TakeruK

This is a good point and one I forgot to mention! To snapea: more generally, it's a good idea to remember that everything you want out of faculty interactions does not have to come from your advisor and your advisor only. For example, in my program, there is a faculty member that students go hiking with and another that students play music with. Some of the students are doing these things with their advisors but others are just doing it because the faculty member is just someone else who is interested in the same hobby. The above was a non-academic example, but it extends to other realms too. For example, your research advisor can be a different person that someone who will mentor you in finding jobs, or how to network at conferences, or how to teach, or how to diplomatically interact with collaborators who are being slow etc. There is a lot of mentorship/apprenticeship between professor and grad student and while some people find both roles in their advisors, it doesn't have to be that way. Of course, if you prefer it that way, it's fine too, but you might have to look elsewhere.

This is my policy too. But then recently, I have started sending copies of my submitted stuff to people who are applying to things I applied for as examples. So, I re-read to ensure what I wrote is okay to share. Fortunately, this always happens well after I am already successful in whatever it was (e.g. already in grad schools reading SOPs) so it doesn't make me panic. But I do cringe a lot at my old writing!

My schools generally tried to contact me by phone first, then followed up with an email afterwards. For most schools, I missed the phone call because when I was in Canada, I don't pick up unknown long distance numbers (cost lots of $$) and many of the calls happened when I was in class or a meeting etc. The committee spends a lot of time and energy picking their candidates! They won't give up if they can't reach you by phone. They'll definitely try other means of communication such as email. The auto respond for phone and email suggestion is a good one!

Every advisor is a human being and every human being has their own quirks/preferences/mannerisms/whatever you want to call it. Some people just don't have good social or people skills and are terrible at making conversation/small talk. Like any other relationship/interactions with other humans, you have to decide if you are okay with interacting with the advisor in this way. Clarification: This does not generally apply to all advisor behaviours. It does apply to this situation you describe. But, if your advisor is making you uncomfortable because of (for example) sexist or racist remarks, then the advice of "accept the way they are" definitely does not apply! Here, I'm making the assumption that these are reasonable behaviours. However, it's good that you are asking, because most of the victims of terrible advisor behaviours don't know that what they are experience is not normal and not okay. With that in mind, as others have said, it's not about you, it's just their thought processes and how they want to interact with others. It sounds like you were hoping for a different kind of relationship with your advisor, and unfortunately, it sounds like you won't get that and it's up to you to decide which aspects of an advisor are most important to you. Keep in mind that you would be really lucky if you were to find the "perfect" advisor that is the perfect fit for you in every single aspect. But you should consider this and put thought into what would be the best overall fit for you (not just research, but also things like how friendly you want to be and what their work expectations are etc.)

None of my schools notified me directly/personally that they received my GRE scores. Many schools had an online portal that was supposedly automatically updated when the scores came into the system. However, with transcripts and GRE scores, some schools had an issue because my middle names did not match up (similar problem to you). For these schools, the system continued to say that scores were not received. I emailed the school and they confirmed that the scores were received and that the system is just wrong. They should be able to fetch your scores if you provided them with the information necessary. As the deadline nears, send them a message to double check, if the online system still does not display scores received.

I think the worst that bad formatting would do is that bad formatting could make it hard for the reader to understand the point you're trying to make and disadvantage you. Exception: If you were told to format a certain way and didn't follow that. For the future, the tip to always PDF everything before transferring computers is a good idea. That said, it's likely that you will be able to upload a new PDF because these issues are very common! Most things I encounter allow me to check the uploaded versions one last time before finally submitting. I'm sure you won't be the only one with this issue!

I also do not think this is a good idea. When I was taking French classes, I always found that my essays in French were always better when I did not translate but instead formed the initial draft in French. However, it might help to brainstorm in your native language. But when you start constructing sentences, it should be in the language you intend to use for the final piece. I strongly second rising_star's suggestion to get a lot of other people to read your SOP if you are concerned about your word choice!

I agree that you should put it under academic work experience. You can describe your position as "Undergraduate Volunteer Researcher" if you feel the need to distinguish the fact that you were not paid.

As Eigen said, it varies with each group but here's a sense of how things are in my field: Ultimately, the rule of thumb in my field is that if the advisor has a grant that would allow them for pay for it, they would pay for it. However, that said, if you are able to apply for a non needs-based funding, you are expected to do so, even if you have internal funding. The conference you mention would generally be fully funded by advisor in my field. You might be expected/encouraged to find external funding (and in fact, my department funds the first $400 for conference travel for first year students only, with the idea that you might not have something to present yet so this will help cover the costs). Society memberships: As Eigen said, this is tricky as few grants allow it. Currently, my advisor pays my membership through their startup grant. Startup grants are magical (but limited time) things that basically allow purchase of pretty much anything. (Well in reality, they just come with a heck of a lot fewer restrictions since at my school, it's all internal or donor money). So things that are normally very tricky under federal grants, such as buying computers and paying for memberships, are covered by my advisor's startup grant. My project is funded by a federal grant so for all other things, we charge to that grant. Lab supplies: Can't comment since my field does not have these! Office supplies: In some labs/groups where I've worked in the past, these are paid for by the group but then my lab notebook stays with the group after I move on. The norm in my field is for us to buy our own notebooks and keep them when we move. However, my department also stocks a supply closet with lots of basic notebooks, pens, whiteboard markers, staples, other supplies etc. that any of us can use if we want. It's all on the honour system (we don't sign for the items or anything). Most students choose to buy their own notebooks and pens because we tend to be particular about particular items. Definitely agree that these vary more. Another note on startup grants: Since my field does not have expensive labs that need to be set up with a new professor arrives, the startup grants go a long way. Usually the new prof will buy new computers for all of their students & postdocs (as permanent equipment is very tricky under federal grants) and also use it to pay grad students while they take the first few years to start winning grants that will cover students. At my school, these startup grants are explicitly meant to "level the playing field" and make new professors more attractive because generally, students would be less inclined to work in a group with no funding!

Another way to think about this is to think about what is better for you in the long term. This postdoc sounds especially relevant to what you want to be doing. This opportunity/position might do a lot more good towards your career goals (depending on what they are!) than polishing up your dissertation. It would depend on what other postdocs positions are generally available each year in your field and whether or not you think you would be able to find something else where something else + 1 year to polish dissertation is equal in value to you as this unique postdoc opportunity. Applying for the position would also mean your advisors/committee might be involved? So, I would also strongly recommend talking to your advisor and your committee about this. They know how your work has been progressing and also they probably have experience knowing what kind of work/experience would be most valuable for an academic career (not saying you have to be interested in that, but they are the right people to give you advice about that path). We don't know what shape your dissertation would be in 9 months vs 1 year + 9 months from now, but they might. Finally, applying for the postdoc doesn't mean that you will have to accept the offer. You can apply now and make a more informed decision later too! Good luck!

Welcome to TheGradCafe! Hope you enjoy your time here!

The norms in my field are similar to Eigen's, where the stages, for a CV, would be: (in prep.): You have a complete draft that is coherent and actually ready for you to send to someone to read if you wanted them to read it. (i.e. there should be very little things left before submission---maybe just remaking a figure, or rerunning some analyses that will change the numbers in your tables/data but will not change your main conclusion) (submitted): It's submitted to a journal and you are awaiting the first referee report (in review): You've received the first referee report and you're deciding on how to respond, or you're waiting for a 2nd or 3rd referee report. For most papers in my field, the turnaround is very short so I don't bother updating my CV unless I know this stage is going to take awhile. It's pretty common for students to receive a referee report, submit a response within 2 weeks and then get the final acceptance a few days later. (accepted) or (in press): You've gone through all the review stages and now you are approving proofs and waiting for online and in-print publication. Technically, there is a difference between (accepted) and (in press): the former is before the proof stage is done and the latter is after proofs and after the journal informs you which issue the article will appear (but that issue is yet to appear). But my field does not distinguish between these two. Submitted papers matter, especially for early career scientists, because if it's good science, it will eventually be published somewhere, so you want to demonstrate that. And, as rising_star said, you're still gaining useful experience being a part of this process. There is one exception in my field, and that is the use of "in prep" during a presentation at a conference (poster or oral) doesn't mean the same thing as the CV version above---it just means that this result is not yet published. It allows the presenter to indicate who has "control" of the data/result so that the audience knows who to ask further questions if they want to find out some things before they become available.

Yes this is fine. There is a difference between getting a word or phrasing suggestion from a friend/peer/advisor than taking credit for ideas that aren't yours. It's pretty common for ideas to spark from discussion with your colleagues in academia, and it doesn't always mean that it's no longer okay to incorporate it into your work. In my field, suggestions at this level (e.g. "hey wouldn't it sound better / make more sense if you said it like .... instead") aren't recognized in any way. No one expects that 100% of the words that are in any written work to have solely came from the author(s) listed.

Email or call the graduate school and let them know. Ask if they were able to get your score report. For one school, I entered the wrong institution number (it was a research institution attached to the department and I entered the research institution instead of the department so they didn't get the score). They said that I won't need to order a new score report---just an unofficial self-reported score was fine for now. So, just talk to them and find out if 1) they got your scores and 2) what they want you to do now.

In general, yes, I think this is a good person to get a letter from. But it depends on the nature of your collaboration. If you and this professor did not work "together" very much, then it would not be a very good letter. For example, some of my coauthors are coauthors because they helped write the initial grant request to get the data we used, but we did not work together/collaborate (or even discuss) the analysis at all. These would not be good letter writers. However, there are other coauthors who I worked with a lot (long distance) and they would be good letter writers. For example, we would have several back-and-forths on the methods being used, with me learning from them at first and eventually developing a method to use and explaining it to coauthors. In this way, they would have "seen" (via email/Skype/telecons) the way I work and communicate, which would put them in a good position to evaluate me. So, in your case, it depends on how much this other professor was involved with your work while you were in his lab or how involved they were on your paper after you left. If you continued to collaborate and work together, then this would be a great letter---I don't think the fact that he was not in the same location as you matters at all (in fact, many people have less contact with their advisors even if they are in the same place!)

I agree with rising_star. You won't get rejected based on this. Ideally, you would want someone with this amount of knowledge about you and also has a PhD, but if you can only find a 3rd letter that just has one, then it's better to have someone that knows your abilities well, even if they don't have a PhD. In my opinion, it depends what your other options are for this 3rd letter. From your original post, it wasn't clear if you were saying that this is your best choice and you are asking whether this is an appropriate letter or if you are considering many choices and want to know how good/bad this choice would be. In later posts, it sounds like you are asking the first question, so yes, I think this is a perfectly fine letter. I do think it does help that this person has the title assistant professor, class coordinator and that they have been guiding your projects. I think these things will help give context to their evaluation of you. If it was the second question, then I would repeat what I said earlier: it's not the ideal letter choice, but it's certainly not a bad choice (e.g. better than a generic "did well in class" letter from a person with a PhD).

Ideally, you want to get a letter from someone who already has a PhD, not someone who is also a graduate student right now. However, since this person does know you well and can hopefully describe your abilities well, they would still be a better choice than some other people. I would recommend that you try really hard to find someone else with a PhD and use this letter as a backup only to ensure you have 3 letters.

Just additional FYI: a few years ago, it used to be that you got your own copy of your scores every time you took a test and every time you ordered score reports. Then they realised that this is pointless because it's pretty easy to do what Gvh said! But this might mean some outdated admissions website (or staff with outdated information) might still refer to things like the applicant's or examinee's score report. Printing your own PDF is the best way to fulfill these requests.

Good luck! It might help to know that in practice, as long as your materials get into your file before the committee reviews it, then it should be okay. Usually, the admin staff puts these together and the faculty on the committee does not know when the stuff arrives. Of course, some schools might penalize late material with a note attached to it but at this point, there is not much you can do! Usually, websites are stricter in wording than their real policies because they really want things in ASAP. Some schools will allow you to use expedited shipping on transcripts for a fee. I think one of my old schools had an option of paying like $25 extra to get next day shipping. Or, you can get it yourself and take it to the nearest FedEx and pay their super high fees to get it there really fast! PS I think it's really weird and ridiculous that they want hard copy transcripts for just the application, and not only that, they want TWO copies?? If I was applying to that school, I would have had to spend $80 on transcripts alone (plus the cost to mail them internationally). I'm not at Stanford and at our school, we're actively working to lower financial barriers to applications where possible and this would seem like an easy way to do so!

I think most of the remotes these days are pretty much all the same. Here's what I use, in case you wanted to compare: http://www.amazon.com/Targus-Multimedia-Presentation-Remote-amp09us/dp/B007I51H84/ref=sr_1_4?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1448424529&sr=1-4&keywords=targus+laser+presentation+remote The nice things about this remote is that it has a button to blank out the screen completely (instead of having to go to your laptop to hit "B") And in the battery compartment, there is a switch to choose between PC, Mac Keynote and Mac PPT (although nowadays all the software can recognize the same keystrokes). Also a compartment for a spare battery too so you can always have a backup with you. But the downside is that it's more expensive and a little large (it's a pretty old model!).

1. The typo will not ruin things for you. It's not your fault that your recommender didn't fill in University X and schools will not punish the applicant for this. 2. As fuzzy pointed out, waiving your right means nothing in this case. Waiving your right only means that you will not use your FERPA rights to ask the school you applied to for a copy of the letter. When you waive your right, you are NOT telling the school that you did not read the reference letter. Waiving your right doesn't even mean you can't nicely ask the school for a copy of your letter afterwards---the school could choose to share the letter with you anyways (one student I knew got a copy of his entire student record when he graduated, including his letters). It just means that the student cannot force the school, using the FERPA laws, to show them the letter. 3. That said, you really should not have read your letter, even if it's common for students in India to write letters for themselves. This professor did not ask you to read the letter or to write the letter. You should proceed as if you never read the letter. Don't mention it to anyone!

I think you are over-analyzing and this is fine. Depending on how you said these things, it might come off as a little bit of "sucking up" but it could also have demonstrated that you are serious about your application and you truly did your research. But either way, I don't think you need to worry.

In Canada, there is no "coursework phase" and "research phase"---the courses are spread out over the whole degree so it's common to take classes up to your final year. Most students prefer to leave the last 1 or 2 years completely course-free though, but it's hardly a requirement. Also, at my last school (also in Canada), all PhD students must take a seminar course every year on presentations. In this course, each week, a student gives a 60 minute presentation to the other PhD students about their research. They must attend 60% of the seminars to pass and they must present once per year starting in year 2 of their PhD (year 4 of grad school in Canada). The goal of this course is to learn to present your specialized sub-field research to a broad audience of experts, but not specialists (i.e. the audience are scientists from physics & astronomy). There is peer and instructor evaluation (the course is pass/fail though). The purpose of this class is to prepare students for "job talks" and other department seminars they might be invited to speak at in their final year (or in the future). At my current school, we must complete all required coursework to reach candidacy, which must be finished within 3 years. So, for all intents and purposes, one does not have any courses in their final year. There are some exceptions: once in a while, a student will finish their PhD in 3 years (the minimum length of time required by our school) so they might still be taking courses). However, students beyond candidacy may choose to take extra (i.e. not counted as required electives) courses or get a minor (one popular one at my school is a minor in Computer Science). In small fields like mine, these extra courses may only happen once every 3-5 years, so sometimes you just have to take them when they are offered, if you want them. Also, to echo Eigen's data point---in my field students often do not have a "writing a dissertation phase" either. The most common path is you apply for jobs (whether postdocs/industry/something entirely different) and as soon as you get a job offer, you just compile whatever you have together and defend. If you are in the academia route, you will probably find out about jobs for Fall 2016 around Feb-March 2016. This gives you 6 months to finish, however, at my school, if you want your degree to say "2016" you must defend by June 2016 (only one graduation per year). At this point, it's up to the student to decide if they want a 2016 degree or a 2017 degree (since postdocs will allow you to start in Fall 2016 as long as you defend and thus complete all degree requirements by the postdoc start date). One advantage to the 2016 degree is that between June 2016 and the start of postdoc, your advisor may be willing to pay you as a postdoc over the summer and you get to make extra money! However, if your advisor can't do this, then you might want to stay on as a grad student so that you still get income and health benefits etc. right until you start your postdoc. Ultimately, your committee is convinced that you are ready to defend once you have a job offer. If you are not taking the academia route, you basically will defend as soon as you need to start your next job. One person last year defended within a few weeks of signing his non-academic job offer (however, he knew this was coming since he spent 2-3 months negotiating his job contract). In my field, you don't really write a dissertation, you just combined all of your peer-reviewed articles together and maybe write an introductory chapter that binds everything together. For some people, if you didn't make research your top priority (makes sense if you are not aiming for research positions) then you might only have 1 paper written by this time. Or, they might not have a plan for directly after graduation. This usually means you have to write a lot and it will take a lot more energy to graduate. However, without a direct plan, there may be less pressure to graduate so this is the closest thing our field has to a "dissertation phase". On the other hand, those without a direct plan may find themselves with a job offer and then usually I see these people working very long hours to get it done and get out.

Don't freak out! I know it sounds scary but it will probably be fine. For UCSC, I mailed my transcripts about a month before the due date but a few days after the due date, it still showed "not attached". I wrote them an email and they said that it's an issue with the computer system. I have two middle names that is normally spelled with just a space in between them, but somehow, the computer was expecting a hyphen (or just one of the names). Since my name was not an exact character-by-character match with my transcript, the computer is unable to recognize it. They apologized for the confusion because they got my transcripts weeks ago and placed it in the correct file, however, it's apparently impossible to correct it on the computer system (and also no notification was sent!). UCSC also told me that basically the online application tracking thing is not reliable and actually does not always reflect the actual status. They use similar software to a lot of other schools so I am guessing this is likely a widespread thing. I did notice that sometimes the information on the application status website is not correct/up to date (e.g. a prof might have already contacted me with a decision but the application status still says "pending" etc.)

Yeah, I can't know what the best for you since I don't know the details of your unique situation. But, I would not present work with my supervisor without informing my supervisor. And I think there could be unintended consequences of people seeing your work and not realising that you didn't tell your supervisor and then they meet your supervisor and say something like "hey, your student gave a great talk last month!" and your supervisor finding out that way. I think I personally would take the risk of telling my supervisor what I was doing and if that means I don't get to stay in their group as a PhD student, then well, that's okay with me since I don't really want to work for someone like that anyways. But that is just my opinion and your situation may be very different. Hope these thoughts are helpful.