zabius

My advice would be to call the people at U Calgary and ask about the status of your application. Emails can go unanswered for days or even weeks, but a phone call will usually get you a prompt response. If they don't pick up the first time, call them back a little later. Be sure to explain your situation to them-- say that their program is your top choice, but you also have another offer on the table and need to know for sure whether or not you've been accepted because you need to start on your visa paperwork very soon. Hopefully they'll be able to tell you something definite (as opposed to something like "we're still reviewing applications").
 
If you've been rejected from Calgary, proceed to fill out the visa application to study at McGill. If Calgary tells you that you've been waitlisted, I'd say you should probably wait a little while (until ~3 months before the start of the semester). If by that time you still haven't heard anything from Calgary, then proceed with the paperwork for McGill so that you can be sure that there's enough time for your visa application to be approved.
 
If you're accepted into Calgary, then you're in a tricky situation. Since you've accepted McGill's offer and paid their deposit, you'll likely need written permission from McGill before you can be released from their program and free to accept Calgary's offer. It's doable, but it might be a hassle to arrange. You'll also want to approach this tactfully, as there's always the potential that you could burn bridges with the people at McGill if you back out now.
 
Good luck!

There are many ways to combine your background in cell/molecular bio with EEB if that's something that would be interesting to you. Molecular ecology is a good example... I know that, at least in my taxon of interest (insects), there's a lot of cool work being done on pheromones and chemical communication. If you're into evolution and speciation, molecular systematics might be another good choice. Or, if you like behavioral ecology, the physiology underlying animal behavior (hormones, neurobiology, etc.) is an area where a good amount of cool work is being done. I'm expanding my interests into that last category... my background is largely in EEB (especially behavior), but I am joining a lab now that focuses on the neurobiology underlying some of those behaviors. In a way, I'm going in the opposite direction as you... I'm getting more cellular and molecular.
 
Of course, all of that stuff could be completely uninteresting to you. You don't have to blend cell/molec and EEB at all if you don't want to... you can probably transition to "pure" EEB or conservation biology if you want, as long as you have a solid foundation in general biology and research experience of some kind (not necessarily in EEB, but in some kind of biological science).

As a master's student, I taught several genetics labs on my own (i.e. the supervising professor wasn't normally around). I told my students to just call me by my first name, because anything else would be weird. Most complied, but one student kept calling me "Professor [Firstname]." When I explainer to her that I wasn't actually a professor, she just called me "Mr. [Firstname]." I said that "Mr." was still too formal, so she moved on to "Sir." I get that she was trying to be polite, and had probably been raised to address people in this manner... but it was weird for me. Especially since I was raised in a part of the country where the most common way to address a stranger is, "Hey, you!"
 
Eventually, we compromised... I let her call me "Captain [Firstname]." We both thought it was funny. A couple other students even joined in. I love it when a group of students has a nice sense of humor (now if only their work ethic had been just as good...).

There are so many areas of biology that are desperately in need of physically minded people. What aspect of biology interests you? sure you can work on applied topics in biomed/compbio etc but there is a huge need for engineers in fundamental areas of ecology and evolutionary biology. The biological world is your oyster with an elec background. you will easily find keen supervisors.

There's a bunch of good "why I want to go to grad school" stories in this thread, mine included:
 

 
I know that the OP's recruitment weekend has long since passed, but the thread above could be a nice read for anyone else in a similar situation (e.g. people planning accepted students' weekends or next year's recruiting events).

There is generally no writing sample required for biology programs; writing samples are usually only asked for in the humanities or social sciences. For all of the programs that I applied to, I just needed a statement of purpose (in which I described my prior research experiences and plans for the future, including what I intended to work on and why I chose that school specifically). Some schools will also ask for shorter supplemental essays, but these are generally ~1 page in length and are aimed mostly at assessing whether or not you're a good fit for the program. Many programs also allow you to upload copies of any scientific publications you may have, as well as your CV, but in most cases these things are optional. Then of course there are the standard things-- LORs, GRE scores, transcripts, etc. Some programs may recommend the biology subject GRE, but I generally find that exam to be a worthless endeavor; I'd only recommend it if the school requires it (or "strongly recommends" it), or if your SO doesn't have a strong biology background.
 
The SOP is what your SO should really focus on the most. That's where he'll be able to sell himself as a focused student, by describing his commitment to research and presenting ideas for possible PhD projects. The more details he can provide, the better (though of course he shouldn't come across as *so* focused on one project that he seems inflexible... there is a balance to be had here).
 
As for which schools are good... it really depends on your SO's interests. A school that may be really strong in, say, social animal behavior or chemical ecology might be really weak in something like restoration ecology or systematics or macroevolutionary theory. EEB is a really large field (actually, it's three fields-- ecology, evolution, and behavior), and so it's really hard to generalize. There are rankings available (http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-Ecology/124723/), but since the field is so broad I don't know if I'd really trust the rankings all that much. Your SO should do a search for labs that work on his system(s) of interest and then go from there-- the professor's publication record and his/her record of placing students in good careers will give you a much better sense of the lab's quality than the rankings will.
 
On a related note, it's worth mentioning that, in my experience at least, many EEB programs either require or strongly suggest that you contact individual faculty members whose research interests you before you submit the application. In some cases, you cannot be accepted into the program without a faculty member to sponsor your application (this is especially true if the funding comes from your advisor's grant money). I know that in other fields you simply apply to the program and then choose an advisor after you're admitted, but EEB generally doesn't work like that. Rotations, which are common in other biological sciences, aren't very common in eco/evo/behavior labs. So, your SO really should put together a list of individual labs that interest him instead of a list of schools, and then email those professors to ask if they are taking new students next year. Of course, this doesn't mean that program/school quality isn't important, because it is-- the departmental atmosphere can really make all the difference in your graduate school experience. But I think that's something to assess and worry about a little later on, perhaps during interviews/visitation weekends. When it comes to choosing where to apply, I'd say choose based on your fit within the lab itself.
 
Also, depending on your SO's interests, he may want to look not just at faculty in EEB departments, but also at people in other, related departments. For example, professors who do cool ecological/evolutionary/behavioral work on insects may be found in entomology departments. There are also zoology departments, plant science departments, etc. that contain faculty who do EEB work. Conversely, at smaller schools there may only be a single general biology department, which includes all of the EEB faculty as well as the celluar and molecular biologists. These are just things to keep in mind when looking for labs.
 
I hope this helps! Good luck to your SO with the applications!

I know that there are many, many SLP people on these boards who can probably give you more specific advice, but in my opinion I think you should take the funded offer. Fully-funded master's programs aren't exactly common, and if the program at UNC can get you a good job, why take out $50,000+ in loans? I can maybe understand going into that much debt if UNC had a terrible job record, or if the difference in quality between the two programs was vast. But UNC sounds like a genuinely good school... maybe not as good as UC-Boulder, but still good enough that you'll come out of the program with good job prospects. So, I think UNC is the way to go here, unless you think that UC-Boulder can prepare you for a particular job that UNC cannot.
 
I can understand not wanting to move to a "not-so-great farm town." My master's was in a rural North Carolina town that I positively couldn't stand. But it's important to remember that a master's program is only two years long... you'll be in and out of that farm town before you even realize it. You say that you could see yourself spending the rest of your life in Boulder, but your master's program is only a tiny sliver of your entire life. You could always get the degree at UNC and then try to land a job in Boulder.
 
Another thing to keep in mind... one of the programs that I applied to (in a completely different field, so take this for what it's worth) also offers a small number of highly competitive, part-time TAships. In our case, every student has an RAship, but can apply for a TAship to get supplemental funding. Anyway, the DGS told us that they preferentially choose students who *don't* have prior teaching experience for the TAships, so that those students can get the experience to put on their CVs. So, having prior TA experience might actually work against your chances of getting a TAship at UC-Boulder. Or, it may not... I don't know what things are like in your field/at that school. I'm just putting this out there.
 
Basically, I think you should choose UNC because (1) it's funded and (2) it's only a 2-year program and you can always move back to Boulder later if you want. The only really compelling reason to choose UC-Boulder is if you find that no one UNC is a good research fit for you. Fit is really important in my field (probably the most important thing... especially for those of us looking to stay in academia), but I don't know how much it matters in SLP. And again, if CU-Boulder can help you land a "dream job" that you simply couldn't get with a degree from UNC, then maybe CU-Boulder is the way to go. I just have a hard time recommending 50,000+ dollars in loans if you have a fully-funded offer on the table that doesn't really seem that bad at all.
 
But again, I'm an "outsider;" someone in the field of SLP can probably give you a somewhat more informed opinion. Good luck with your decision!

I have two dogs... an older beagle named Circe and a younger terrier mix named Gunnar. Circe is a stray dog that I found when I first moved to North Carolina for my masters in 2010. She's incredibly sweet and affectionate... I tried finding her previous owner (via physical fliers, craigslist, ads in the paper, etc.) but no one claimed her, so now she lives with me. I don't know how old she was when I found her, but the vet estimated that she was probably around 9, which would mean that she's ~11-12 now.
 

 
Gunnar is a shelter dog that I adopted from someone else who couldn't keep him, as he kept fighting with her other dog. He can be a bully at times, but he gets along with Circe surprisingly well. He's tons of fun... very playful and energetic. He just turned 2 last November.
 

 
I also collect scorpions as a hobby. I've kept over two dozen species over the last few years, though lately my collection has dwindled a bit. I plan to rebuild it once I get myself settled in grad school... there's no sense in buying a bunch of scorpions now just to transport them 1,000 miles away in a couple of months! I have far too many to post pictures of all of them, but here's a picture of a few favorites:
 
A giant desert hairy, Hadrurus arizonensis) stinging a cockroach.

 
A male-female pair of death stalkers (Leiurus quinquestriatus) disagreeing about mating:

 
A Florida bark scorpion (Centruroides gracilis) fluorescing under a blacklight:

I'm most surprised that my friends didn't strangle me, as grad school applications are all I've talked about since December.
 
Also, the school that I thought was most likely to accept me rejected me, and the school that I thought was most likely to reject me accepted me. The latter ended up becoming my top choice and is the school that I'm going to be attending in the fall. This whole process was full of surprises!

I was surprised that I got into...anywhere.  

Background story:

I only have a 3.2, and a guidance counselor told me not to bother applying anywhere.  She said I wouldn't get in anywhere decent.  I went ahead and applied anyway.  And I guess all the undergraduate research paid off.  I think my grades were offset by the fact I was in ROTC for the first half of college... it was tricky to juggle a math-heavy major while in the program (I'm not a math whiz).
 
And here I am, 12 months after she told me not to bother applying, getting ready to go to Hopkins, the top school in my field so glad I didn't listen!

I'm most surprised that my friends didn't strangle me, as grad school applications are all I've talked about since December.
 
Also, the school that I thought was most likely to accept me rejected me, and the school that I thought was most likely to reject me accepted me. The latter ended up becoming my top choice and is the school that I'm going to be attending in the fall. This whole process was full of surprises!

I agree with this. Competition was fierce this year... many programs saw an increase in applicants and a decrease in funding (due to the federal budget cuts), which is not a very good combination of circumstances. And there's no indication that the situation will improve next year; in fact, competition might be even more fierce then if the funding situation does not improve.
 
There's also no guarantee that you'd be accepted next year even if you can improve your GRE scores or get your papers published this year. These things will increase your odds, no doubt, but it may not be enough if the money just isn't there to support you. There were many people with great scores, good research experience, and publications who were rejected from numerous programs this admissions cycle-- there are just so many factors that go into a school's decision. For what it's worth, here is a message from a POI at a school that rejected me this year. The research fit was nearly perfect, and my overall application was strong (good GREs, high undergrad and master's GPA, first-author publication, etc.):
 
 
The reason that there were so few spots available is because of funding-- this school will only admit students if they can guarantee them full 5-year support.
 
Given all of that, I think you should take the offer at UIUC if it is not too late to accept. The research fit is good, the school itself is good, and you have a fully funded offer, which is something might be hard to secure anywhere next year... even if your application is very strong. Urbana-Champaign is a pretty small city, but it's not the middle of absolute nowhere... there will be things to do there on the weekends and people to meet, etc. And it's probably not as cold as you are thinking it might be (though I might be biased in saying this... I'm used to--and actually prefer--cold climates).
 
Good luck with your decision!

I agree with this. Competition was fierce this year... many programs saw an increase in applicants and a decrease in funding (due to the federal budget cuts), which is not a very good combination of circumstances. And there's no indication that the situation will improve next year; in fact, competition might be even more fierce then if the funding situation does not improve.
 
There's also no guarantee that you'd be accepted next year even if you can improve your GRE scores or get your papers published this year. These things will increase your odds, no doubt, but it may not be enough if the money just isn't there to support you. There were many people with great scores, good research experience, and publications who were rejected from numerous programs this admissions cycle-- there are just so many factors that go into a school's decision. For what it's worth, here is a message from a POI at a school that rejected me this year. The research fit was nearly perfect, and my overall application was strong (good GREs, high undergrad and master's GPA, first-author publication, etc.):
 
 
The reason that there were so few spots available is because of funding-- this school will only admit students if they can guarantee them full 5-year support.
 
Given all of that, I think you should take the offer at UIUC if it is not too late to accept. The research fit is good, the school itself is good, and you have a fully funded offer, which is something might be hard to secure anywhere next year... even if your application is very strong. Urbana-Champaign is a pretty small city, but it's not the middle of absolute nowhere... there will be things to do there on the weekends and people to meet, etc. And it's probably not as cold as you are thinking it might be (though I might be biased in saying this... I'm used to--and actually prefer--cold climates).
 
Good luck with your decision!

It's unethical because you're being dishonest and manipulative. You do not plan to tell the UK school your intentions-- in your initial post, you say that you intend to keep the faculty in the dark until the end when you withdraw. That is dishonest; the UK school would be under the impression that you were using their funds to attend their program, not someone else's. There is no universe in which that is ethical; purposefully withholding information from someone is dishonesty-- it's that simple. And academic dishonesty can get you suspended from your program and seriously cripple your future career prospects.
 
You say that the funding is external. Where exactly is it coming from? If it requires you to enroll for three years at the UK program, then obviously it's linked somehow to that program and not truly external. If you can't legally transfer the funding to the other European school by contacting the funding agency and filing the appropriate paperwork, then that's a pretty clear sign that you aren't able to use that funding there, and you shouldn't try to do so anyway via this underhanded, secretive scheme of yours. It doesn't matter if the funding is coming from the UK school or the UK government or a private agency that requires you to study at a UK school... if a requirement for the funding is to enroll at the UK school for three years, the implication is that the funding is for work done at that UK school, not somewhere else.
 
On top of all of this, it is unethical to take up two admission spots when you are just one person. It's like someone taking up two seats on a bus/train while there are other people standing. There are tons of applicants out there on waiting lists for both of your schools, and by accepting both offers you are unfairly preventing someone else from attending a graduate program. If you're selfish enough, that won't matter to you... but it is still unethical.
 
The only way to do this right is to tell both schools upfront exactly what you plan to do. You need to tell the UK school that you plan to use their money to study somewhere else and then ditch them once enough time has elapsed to prevent the funding from being taken away from you. Then you need to tell the other school that you plan to simultaneously enroll in a different institution just to use their funding. Both schools need to know that you will be officially accepting two offers at the same time. There can be no lying... contrary to what you think, academic honesty does require full disclosure, and both schools need to hear the full story with all of the details. There's a very good chance that neither school will be impressed with this plan, and you should be prepared for one or both of them to tell you "no" and rescind your offer if you attempt it behind their backs. Just because one teacher at the European school is okay with the idea doesn't mean that the school as a whole will be. You need to talk to everyone involved-- your advisor, the head of graduate studies, and higher-ups in the graduate school itself at both institutions. They all need to be okay with it.
 
If you do try this without telling anyone your intentions, prepare to make a lot of enemies. It is inevitable that people will find out what you did-- don't think that they won't. Even if you manage to keep everyone in the dark until you withdraw from the UK school (which is unlikely), they're going to know that something's up when you withdraw. It would be incredibly easy for them to look you up and see that you had been enrolled in another institution all along. So it's not a matter of *if* they find out, but when. And when they do, you'll need to be prepared for some really unfavorable consequences. People within a given field communicate extensively, and word will get around. The guy at the UK school may not be a specialist in your specific subfield, but that doesn't matter at all. I study behavioral entomology, but if I pissed off a professor who specializes in something else (ecology, systematics, IPM... it doesn't matter), you can bet that that professor would tell the others and the news would spread like wildfire. The same would happen in your situation, and this would be damaging to your entire career. Not only would the people at the UK school contact the people at the European institution (who might be so displeased at your dishonesty that they suspend you from their program entirely), but they'll also contact their colleagues at other schools to warn them about you. Good luck finding a job after graduation with so many people in your field harboring a very unfavorable opinion of you! Even if you can manage to apply to a job with someone who has not heard about your past, that employer could very well call up your old PhD advisor for information about you (this happens very often)-- and then that employer would get the news and probably reject your application then and there. Ask yourself... what would you think if you were that employer? Here's a job candidate who has a track record of being dishonest and underhanded-- would you want him working in your organization? Would you feel that you are able to trust him? Absolutely not.
 
I'm not trying to scold you or anything. I'm trying to advise you to not do something that could damage your entire career as well as unfairly prevent another deserving applicant from getting into one of these programs. Just because you know someone else who did something similar does not make it right. If that person did it underhandedly too, then it's unethical for all of the same reasons that I described here. If he did it openly, though, then that should be a clear sign to you that the only way that this arrangement can work is if you are honest and fully disclose your entire plan to both schools.
 
When academics work simultaneously at two institutions, it's because they've arranged to do so openly and legally. There is a huge difference between an open collaboration with another university or serving as an adjunct faculty member at a different institution and the type of secretive, dishonest scheme you're thinking about. The former two arrangements do not keep anyone in the dark; both institutions know the details of the arrangement, and the people participating in that arrangement have gone through all of the official channels and done all of the right paperwork to set it up. You would not be doing that. You would be lying (by omission) and hoping that you don't get caught.
 
My advice is to go to the European school if you have powerful, personal reasons to be in that country. Defer your admission for a year if you need time to secure truly independent funding via legal and ethical means. Forget about the UK school and their funding-- it's only for people going to that school. Just suck it up and accept that you can't have your cake and eat someone else's cake too. Pick one program and stick to it, for your own sake.

There is generally no writing sample required for biology programs; writing samples are usually only asked for in the humanities or social sciences. For all of the programs that I applied to, I just needed a statement of purpose (in which I described my prior research experiences and plans for the future, including what I intended to work on and why I chose that school specifically). Some schools will also ask for shorter supplemental essays, but these are generally ~1 page in length and are aimed mostly at assessing whether or not you're a good fit for the program. Many programs also allow you to upload copies of any scientific publications you may have, as well as your CV, but in most cases these things are optional. Then of course there are the standard things-- LORs, GRE scores, transcripts, etc. Some programs may recommend the biology subject GRE, but I generally find that exam to be a worthless endeavor; I'd only recommend it if the school requires it (or "strongly recommends" it), or if your SO doesn't have a strong biology background.
 
The SOP is what your SO should really focus on the most. That's where he'll be able to sell himself as a focused student, by describing his commitment to research and presenting ideas for possible PhD projects. The more details he can provide, the better (though of course he shouldn't come across as *so* focused on one project that he seems inflexible... there is a balance to be had here).
 
As for which schools are good... it really depends on your SO's interests. A school that may be really strong in, say, social animal behavior or chemical ecology might be really weak in something like restoration ecology or systematics or macroevolutionary theory. EEB is a really large field (actually, it's three fields-- ecology, evolution, and behavior), and so it's really hard to generalize. There are rankings available (http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-Ecology/124723/), but since the field is so broad I don't know if I'd really trust the rankings all that much. Your SO should do a search for labs that work on his system(s) of interest and then go from there-- the professor's publication record and his/her record of placing students in good careers will give you a much better sense of the lab's quality than the rankings will.
 
On a related note, it's worth mentioning that, in my experience at least, many EEB programs either require or strongly suggest that you contact individual faculty members whose research interests you before you submit the application. In some cases, you cannot be accepted into the program without a faculty member to sponsor your application (this is especially true if the funding comes from your advisor's grant money). I know that in other fields you simply apply to the program and then choose an advisor after you're admitted, but EEB generally doesn't work like that. Rotations, which are common in other biological sciences, aren't very common in eco/evo/behavior labs. So, your SO really should put together a list of individual labs that interest him instead of a list of schools, and then email those professors to ask if they are taking new students next year. Of course, this doesn't mean that program/school quality isn't important, because it is-- the departmental atmosphere can really make all the difference in your graduate school experience. But I think that's something to assess and worry about a little later on, perhaps during interviews/visitation weekends. When it comes to choosing where to apply, I'd say choose based on your fit within the lab itself.
 
Also, depending on your SO's interests, he may want to look not just at faculty in EEB departments, but also at people in other, related departments. For example, professors who do cool ecological/evolutionary/behavioral work on insects may be found in entomology departments. There are also zoology departments, plant science departments, etc. that contain faculty who do EEB work. Conversely, at smaller schools there may only be a single general biology department, which includes all of the EEB faculty as well as the celluar and molecular biologists. These are just things to keep in mind when looking for labs.
 
I hope this helps! Good luck to your SO with the applications!

"Abusive" is not a quality that you want in a mentor, no matter how good this person's research is. If nearly everyone associated with that lab is telling you not to work with this person, then there must be a good reason why. If it were just one person telling you this, I'd suspect that it's just an underlying personality mismatch between that student and the professor, but a large consensus makes me think that there is some truth to these complaints. Never, ever work with a professor that you would describe as "abusive." An intense professor is okay if you work well in that kind of situation, but "abusive" is never good no matter what. S/he may be doing really good science on a topic that is currently "hot," but if s/he really is abusive and hard to worth with, then your own work will suffer, as will your mental/emotional health most likely.
 
Go with the second advisor. It sounds like the lab is well respected, and a Top 15 institution is still very prestigious. You're also genuinely interested in the research being done there. Remember that your research will inevitably be somewhat different than your advisor's-- the whole point of a PhD project is do something original. So, perhaps you can come up with a project of your own and make it have that "badass factor" that is missing in your advisor's work. Perhaps you can spin it a certain way or approach the question from a new angle or incorporate techniques from another field. Your project can be as amazing as you make it be. And it will definitely be easier to make it amazing with the help of a supportive PI.
 
I feel like it's a clear choice here... you really don't want to spend the next 5+ years in an abusive relationship. The stress and depression just won't be worth it. And if you're stressed and depressed, then there's a good chance that the work you do will not be your best anyway.

Speaking as someone who really likes a big, solid, tough challenge, and, as a result, can really understand why uni #1 is so tempting to you, even beyond the science: you may want to entertain the question of what on earth you will do if the big, solid, tough challenge becomes insurmountable. Or, to put it differently, if the challenge is not so much a challenge, but, as the other students have warned, a surefire disaster. You write that your decision is, "Partly due to the science, partly because if you get through this group, it proves you can take that much shit and still be standing." And I really do understand that--I think many fellow grad students would. But what if you're not left standing? In that previous question and this following one, I second TakeruK: do you have a Plan B at uni #1?
 
I recommend searching through these forums for the word "advisor." Maybe also look for the same word in the Grad School subforum at the CHE forums. Things can get hairy, to put it mildly. The bottom line is: if you have an advisor who does not want you to graduate, you will not. Your advisor will continue to be someone spoken about with awe and Nobel Prize murmurings, but you will not be, and it might even come to pass that telling others that you work with this person, which once felt like such a huge coup, will start to feel like an albatross around your neck. At the end of the day, as you yourself write, you are looking to work in academia, and to do that, you're going to need to graduate with good work that has your name on it and an advisor who will recommend you for future positions.
 
If you're still committed to uni #1, you may want to seriously consider moving from generalities ("abusive") to specifics (behaviors A, B, C, and D) and considering, concretely and dispassionately, how you would address them. Also, you may also want to speak with someone who did successfully make it in and out with the same advisor you're considering. 

My sense is that there isn't one thing that most people do. Many people jump straight in after the master's (or skip the master's entirely and jump straight in from undergrad), but many other people also take some time off between degrees. It could be one year, two years, or more. Some people are reapplying to graduate school after being out of school for over a decade. It really depends on your own circumstances... there is no one path that is overwhelming more common than the others. I know plenty of people who jumped straight in and plenty of others who waited. As for me, I waited a year between my MS (graduated last year) and my PhD (which I will start this fall). I didn't do it by choice, however. I had applied to a PhD program for the Fall 2012 season, but was rejected because of an unsupportive LOR.
 
Personally, I wouldn't have taken the year off if I had more control over the situation. I have had an incredibly hard time finding a temporary job in an area even remotely related to my field. Many of the jobs that I have applied to are traditionally positions intended for people like me who only have MS degrees, but since there are so many jobless PhDs on the market now who are willing to work for much less money than they should, I constantly found myself out-competed. Also, no one wants to hire someone who is just going to leave for a PhD position within the year. I suppose that one could always just lie or not mention the PhD plans to my prospective employer, but I didn't want to lie to people in my field... there's a good chance that I'd see them and possibly even need to work with them in the future, so why risk burning bridges by being secretive and untruthful?
 
Anyway, now I'm kind of stuck in this weird state where I've essentially put my life on hold. It's like I've lived these past few months just waiting for the next stage of my life to start, and it's terrible... but there's not much I can do because this is a transitional stage in my life, which means that I can't make any commitments to anything that would last beyond the next several months. I don't like it. Many of the other people I know who took time off between degrees did so voluntarily because they had sweet jobs or other experiences (volunteering, trips overseas, etc.) lined up that would be valuable to them when they applied to programs in the future. In that case, I think that taking a year off is a great idea. But that wasn't my situation; my hand was kind of forced by that one lousy letter writer.
 
This is just my experience, though. I've known what I want to study for a while now, and always knew that I wanted to get a PhD. In retrospect, the entire master's program was probably a waste of time... I probably should have jumped right into a PhD. I had years of research experience from my undergrad, so I didn't really even need the MS or any time off to build up my CV. Your situation sounds different. If you're not sure what you want to work on for your PhD, then you should take all the time you need to figure that out. A doctoral program isn't something that you should jump into without a reasonably solid idea of what you want to study and what you want to do when you graduate. Doctoral research is an unforgiving mistress, and if you aren't working on a project that you're genuinely passionate about, things will get overwhelmingly stressful and miserable fast. Taking time off to think about this carefully could be good for you.
 
So, my advice is to take a year off if you don't know what you want to study by the time that the application deadlines roll around. Just make sure that you have a temporary job lined up for your "off year," or at least some way to support yourself financially. And don't worry about what most other people do... there are so many different paths to a PhD, and everyone you talk to will have a different story.

My sense is that there isn't one thing that most people do. Many people jump straight in after the master's (or skip the master's entirely and jump straight in from undergrad), but many other people also take some time off between degrees. It could be one year, two years, or more. Some people are reapplying to graduate school after being out of school for over a decade. It really depends on your own circumstances... there is no one path that is overwhelming more common than the others. I know plenty of people who jumped straight in and plenty of others who waited. As for me, I waited a year between my MS (graduated last year) and my PhD (which I will start this fall). I didn't do it by choice, however. I had applied to a PhD program for the Fall 2012 season, but was rejected because of an unsupportive LOR.
 
Personally, I wouldn't have taken the year off if I had more control over the situation. I have had an incredibly hard time finding a temporary job in an area even remotely related to my field. Many of the jobs that I have applied to are traditionally positions intended for people like me who only have MS degrees, but since there are so many jobless PhDs on the market now who are willing to work for much less money than they should, I constantly found myself out-competed. Also, no one wants to hire someone who is just going to leave for a PhD position within the year. I suppose that one could always just lie or not mention the PhD plans to my prospective employer, but I didn't want to lie to people in my field... there's a good chance that I'd see them and possibly even need to work with them in the future, so why risk burning bridges by being secretive and untruthful?
 
Anyway, now I'm kind of stuck in this weird state where I've essentially put my life on hold. It's like I've lived these past few months just waiting for the next stage of my life to start, and it's terrible... but there's not much I can do because this is a transitional stage in my life, which means that I can't make any commitments to anything that would last beyond the next several months. I don't like it. Many of the other people I know who took time off between degrees did so voluntarily because they had sweet jobs or other experiences (volunteering, trips overseas, etc.) lined up that would be valuable to them when they applied to programs in the future. In that case, I think that taking a year off is a great idea. But that wasn't my situation; my hand was kind of forced by that one lousy letter writer.
 
This is just my experience, though. I've known what I want to study for a while now, and always knew that I wanted to get a PhD. In retrospect, the entire master's program was probably a waste of time... I probably should have jumped right into a PhD. I had years of research experience from my undergrad, so I didn't really even need the MS or any time off to build up my CV. Your situation sounds different. If you're not sure what you want to work on for your PhD, then you should take all the time you need to figure that out. A doctoral program isn't something that you should jump into without a reasonably solid idea of what you want to study and what you want to do when you graduate. Doctoral research is an unforgiving mistress, and if you aren't working on a project that you're genuinely passionate about, things will get overwhelmingly stressful and miserable fast. Taking time off to think about this carefully could be good for you.
 
So, my advice is to take a year off if you don't know what you want to study by the time that the application deadlines roll around. Just make sure that you have a temporary job lined up for your "off year," or at least some way to support yourself financially. And don't worry about what most other people do... there are so many different paths to a PhD, and everyone you talk to will have a different story.

Typo fixed!
 
OP: maybe I've been corrupted by my US institution, but I am an international student and did my MA in a EU institution. I can't imagine anyone there thinking that this is a good idea.

You've been asking all of us for advice, but have you asked the relevant people at both schools what they think? You say that you have talked to one professor at the EU school, but really, you do need to talk to people at both schools-- don't pick and choose which people you consult based on who you think will tell you what you want to hear. You need to talk to everyone involved. Seriously, just tell your POI at the UK school and your POI at the European school what your plan is. Don't leave out any details-- tell them exactly where you plan to work, which funding you plan to use, and that you intend to withdraw from one school several years down the road. Then see what they think. I'm willing to bet that they'll agree with most of the opinions that you've heard in this thread.
 
Everyone in this thread has given you very good advice. It sounds like the ethics argument is not really resonating with you, though, which is a little worrisome. I'm not sure how you can't see this as an unethical decision. But it is... this isn't a matter of cultural differences, but rather something that would almost certainly be seen as universally immoral by everyone in academia.  If you're not buying that, then ask the people at both schools (not just one person at one school) and let them explain it to you. They might succeed in convincing you where we have failed, as I'm almost positive that this isn't something that they would agree to. That one professor at the EU school may be okay with it (which honestly just makes me question his integrity as a professor), but I'll bet that the professors at the UK school might not be so happy with this plan.
 
Also, if you still don't see this as a moral dilemma and you're the type who responds better to "personal benefit" arguments, then consider the terrible, detrimental effect that this can have on your career. The risk can't possibly be worth it, right? The damage to your reputation within your field wouldn't be trivial... it would be a blemish that would follow you around forever. There are people whose whole careers have been shattered by academic dishonesty! And that's what this is-- academic dishonesty. It's not plagiarism, but there's more to academic dishonesty than just plagiarism.
 
Again, the only way to do this properly is to tell everyone involved at both schools what your plan is (every relevant detail) and get everyone's approval before even attempting it. It sounds like you know that your plan to study at both institutions probably won't work out, and that you're looking for just one person to assure you that it will. But even if you find that reassurance, it isn't going to help you when you're several years into your PhD and have angered a bunch of people by being dishonest, perhaps to the point that they suspend you from the PhD program(s).
 
At the end of the day, the choice is yours. No one can stop you from enacting this plan, as immoral and potentially illegal as it may be. But I really, honestly do think that if you try to do what you have planned and keep your true intentions in the dark, then several years from now we'll be hearing about you on some academic mailing list (not in a good way, of course) and be spreading your story around as a cautionary tale to future applicants. Do you really want to be that guy?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewgauthier/things-minnesotans-are-too-nice-to-brag-about
"38 Things Minnesotans Are Too Nice To Brag About" 
 
I thought this was funny! 

My sense is that there isn't one thing that most people do. Many people jump straight in after the master's (or skip the master's entirely and jump straight in from undergrad), but many other people also take some time off between degrees. It could be one year, two years, or more. Some people are reapplying to graduate school after being out of school for over a decade. It really depends on your own circumstances... there is no one path that is overwhelming more common than the others. I know plenty of people who jumped straight in and plenty of others who waited. As for me, I waited a year between my MS (graduated last year) and my PhD (which I will start this fall). I didn't do it by choice, however. I had applied to a PhD program for the Fall 2012 season, but was rejected because of an unsupportive LOR.
 
Personally, I wouldn't have taken the year off if I had more control over the situation. I have had an incredibly hard time finding a temporary job in an area even remotely related to my field. Many of the jobs that I have applied to are traditionally positions intended for people like me who only have MS degrees, but since there are so many jobless PhDs on the market now who are willing to work for much less money than they should, I constantly found myself out-competed. Also, no one wants to hire someone who is just going to leave for a PhD position within the year. I suppose that one could always just lie or not mention the PhD plans to my prospective employer, but I didn't want to lie to people in my field... there's a good chance that I'd see them and possibly even need to work with them in the future, so why risk burning bridges by being secretive and untruthful?
 
Anyway, now I'm kind of stuck in this weird state where I've essentially put my life on hold. It's like I've lived these past few months just waiting for the next stage of my life to start, and it's terrible... but there's not much I can do because this is a transitional stage in my life, which means that I can't make any commitments to anything that would last beyond the next several months. I don't like it. Many of the other people I know who took time off between degrees did so voluntarily because they had sweet jobs or other experiences (volunteering, trips overseas, etc.) lined up that would be valuable to them when they applied to programs in the future. In that case, I think that taking a year off is a great idea. But that wasn't my situation; my hand was kind of forced by that one lousy letter writer.
 
This is just my experience, though. I've known what I want to study for a while now, and always knew that I wanted to get a PhD. In retrospect, the entire master's program was probably a waste of time... I probably should have jumped right into a PhD. I had years of research experience from my undergrad, so I didn't really even need the MS or any time off to build up my CV. Your situation sounds different. If you're not sure what you want to work on for your PhD, then you should take all the time you need to figure that out. A doctoral program isn't something that you should jump into without a reasonably solid idea of what you want to study and what you want to do when you graduate. Doctoral research is an unforgiving mistress, and if you aren't working on a project that you're genuinely passionate about, things will get overwhelmingly stressful and miserable fast. Taking time off to think about this carefully could be good for you.
 
So, my advice is to take a year off if you don't know what you want to study by the time that the application deadlines roll around. Just make sure that you have a temporary job lined up for your "off year," or at least some way to support yourself financially. And don't worry about what most other people do... there are so many different paths to a PhD, and everyone you talk to will have a different story.

I don't think that they'll let you do that. Many schools stipulate that by accepting their offer you need to decline admission to all other schools. Even if that's not stated in your official admission letter, it's probably in the fine print somewhere.
 
What you could do is email both of the schools and ask for a slight extension on the decision deadline. I'm not sure if they'll extend it past April 15th, but it's worth a shot. If they both go along with it, this will give your wife a little more time to look for jobs. They won't extend the decision deadline all the way to August, though (at best, you'll get a few weeks). But it will buy you and her a little more time.
 
If they don't give you an extension, you'll probably need to just make a decision now, and it will be up to you to determine whether you want to take the risk on your top choice school (better for you, but uncertain employment for your wife) or settle for your hometown school (not so great for you, but has financial security). That's a tough choice and I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. Maybe others who have been in a similar boat themselves can weigh in with more useful advice?
 
One other thing to keep in mind, though, is that the CGS resolution technically only applies to offers of funding, not offers of admission. Check with School A and see what their acceptance deadline is for unfunded offers. If it's later than April 15th, then one option may be to accept School B's offer now, have your wife look for jobs near School A, and then back out of B's offer and accept A's if she finds a job before A's deadline. That's not an ideal situation, of course... by backing out of School B after you have accepted their offer, you risk making enemies there which is something could come back to bite you later. I wouldn't recommend this, as obviously burning bridges is something that you don't want to do if you can help it, but I am putting the idea out there. Just keep in mind that if you *do* try this strategy, School B may give you a hard time when to try to withdraw. It's probably best to not even try that, and instead make a decision now (or try to buy some time by extending both deadlines).
 
Good luck!

It's unethical because you're being dishonest and manipulative. You do not plan to tell the UK school your intentions-- in your initial post, you say that you intend to keep the faculty in the dark until the end when you withdraw. That is dishonest; the UK school would be under the impression that you were using their funds to attend their program, not someone else's. There is no universe in which that is ethical; purposefully withholding information from someone is dishonesty-- it's that simple. And academic dishonesty can get you suspended from your program and seriously cripple your future career prospects.
 
You say that the funding is external. Where exactly is it coming from? If it requires you to enroll for three years at the UK program, then obviously it's linked somehow to that program and not truly external. If you can't legally transfer the funding to the other European school by contacting the funding agency and filing the appropriate paperwork, then that's a pretty clear sign that you aren't able to use that funding there, and you shouldn't try to do so anyway via this underhanded, secretive scheme of yours. It doesn't matter if the funding is coming from the UK school or the UK government or a private agency that requires you to study at a UK school... if a requirement for the funding is to enroll at the UK school for three years, the implication is that the funding is for work done at that UK school, not somewhere else.
 
On top of all of this, it is unethical to take up two admission spots when you are just one person. It's like someone taking up two seats on a bus/train while there are other people standing. There are tons of applicants out there on waiting lists for both of your schools, and by accepting both offers you are unfairly preventing someone else from attending a graduate program. If you're selfish enough, that won't matter to you... but it is still unethical.
 
The only way to do this right is to tell both schools upfront exactly what you plan to do. You need to tell the UK school that you plan to use their money to study somewhere else and then ditch them once enough time has elapsed to prevent the funding from being taken away from you. Then you need to tell the other school that you plan to simultaneously enroll in a different institution just to use their funding. Both schools need to know that you will be officially accepting two offers at the same time. There can be no lying... contrary to what you think, academic honesty does require full disclosure, and both schools need to hear the full story with all of the details. There's a very good chance that neither school will be impressed with this plan, and you should be prepared for one or both of them to tell you "no" and rescind your offer if you attempt it behind their backs. Just because one teacher at the European school is okay with the idea doesn't mean that the school as a whole will be. You need to talk to everyone involved-- your advisor, the head of graduate studies, and higher-ups in the graduate school itself at both institutions. They all need to be okay with it.
 
If you do try this without telling anyone your intentions, prepare to make a lot of enemies. It is inevitable that people will find out what you did-- don't think that they won't. Even if you manage to keep everyone in the dark until you withdraw from the UK school (which is unlikely), they're going to know that something's up when you withdraw. It would be incredibly easy for them to look you up and see that you had been enrolled in another institution all along. So it's not a matter of *if* they find out, but when. And when they do, you'll need to be prepared for some really unfavorable consequences. People within a given field communicate extensively, and word will get around. The guy at the UK school may not be a specialist in your specific subfield, but that doesn't matter at all. I study behavioral entomology, but if I pissed off a professor who specializes in something else (ecology, systematics, IPM... it doesn't matter), you can bet that that professor would tell the others and the news would spread like wildfire. The same would happen in your situation, and this would be damaging to your entire career. Not only would the people at the UK school contact the people at the European institution (who might be so displeased at your dishonesty that they suspend you from their program entirely), but they'll also contact their colleagues at other schools to warn them about you. Good luck finding a job after graduation with so many people in your field harboring a very unfavorable opinion of you! Even if you can manage to apply to a job with someone who has not heard about your past, that employer could very well call up your old PhD advisor for information about you (this happens very often)-- and then that employer would get the news and probably reject your application then and there. Ask yourself... what would you think if you were that employer? Here's a job candidate who has a track record of being dishonest and underhanded-- would you want him working in your organization? Would you feel that you are able to trust him? Absolutely not.
 
I'm not trying to scold you or anything. I'm trying to advise you to not do something that could damage your entire career as well as unfairly prevent another deserving applicant from getting into one of these programs. Just because you know someone else who did something similar does not make it right. If that person did it underhandedly too, then it's unethical for all of the same reasons that I described here. If he did it openly, though, then that should be a clear sign to you that the only way that this arrangement can work is if you are honest and fully disclose your entire plan to both schools.
 
When academics work simultaneously at two institutions, it's because they've arranged to do so openly and legally. There is a huge difference between an open collaboration with another university or serving as an adjunct faculty member at a different institution and the type of secretive, dishonest scheme you're thinking about. The former two arrangements do not keep anyone in the dark; both institutions know the details of the arrangement, and the people participating in that arrangement have gone through all of the official channels and done all of the right paperwork to set it up. You would not be doing that. You would be lying (by omission) and hoping that you don't get caught.
 
My advice is to go to the European school if you have powerful, personal reasons to be in that country. Defer your admission for a year if you need time to secure truly independent funding via legal and ethical means. Forget about the UK school and their funding-- it's only for people going to that school. Just suck it up and accept that you can't have your cake and eat someone else's cake too. Pick one program and stick to it, for your own sake.