school, but UIUC is also an engineering powerhouse. Three people is plenty who do research in your area. This is a classic bird in the hand, two in the bush situation, with the additional factor that the bird that you have in your hand is like a peacock or something. UIUC is a great department, and you'd get a great research and engineering education there. There's no guarantee that you'd get into Stanford with one additional year of PA work - obviously the department is very competitive and many of the other applicants will have similar levels of work. Obviously there's no reason to pay $120,000 to go to Stanford when you're funded at another top 10 program. So even if you fit better there, financially, it's not feasible. You say that you would've gone to UIUC if you hadn't gotten the offer from Stanford. But the thing is, you didn't get a good offer. You got an unfunded one to their MS program, not the PhD. There's no guarantee that you'll get funding, and even if you do, there's no guarantee that you'll get into their PhD program after you finish the MS. For me, that's too much uncertainty, and I would take the UIUC offer and not look back. But maybe you should contact some POIs at Stanford and ask what the probability of you securing funding for next year is if you were to defer the offer. (You already know that programs like NSF, NDSEG, and Hertz are competitive and not to be relied on.)

If they're about the same price you can't really go wrong here. NYU seems to allow more flexibility in the curriculum because they are assuming a foreknowledge of probability and statistical inference. Columbia requires you to take those two courses, but if you have already taken them you might be able to place out of them and use those core spaces for electives. If you are concerned about that, I would ask about it. I don't think the professor quality at Columbia is necessarily better than NYU - I went to Columbia, and the professors *are* excellent, but NYU's professors are also good and the Courant Institute is great as well. I think in this case I might lean towards Columbia. Part of that is my own familiarity - I know Columbia is making strides in building its data science capabilities; they already have strengths in applied math, statistics, computer science, operations research and industrial engineering and are simply drawing on all of that to build this data science program. They have the new Data Science Institute but also individual centers focused on health analytics, translational research and other stuff. Columbia has also been doing a lot of work building relationships with tech start-ups in the NYC area and beyond; they want more of their graduates to get involved in the tech start-up world (so that they can beat the Stanfords and Harvards of the world at that game). Besides, you already went to NYU for undergrad; the program is more flexible with length, in that you can complete it in a year and save money on living expenses; and there is the small matter of Columbia's name prestige. I wouldn't make a decision on prestige alone, but since you are now looking for small differences to make the decision and since they will cost the same anyway I would use that as a deciding factor.

Only people in your field can tell you for sure, but in my experience usually extra work experience can help you cross over and you don't need an additional MA. No, a second MA is not a plus regardless - you'd need to perform well and do research, writing a thesis if it's an option. If your grades are slightly lower than the first one that could just be normal fluctuation, but I think generally you want to aim for >3.5 GPA.

@neuronerdasaurus, personally I would choose School B anyway. There are 2 professors whose work excites you (which is lenty) and it's more money at a place where students seem happier. However, if you really want School A - if you knew you would absolutely go there if they offered you more - then yes, I would gently mention the other offer. I might say something like "School A is my first choice, and I'm really excited about being accepted and the prospect of going! However, I was a bit concerned about the cost of living with the stipend, especially because I got a higher offer in a lower CoL area. Is there any room for negotiation on the stipend level?" See what they say and how they react. This is better to do over the phone so you can read the non-verbal communication.

Yeah, I agree with rising_star and ian. You definitely don't want to go into six-figure debt for an MA if your goal is academia, because you won't make enough to comfortably repay it. (The Ivy MA will not matter when applying for academic jobs - where you got your PhD from is what matters.) However, a low-ranked PhD program with poor funding isn't a good idea, either. Personally, I would decline them both and work on improving your application for the next cycle. Next time you might also apply to some inexpensive MA programs, perhaps at public universities in your state; that way, even if you decide to take on an MA, you can take on minimal debt.

$20K is going to go a LOT farther in Williamsburg than Boston. William & Mary seems to be a top 5-10 program in American Studies, whereas Boston U is more like top 15-20 - not a huge difference, but could be the tiebreaker. I agree that you need to ask in your department about placement rates. You might also want to ask about time to degree and additional funding beyond 5 years; American studies is a hybrid of the humanities and social sciences, and often PhDs in our field take a little longer than 5 years.

Congrats on your decision! I was going to advise you to go to Davis, too - you really want to be in the kind of lab where people "spawn a dynasty," lol. Also remember that small towns/cities are often cheaper; being a graduate student can get frustrating fast in an expensive large city.

SeanDDavies - I used the federal government's student loan repayment calculator. IBR cuts monthly payments to 15% of your discretionary income. Discretionary income is the difference between your salary and 150% of the poverty line for your family size and your state. The 48 contiguous U.S. states have the same poverty guidelines so I just used Alabama as the default state. PAYE cuts your payments to 10% of your discretionary income. Congrats on making a decision OP, and good luck!

Why would you want to do this? I mean, theoretically, you could. But do you want a PhD or do you want an MS?

Wait, this is for a PhD program? And you'd have to TA (teach?) two courses a semester at Arizona?! Nah, I'd go to Washington. Teaching a lot can really stretch out your time to degree and take away from your own ability to write publications and focus on yoru scholarship.

I don't think you should *always* go to the higher-ranked program - it depends on funding, advisors, and career goals. But given the information presented here (you want to go into academia, and you have good funding) I think you should go to the higher-ranked program.

As for safety in the area surrounding Columbia - it's quite safe. Columbia is actually in Morningside Heights and the Upper West Side; it borders Harlem, but as of yet there only relaly only administrative buildings in Harlem -unless you are in the School of the Arts; I think there may be studio space up there. The southwestern part of Harlem that you're going to be close to is also pretty tame - I wouldn't call it sketchy. I lived in the area for 3 years (at 119th St, just south of Harlem) and of course was a student there for 6 years and I never felt unsafe walking in the vicinity of Columbia at night, and that includes on 125th St when I've been up there shopping or to the movies or something. Before that, I lived in Washington Heights - a neighborhood that I would say borders on sketchy sometimes - and I also felt safe there, too. Where things start to get sketchy is in central and East Harlem, I would say, east of Adam Clayton Powell/7th Ave. But that's far from Columbia (I mean, relatively speaking - it's not really easy walking distance...I mean, you won't accidentally wander there). @surlefil - I found my first apartment on Craigslist and also one of my roommates that way (I listed it on CL when I needed to replace a vacating roommate). Lots of my friends have found listings on CL. It's totally safe; you just need to see the apartment with your own eyes first - or send a trusted friend to go, take pictures, and do an evaluation. New York landlords are pretty skilled at taking pictures from angles that make apartments look bigger/nicer than they are. Basically, if it sounds way too good to be true, it probably is. I definitely agree with @higheredhopeful that a broker's fee is worth it if you can afford it and you know you will be in NYC for a long time (and 5-6+ years is a reasonably long time). If I were moving back to New York for a permanent job, I would hire a broker. That said, I've only ever rented no-fee apartments and very few of my friends have retained brokers when renting (I do have three friends who bought their apartments and of course used agents then).

I agree that you seem to be leaning towards UCLA - it fits your requirements the best and your concerns seem to be pretty small/unimportant, aside from the financial difficulties they're having. You'll adjust to the quarter system, and academia is a national market so going to UCLA is not going to hinder you from getting academic jobs on the East Coast. Even if you left academia, UCLA is a nationally-respected name - you'll have no problem trying to come back out here. A bigger department and cohort is a matter of preference, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Not clicking with one potential advisor is not a big deal if there are others that you could work with, and I'm not sure why being surrounded by tech industries would affect you at all. One thing to think about is whether the cost of living in Palo Alto is lower than Los Angeles. I genuinely don't know, but it could be worth investigating. PhDs are long and being able to afford a reasonable standard of living is important.

I don't think the information is contradictory, but I think both pieces of information require a nuanced interpretation. You don't want to just pick the program that, quantitatively, has the highest number of labs/PIs whose work interests you. It might be better, for example, to attend a program with two stable labs whose work you are really passionate about than to go to one with 4 volatile labs whose work you are just lukewarm about, for instance. On the flip side, though, concentrating on only one lab can be a recipe for disaster if you have a falling-out with that PI, or discover that your interests shift a bit, or that PI leaves for another university (or academia altogether). And while the quality of your grad experience will mostly depend on how well you fit int your lab, the quality of the program and your classmates - both the ones in your lab and the ones who aren't - also matter a great deal. So it's a combination of both. Obviously weight the research and the capabilities of potential labs more heavily, but it is also important to consider the coursework you can take, the qualifiers, the potential classmates you'll have, and other resources of the department and program.

Yeah, I agree - One W is not going to completely destroy your prospects. If the W deadline weren't tonight at midnight I would encourage you to talk to the professor first and see what he thinks, but since it's so close I think you should go ahead and W (or maybe drop to P/NP if that's an option).

I have, indeed, failed to reject the null hypothesis. In fact, I would say most of my proposed hypotheses in my dissertation didn't work out. Actually, that was one of the first things my advisor mentioned to me - not to worry if I failed to reject the null; I could still graduate, lol. He was right; I found some statistically significant differences and some that were not, and still defended successfully and graduated. The thesis isn't really about the findings; it's about the process of completing a major research project independently.

^This is the way most external awards function. They won't just give you the money, because you could just take it and not do school. They send it to your university's financial aid department and the university administers it to you however they see fit. I was on two external (and one internal) fellowship in grad school. On the first (internal) fellowship, I was technically employed by the university as a GRA and paid a biweekly salary in exchange for 20 hours a week of research (broadly defined). I could replace the 20 hours a week of research with up to 10 hours of TAing, if I wanted to, but I wouldn't get paid additional money for it. On both of my external fellowships I could TA for additional money, but it was a smaller fixed cost. Like let's say that the institutional stipend was $25,000 and the fellowship was $25,000, that doesn't mean that I could make $50,000. I would take the $25,000 and then make a fixed amount ($3,000) per class I TAed. I suppose I theoretically could've also gotten a paid RA position and got paid whatever that stipend was, but very few professors would hire a student they knew had an external fellowship for a paid RA position. The whole point of the fellowship is to pay you to do research (plus, on federal fellowships, you can't receive salary support from more than one fellowship mechanism at a time. That includes drawing salary from grants). However, I did have graduate assistant positions that were non-teaching, non-research while on my fellowships and collected salary doing those things. Now, some departments "top up" your fellowship. Let's say that your institutional fellowship is $25,000 and you win an external fellowship for $25,000 - some departments/universities will "top up" your fellowship, i.e., they pay you an additional $7,000 so now your stipend is $32,000. A lot of universities do this as an incentive for students to seek external funding.

Yes, Fastlane usually goes "down" for a long stretch of hours before they post the results. The year I got it (2010) they send the notifications out at 1 am on a Tuesday (April 6). I would think that this week would be too early, and that they would release them either next week or the week after. But who knows?

I don't think a fellowship at NYU vs. an RAship at UW matters at all. It certainly won't matter in terms of work - I was an RA for my first two years and a fellow for the following 3; it made not a whit of difference in the amount of work I did. You're always going to be assisting in research, because that's the point of being a PhD student But no, having a university-wide fellowship at NYU is not going to make a huge difference vs. having a research assistant position at Wisconsin - certainly not on the job market in 5-6 years. So I, too, believe you should go wherever is better for your research. Also. I did my PhD in New York (6 years). I think which city you prefer is going to be based upon a lot of personality factors. I enjoyed doing my PhD in NYC for the most part, but I also feel like NYC is a hard place to be a graduate student. Everything is so expensive; so everyone tells you that there is tons to do in New York, and there is - but much of it is very expensive and also you're busy all the time so you can't take advantage of it. I feel like what I would have appreciated more than overpriced bars and access to Broadway shows was a bigger apartment and a cheaper grocery bill. Really, it started wearing more on me after year 3 - years 1-2 were a lot of fun because I was just out of college and still in coursework, so I partied a lot and lived with roommates. But after that, I wanted to settle and become more serious/focused on my research, and I found myself really frustrated with the lifestyle in NYC. In my last two years my husband and I lived in a tiny studio apartment that we paid way too much for, and I wrote much of my dissertation in the room that was mostly kitchen, part office. The easy access to airports is nice for conferences, but as long as you have one major airport (which Madison does) you'll be fine for that. And I didn't really take advantage of the Northeast Corridor as much as you'd think. I have family in South Jersey so I went to visit them pretty often, and it was usually nice if there was a conference in DC or Philadelphia to just hop on a cheap bus. But I didn't go for as many weekend visits or trips as you'd think, and I still haven't been to Boston. Your time is very compressed and when you do have downtime, you'll often be surprised with what you do with it (after 24 years of not really watching much TV, I started binge-watching it in year 3, because I literally just wanted the light box to do the thinking for me for once). Now, I would say that my ideal living situation would be just outside a small city - probably around the size of Madison, actually. BUT I didn't feel like that when I went to graduate school - I really wanted to go to grad school in a big vibrant city. That's what I mean by it'll depend on your preferences. And, in retrospect, I am glad I got the opportunity to live in NYC for a portion of my youth - but I have no desire whatsoever to return there (to live, I mean. I go back to visit all the time and that's great!)

I don't know, C looked the most appealing to me (costs aside - because I don't know how much it costs). B sounds completely untenable. Exciting, yes, but $110-120K sounds like too much to borrow for a public relations master's. I'm guessing that most PR people cannot anticipate making that much in the first 10ish years of their career, so they wouldn't be able to comfortably repay that debt. Also, on closer examination some of the pros are thinner than they look. Student organizations don't really matter - in a full-time, 2-year master's program, you won't really have time to get involved in more than 1 or 2 of them. Weather is nice, but a secondary factor upon which to make a decision (especially for a program that will only be 2 years). The rest of the pros School C seems to have as well. Assuming School C is affordable, according to you the curriculum is flexible and practical while allowing you to concentrate in your own interests; there's a center that focuses on your field; and the city is booming in your area, which means the potential for internships and potentially full-time employment post-degree. You can also live with a cousin to save on living costs until you can support yourself (as long as you don't suspect that your cousin is crazy, I don't see how this is a con). I also don't think the name of your degree matters much - whether it's an MA or an MPS - just that you have one in PR, and what the coursework is. A sounds like another good choice - the program is only 13 months; it's the cheapest and a manageable debt load even before you factor potential assistantships in, and they seem to have their stuff together. The weather being colder is a bummer, but not a significant factor if you will only be there for 2 years. The fact that you have to deposit by April 15 isn't really a con of the program, just an inconvenience that only affects your decision-making capacity right now. Really, the only major con seems to be the more limited flexibility - and even though, it sounds like the flexibility is limited in comparison to the other programs you are considering, not in general (you can still pursue special interests, and it's actually quite common for concentrations to be pursued towards the end of a program, after you finish core requirements). Assuming C is affordable, I would pick C. If C is unaffordable, then A sounds like the better choice.

I think that they do mean that they want an immediate decision. However, that's a completely unrealistic expectation. So I'd find out whether it's just that he'd like an immediate decision (which you can politely ignore, because after all, I would like a million dollars) or whether he expects an immediate decision or he'll yank the offer after 24-48 hours. In which case, I say that you probably really don't want to work with him...but in that case, I'd politely contact him and ask for an extension.

IMO, job placement is much more important. Do you want to be happy for the next 5-7 years, or do you want to be happy for your 30+ year career? Your research interests will evolve over time, and you can always come back to the area you really want to do in a postdoc or in your research career. I went to a department to do something substantially different than what I originally intended to do when I applied to graduate school, but fell in love with the area and am completely hooked. Even still, I am still doing something slightly different in my postdoc than I did in graduate school, and my research plans for the future are different still. Your interests will evolve - and they should, as you strive to move away from doing what your advisor does to establishing an independent research career. Placement record is VERY important, especially in the competitive job market! If School B and C graduates frequently go to do the kinds of jobs you want to do, and are better prepared for those jobs, then that should definitely be a vote in their favor. And quite frankly, your POI could be the nicest person in the world and it won't matter if you never see him to benefit from his kindness.

Agreed with the above - the differences between top 10 schools (especially schools with just 3 ranks between them) are negligible, and a quirk from year to year or slightly different methodology can shuffle them around. If Michigan is more attractive to you, then you should go there.

1. On just a personal impact level, the loans are figured on the basis of your salary AND the amount that you owe, and you are paying them for a LONG time. For example, let's say that you borrow $110,000 at 6.8% interest. Now let's say that you put those loan payments on PAYE, and let's say that you start off making $65,000 as a single assistant professor with no dependents. Your monthly payments are $396 a month to start out with - and nearly $400 a month is a lot of money when you only make $65,000 (which is slightly more than the average salary of an assistant professor), especially after taxes, retirement savings and health insurance. But let's say that two years later you get married. Let's say that your spouse has no loans (whew!) but let's say that he makes $60,000. Now your total family income is $125,000 and your monthly loan payments go up to $845 a month at the low end, and are expected to increase to $1266 at the high end as your salary goes up (remember that student loan payments under IBR and PAYE increase with your income). 2. You have to pay taxes on the forigven amount. Let's say that you do borrow $110K, you start out making $65,000 a year, and your repayment period follows the projected amounts that the federal government projects (starting at $396 a month and increasing to $1,148 a month over a period of 20 years). The forgiven amount will be just under $85,000, which means that you might be hit with a tax bill of $30-40K right after you finish paying off your loans! (which will necessitate payment plan with the IRS, which means more payments...) 3. You could be investing that money somewhere else. In the above repayment scheme, you are repaying a total of $171,725, including $146,443 in interest. If you stashed that $360/month into a investment account with a 7% rate of return over 20 years - not even increasing the amount gradually, like you would with PAYE - you'd have nearly $200,000 in 20 years. That's your kid's college education. Maybe multiple. Or a new house! Or a bunch of vacations. Even hiding it under the mattress you still have $86,400 after 20 years. Even if you don't invest it, that extra $400 to $1200 over the life of the loan could mean a better house in a better location, or private school for your kids if you want it, or a better car...or whatever. 4. On a less personal, but more large-scale frame, think about the impact on our economy if thousands of people borrow money that they cannot repay. You're borrowing money from the government; if you borrow more than you can reasonably repay in 20 years, the rest is "forgiven." What "forgiven" really means is that the government takes the loss on it - so they're taking the loss on $85,000 in this case. 21 million college students enrolled in Fall 2014; let's say that 70% of them borrowed federal student loans (14.7 million) and let's say that each year 1% of those people (147,000) borrowed more than they could repay and got an average of $40,000 forgiven. That's $5,880,000,000 ($5.8 billion)! To put that in perspective, that's more than the annual budget of the WIC program. These programs are new, so we haven't seen the full impact of them yet, but what do you think is going to be the large-scale, long-term impact of many individuals borrowing more than they can repay? How long will this program last if people don't borrow responsibly and it becomes too expensive to support? The PAYE and IBR programs were meant as relief for lower-income borrowers who fell on hard times and/or were negatively affected by the recession; it wasn't meant for people to deliberately borrow more than they know they can afford to repay. With that said, sometimes there's a need to borrow a lot of money - some kinds of programs simply cost a lot and can't be afforded any other way, like professional master's degrees, MDs, JDs, etc. But that's not the case here. IMO, the NYU MA shouldn't really be an option. Psychology MA degrees don't really have outsized importance in helping you get into graduate school. Or rather, it's not the MA itself; it's the kind of experience that you get in the MA program - working with researchers, getting experience, writing papers. You could do that by working as a lab manager or research assistant/associate for the next 2 years (which many people do, and then get into competitive PhD programs later). If you worked for a university you could even take a few graduate-level classes as part of your benefits. Even if you decide that an MA program is the best way for you to prepare for the PhD, you don't have to go to NYU or a similarly priced school. You can go to your local public flagship. If you are going to commute into the city from your mom's in NJ, you could go to one of the CUNYs - City College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College (tuition is about $11,000 a year for nonresident students). So to me, the decision is whether or not to go to Ohio University, and that depends on your ultimate career goals. You say that you want to be a professor and do your own research. Doing your own research, to me, implies that you want to be at an RU/VH, RU/H, or DRU school. The question is whether Ohio U is going to get you there? Something that might be telling is looking at where the faculty at Ohio University (which, by your own admission, is a lower-ranked program) got their own PhDs. Perusing the faculty list, I see UNC-Chapel Hill (x2), Miami (of Ohio), Michigan (x2) Minnesota, Case Western, McGill, UC-Berkeley, Kent State, Penn State, University of South Carolina, UMiami, UVa, Indiana (x2), UGA, Vanderbilt, USUHS, Michigan State (x3), Purdue, UF, UT-Knoxville, Iowa, Temple, UBuffalo, and UC-Irvine. With few exceptions, those are top 50 psychology programs, and most of them are top 30. The exceptions are Miami U, USUHS, Case Western, UB, UGA, Kent State, South Carolina, and UT-Knoxville. That's 7 faculty out of 29, which is about 27%. So nearly three-quarters of the faculty at this 100-ish ranked psychology program went to a top 50ish program to get their PhD. (And even those 7 program are mostly ranked higher than Ohio's program.) You can do this with pretty much any program. Take a look at the professors of the top 30ish programs in psychology and you'll see that they probably primarily got their PhDs from other top 20ish programs. Look at programs in the top 50ish and those professors probably got their PhDs from the top 30ish. Generally, academia is a prestige-focused field - where you went and who you worked with matters in getting postdocs and in getting jobs. The general rule of thumb is that it's quite difficult to get hired someplace more prestigious than your own PhD program. There of course is always the occasional person who is able to get hired "up," so to speak - there's a guy in my old department at Columbia who got his PhD at a program not even in the top 100. But the odds are stacked against you, and you have to be really outstanding to be considered alongside the mediocre and middling students whose PhDs are from top 20 programs. (For the record, I'm not saying that I agree with this, just that this is the way I've observed it is and that trusted mentors have advised me, too.) Why not ask? I'd contact your POI at Ohio U and ask them what the placement rate is like for former students and what kinds of institutions they end up at. The website says that the vast majority of graduates take "positions in academic settings, ranging from universities to two-year colleges, and in research settings, both public and industrial." I would ask for more elaboration.