TakeruK

The short answer is yes, most likely. The longer answer is that as international students in the USA, when it comes to working for income outside of our degree program, there are two sets of requirements we have to meet. First, we have to ensure we follow the rules set by USCIS to properly maintain lawful F-1 or J-1 status. This one is easy---when you are at home in your home country, you are not on F-1 or J-1 status so there are no restrictions on you from the USA. Second, you have to meet the commitment requirements of your PhD program. If your program lets you leave during the summer to do whatever you want, then going home during the summer to work would probably be okay. Maybe this depends on the field, but in many STEM fields, PhD programs are 12 months a year (and you get paid for 12 months a year) so you can't really take time off to do something like this. In addition, if your program doesn't have any summer requirements and you're not committed to the school in the summer (i.e. no TA or RA responsibilities), then you have another option besides going home to work in the summer. If you are on F-1 status, you can take Optional Practical Training (OPT) time if you find a summer job in the USA related to your field of study. If you are on J-1 status, you can take Academic Training (AT) time in the summers. There is a limit of how many months you can be on this status, which depends on your field of study. But this is something you should discuss with your international student office.

We'd love to have you Canadian profs have told me that the number of grad applications to Canada from international students have rose a lot this year compared to previous years!

Usually you don't have to worry about it. You just submit your transcripts and the admissions committee determines the GPA the way they want to do it. It can vary for each program. Even for a candidate with only 1 transcript, it can really vary as some schools might calculate a metric that might be the GPA for the last 2 years, or maybe only the major courses etc. And even when you need to enter the GPA itself onto the application form, they usually ask it for each school/program separately. I can't think of any accurate way to combine GPAs from multiple programs. Finally, many schools might only want transcripts from degree programs or from programs that you have completed a degree. So that could really decrease the number of transcripts you have to worry about. If any particular form is not clear on how to proceed, contact that particular school and ask.

If you do any work that was not authorized then you do risk maintaining your visa and legal status. Working online in your home country has always been a grey zone. If you don't want to risk it, talk to your school's international student office to see what they say. At my PhD school, they basically say it's a grey zone and they can't offer legal advice. They just tell us what the rules are (which doesn't directly cover cases like this). But hearing it from some experts might help you make the right decision for you. You could also consider consulting an immigration attorney in the US to ensure you are not at risk of losing your visa/status. Tutoring for cash is definitely against the rules. Without a paper record, it will not be easy for the authorities to know but I personally would not risk it. You never know if some client is unhappy with you and decides to screw you over. If the stipend is enough to live on, for me, getting kicked out of school/country and not finishing my PhD is not worth the extra money. If the stipend isn't enough to live on, I would rather just not go to the PhD program at all than to have to work under the table and have all of that stress in addition to risk getting kicked out.

Orange turtle gave really good advice. I spent a lot of time in my undergrad with student groups and while I didn't do much in my first year of my PhD, I was really involved in grad student government and other student groups on campus in the other 4 years. The first year I was just starting out so I didn't do too much. The second year I took on a major leadership role and it was a very good experience but I was realising I was becoming the type of student orange turtle mentioned where I was losing time on research. So the 3rd and 4th year followed the rules orange turtle laid out. I still did a lot of non-research work though. Probably 5-10 hours per week for student groups on campus and 5 hours per week volunteering for outreach and related activities in the community. This was important work to me though and I'd rather spend those hours on these things instead of having free time (but that's my personal choice, not saying it should be that way for everyone).

You are saying that only the schools that have waitlisted you told you that you can expect a decision in mid-March? When schools give you timelines like that, it is either based on their own scheduled timeline or based on past years experience. So, perhaps these schools do admissions in waves and you were waitlisted in the first wave and they have a planned meeting to decide on the second wave around mid-March. Or, even though students have until April 15 to decide, many students make decisions as soon as they know all the information. It should be the exception, not the rule, that someone makes a decision to attend on April 15. Although it can depend on your field, it seems that typically, by mid-March, most students will have heard back from enough schools that they can start accepting (or at least declining) some offers. This allows for some movement in the waitlists, so the schools that responded to you with the mid-March timeline might be schools where historically, there's enough movement by mid-March that they can provide some updates in mid-March. Note that you shouldn't take mid-March literally. If it's based on some committee scheduling, know that schedules can change and committee meetings may have to be rescheduled. Or if it's based on historical trends, then this year might be different for some unforeseen reason. So it might still be another 2-3 weeks before you hear back!

If the website says decisions are made by the end of March, then you should wait until then to ask. The only exception is that you would not even bother visiting this school if you are not already certain about financial aid. But since the school will pay for the visit then as long as you have time to visit, it makes sense to go ahed with the visit since it won't cost you and you will have more information about the school. Even though the person told you that visiting funds are reserved for students being considered for financial aid, that doesn't mean that you are being considered (or not considered) for financial aid, even though you are getting visiting funds. Nothing is certain until it's in writing. So enjoy the visit and hope you get good news by the end of March!

Yes, you can ask about rates. The best way to do it is to pick a milestone (or several) and ask how many get there. For example, how many students leave by the time of quals (either by choice or because they failed?) How many at comps (if your program has them)? How many students start the program but don't finish with a PhD? You should not ask about details such as "who was the student that left, and why did they choose to leave?" etc. That's personal information that they probably won't provide you with anyways. Maybe you can get some info about this through conversation with grad students, but it's unlikely for you to get official info from the dept. Be aware that some schools only consider students who are forced to leave as leaving when they cite statistics. For example, I found that many programs cite things only 2% of students fail the qual exam and have to leave the program. However, by citing it like this, it means they don't count the students who choose to leave the program at or before quals. They might argue that this isn't the department failing the student (i.e. the student could have passed if they stayed) which may be true. But in many programs, you have another try at quals if you fail the first time but depending on how the department/your advisor treats you after the first failing, it might be suggested to you that you leave and if you leave without trying again, most places do not count that as "failing" quals since you "chose" to leave. Just some things to keep in mind. I wouldn't ask these questions in a way that sounds like you are accusing the dept of hiding the numbers though. Asking it like I wrote in the first paragraph (absolute numbers, asking about leaving rather than failing etc.) is more neutral and could get you more useful information (unless you specifically want to know about the failing rate). Finally, just a note: lower attrition rates isn't necessarily better. As long as attrition is not alarmingly high, there is no problem if students are leaving the program. In many cases, students realise the PhD path isn't for them, or that the particular department isn't a good fit. It's better for a student to leave after 1-2 years than to finish a PhD that isn't useful for them.

Thanks for sharing your update and reasoning, Blossom! In Canada (or at least in my home province of BC), the law is that all doctors must keep all records for 16 years and these 16 years don't start until you turn 19. So, anyone under 35 should be able to get all of their records still. 10 years seem so short, especially if there is no extension for your childhood years. MMR, Tdap, Varicella, Hep B, and meningoccocal were also the vaccines requested by my school. I got the MMR and Tdap boosters as I was due for them anyways. I never had the Varicella vaccine (when I was a kid, they didn't do this routinely and I had chicken pox in the past so I should be immune). Hep B I got in school and have records for. For meningoccocal, my school allows you to opt out of that vaccine if you are over 25 and aren't living in student dorms. So I did. Note: The reason why I argue for making up the dates (or just choosing the date that seems to be about right) is that no one ever needs hard evidence of these vaccines. Even for my own child's vaccines right now, the most official record we have for our child is a notebook where we write down the vaccines and the dates ourselves. The health unit providing the vaccines also keeps their own records, but they only know about the vaccines they have given (e.g. if my child got a vaccine from a school nurse, the health unit might not know about it). Each of us is considered the primary person responsible for this record, so when doctors want to know if we need another vaccine, they ask us to consult our records. Therefore, if you know you have a vaccine, then you can fill in the form that you had the vaccine, even if the exact date is not accurate (the year should be enough). What you are really saying when you fill in and sign that form is that you certify that you did have those vaccines and there's no breach of ethics there, in my opinion. If you are not sure about a vaccine though, then definitely get another booster! But don't spend hundreds of dollars just because someone neglected to note down a date for a vaccine decades ago.

In short, you should say "no" to a program once you are certain that you no longer want to attend it. And in general, unless you have special circumstances where you need a contingency, once you have all the information about at least 2 programs, you should be able to start saying no to programs. It would be considered a good practice to get the information and make a decision in a reasonably quick time frame (i.e. plan visits or schedule skype calls, whatever else you need to make the decision). Normally, one doesn't need to hear back from every possible school before some decisions can be made. So in your case, you might be able to say no to one of the two funded programs if you have already have all the information you need to know about those two programs. If not, then wait until you have visited them (if visiting). Otherwise, determine what information you are lacking and plan to get that information via emails or Skype or whatever. You definitely should not commit to a program yet if you are still interested in the 4th school that has not responded. But if you have all the information you need about the two funded offers then you should turn one of them down and keep your favourite. Then, as you wait for the waitlisted-funding and the so-far-silent school, you can re-evaluate how you feel about your funded offer vs these two. If it turns out that you then decide you no longer want either one of those two, then you should turn it down. Otherwise, it's fine to hold onto your funded offer until you hear back from these other two schools if you are more interested in one of these other two schools. If the funded offer has a deadline to decide though, then I guess you will have to either ask for an extension or commit to that funded offer by the deadline.

I think there were very many good points and discussion in a recent similar thread that might be helpful to you: The quick answer to your questions: 1. Yes, you should ensure the program you are entering does produce students who can reach the career path you want 2. It is hard to determine a "good" placement record. See thread linked. 3. I think these numbers are very misleading. I strongly do not recommend comparing the percentages because they are often not accurate (see linked thread). I'd focus more on whether there is an established history of graduates going onto the career path you want, instead of "what fraction of graduates go onto the career path you want". As for why some schools are better at placing students than others: - Generally, there is a correlation between school rank and academic positions for their graduates (some of it is because the best students go to the best schools, but also that the best schools may have more resources and such to enable these great students to be the best they can be) - Some subfields in your field may be more popular than others at any given point in history, so departments that specialized in that subfield may produce more students in academic positions - Luck / randomness

Although no one can predict exactly what the people from School B or C will do, but if they have offered you funding in writing with a deadline of April 15, then it would not be appropriate for them to rescind or reduce your funding offer just because you asked about an extension. Of course, it being inappropriate does not prevent people from doing such things, but at some point, you have to trust others. What could happen though, is that they might grant your extension but the extension may be for admission-only. They might not be able to promise you the same funding level if you don't decide before April 15. But they should be up-front about this and then you can decide if the risk is worth it based on that information. For some further insight: Whether or not B or C will be willing to grant the extension depends a lot on how B/C does their admission and if they have their own waitlists etc. If B or C is a school that doesn't do waitlists, then they won't really care that much if you need extra time and they will probably be okay with allowing you to wait until say, May 1, to decide because it's not like they want to offer your spot to someone else. Similarly, even if B/C has waitlists but their admission goal was to get (example) 16-18 new students and they have 17 committed and everyone else but you decline them, then they might not really care about replacing you with another person from the waitlist if you end up turning them down. Or, maybe they did have a waitlist but it was short so they already made offers to everyone on that list, so they don't have anyone left to offer your spot to should you turn them down. In any of these situations, your chances of getting an extension would be very high. On the other hand, if there is still a long list of people who they would love to have in your spot if you turn them down, then your chances of an extension will be very low. They might still offer the extension but with no promise of funding, which means they will likely offer your funding to other people in the waitlist and if those other people accept it, then you won't get funding. But maybe everyone left on their waitlist on April 16 would have already taken offers elsewhere or changed their mind about grad school so you might still have your funding offer. You won't know what case it is unless you ask. This is also why I suggested asking for the extensions in a few weeks, when the school might know a little bit more about who is coming and who isn't.

I love Lego Grad Student!! I have been following Lego Grad Student and I do believe Lego Grad Student defended in the last academic year and is currently a postdoc. Furthermore, Lego Grad Student has accepted a TT job offer and will be an assistant prof this fall!!!! Of course, everyone asked if there will be Lego Assistant Prof, but the author is understandably very busy and does not want to commit to anything yet

So you said that this school is your top choice. The rest of this post will give advice assuming that if you get an offer from this school, you will definitely take it over the other two offers you have and that your ultimate goal is this school (i.e. you would only attend one of the other two choices if you didn't get into this school). I will call this top choice "A", and your other two offers "B" and "C". 1. First, I think you should reply to this message saying that you are very interested in joining their lab. You can (and should) honestly say that their program is your top choice and if you are awarded admission, you will 100% accept their offer. I think saying this is very very important because at this stage, it could make a difference in the outcome for you. Then, you should tell them that you currently have another offer from School B (or C, or just "another school" if you don't want to say) that has given you a deadline of April 15 to respond. Next, say that you will try to see if the other school will be willing to extend their deadline to later in April, but ask whether it is at all possible for them to have a decision to you earlier. Finally, close with an expression of your appreciation of what they are doing, say that you hope it will work out and that you'll keep in touch. Note: By saying this, you are committing yourself to this school if they manage to swing this fellowship for you. So if my above assumption isn't true, then make sure you decide whether or not this school is your #1 choice before sending this email. 2. Second, you have to make a decision between your other two schools, B and C. There are two approaches based on how you feel about B vs C: If you greatly prefer one of them over the other (prefer B over C) so you would definitely want to go to B if you don't get into A, then decline school C's offer now. You can/should take a few days to decide which one is B and which one is C. If you haven't visited both yet, it might be a good idea to complete those visits first. Then, maybe around April 1-5, ask School B for an extension beyond April 15 to make your decision. On the other hand, if B and C are interchangeable to you and you don't have a strong preference for B or C, then in order to maximize your chances at getting into A while having a backup school, you should ask both B and C if they would consider extending your decision deadline beyond April 15. It might be too early to ask this, maybe wait until the end of March. If only one school says yes, then keep that school and decline the other one. If they both say yes or if they both say no, then go to the step above and decide which school Is B and decline C. 3. Finally, fast forward to early/mid April. At this point you should have only an offer from B and waiting to hear from A. Check in with A again for the timeline. Ask B for more time if you need it. Contact the profs at A one last time around 72 hours before your final deadline for B to let them know that you will have to accept B's offer in 72 hours and see if they have any more information for you. Keep asking B for more extensions as required. Hope that A pulls through for you before B's final deadline. Since you don't want to risk having offer for A, then you would have to accept B at the last minute if A doesn't come through. But you can also change your mind on whether you want to risk it when the deadline is staring at you in the face.

Maybe other people's opinions will vary but I would count a fellowship that fits this description, i.e. "awarded to exceptional students in attempts to recruit them to the school", doesn't really count as prestigious enough to make a difference on the resume/CV. You still should put it on the CV though. But usually the ones that matter are the ones that come from an actual merit-based competition that is typically University-wide or even nation-wide. However, this is still a great achievement! And you will still get benefits from it because your advisor can mention that you were one of the department's top picks and they even awarded you a fellowship to recruit you, that's how much they wanted you! This will go further in future applications than a line on your CV with this fellowship that no one outside of your department will recognize. I wouldn't dismiss the impact of first year research/time freedom. But yes you are right that this isn't a huge factor in your decision. I would not make this fellowship a deciding factor in what school to accept.

I think it's important to take a step back and analyze what's happening a little more carefully! It does not sound like what is happening is actually in violation of the resolution. The resolution says that the student cannot be forced to respond to a financial offer before April 15. But it does not cover things like position in a lab, or a specific assignment or anything like that. As long as the program will still extend the financial offer to the student until April 15, the resolution is upheld. (I wrote the above while this reply came in). Anyways, I don't think the professor is doing anything wrong by asking a potential student to commit to their lab prior to April 15. The prof probably has a lot of people interested and they want to get the best student for their lab. Similarly, some programs have profs accept students into their lab way later (e.g. end of first year). What I mean to say here is that there's no convention or protocol that suggests prospective or current students should have the right to decide whatever lab they want to join at any time. Instead, it is normal in most fields for the program or the professor to dictate the decision timeline for joining research groups. It's very possible for students to be accepted into programs but not into any lab (or not into any lab they are interested in) which basically means the student has to change research interests or go elsewhere. As for useful advice to this situation: I would not take the above advice to not work with someone because they want you to commit to their lab at this point. Again, this is a fair thing for professors to require because they are also committing resources and time to you. So, the first thing to do is to compare this particular lab with the program/lab you're waitlisted for. If, after comparison with the hypothetical offer, you still think this offer in hand is more desirable, then just accept it. Withdraw from the other offer. Meanwhile, ask the other school for an update on your waitlist status (unless you have already asked very recently). Ask the question today, before end of business day. It might take them a day or two to get back to you, so ask first, then think about the hypothetical offer vs. real offer you have in hand. In your request/ask, you should be clear and say that you have another offer to work with a prof that requires you to commit to their lab ASAP and you would like to know 1) if they have a timeline on when they would make offers from the waitlist and 2) if they have any information on the likelihood of you getting an offer. Hopefully you will get an honest response, and it might be that "you're low on the waitlist and unlikely to get an answer before April 15" which may not be the answer you want but at least it makes the decision easier. Going back to the decision of offer-in-hand vs. potential-offer-from-waitlist, if you decide that you might want the waitlisted offer more, then have a frank and honest discussion with the POI about your priorities and desires. Keep in mind that this conversation might result in you losing the place in his lab, but if you do nothing, you will lose the place in his lab anyways. The goal is to see if he would be willing to hold your place for a little bit longer (hopefully by now, you've heard from waitlisted school and know how long it might take to hear back from them). Having to choose between offers in hand and potential other offers out there is a fact of life and will be a tough choice you have to make at all future stages of your career, whether it's in academia or outside of academia. And try to see it from the other side: The POI is having the exact same student-in-hand vs other-potential-student dilemma. The POI is definitely very interested in having you join his lab (of course, otherwise why would he make the offer). However, the longer you wait, the less likely he is able to get another similarly good student if you say no. So, when you are asking for an extension, he has to decide whether to grant it to you and risk losing both you and the next student on his list, or he can potentially move onto the second student and get them to commit for sure (maybe the second student has already told him that he/she will commit if an offer is made). Ultimately, remember that you are not the only one trying to find the optimal matchup. If you think you are a strong enough candidate that the POI will wait for you instead of falling onto their "backup" student, then asking for an extension is a good idea. But first try to determine if the waitlisted offer is worth the risk (e.g. if the waitlisted school says they don't expect waitlist offers to be made until on or after April 15, then that seems highly risky!). If so, then you might as well ask for an extension since the worse case of that is the prof saying no and rescinding the offer to join his lab, which is what would happen anyways if you wait too long. Finally, because the POI said "respond ASAP" rather than "respond by [date]", it indicates to me that he might be willing to be a little flexible for now. It might be worth discussing with him how long he is willing to hold your spot in his lab. It might be that there is one spot and two students interested and he's going to say yes to the first student that responds. If this is the case, then it sounds very unlikely that he'll grant an extension and this would be very good information to know since it might inform how you want to proceed.

There are other threads you can search for if you want to find other opinions and maybe hear about differences between fields etc. But it seems like for academic PhD campus visits, "business casual" is a safe bet.

Examples above are good. Here is another simple example: Dear X, Thank you for the opportunity to join the PhD program in your department. After careful consideration, I have decided to accept an offer at [School X] working with [Prof Y] on topic Z. I really enjoyed my visit to your program and I hope to see you and your colleagues at future conferences. Sincerely, Me. Generally, I'd say that you should tell them where you have decided to attend instead (very normal to do in my field, after all, you'll now be junior colleagues to them and they will see you again). You can leave out the Y and/or the Z if you don't know it or don't want to say it. And of course, if you didn't visit, then drop that clause too. But if you haven't decided yet or if you don't want to tell them for whatever reason, then just replace "School X" with "another school". Finally, I don't think you should go on too much about how great you thought their program was nor spend time extolling the virtues of the program you did choose. It could sound like you are either patronizing and/or unfavourably comparing their program to your chosen one. I'd personally choose to just keep it very minimal as the main purpose is to just deliver the message that you appreciated their time but won't be attending.

Fair enough. I should have been more clear but I did mean for the original poster to discuss the lack of documentation with their school and see what the school says, rather than just ignoring the requirements! In the case of my school, the paperwork sent to us left no room to even indicate that they will consider anything but a complete record but if you just call them up and say that you don't have the records, they provide you with tons of options. I didn't know this before starting at my school and I ended up having to pay $150 for a physical exam (in Canada, they are free but they cost money if you need a doctor's report to send to a school or employer). But after starting, I realised that many people who asked the school about the actual requirements, they say that they just want the physical done within a few months of starting and if you wait until you get here, our student insurance plan covers it. Same with the vaccines for this school.

Speak with your doctor to make sure you have the right vaccines and to get the proper vaccines if necessary. Then, basically make up the dates / guess approximate dates corresponding to your kindergarten year and approx month. The school is asking for this information to prove that they did their due diligence in ensuring students are vaccinated so that if an outbreak happens, they don't get sued by parents of a sick student. Note that this is also mostly for undergrads who live in dorms or other close shared quarters on campus. They don't really care for grad students. Also, my grad school asked for these things and if you don't have them, they just encourage you to get them done when you are there. As far as I know, no one was ever forced to get a vaccine. You can sign waivers for some of them too. I found this exercise useful because I would have forgotten that I needed a MMR booster (it needs to be some number of years after my last one and I would have reached that point while in the US so my Canadian health unit may not have been able to reach me to remind me).

Even if they don't mean more money, it means time you don't have to TA instead. Which means more time for your research. Which means you get more stuff done, and more stuff on your CV when you graduate and look for jobs. Compared to RAs, it might also mean more research freedom. It could mean less costs for your supervisor (since they don't have to pay your RAship). This means more money left for them to spend on you on other things, such as paying for supplies to do that experiment you want to do, or sending you to that conference that you want to go to. This all means more things for your CV, more science, more networking, more benefits! The "residual"/"fringe" benefits above are way more impactful than being able to put a line in the CV. The real benefits of fellowships are these bonuses that they enable.

I think you should just let things take their course. I don't think your restated interest in their program will make a difference in the final decision. But one never knows for sure. If you want to write a quick message, it probably won't do any harm. In planetary science, it seems like most often new profs are on admissions or other graduate student related committees. These are the least controversial (i.e. you won't have to be butting heads against established tenured profs about dept policies and most useful to a new prof as they would be seeking students).

This can range very much from school to school and program to program. Even different levels of appointments within the same program. And you may have funding from other sources than TA (e.g. fellowships etc.). I think it is a good idea to say that you are happy to hear the good news and ask if there will be more information about the TA position / funding forthcoming.

The ethical thing to do, if you have already 100% committed to a school, is to accept that offer, decline the rest and cancel the remaining school visits. In turn, the schools should refund the cancellation fee of your flight, but since you get to keep the remaining value of your ticket (usually, depends on the rules of the fare), you generally don't get the rest of the ticket cost refunded (you can use it towards your future trips / the flight you might need to take to move). Schools *should* act in this way because they save a lot more than $500 in terms of all the other costs that have still yet to be applied to your visit (food, hotels, transport, time, etc.) However, if this is a large number of outstanding school visits, then I can see why acting in this most ethical way can end up screwing you over for thousands of dollars (most airline charge $250 per direction cancellation fee, so it's potentially $500 you won't get back per school!). I don't really know how your schools will react. One thing you could try to do is to start with your least favourite school and just be honest: ask them if they would be willing to refund the cancellation fee from the airline if you can no longer attend the visit since you are no longer interested in their program. If you decide to attend visits anyways, then I would still keep an open mind about the programs. But this is something I don't have much experience in. I only visited 3 schools and I didn't make any commitment until after I had seen all three. Perhaps others here can give more insights!

@indigopierogy: Yes, the pod service ships the cube/box/pod/whatever you want to call it for you! To clarify, as @rising_star said, we used a local moving company to load the cube for us in the most recent move. Here's a quick summary of my experience with these moving pods. Things that seem to be common across the two companies we used and the many others we considered/researched: - You pay for the shipment of the pod as well as "rent" for the pod (sometimes this is a separate charge, sometimes not) - Generally, you* load the pod at the pod's depot near your origin city and unload the pod at the pod's depot at your destination city, however, you can often pay more for door-to-door service (they will drop off the pod right at your origin apartment, you load it and then they pick it up after 3 days, then drop it off at your destination apartment, you unload it, and then they pick it up after 3 days). We found this to be more expensive and not practical (not every place has an area where they can just drop off such a pod) - There is often some grace period where you are notified of the pod's arrival in your destination city and you have to come unload it. After this period ends, they will charge you for storage. Alternatively, you can view this as a way to store your belongings for relatively cheap if you aren't moving right away and don't want to keep your old apartment just to store your stuff (it's like $150/month for storage usually). - If you are shipping across international borders, there's a lot of extra paperwork. Be aware! - You can pay for insurance. Usually if you have renter's insurance, it will cover the contents of your pods too, but check your policy. In 2012, we used the U-Haul U-Box pod service to move from eastern Canada to southern California. It was one of the few pod services that was affordable at the time, but it was very new to our origin location. I won't get into the details but there was a huge mixup by the originating U-Haul where we almost did not get a U-Box on the day we were supposed to load it (and the day before we left forever) and their paperwork screwup meant that the estimated delivery time of 2 weeks ended up taking 4 weeks. In addition, back then (maybe even now) U-Haul did not actually ship the box themselves. It was contracted to a third party company and there was no way to contact them. So we had no idea where our stuff was when we were trying to settle into a PhD program. Because all U-Haul locations are independently run, there's almost no contact and very little customer service support from their national hotline. Very stressful. Fortunately, we prepared for this scenario by moving a few necessities including an air mattress which we took with us as checked luggage so we ended up camping in our new apartment for almost a month. The U-Haul centre at our destination could not believe the screw up that happened and rented us a truck and equipment to unload the U-Box at our destination and move into our apartment for free. Their manager even gave us his personal phone number and was trying to figure out where our stuff went on our behalf. Excellent and competent service there, but not much they could do for the screwups of the other location. In the end, we did get everything but this is a HUGE downside to a non-centralized system that U-Haul had (and maybe still has?). The cost for the U-Box service (not counting costs to rent equipment to load it) was about 1900 CAD, which was also around 1900 USD at the time. In 2017, we used ABF U-Pack to move from southern California to western Canada. This was way better than U-Haul. They ship the boxes themselves and you can track the progress of your box with an online dashboard as they drive it on their trucks. They were much more professional and had everything ready for us, unlike U-Haul! Once you load up the truck and sign the forms, they give you a guaranteed delivery time (within some range) and it only took 5 days. You get a 3 day grace period to unload---it actually arrived earlier than we were ready for it (new apartment not yet ready) but they were happy to accommodate. The cost for shipping the U-Pack box was about 1500 USD. We could have paid an extra 150 USD for ABF to deliver the U-Pack box to our origin apartment, however, we had no place to put such a box. Instead, we chose to hire local movers at a cost of 450 USD for 3 hours (minimum 3 hour booking) to move all of our stuff from our apartment, down 2 stories to load up their truck, drive that truck 30 mins away to the ABF depot, and then load up the U-Pack box expertly (they packed things way better than we could have). So, it was really only 300 USD more to use professional movers and it was well worth it for us. The only "catch" was that ABF would only deliver the U-Pack box to their depot on the Canadian side of the border (they don't have a permit to ship in Canada or at least, it might have cost them more and they didn't want to do that). Luckily, we have family near we were moving to, so my family and I rented a U-Haul truck in Canada, drove to the depot, unpacked the box, and moved it to our new place. Could have also hired local movers in this case but we chose not to. We moved ourselves by car. Nice drive up the I-5 It sounds like for your case, hiring local movers at both ends to load/unload the cube would be a great idea, and then just driving your two cars to the new place might work. You could look into shipping your car but those were quite expensive (we considered shipping our car and taking a plane to move ourselves, but it was about $1000 to ship the car and we would be reimbursed for mileage by my employer so we decided to enjoy the road trip).