juilletmercredi

I have an eccentric adviser and I love his eccentricities. It hasn't really affected the mentoring relationship, and I find him charmingly funny. But with that said, there's no "method," really. It's not an algorithm. It's just human connection. Do you feel that you click with this person, that you have a reasonably good working relationship, that your values and interests and expectations align well enough? Don't look for perfect; there's no such thing. Your adviser will always have a quirk you hate or a personality characteristic you loathe or some tic that drives you nuts. But so do your mom and your friends and your dog, probably. Nobody's perfect. I personally chafe a little at the "mentoring relationship is like a marriage" advice. Overall, it's probably good advice. But my primary adviser and I are both private, kind of personal folk and so I would not characterize our relationship like a marriage at all. In fact, I wouldn't even really say that we are friends. We are friendly; he is the kind of person I would like to be friends with, and we will probably be friends once I graduate. I know him and his personality quirks and working style very well, and I'm sure he could say the same for me. But our relationship is a sort of very warm arm's-length relationship, and that works for both of us. I'm married and it in no way whatsoever resembles a marriage, in my eyes. BUUUUT I have heard many other grad students use this analogy, so I think I may be in the minority here.

The non-ivy league has a program which is a little bit better for my personal situation and i feel i would learn a lot more there as a student. Honestly, I think you have answered your own question with this line. Go to the place that is going to be better for you as a student and a person. (Also, close relationships with PIs doesn't automatically mean you will graduate faster.) The Ivy League is an athletic conference, not a sacred list of the Most High Universities. There are plenty of well-respected universities and programs that aren't in the Ivy League. Having an education from a well-reputed program with good research, respected faculty and good placement rates looks good on your CV, but there are many non-Ivy institutions that fit that bill. (And honestly, in some fields, the Ivies are crap wrt research.) You can get an external fellowship from anywhere, since those are more about you than the institution. The institution matters but I'm assuming we're comparing a school like Columbia with a school like UIUC or Penn State here. Those schools have tremendous assets, lots of resources, great funding, etc. The only reason I MIGHT think about considering the Ivy prestige effect is if you were significantly interested in the potential of a non-academic position in a field in which Ivy prestige is important, like banking, consulting, or Silicon Valley computing. Otherwise it's not that important.

Er, I'm not sure how true this is. Most departments are relatively understanding about things like GRE scores, transcripts, and letters of recommendation - things outside of your control. But as far as the actual materials that are in your control? I actually don't think most departments have "grace days" for that. My first thought was also the time difference - usually programs close their applications at 11:59 their time. So if this was an East Coast school and you're on the West Coast, it could've closed at 9 pm PDT rather than midnight like you expected (because that's midnight EST). If there's no time difference and it just closed early, don't panic, it could've been an error. You did exactly right - just email your materials, calmly explain what happened, and hope for the best. And to anyone else reading this, cautionary tale: DO NOT, if you can at all help it, wait until the very last minute to submit your materials. Particularly with electronic systems snafus happen all the time, and you don't want the app to be down for scheduled maintenance in the last few hours before the deadline. Also often application servers are overloaded because thousands of applicants are also submitting at the last minute. So beat the rush and aim for at least 3 days before, if not earlier.

First-authored publications by PhD applicants are quite rare. If you have one, that's great! If you don't, please don't agonize about it, as most sucessful applicants do not. I think most successful PhD applicants do have a few conference presentations - probably between 1 and 5 depending on whether or not they have a master's and whether they were lucky enough to work with someone with data. Here's what's important in PhD psych, in rough order of most to least: 1) Research fit with the department. This is best expressed through your statement of purpose, so this summer, spend some time drafting a really good statement of purpose and get some feedback on it. 2) Research experience. You're on the right track, it seems. 3) Letters of recommendation from professors who have advised you or taught you. Research advisers are best, of course. You say your adviser doesn't like you, but is that just a personality mismatch and she seems to appreciate your work, or does she overall dislike you? Perhaps you should have a frank conversation with her about whether she feels she can provide you a strong letter of recommendation for graduate school. But if you work with other professors on research projects and this is semester 2, by the time October rolls around they should know you well enough to be able to comment on your research chops and whether you'd be a good doctoral student. (Honestly, if they don't, you may not be approaching the RAship in the best way - reflect.) I think you can get one or two recommendations from undergrad - especially if you wrote an honors thesis, did an independent study project, or worked intensely on research in undergrad - but it would be weird if you didn't have at least one from your MA program. Then comes GPA (specifically performance in your field/major classes and last 60 credits). GRE is arguably the least important, so as long as you have a decent/passable score don't worry about it.

Tolkien (I feel like a bad nerd, but his books are boooooooring to me) New York (Super, super overrated, and I live here) Lady Gaga (seriously? Her music all sounds the same, and it sucks, and there's nothing artsy about the weird stuff she does)

1) I don't know of any outside of the U.S., although I can suggest several within the U.S. However, this is really a list you should make yourself, because the schools to which you apply will be determined by your research interests and other factors. Try some Google searching, read journal articles in the field and note where the authors are professors, and talk to your own professors. 2) Generally speaking a PhD in quantitative psych, in the U.S., will take 5-6 years. It usually doesn't matter whether you have a master's, since the credits rarely transfer and even if they do, you'll get at most a semester-ish. I know in many European schools, the equivalent PhD takes 3-4 years because you don't do any coursework - you just take exams and write a dissertation. But I can't speak to that because I am an American student. 3) It's hard to say for sure because I'm American, but it's probably unlikely for you to finish much faster than the program average - it's an average for a reason. It depends, though. I'm in two departments, and both get that question. In my psychology department the average time to degree is probably around 5.5 years, so sometimes students ask if they can finish in 4 years. While I'm sure the occasional exceptional student can finish in 4 years, generally speaking the answer is no, it's going to take you at least 5 and maybe 6. On the other hand, my other social science department has an average time to degree of 7.5 years. BUT that's because many students take time off, work full-time in the later years of the program, lose funding, do fieldwork, etc. If you're a relatively dedicated student and you choose a relatively simple dissertation project, you can probably finish in 6 years (I am). But I would say that very few American PhD students should expect to finish a PhD in fewer than 5 years. Given that international programs are generally ~2 years shorter, I would say if your program's average time to degree is 3 years, you should expect to be there for 3 years. Also, I know this sounds facile, but what's the rush? Graduate school is not always pleasant, and sure, you're kind of poor. But it's a time of growth. It's not just about fulfilling the requirements and jumping through hoops to get the letters. You are supposed to be picking up the skills necessary to be a sucessful scholar and academic in your field, and that takes time. If you speed through too quickly, you may miss the opportunity to learn those valuable skills and lessons.

Just as a note - the $300/$30 is in State College, PA, not here in NYC. Here in NYC it varies depending on the building and landlord. And thanks! I am super excited about it!

I registered for my test 4 weeks before the test date; I was a senior undergrad taking 3 classes and writing an honors thesis. I studied twice a week for about 2 hours a piece after taking a diagnostic test, and I scored 790 V / 740 Q / 6.0 AW. As for vocabulary study - I agree that reading is the best way to build vocabulary, but that's the best way to build one long-term. I don't think it's ideal for short-term GRE verbal study. I found that Barron's had the best word list. I didn't really need to do a lot of vocabulary work myself prior to the test (the part I sucked on the most was antonyms back when they still had them, freaking antonyms, because they have no context and they use the hardest possible words. The one question I got wrong on verbal was a freaking antonym question with a word that I have literally never seen before, and I have a very large vocabulary. All I remember is it started with a p. I have never seen it since) but that's the word list I always recommend for vocab work because I did look it over and most of the words on the test were on the list, except for that stupid P word. The math section was my weakness so I spent most of my time on that. Honestly, the GRE math questions are such bs because they are worded in ways that ACTUAL math questions would never be worded, and seem deliberately designed to trick you. Most of my practice was spent trying to figure out the tricks. The actual math itself is pretty easy - it's basic arithmetic, algebra, and geometry/trigonometry from middle and early high school. The writing section...it's basically a souped up version of the 5-paragraph essay. If you plan and write an elaborated 5-paragraph essay, you should be fine. It's really nothing like anything you'll actually write in graduate school and I'm not even sure why this section exists, because it's useless. Factual accuracy is also not rewarded, so I made up some stuff when I couldn't remember the quotes and references I wanted to use and I still got a 6.0. For study guides, I found that Kaplan's book had a lot of typos and a few inaccurate math answers. Their questions were also much harder than the actual math questions (but the verbal were easier). I liked Princeton Review - I think that had the most similarity to the actual difficulty level of questions on the test. Barron's has the best word list but the questions aren't as good as Princeton Review's. And of course use the PowerPREP program offered on ETS's website.

One of the things I've learned is that academics have strange relationships with deadlines. They seem to view them as suggestions more than actual requirements. Often they have a sense of self-importance that tells them that they, Eminent Scholar, are too important and busy to worry about deadlines. It's super frustrating because I am a person who likes to make deadlines. In any case, though, this usually doesn't shatter your chances or throw all your hard work away. Admissions committees are generally lenient on letters that trickle in sometimes up to two weeks after the admission deadline. And one of my recommenders actually forgot about the NSF deadline (!!!) but called NSF and asked if she could submit the letter late. They said yes, she did, and I got the fellowship. It's not payback, or vengeance, or anything like that. It's just them simply forgetting about them.

A more detailed letter from someone who actually knows you is almost always a better choice than a more distinguished person who can only write you a lukewarm letter.

I live in Columbia housing. For single students, there are two basic types on the Morningside campus: dormitory-stye housing and apartment shares. The dorm-style housing is your typical single room on a corridor with shared bathrooms and kitchens. I'm pretty sure they all have communal kitchens; I think a few rooms have private bathrooms. This housing is only for graduate students and non-traditional graduate students in the School of General Studies, who are generally around the same age as grad students. In the apartment shares, you get a bedroom in a 3-4 bedroom apartment. You are placed in with other Columbia grads somewhat randomly, although it's gender segregated as far as I know (unless you waive that). They're fairly decent-sized for NYC apartments and generally have a kitchen, living room and then your rooms. A couple of my friends have those and I've been in them; they are nice and usually recently renovated, with new(er) appliances, white walls, etc. They say they don't allow pets but I know plenty of people in Columbia housing with pets, including in my own building. I personally share a 1-bedroom apartment with my husband, who is a School of General Studies student. The only way to get the studios and one-bedrooms is married & family housing. I would ignore anyone who tells you, unequivocally, not to live in X neighborhood/borough because there's a lot of variability in each neighborhood/borough and a lot of that is based upon perception. My dad's from the Bronx and I have family up there on both sides, and there are nice areas of the Bronx. In some of them you might benefit from access to a car, though; it just depends on where you live. Some parts of Brooklyn are just as, or more, expensive than some parts of Manhattan (Park Slope, BoCoCa, DUMBO, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, parts of Fort Greene these days) and some parts are cheaper (Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Prospect Heights, Lefferts Gardens). Generally speaking the farther out you go into Brooklyn the cheaper it gets. If you're willing to consider Bronx and Brooklyn then consider Queens, too - some of the closer neighborhoods (Sunnyside, Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights) are actually cheaper than the trendier Brooklyn. And Astoria is nice, although can tend to be pricier because of it's closeness to Manhattan. But "pricier" is still cheaper than most of Manhattan. As for commuting from NJ, actually NYU is pretty accessible from north Jersey. You could take the PATH trains in and/or NJ transit. The PATH train stops at Christopher St. and also 9th St., and you could probably walk or take a bus from there to the campus/building you needed. The only caveat is depending on what town in NJ you live in, you might need a car to get around within your town - like to get groceries and stuff. Also, NJ transit doesn't run all night long (and neither does PATH, IIRC) so if you ever wanted to hang out with friends late at night you'd have to find somewhere to crash. As for how much you need to live - I disagree with whoever said you couldn't survive on $28,000 in upper Manhattan "In a million years." My stipend was a little bit more than that ($32,000) but I saved $200 every month and lived quite comfortably. But the key is...I had a roommate. I also lived in Washington Heights. I would say that it's probably difficult to live alone on that much, but you could swing it depending on how much you were willing to sacrifice. As for where to live - that depends entirely on you. Lots of people commute from upper Manhattan or far-out Brooklyn to lower Manhattan every day from work, and you'll be on the subway, so it's just about how much of a commute you can tolerate. From my place on 172nd & Haven Ave it would take me about 45-50 minutes to get to the West Village nearby NYU. There aren't many places in Manhattan that I would tell you to wholesale avoid because of safety. There are certain parts that are safer than others. I know some people who won't live in East Harlem but I have friends who live there and they're fine. Stuyvesant Town is EXPENSIVE. Their one-bedrooms start at $2500 and more often they are $3000+. Their two bedrooms start at $4500 so I guess you could save a little money if you shared with someone but you'd still be paying $2250+. I haven't lived there, but a friend of a friend threw a party in their Stuy Town apartment and so I have a fuzzy memory. I think they were pretty nice - smaller than I expected for how much money they cost! - but I definitely didn't like the layout. It's not well-lit and the sidewalks are winding. That was the most unsafe I ever felt in the city, and it was 9 pm and I hadn't had anything to drink (and I've been outside at 3 am and pretty drunk). The Stuy Town apartments through the MacCracken program at NYU are less pricy ($1115) but that's because you're living in a converted 1-bedroom with one other person. They've turned part of the living room into a bedroom, and the apartments are about 580 square feet. I never liked 1-bedroom flex arrangements and avoided them, but I suppose it could be a somewhat affordable way to live fairly close to NYU without paying a ridiculous amount in rent. The next closest neighborhood in Manhattan that would be cheap would probably be Harlem. A little ways in Brooklyn (past Williamsburg, probably Prospect Heights) would be closer and still cheap. Given that my financial package covers the tuition fee and medical insurance, and that the on-campus rent is ~$1200 per month, is my stipend enough for me to survive + go to a NY Phil concert every few months? Depends. How much is your stipend? My stipend my first year was $32,000 and I don't think I could've afforded to pay $1200/month. Plus you'll have to move in the summer after your first year.

My campus (Columbia) seems like a disability access nightmare. New York in general is not very wheelchair-accessible, and while Columbia has added some ramps and things a lot of them are only accessible by CUID swipe access and special permission - which means you have to register with the Office of Disability Services to get the swipe access programmed into your card. And even then, a lot of it is extremely roundabout. I'm thinking about my department in particular - it's on the 2nd through 4th floor of the building, but the building has a byzantine extension added to it. Let's say that you're on the third floor (where your lab might be) but you need to go to the third floor in the extension (where your PI's office might be); you'd have to take STAIRS down to get to the same floor in the extension! If you couldn't take the stairs, you'd have to take two elevators to get to the extension (one up to the 4th floor, then take the ramp into the 4th floor of the extension, and then take the elevators in the extension down to the 3rd floor). Also, the campus layout itself has lots of stairs. Like when you first walk-on campus, I would say about 90% of the academic buildings are up some outdoor stairs on "upper campus." There is a wheelchair lift, but you have to have swipe access to use it. There's a ramp on the far end of the stairs...but it's on the far end of the stairs, and it's only for the lower part of the staircase (and I'm not sure it's wheelchair accessible. I've only ever seen it used for deliveries). The upper part requires a chair lift to navigate. Also, a lot of Columbia's academic buildings and classrooms were built in the 1800s (and some even earlier) so some of them have these tiny uncomfortable wooden chairs with attached desks/armrests. There's one class in particular I TAed in 610 Schermerhorn that is just awful. I also took a class in Hamilton (which is the only academic building on lower campus) and I hated those chairs. And of course, New York requires a lot of walking. I would recommend visiting the disability services website of each of the universities you are considering. They will have more information about the accessibility of their campuses and also may give some indication as to how difficult or easy it is to get accommodations if you need them without judgment.

Just wanted to put the plug - I'll be doing a postdoc at Penn State starting in August (yay!) and I found an apartment. I viewed 2 apartment buildings while I was there: Lion's Gate and Toftrees. I intended to view a third, Nittany Gardens, but didn't get a chance to. Caveat, I was only looking at places that allow dogs, because I'm planning to bring one. I also was not interested in living walking distance from campus. I visited Toftrees first. It's very lovely; it's on the west side of campus and closer to the shopping centers and grocery stores. It's about a 5-10 minute drive to campus depending on what side of campus you are trying to reach. The apartments are lovely and actually look just like the pictures online, which is nice. They're quite spacious and have good amenities, and are a decently reasonable price. The weird thing is a one-bedroom costs about the same amount ($860-895) as a two-bedroom ($900-940). Each apartment is located inside of a little building with 3-5 other apartments and a laundry room, so you only share your laundry with 3-5 other households (it was hard to estimate) and you don't have to go outside at all to do laundry, which is nice when it's rainy or cold. They also have dishwashers! And most units have walk-in closets. Most units also have a small patio or balcony. The leasing office staff were very very nice and seemed pleasant to work with, and the woman I worked with told me that they mostly lease to professionals and some graduate students (because of the distance from campus). It was very quiet, very treed, and there are walking trails nearby. I talked to a few people who had lived in Toftrees at some point during their graduate or professional career in State College and they all had good things to say. That's the place I ended up going with. They don't know their availability until about 4 months ahead, because they service mostly professionals, so they won't know their availability for August until early April. They have a system in which you can get on their waiting list for $400 and you're first on the list to select a new apartment. The $400 goes towards your first month's rent. (But if you choose to rent with someone else, you lose the deposit, so you have to be sure you want to go with them). Toftrees is also on the CATA bus line. It's a little complicated but there's one bus that stops right by the complex and runs pretty frequently in the morning and another bus that's about a 5-minute walk to the stop but runs more regularly M-F. It doesn't seem like an excellent place to live if you don't want to drive and/or don't expect to drive in most days, unless you have impeccable timing with the bus. I visited Lion's Gate apartments next. That one's located on Waupelani, so the upside is that the buses are very regular - I actually took a bus to see the apartments and it was the simplest thing in the world. There are three different lines that run down that street and stop at the stop right in front of the complex, so taking the bus every day is a simple thing. On the other hand, though, as soon as I walked onto the place I knew I wouldn't live here. The set-up of the "campus" is weird - the buildings look like college buildings with columns and plain brick, but there are very few trees and the whole thing is flat and kinda ugly. The leasing office staff was also a little strange; the young woman who showed me around was a student at PSU and the person who looked like she was the full-time professional there ignored me until the student greeted me. But the apartments were, quite frankly, not nice. The one I was shown honestly looked like it hadn't been updated since the 1970s - old wood paneling with nicks in it, yellow appliances and linoleum in the kitchen and that scratchy old tan carpet you see in American Hustle. I checked out the floor plans and apparently it's about the same size as the Toftrees apartments, but it looked a lot smaller. They apparently have some updated units but they have built in desks, and have two desks built into the walls in a one-bedroom. (That's another thing - I asked if it was mostly undergrads or grad/professionals and they said mostly grads/professionals, but looking at the location and spread I couldn't quite believe them, especially if they thought it was prudent to put two desks in a one-bedroom.) Now maybe the unit they showed me to was just a particularly bad one, but it seems weird that that's what they would use. Oh also, not every building has its own laundry, so sometimes you have to go outside to the next building to wash your clothes. Nittany Gardens and I had a scheduling snafu (on my part) so I wasn't able to view the apartments - someone from the leasing office said they would send me pics, but they didn't. However, I did walk around. They're right across the street from Lion's Gate, so the same bus set up. But the area, even though it was literally right across the street, was so much nicer! The buildings didn't look as well-maintained as Toftrees (they're probably older) but still looked nice and similar in set-up, and all the apartments seemed to have balconies or patios. There were also far more trees and it looked like more parking. The pics on the website actually look pretty nice and I think that's from their model unit; they don't have a lot of information about floor plans or pricing online, though it seems they recently updated their website, so now you can see the pricing - and it's a little more than Toftrees ($950-970 for a one-bedroom, but it comes furnished). They're also managed by the Apartment Store, which I've heard bad things about (particularly when moving out - apparently they attempt to nickel and dime you to charge you for things when you leave). Finally, they had a more restrictive dog policy - 30 lbs. Since I already liked Toftrees so much I just decided to go with them. AS for food - when I was single in NYC I spent about $250/month on groceries and food. NYC is way more expensive than State College, so I imagine you could probably get by on a little less.

You could adopt a shelter dog who's already 2-3 years old, and then you perhaps would not have to housebreak it! (Although you might have to teach it rules about your place specifically). Also, you can't rely on any feeding/walking routine that you create over the summer because your schedule might be radically different, and it will likely change every semester. Anyway, I have been dying to get a dog since I was a child, and especially through grad school. None of my NYC apartments have allowed dogs though (you can find one, you just have to put in a little effort. I would suspect it's easier in the Bronx or Queens, near Fordham and St. John's). I actually just secured an apartment near my postdoc and made sure that it was a complex that allows dogs because I am determined to get one now. (I also wanted a big dog, and luckily this complex's limit is 100 lbs. which is plenty big for me.) The pet fee for my apartment in Postdoc City (which is nearby a large research university, for obvious reasons) is like the above - $300 initial deposit (non-refundable) plus $30/month extra rent. However, in the small town to which I was moving, that was quite standard for all of the apartments that allowed dogs, so if you wanted a dog that's pretty much what you had to do. In NYC most apartments that allow dogs also have additional pet fees and/or additional pet rent you must pay per month.

So this isn't so much a question as it is that I'm kind of bummed and want to vent a bit, although advice is welcome. I am defending my dissertation in June and will receive my PhD in October 2014, which is the next conferral date after May. I already have a postdoc lined up that I will begin August 2014. The original plan was to walk in the May 2014 commencement ceremonies - at my university, PhD candidates whose degrees were conferred October 2013, February 2014, and who will be conferred May 2014 and October 2014 are eligible to participate in the May 2014 commencement ceremones. For me there are three, because I'm in a joint program - my two schools' (the GSAS and the SPH) ceremonies, one on Sunday, May 18 and one on Tuesday, May 20, and then the university ceremony on Wednesday, May 21. Here's the catch. My younger sister-in-law is graduating from high school this May, and wouldn't you know but her graduation is on Monday, May 19. She lives in Atlanta and I live and attend a university in New York. I'm really close to her - I've been dating her brother, my now-husband, since she was about 6 or 7 years old. I really want to see her graduate, and she'd be really bummed (and would probably cry) if I missed her graduation. I definitely don't want to fly down Monday morning and then fly back Tuesday morning; while that's technically doable (her ceremony is at 7 pm and the Tuesday one for me is at 4 pm), I'll be by myself and there's no point in doing the commencement if I'm by myself. Besides, my selfless heart reasons that I had two graduations already - high school and college - so I can afford to push mine back a bit, and I can walk in the commencement ceremonies in May 2015. My postdoc is only a 5-hour bus ride away from University City and my husband attends the same university, is graduating in May 2015, and will be participating next year, too, so really it's very practical. We'll have double the tickets and both of our families will be able to come and celebrate with us together. Rational, yes? Except that I'm kind of bummed! I'm defending in June 2014, and participating in the ceremonies in May 2014 (which will be shortly after I distribute) just seems right. By the time May 2015 rolls around, I'll have already been working in a postdoc for almost a full year, and I feel like it won't be as momentous/meaningful. I'm not like way out there totally depressed about it, but it does bum me out when I get commencement mail and I should be like renting my gown and stuff and I'm...not. Sigh.

Well, the expression is not academic. That doesn't mean that you can't use it. (I wouldn't, though. There are other more...'formal' phrases you can use to say the same thing.) This is really a question that your advisor should answer. Just keep writing, and submit the chapter as a draft to your adviser and see what they say.

No. Adjunct jobs pay by the class, and the average is $3,000 a class. A normal full-time courseload at a teaching-heavy institution is 3-4 classes per semester. Even if you taught 4 classes per semester, you would make $24,000 for the year, with no benefits - probably not even an office. And that's if you even GET 4 classes per semester. A lot of people have to work at two or three colleges in order to get that many classes. There is zero point in moving hundreds of miles away for that, and it won't help you get into PhD programs. Whatever the equivalent of scholarship is in music is what's going to get you in. Furthermore - and this is a more structural issue - the more of us there are that are willing to scrape by cobbling together classes to make full-time work, the more universities are willing to exploit us this way. I know in some cases there are extenuating circumstances and I don't fault people who need to work as full-time adjuncts. But generally speaking, if no one is willing to work for these crap jobs, universities will have to make them into better jobs. Adjuncting was never meant to be done full-time.

Er, no. These could be harsh words uttered in anger, for sure. It could be a PI who doesn't like you for weird reasons, a PI who doesn't know how to motivate graduate students, or just a generally terrible PI who likes to annoy and terrorize his students. But...depending on how it's said, it could also be decent advice that was worded awkwardly.

Do you have a faculty adviser? If you do, I would begin there. Let her know that while you have appreciated your relationship, you have recently been accepted to and plan to transfer to University B because it is a better fit research-wise for you for X reasons. If you have any kind of relationship with her she should know your interests and see that B is a better fit, so there should be no problems. Your next step (or first, if you have no adviser) should be the director of graduate studies. Same spiel - you like A and feel very welcomed and liked by your cohort and professors, but the department is no longer a good fit for you since Professors X and Y left and you have been accepted to, and intend to transfer to, University B to study X and Y at the end of the spring semester. Again, there shouldn't be any problems because this is a research issue, which is completely understandable. She should be able to tell you if there's anything you need to do to facilitate the transfer. I would advise telling them now - it'd mid-semester and at best there are 6 more weeks in the semester, so no worries as far as them pushing you out too early. There are absolutely no ethical qualms about leaving a program that is not a good fit for you. Don't feel bad at all.

This is a common myth that I see bandied around a lot, but I've done a bit of research on this and the consensus seems to be that it depends on a LOT of factors, including how long you intend to be in a place. First of all, renting isn't flushing your money down a toilet; you're paying for a roof over your head. It's just like paying for any other service. Secondly, the assumption comes in that your maintenance costs will be nil in the house/condo; that you're going to at least break even when you sell the property (definitely not an assumption anyone should make in the current market); that your property taxes won't drive the cost of your mortgage above what you would pay to rent; and that, as someone pointed out earlier, that the cost of your homeowner's insurance (and mortgage insurance if you put down less than 20%) won't drive the cost up and over what you'd pay in renter's insurance. Minus the interest and the agents' fees is a big minus. Also about fixing up small issues to resell, you must consider the value of your time especially as a graduate student. Do you want to worry about trying to sell your house when you are writing your dissertation and applying for jobs/postdocs? Are you going to have time to work on fixing up that room or that deck or whatever when you are also studying for comprehensive exams? I'm not saying no one absolutely will (in fact, many grad students buy!) but these are things to consider in addition to just the money. I've heard it said that if you plan to be in an area for fewer than 5 years you should rent instead of buy. Of course renting is profitable for the owners; that doesn't mean that it's a bad deal for the renter. I mean, Coca-Cola is making a profit off your Coke too, but that doesn't mean that a Coke isn't satisfying. Your money is gone but you weren't sleeping on the streets. You might not have any equity in the place, but you DO have mobility (once your lease is up, you can move out and don't have to worry about listing and selling the place) and the luxury of free maintenance (pipe bursts? Call the super, no out of pocket costs). For some people - like myself - mobility is far more valuable than equity in a place, especially when I have no idea what my next move will be. (My opinions are also colored by the fact that I live in NYC, so I wouldn't be able to afford anything here and more than likely I would have to hire a management company to rent my place out after I move. One of my friends does own a 3-bedroom apartment here in the city, though, and he plans to rent it even if he moves away from the city. It's very nice and he probably will make a little income off it.) I'm not saying absolutely don't buy - in a lot of places buying is the way to go, as you'll save a ton of money. But it's not true that buying is universally better than renting. * FWIW my younger brother bought a 4-bedroom house in suburban Atlanta (where we're from) for $125,000. I think his mortgage is maybe $800/month. (One-bedroom apartments in that suburban area can range from $650-800/month.) He does sometimes rent out at least one of his extra rooms to roommates. Mostly he finds them through personal contacts; I don't think he lists it on CL or anything like that. He also bought the house because he planned to live there permanently; he can afford to pay the mortgage by himself. I think the threshold, for him, is a bit higher for a roommate because any damages the roommate makes are to his personal property and he has to fix it himself if the roommate does not, unless he's willing to take the time and expense to take the roommate to court. He hasn't had that experience yet, thankfully. IMO if you're going to buy a property it should be a mortgage that you (and a partner) can afford to pay on your own without roommates, just in case something happens. It's not quite like signing a joint lease with a rental company. If you're renting an apartment and your roommate skips out on rent, you might be SOL on the apartment but you're not out any money. If you buy a place and your shady roommate disappears on the 30th, you're out their part of the mortgage that month and however many months it takes you to find a new roommate. If you can't afford it by yourself, you could put yourself in a bind.

Anyway, is anyone here advised by an assistant professor? Me! My adviser was beginning his third year on the tenure track as I began my first year in the program. He is up for tenure this year (and has been promoted to associate professor) as I finish up. For context, I am in a lab-based social science; when I arrived, there was me, one other doctoral student, and one project coordinator, and maybe one or two RAs. That was basically the lab. And he had one large grant. In the past 6 years he has acquired about 3-4 more large grants, has multiple projects and we now have quite a staff in the lab. He's been very successful! Are you able to get across to them what you want out of an advisor? My adviser has been phenomenal, in a word. I visited the April before I attended and we really clicked. We have similar working styles - and he's very busy and I am very independent, so it worked well. He doesn't need to micromanage me, and I get my work done without a lot of oversight or nitpicking on his part. He clearly cares about my progress, and has been able to balance being constructive and giving good feedback (sometimes negative if necessary) on my work. It also helps that I am not afraid to ask for what I need, and came into the program with clearly delineated goals. I think when you have a busy junior professor, being forward and organized helps a lot. He also cares about me as a human being, and make sure that I have a good work-life balance. We've published three papers together and are working on another two. I'm first author on two of them. FWIW, I also have a secondary adviser in my secondary department. He is a tenured full professor who is well-known in my field. Do you still have some autonomy, even though they're more invested in your research? Definitely. I have a lot of autonomy. My adviser has some major projects and data sets; he of course has his own projects/papers/specific aims that he wanted to write on when he got the data. But he's been very very open to me basically picking whatever I want to do out of his data sets and doing that. He doesn't tell me what to work on; he gives me suggestions, and I take those in different directions. This is going to be very dependent on your professor's personality and level of neuroticism, though. I think my adviser trusted me to identify important projects and saw a willingness in me to take charge/the lead on projects he also thought were important, and we have very similar interests, so he didn't feel the need to assign me work. That's also not his style (nor is it mine, because I have explicitly told him I wasn't interested in certain things). Other PIs may have that style where they want to assign or push you into things and you have to work within that framework. Do you have to divert time from research towards the administrative tasks of setting up the lab? In the beginning, I did spend some time on admin stuff because there wasn't anyone around to do it. Admin in our lab was a lot of participant work, so recruiting and screening participants for studies, conducting interviews, data management from the web diaries we collected, etc. I don't have to do most of that now because he's hired other folks to do it (although I still am the primary data management person on one of our projects; I enjoy data management, actually). I wouldn't call it a diversion, though, because it's an integral part of getting the research done AND it's always a good idea to get involved in the collection of the data. You get closer to the data that way. That's the reason I always volunteer to do data management, because through cleaning and organizing the data I get very very close to it. I never did paperwork or anything like that; we had a project coordinator who was responsible for IRB submissions and filing consent forms and things of that nature. Are there any things that have or have not worked in building a relationship with your advisor? Being organized and goal-directed helps. Especially in the beginning I came to my adviser at the beginning of every semester with a list of academic and professional goals, plus my class listing already picked out (using the student handbook for guidance) and we would go over them and talk about how to achieve them. At the end of the semester we reviewed. I also prepared an agenda for each of our meetings; even if I didn't send it to him in advance (which I usually did not) I had a list of things to tick off and talk about. As I went along in the program more, he looked to me more and more to direct our meetings to what I needed from him. You're expected to become more independent over time, and I think having a junior professor advise you sometimes helps with that. Be aware that especially around their third or fourth year - and especially at a nationally-known RU/VH institution - junior faculty start traveling extensively to establish a national reputation, which they will need for tenure. They have to give talks in far-flung areas and get known by senior people in the field who can write letters for them. That may mean getting on their calendar earlier, or making do with less frequent meetings. I meet with my adviser biweekly but I know some people who meet with theirs like once a month. In year 6-ish they will also be preoccupied with putting together their tenure dossier. My adviser's tenure cycle wasn't the normal 6 year one, for whatever reason, so his tenure dossier compilation actually coincided with my early days of dissertation writing, and he was less available. That was fine for me; I just put my head down and wrote, and by the time he was ready to meet again I had a chapter and a half waiting for him, lol. You also need to think about what you might do if your adviser has to leave, especially if you will be entering in their third-ish year. At most places the tenure clock is 6 years; if they get denied they get a terminal year (7th) to find another position. If your adviser has been in the department for 3 years already when you start, he'll be beginning the 4th year in your first, and will be going up for tenure in your third, which is likely when you are taking exams and planning for your dissertation proposal. If he gets denied, then he will be searching for another job when you are beginning your proposal process/finishing up exams and planning the diss, and that's a really crucial period for doctoral students. It's also a sucky period for them to leave wrt to you. If you transfer with him, you may have to retake exams or even coursework at his new department unless he has the clout to negotiate for that not to happen (probably not). If you stay, then you're just beginning the dissertation, so a lot of professors won't be willing to basically be a proxy sponsor for you (you know, serve as your "sponsor" while really your old adviser is your main diss adviser) so you may have to change tracks. Privately, I thought about what I might do should my adviser leave the university. (This is one of the reasons I chose to do a secondary data analysis for my dissertation.) My advice, too, is to "adopt" a Trusted Senior Mentor/tenured senior faculty member who can serve as either a formal or informal adviser. Junior faculty can be truly excellent mentors, but by definition they are less connected and have less clout within their departments and within your field. On the other hand, a well-known senior adviser can pull some tremendous strings for you, and open some doors. I have had experiences like that myself with my quite well-known senior mentor. Working with one also puts you in a new and positive light, as I have seen people's reactions to me when I tell them who I work with here. Senior faculty also generally have more time, assuming they aren't overburdened with administrative assignments. (The flip side, though, is that very senior faculty - especially the ones with the cloud and the admin assignments - aren't necessarily as productive as the young faculty. Some are, some aren't, it really just depends.) So the tl;dr version is don't avoid a junior/untenured faculty member, but realize that there are some concerns to think about when choosing to work with one and consider the possibility of adopting a senior faculty member as an informal mentor.

I would take it. In grad school usually grades are inflated, with As being awarded for meeting expectations and Bs being more akin to a C in undergrad. A 3.25 should be fairly easy for you to maintain.

If you get the NSF - which is a big if - I would contact the professor in which you are interested in working with at Stanford and ask about it. Sometimes (sometimes prestigious outside fellowships can change things. Keep in mind, though, that places like Stanford usually have lots of NSF scholars. If you don't get the NSF, I wouldn't bother. They're unlikely to accept "I wasn't sure where I wanted to apply" as an excuse, since competitive programs like Stanford receive hundreds of applications for just a few spots. They could accept lots of 4.0s, PBKs and people with research experience, and usually do.

We can't "chance" you for grad programs. I know people do it for undergrad but even that is unreliable. For grad school it's completely meaningless. Your GPA and GRE scores are good, but what's really important are your research interests and fit with the departments to which you apply, how well you articulate that in your statement of purpose, and the quality of that research experience. What's also important is the other applicants with which you are competing.

First of all, know that for graduate programs "off-campus" is a loose term. What I think you mean is that you want to live in an apartment rather than a residence hall, but at most universities most graduate housing is apartment-style shares rather than a dorm-style place. In some places (like Columbia, for example) it's really common for PhD students to live in university housing because it's the only affordable housing within walking distance of the university, but university housing is just like living in an off-campus apartment. At other places (like NYU) virtually all the PhD students live in non-university housing because it's cheaper. That said, though, there's nothing "notoriously dangerous" about Columbia's neighborhood. I live here, and have lived and worked here for 6 years. Columbia's located in Morningside Heights, which is a predominantly middle-class and student area frequently patrolled by Columbia public safety and NYPD, and lots of shops and restaurants, many of which are open 24 hours. Some students live in Harlem but I have friends who live there and have stumbled drunk out of their apartments in the middle of the night and have never felt unsafe, and I'm a small woman. And I used to live uptown in Washington Heights, which is another working-class area, and have come home at probably every hour of the morning and night in probably every state of inebriation and never felt unsafe. I got to know my neighbors, and they were nice, and one gave me a going-away gift when I moved out. So I'm not so sure that I agree with the advice about being careful to step too far from campus, as I think that will provide a very limited experience in one of the greatest cities on Earth. Also, the only way to get familiar with the city is to walk around it a bit. NYU's in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of New York (Greenwich Village) and it's generally safe around there. I've sat in Washington Square Park in the middle of the night - not advised, but I didn't feel particularly unsafe, although it's not something you feel totally comfortable doing. Parks in NYC after dark are just not a good look. But I've been in the NYU area after dark and *shrug* it's pretty safe, although more deserted than my own neighborhoods (Morningside Heights and Wash Heights) after dark. I've also spent a little bit of time in the Yale and Penn areas and never felt unsafe there, either. Whenever you live in a big city basically you just need common sense. Don't flash expensive things, keep your wits about you, be aware of who's around you. The advice about zipping your bag on top is good advice, but FWIW I walk around with my bag hanging half open all the time and have never been so much as pickpocketed. Columbia also has an escort service so if you don't want to walk home alone Public Safety will send an officer or someone to walk with you. I think there's a persistent myth that large cities are dark, dangerous, gritty areas but it's just not true, especially not anymore. New York is one of the safest large cities in the country, for example. It affects your quality of life in other ways, though, like the fact that an average lunch can cost $15-20 or the fact that you can get every kind of food delivered to your apartment or the fact that there are sooooooo many things that sound way better to do than your school work, especially in the summer. So in short, nooooo, you definitely should not rule out all urban universities simply because of their urbanicity.