TakeruK

As soon as you get the offer letter stating that you will need to find your own assistantship, you should ask whomever sent you that letter about this timeline. They should know the typical time that professors hire their RAs. If not, then contact people you would be interested in working with and ask them. It's definitely fine to mention that you are seeking an assistantship because you would not be able to attend without one. I am not sure how much this will affect your application though.

Definitely ask your advisor what their expectations are. Hopefully you have a relationship where you and your advisor see eye-to-eye. If you are unsure about your advisor's answer, then find another faculty mentor and talk to them. (I especially recommend finding other mentors if you and your advisor don't get along). As others said, this will vary a ton by discipline. Advisor being second author is a given in my field. And no one will take a single author paper from a student seriously (there are some exceptions, but most single author papers by students aren't the best quality). But standards/expectations do vary from field to field: editing the paper is usually the minimum necessary to be a coauthor in mine (i.e. if you have a large team that contributed to the proposal but you aren't sure if they all want/need to be on the analysis paper, you "invite" them all to read and submit edits in exchange for coauthorship). However, I realise now that "edit" might mean different things. For me, it means proofreading at minimum but useful edits include suggestions of new analysis, providing insight on how to present the data, providing thoughts on how your results fit in with the literature or how your results might raise new research questions. Because of the nature of my area of work within my field, most papers have very long author lists (10+ people) and require a lot of management of people in order to get your drafts and submissions done on time!

Honestly, this really depends on personal preference. Most grad students I know actually move about 1 week before the first day of orientation. My partner and I moved one month before the start of the program (2 weeks before orientation in one case). But for both our MSc and PhD, we travelled to the new city ahead of time to view apartments and sign a lease. In our MSc city, we knew that provincial regulations require tenants to give their landlords 2 months notice to vacate a lease, so most apartments went on the market 2 months before move-in date. Since we wanted to move in 1 month before school started, we visited 3 months ahead of time to find and sign for an apartment. For our PhD move, it was 30 days notice so we went 30 days ahead of the move-in date. On each of these trips, we only stayed for a few days to find a lease. The cost of each trip was about 1 months rent, but we decided it was better to spend 1 months rent in this way than to be stuck in a really bad place for 12 months (or more). Also, our friends who just arrived shortly before the program started still had some extra costs for temporary housing while they found a place to live. And on short notice, sometimes they paid more than market value or got a less desirable place.

I'll take a step back further and ask a "bigger picture" question: How important is grad school in general to you / your future goals and how important is a right grad school for you? For example, for me, I only wanted to attend grad school if I could get into one that I really loved. I would rather not go to grad school at all (and pursue a different career path) if I was not able to get into a program that felt absolutely right. So, if you feel similarly then it might be a good idea to try to find more experience and reapply later. I am not sure how post-bacs work, so are you still eligible for these in future years? Also, you can still re-apply to PhD programs again this fall if you don't find anything. On the other hand, if you want to be doing anything academic, then you might want to consider giving this PhD program a shot. Or, if you did really like this program when you first applied to it and just think that this is pre-acceptance anxiety, then you might want to give this program a shot. Maybe think back to the reasons that got you excited in the first place. I'm not sure if you have visited this program or talked to current students yet to get a good feel for the program. If you give it a shot, remember that you can always leave after 1 or 2 years if you don't like it and try something else. It would be harder to transition to another PhD program if you do this though. Finally, I understand the hesitation to take a risk and reject certain plans for next year without a backup plan in place. But I do think that sometimes, we have to take manageable risks and get out of our comfort zone to find something we really want. If finding the ideal/right program is important to you then I don't think there is much value in a program that doesn't sound like it will make you happy. There's a lot of variance in applications from year to year and although it would be better if you had more things to strengthen your application, applying to different schools again in a different year could lead to different results too.

It's great that you are going to write to the second school to tell them you are no longer interested. It will help students applying there and who may be on a waitlist. I don't think you need to commit to the first school right now, though. It's good that you know it's your best choice right now. But it is okay to wait for the 3rd school and to compare the offers and schools before making a final decision. You said the first school has a April 15th deadline, so it's okay to take that time if you need to wait for another school's response. Do you need to accept their offer to attend their admitted grad day (many schools welcome all admitted students, not just those who plan to attend). In any case, I'd say go ahead and decline school #2. Wait for school #3 for a bit longer (at least until next week when they ask you to call back) before doing anything else for #1.

Just note that you will likely have to inform your department about any successful funding you get. Most of the time they will know and support you anyways since they might have to write letters etc. For some schools and funding scenarios, if you have external grants, it does influence how much internal money you get. For example, at my MSc school (in Canada, but some American schools work the same way), we're funded through a combo of RA, TA and internal fellowships. Winning a really big external award will remove your internal fellowship and reduce your TA by half. Overall, you still end up with more money than not having an external award, but you aren't going to get to increase your stipend by the total amount of this award. For concrete numbers, the base stipend was about $25k, winning an award valued at $15K-$20K raises that to $30k. Winning a $35k award raises it to $40k-$45k, I believe. Note that in Canada, we pay tuition from our stipend (which is about $7k for this school, so subtract that to get the take-home stipend). At my PhD program in the USA, the department has a set stipend level for every student regardless of their funding source(s). That level is currently $33k. If you win external awards valued at less than $33k, your stipend doesn't change at all---your internal funding gets reduced by the value of the external award. You only get more money if you win an award that covers all of your regular stipend plus extra (e.g. the NSF GRFP is $34k or something like that). During my PhD, I had fellowships valued in the $20k to $25k range and did not see any increase in my stipend. That said, even if your stipend doesn't change, there are side benefits to having external funds, as they decrease your cost to the department and advisor and that money could increase your opportunities. For example, it could mean an extra conference or work trip. Or it could mean that a prof who doesn't have funds to fully fund a student can accept you because you are "discounted". But this does mean that I think students should be judicious in choosing which external awards to apply for, based on the benefits they would get out of it. It's worth checking with your new program on the policies of external awards to help you make the decision.

For big decisions, I like to "sleep on it" for 24-48 hours. One strategy I use is to make a choice and then don't think about it again for 24 hours. Then, after 24 hours, re-evaluate the choice. Sometimes, it's hard to think clearly about something that you've spent almost every waking moment considering for days/weeks! Another similar strategy, which I've seen other people post on here too (e.g. fuzzylogician), is to make a choice in your head and then spend the next day or two acting as if you finalized this choice. Afterwards, think about how you felt. You could probably do both too, I guess.

In addition to what rising star said, you don't have much to lose by asking. If you don't ask before April 15, then you will probably not hear anything and have to choose the other school. If you do ask and they reject you for asking, then you're not any worse off than not asking. But you might ask and get a quicker decision that allows you to have the choice of the two

1. It's still before March 15. 2. Academics are really bad at deadlines. If you haven't heard in a week, it is probably not good news but it isn't over until it's over. If you do need to know about this decision before you can accept another offer you have pending, then follow up in a week.

No, don't email back again. The person is probably tired of getting all these requests. Email tone is always hard to read, especially when it's a short email. I wouldn't necessarily assume that he was upset with you. He probably forgot all about it after sending the email. So just keep waiting!

I completely understand this feeling. But if you are already certain you will choose one of the two funded schools over this one, no matter what the funding is, then the right thing to do is to withdraw the application and let the waitlisted school know you are no longer interested. (And to also accept one of the two schools and decline the other one). If receiving full funding from the waitlisted school would make you choose it over one of the other two funded schools, then you should certainly keep waiting though. I understand wanting to know how you would have fared in the waitlist but that really isn't the mature, professional, nor responsible thing to do. If you are ready to make a decision but are just holding out because you want to hear this final decision then you're contributing to the same problem you're facing (i.e. you may be keeping others on the waitlist while you wait for a waitlist decision that has no bearing on your future). Don't be that person. For what it's worth, last year, I applied to 18 postdoc positions, got 10 rejections and then got the offer I wanted the most! I withdrew all of my remaining applications when I signed the offer letter. Sure, I am curious what the other searches would have ended up deciding, but it was the right thing to do and I don't regret it at all. It also has not negatively affected me in any way.

Hawking was an inspirational figure for me in the sciences. I feel lucky that I was able to see a talk given by him in my first year of my PhD. In addition to his many scientific accomplishments, I was inspired by his perseverance and ability to succeed despite his illness. He has also done a lot of good advocacy for scientists with illnesses. People are complex beings though. Hawking was not perfect and we would do a disservice to humanity by pretending he was. I think it is important to remember him for his greatness but also to remember that he was a misogynist and mistreated some of those close to him, including his wife. His actions does seem to normalize / add to the idea that if you are brilliant enough, you should be forgiven for your misdeeds and for me, it is uncomfortable that he contributes to the gender problem already prevalent in physics. One thing doesn't erase the other though. I am sad that our world has lost such a person. But I think it's possible to remember him for both his good deeds and bad. It is hard though and I'm still learning the best way to do this.

I don't think it's really that sensitive of a topic, since it's a reality at all stages. It's awkward as a graduate student applicant since this is probably the first time, but as a postdoc applicant, I found it very normal to have frank discussions about funding etc. So what I mean to say is that you shouldn't have to feel like you need to dance around the topic, just be clear in what you are asking, while being polite/not demanding. In your situation, is the waitlisted school your top choice? (I think I might have asked you this before??). If so, then tell them that and ask them if they are able to provide you with an estimated timeline on your funding decision. You can say that you have some other offers with funding but you prefer their school. However, when was the last time you had contact with this waitlisted school? If it's within the last 2 weeks, then I would wait until the end of the month (or at least another week) before reaching out again. Meanwhile, between your 2 funded schools, you can pick one of them and decline the other.

It's not teaching experience either. But it's not like teaching experience is helpful for grad school applications anyways. In the sciences, translation work like this isn't considered research experience. She can still add it to her CV. Depending on how the rest of the CV is structured, she could put it as "Other experience" or "Work experience" or maybe even "Service". If she has zero or only one research experience, then having a single "work experience" category for both research and non-research work might be a good idea (not much point in having a single-item category). If she has 2 or more other research experience, then it might be better to keep this translation work separate. What is your girlfriend's main motivation for taking this work (also, might be better to hear from her directly)? If it is to have something on her CV that will help her get into grad school, then I don't think this type of work will help. The main way it will help would be to get to know this prof better and maybe it will open up other opportunities. And, getting a paid job is nice. But if she has other actual research opportunities and grad school is her goal, I think she should pursue those opportunities instead.

You will probably have to ask the department since each one could be different.

Definitely agree with the "try" part. My last name is very hard for anyone who doesn't speak my first language to pronounce. I don't ever expect anyone to say it right and I won't take offense or get mad at them or think poorly of them if they don't say it right. I only expect them to try and/or place value in addressing me correctly. However, it's very clear (to me at least) when someone is trying or when someone isn't. I have no problem with people trying and failing to get my name right. I do get annoyed (but probably won't do anything about it) when someone doesn't try and just pretends they are saying my name right. But I do take issue and do something about it if someone takes the attitude of something like, "well I can't pronounce your name, so I'll just call you something else" or "why can't you use a name that's easier for everyone to say". For concrete examples, here are ways people have shown me that they care about using my name correctly (I noticed that people do this way more in Canada than they did in the US): - A conference session chair is about to introduce me but hasn't met me before, she asked if I could tell her how to say my last name. That small act of asking instead of just assuming made me feel a lot more welcome in the community, and it was my very first oral presentation at a conference, so that was nice. - Someone trying to say my name, realised that they might have said it wrong, and immediately asks me to correct them. - Someone who hears me introduce myself and later asks me if I could say my last name again because they want to get it right. Bonus points for the other people who asked me more than once over a period of time because they wanted to be correct. Sometimes it's awkward to ask after you have known someone for awhile, but I am thankful when people get over this and just ask. It's way better for me to repeat myself than to be called the wrong name. Normally, my response is to first say my actual last name a couple of times. Then I say, I know it's a hard sound to make, so I am also happy to go by <another English sound that's much easier to say>. And some examples of actions where I thought the other person was disrespectful / wrong about their approach to my name: - Someone who doesn't even try and SPELLS OUT the letters in my name (????) instead of just asking me how to say it. - Someone who completely butchers my name and doesn't even ask me how to say my name - Someone who told me that in the future, I shouldn't tell people my real name and just skip to the easy-to-say-in-English version after I say my usual spiel above - Someone who suggested using a different more-English-friendly name for work so that people would respect me more (??) - Someone who asked if I was sure that my pronunciation was right because they have a friend with the same letters in a similar order but their friend has a name that sounds completely different (to clarify: the offensive part was when they assumed my knowledge of my name is less than theirs, it's cool that they like comparing names with similar letters). Fortunately, the first two cases happen way more than the last 3.

You can definitely ask but you are unlikely to get funds. It's certainly a thing at the postdoc and higher levels of academic jobs so it's not like it is a completely foreign concept in academia. However, I have only heard of one grad program that funds moving costs (they have $1000 set aside for you, which you can use for both visiting the program and moving). This is not usually something they provide for students but it doesn't hurt to ask. Even if they won't fund it, they might direct you to resources that could help with these costs (e.g. my PhD school had a no-interest, no-fee loan that you don't have to make payments on until 6 months later). For schools like Chicago and my PhD school, the problem isn't usually that they don't have the money to pay for things, it's that they don't want to use the money in that way! If you make a specific request like $300 to transport your books, that might be more likely to be successful than an open-ended "moving expenses" request, because something like that can cost a lot more! (For academic jobs, moving expense allowances tend to be in the thousands of dollars).

I'd vote for the straight-forward / direct start, where the main goal of the first paragraph is to let the reader know what area of research you want to work in and why it is important. "I am applying to the PhD program in ...." is a fine way to start, especially if you are applying to a department that has multiple programs (especially if they have both MA and PhD applications). If your field can be cross-disciplinary and the reader might actually be someone in multiple fields/evaluating admissions for more than one department, then I think it's really important to be very clear what you are applying to. If there is no way that your application can be confused for a different place, then you might be able to leave this first sentence out (however, having it there does show that you at least went back and changed the school name, correctly, for this application). Whatever you do for the first sentence, my advice would be to jump right into your research interests / goals. For my field, this will help the reader categorize you and imagine where you would fit into the department. In addition, while everyone does care about admitting the right students etc., I think it is pretty tiring to read through dozens or hundreds of these in one season. Scholars are primarily interested in the research, so talk about that first! What do you want to do while you're at their school? I would keep this just brief though, and expand on this in a later paragraph where you discuss specifically why their program is a good fit for you. Finally, I would end the first paragraph with a motivation/justification on your research interests. To be clear, when I say this, I am not thinking about personal motivation but professional motivation. For example, although there is nothing wrong with a motivation like "being fascinated by this topic since I first read .... " or whatever, I am thinking about why the reader should care about the research interest you state. In my field, I might for example, motivate my interest in one particular type of planet with giant atmospheres because they provide a good testing ground to study some particular atmospheric process. I think this is a good way to end the first paragraph because it makes the reader even further interested in your work and it also shows that you can think like a grad student and understand the implications of your research interests. But I want to stress that there is no one single right way to write an SOP. I am just providing you with how I would start one, from my experience, and why I think this could be effective. There are other ways to begin, including personal motivation stories, which could also be effective, but could also be very cliché. Ultimately, I think it's a good thing that you are looking at many different options to find the best one for you. Once you find what fits you best, I'd adopt it and then not worry too much about your choice. I am not sure it makes a huge difference as agonizing over the SOP opening for a long time may not be worth it (the reader may just skim right past it anyways!)

Forgot to answer this sorry. Yeah, it's normal practice for schools to only inform students of positive news (or not inform rejections until much later). In addition, sometimes waitlists are held for much longer than you would expect. I know some students who find out in August that they have a spot in a program starting in September if they happen to still be looking/interested. You might not get an official rejection from them until the next school year begins, since they might just keep the waitlisted names as a backup in case a student changes their mind at the last minute. (One person I know got a last minute acceptance but had to defer the start date to January, so that might be more doable for moving overseas and such). Again, sorry it's not the most positive answer. More practically, I would say since they said they would contact you "in the next few weeks" if you get a spot, and it's only been 2 weeks, I would not rule out the possibility of an offer. For your own planning purposes, you probably should pick a date where you will consider this a rejection and move on to making other plans for next September (and if something last minute comes through and you can take it, great!). Finally, "a few weeks" is extremely vague and since a lot of US programs have April 15 deadlines (even though that "convention" doesn't necessarily apply to your program), so I would suggest picking a "final date" around April 30 or something, unless you had something else pressing where you need to decide sooner.

I'll try to be helpful, but I'm afraid it might not be what you want to hear. This is typical phrasing for North American schools to use no matter what the outcome. (Well, they won't use "pleased to inform you" that you were rejected). But for accepted, waitlisted and rejected candidates, most of these formal letters will include phrases such as "your application was of interest" or "your application was strong" etc. So I would not read anything into phrases like this from North American schools. I am not surprised that you did not receive a response. Most schools won't answer these types of questions. It isn't a problem that you asked though, after all, you're from a different system and you don't know what they mean by waitlist. The probability of being accepted from a waitlist can range from almost 0% to almost certainly, depending on how the program does waitlists. This is why you are unlikely to get a response, because your waitlist notification likely came from the Graduate School, not the department and the Graduate School has no idea how its departments runs their waitlists. But even if you got the notification from the department, they may not be willing to describe their procedure in detail or they might not even know themselves (see below). Since your post said that they will tell you in a few weeks, then they probably figured that they won't answer and will just tell you in a few weeks. Although each program will have its own variation, the general process for accepting students is: - School determines how many spots it has for the year (let's say it's 10 spots in this example). - School has to choose how many offers to make initially. There are two main strategies: 1) Use past data to make an educated guess on the number of offers will be accepted by students. Maybe in past years, 50% of offers are accepted and they are okay with deviating a little bit from the "10 new students" target, so they might end up making somewhere between 15 and 20 offers at first. 2) Be very conservative and only make as many offers as they are willing to spend (e.g. if their margin is really only 1 student, they might just make 11 offers initially). Strategy 1 allows them to make more offers sooner, which allows them to have a higher chance of getting students they want more (e.g. in this model their 15th ranked student gets an offer right away). The risk is that they might get 15 new students! Strategy 2 allows them to ensure they never exceed their capacity but risks losing higher quality students as some of their offers will inevitably get declined. That is, by the time they hear about the declined offers, the 15th ranked student may have got offers elsewhere, so their final class might be a few of their top students and then other students they initially ranked much lower. Of course, there is all the choices in between these two extremes. Which strategy the school uses will depend on how likely you are to get admitted from the waitlist. If it's Strategy 1, then it might be quite unlikely to get an offer. In Strategy 1, the waitlist is basically a backup in case they have more than normal amount of offers being declined. So, they won't automatically make offers from the waitlist if a person declines their offer. They would wait until a larger than expected number of students decline before they start admitting from the waitlist. If it's Strategy 2, then your chances of getting an offer from the waitlist is much higher. If they use a ranked waitlist and they were being extremely conservative (i.e. maybe only make exactly 10 offers for 10 spots), then it is almost certain that at least one person will decline. If you're at the top or near the top of the waitlist, you would have a good chance of getting in, especially since this is the only school you care about so others above you on the waitlist might choose other places instead. Finally, one more wrench in the system: not every school uses a ranked waitlist (so they might not be able to answer your question on your position). Instead, they might just create a pool of backup candidates to put in the waitlist. Once the admission decisions all come in and they know what their current incoming class looks like, then they might re-evaluate the waitlist pool and make offers to fill in gaps they need in terms of fit. So, unfortunately, there is no sure answer to your question and if the school chose not to answer it for you, it doesn't mean anything. You'll just have to keep waiting and see!

I've had experience with both: semesters for BSc/MSc, and quarters for PhD. You should check what each school defines as "one credit". My BSc school, on semesters, defined 1 credit as 1 in-class work hour per week, with the expectation that you spend 2 additional hours at home. A typical class was 3 credits. So, 15 credits of courses is 45 hours of coursework per week. My PhD school, on semesters, defined 1 "unit" as 1 hour of work (whether in-class or at home). A typical class was 9 units, which is equivalent to a 3 credit class. During my first year of my PhD, we were on 27 units of courses since the remainder of our work time was on research. I don't really think a quarter class has more or less work per week than a semester class. The only difference is the length of the class, but the amount of work per week, per class was the same. Students in only-coursework degree programs at my PhD school (e.g. undergrads, course-based masters) took 5 classes per quarter though. Anyways, you should check what your new school's expectation on time spent on courses by either seeing what they mean by "1 credit" and/or discussing it with your professors. Finally, as for the transition, I didn't find a big deal. Your day-to-day and week-to-week work is the same. The main difference is the timing of the breaks.

Talk to your PhD program's international student office. They will be best equipped to help you, and it's their job to get you on the right status to attend the school There are ways that allow a change of status for foreign people to do so without leaving the country. I believe it could take longer, but it's only March now. Talk to your school and find out what your options are. They would also know typical timelines for people from your country doing similar things since they process many many international students. Finally, yes, the biggest potential hurdle is probably demonstrating non-immigrant intent, so I hope your school can help you with that. Talk to your school ASAP so that you can get the process started and/or doing things that help show ties in your home country and your intention to return.

I am not a faculty member in this field, but I just went through a process where we hired a summer undergrad student for a research project. Due to our institution's rules and policies, we are also unable to directly contact any of the applicants, even though we have all of their information. Any question to us needed to be redirected to the "right person", and the right person is a not very helpful in answering most of the questions. (To be clear, the right person is a very competent and great person but their job is to manage the hiring process. They are not a researcher and cannot answer any questions about the work that the student would actually do, and we're not allowed to answer either). Not only we cannot directly contact the student applicants, there are minimum timelines that must pass before we can enter the next step. For example, we posted the job for 1 week, but even if we see an application from someone we would love to interview for sure, we can't schedule anything with them until the application deadline has passed and we made an official/final interview list. This list then gets approved by the hiring manager and then they schedule the interviews (giving candidates some time to respond to the invite). So everything is drawn out and protracted. Finally, the 5am email thing is common because in many people management software (e.g. SAP), we input things into the database during the work day (e.g. mark a candidate as accepted/rejected) and nothing happens until the system does its nightly update. Each night, the database takes the input we provide it and then runs its reports and its automatic scripts which produces these auto-generated emails. And for these same reasons, this is why you don't often get personal emails regarding rejections and we are generally discouraged from discussing the (details) of the rejection at all with candidates. This is the same thing as lurkingfaculty said, but I just wanted to provide more details and examples This is my first year post-PhD-graduation and wow, you learn a lot from the "other side".

Second FishNerd's answer!

I don't think it has much of an effect. Only a very small fraction of grad students/applicants are even on this forum. And conversations like the ones we have been having here has been going on well before TheGradCafe existed. This is just another medium for these discussions and conversations to exist. I think the rise of the world-wide web has definitely made some information more wide-spread and while TGC is part of the world-wide web, I wouldn't say it dominates all other online conversations about grad schools. In any case, better communication technology definitely is a good thing, since if you rely on word of mouth to learn about these things, those people who are well connected with others in academia would have an unfair advantage! That said, I know that admissions committee do consider that applicants talk to each other and that resources (and even companies) exist to help students apply. I've talked to several profs now that say things to the effect that everyone is trying to "game" the system so it's really hard to evaluate applicants. For example, when we discussed the possibility of including different types of essay prompts to specifically probe for certain characteristics that they look for, the concern is that there would be guides online on how to write these essays so that students can basically say whatever they want. But this problem is already a well known effect (i.e. when you create a measure to evaluate something, people will game it and it loses its value as an evaluation metric). It even has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law. And it's from before the widespread use of the world-wide web. Now, for almost every aspect of grad admissions, there are companies trying to sell a product that will supposedly help. There are resources online that help students perfect each part of the evaluation. There is more pressure for everyone to spend tons of time reading about how to write SOPs and writing, rewriting and rewriting SOPs. But do all of this time and effort actually make you into a better grad school candidate? Not really. There is a similar problem for profs too. Everyone has the pressure to write really really glowing LORs for their students. (see: https://theprofessorisin.com/2016/09/07/how-to-write-a-recommendation-letter/). With widespread knowledge of letter writing practices due to the world-wide web and other technology, there has been kind of an "arms race" in writing these super inflated letters. I don't think any prof really wants to be writing them like this, but they all have to since everyone else is doing it. So, yes, I do think that information sharing, especially in the digital age, which includes TGC, does indeed affect the way students apply and the way committees evaluate students. But I don't think TGC has any unique contribution to this effect compared to other forms of communication. And while the world-wide web definitely makes it easier to share and makes it more accessible, I think it would be wrong to say this didn't happen before the internet. Instead, technology is helping to even out the playing field by bringing more and more people on the same level. I do think that it's worth thinking about how we do evaluations (at all levels) and how the act of evaluation drives the motivation of people and how that can influence how people work! (see: publish or perish, "teaching to the test" etc. etc.)