hope4fall2012
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Posts posted by hope4fall2012
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I think I've ended up pressing the panic button too.. We (my advisor and me) decided that I would attend a workshop in the US during July and to do that I would need an earlier-than-conventional starting date. Unfortunately, this has a whole set of formalities with the graduate school with the dept having to submit an official early start form and it's delaying the entire thing. The dept has to submit the form, the grad school has to accept it, the International Students has to then process it and then mail me the I20. And I need to fly out by the first week of July, in 7 weeks time.. FML
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he said apparently there IS some tax treaty between Canada and the US.
Funny that you mentioned this. A friend just told me that there is tax treaty between the US and India that has some deductions for Indian who are on a student visa. I don't have the details either, but she did get a refund after she filed her taxes.
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I think you should definitely call or email. It's the first week of May. I don't think contacting them will impact your chances in any way.
Hope you hear some good news soon!! All the best..
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Hey everyone,
I'm visiting Yale for a period of one week from Jul 9-16 and have to arrange my own accommodation during that period. Do you have any ideas on what I could do for accommodation for just one week? I've been looking at listings on Craigslist, but haven't been able to find anything much for just one week. Obviously, hotels are ruled out since they would just end up being too expensive.
Do you have any ideas as to where I can possibly look?
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Yes -- there is a clause somewhere in the IRS documents (can't find it now, but maybe it's in the links above) that explicitly excludes F and J visa holders from the normal resident status for the first 5 years in the US. That is, normally, to be a resident for tax purposes, you basically have to be living in the US for 183 days out of the last year (with some weighting calculation for days in the last 2 and 3 years). However, F and J visa holders are always non-resident until 5 years has gone by, then we get the same treatment as everyone else....so most likely we can file as residents in our 6th tax year. A friend told me that once you are a resident though, you can go back and revise your last 5 years worth of tax returns and re-file as a resident and thus get all those tax credits back. He said he wasn't sure if it was actually legitimate, but his tax person did it for him and it worked. Maybe there were some other circumstances though.
Thanks a lot..
Am I the only one who finds all this complicated? Like starting grad school and moving was not stressful enough.. Well atleast we have time till the April of 2013 to worry about taxes. Unless Dec 21, 2012 happens..LOL.. -
Are you guys sure we'll be classified as non resident aliens? The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_%28law%29) says that a resident alen has to have either a permanent or temporary residence in the foreign country. As students, we do have a temporary residence in the US right?
I'm sorry if I'm being naive here. I have no prior experience/knowledge with 'these' things..
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7 applications (2 acceptances, 3 rejections, 2 in limbo).. thats around 29%.. nothing to feel happy about, but glad I'm starting this fall..didn't really have a backup plan..
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Maybe, you could try the meet and greet section of the forum?
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Did the school even agree to do this?
Yup, the school is funding me for an extra month and giving me an early start date.. Cuts down on my holiday time but there was nothing else I could do..
Don't get into trouble, however - don't try to activate your F1 status before you can, or you could be flagged by immigration.The 'valid from' date on the Visa will be 30 days before the start date of the program start date right? I should keep in mind that I don't enter the US before the 'valid from' date mentioned in the Visa, isn't it?
And I will go out to Canada (again to travel) then enter the US with F1 VISA when in the 30-day window period.I don't think I really understood what you're trying to do. In an case, I do have to come back to my home country to apply for my student's visa. And I will not have sufficient time to do so after the workshop.
Thank you for all your replies!!!
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Hey everyone,
I'm visiting the school I'm attending for a week from July 9-15 and then attending a workshop from Jul 16-20 and then coming back to school during August (I plan to do some personal traveling during the last part of July).
Normally, the visit and the workshop would be done on a tourist visa. But I don't want to do that because it won't leave me enough time to come back to my home country and apply for a graduate student visa. What I'm doing instead is getting the school to give me an earlier start date of Aug 1. Officially, you can enter the US 30 days before the date on your I20. I'm planning to use this provision to visit the university and attend the workshop.
Do you see any problems with this plan? Will I be asked any uncomfortable questions at Immigration or required to show some additional funds?
PS: I'm from India.
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it takes around 2-3 months to get visa,
Now, you're scaring me.. I haven't gotten my I20 as well.. Infact, I don't think the processing has started even..
Does it really take that long? May I ask which country, if you don't mind?
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So excited got into my top choice today:) Full tuition waiver, benefits, and $1600/mo research assistantship. Soooo excited. There is still hope, don't give up guys:)
Congratulations!!! That's really good news..
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There is no way this can end well and I guess on some level you already know that. Even without him being in the same lab, this would be a bad idea, what with the wife and kid and everything.
If you have 3 years left to complete your PhD, you must be just getting started with your research, after your qualifiers. The complications arising out of things ending badly with a lab mate could really affect your research at a vital period. It will be really uncomfortable if you'll have to collaborate on a project or do even something smaller like teaching a course together. I know that this might be insinuating a tad too much, but you might end up being a victim of sabotage if the other person ends up with a grudge.
End it. And try to end it on good terms. Being just one kiss, it shouldn't be 'that' hard.
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I'm an international student and the thing I really liked about applying to US universities is that GPA is not the only deciding factor, especially for PhD programs. I believe that everyone of those factors that you mentioned (research, publications, experience in the industry, or connections with top professionals) plays a very important role. The competition might be higher than ever before, but I believe that excellent research or a good paper in a highly reputed journal or even a conference can offset a lower GPA. You will find a lot of people (on this forum and elsewhere) who don't have a 3.9+ GPA who have still managed to get into tier 1 schools.
I'm sure admission committees do understand that your grades might have taken a beating if you spent more time than required than research or maybe even an internship.
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Got another reject today.. University of Washington, Seattle.. That ends my application season.. All the best to everyone who's waiting and to those who will be attending grad school this fall.. May the force be with you!!
..The spate of rejects during the last couple of weeks has made me realise that this application season could have gone bitterly wrong for me and I do consider myself lucky that I have atleast one school to go to..
I am really grateful to everyone on this forum for all the help and the company. The waiting period between January and March, till the first decisions started rolling in, were really tough and I don't know how I would have handled it without gradcafe..
.. Might have got more work done, but definitely lost a whole lot more hair.. -
Hey everyone,
I accepted the offer from Yale as well a few days back. Applied for on campus housing as well, but got in my application late, so don't know if I'll get housing of my choice.
Can't wait to move and get started with grad school..
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Sorry to digress a bit. Was just starting to plan out my finances and stuff, and I wanted to know how much the taxes are in CT.
I'm an international applicant and I don't know if this information is easily available some place online. If so, sorry for the post.
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I don't know how practical this is, but it's something that I try to follow.. Don't wait till the end of the task to ask for feedback and do a self examination.. maybe you could ask the prof who you are doing your current rotation with how it's going and whether you could be doing anything better..
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What to you feels like it will be the hardest to live with? Rejecting a school after giving them an unofficial acceptance, or going to a program that you don't actually want to be at for 5-6 years?
That's the best way to put it, me thinks.. Some people at School A might be offended, but hopefully the bridges you burn might heal or even better, may not matter at all.
I'm guessing grad school will be one long, difficult journey. Make sure you don't start off in the wrong frame of mind by joining a program you have second thoughts about, especially when you feel you have a better option.
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There is no way this is healthy!!! Putting so so many people on tenterhooks during these couple of weeks is downright unfair and rude. I'm sure there is a better way to do all this..
I'm waiting for one school to get back to me.. I don't know whether they have made their decisions already (there is just one entry in the gradcafe results survey) and put me on some 'uncommunicated' waitlist or if they're just taking their good old time to decide.. I'm guessing it's the former..
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I wish I could have just applied to one school and taken a chance. Would have saved a lot of time and money.
Unfortunately, I applied to 7 schools, and the money I needed to pay for everything (GRE, TOEFL, reporting scores, application fees, courier charges) was crazy. Had to save for almost a year on my measly grad school stipend.
Looking back at it, I would be saying the same thing as the lovely girl in orange
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Congratulations on your admits to two really good schools.. Whatever you decide, I guess you cannot go really wrong..
Since your final objective is a PhD, IMHO, you really apply to a professor rather than the school itself. Of course, the school is really important too, but once you are in the top schools, it's your advisor, or potential advisor, that you should be looking at. Do you see yourself preferring one prof (his research, projects in pipeline, mannerisms, opinions of current grad students, etc) over the other? If so, that should help you decide.
Good that you brought up the young, trying-to-get-established prof v/s the older, established prof issue. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and stereotyping wouldn't really be of much help. But getting into your next job (industry/academia) in a field such as energy science might require that your professor know a lot of right people in the right places. You might be better off choosing the well established prof, from this perspective.
Also, in Berkeley, is it the ERG? That's pretty well reputed isn't it??
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Cool!!! Can't wait to look up animal care centers once I'm there..
Honest Opinions..
in Earth Sciences Forum
Posted
I don't really think you should be worried about your undergrad grades, especially because you've done well in your subsequent masters degrees..
Do the normal stuff, scope out schools and professors, write to them, meet them, come up with a few good ideas on what you would like to do and form a good application package.. Nobody can really tell you if you'll get into a particular school or not, but it seems like you have a good shot..
Talk to professors definitely and see what they make of your research experience, as well as your ideas for the future..