TakeruK

I don't think professional editing for a grade is always cheating. That is, the reason that I think it should not be done is because the class/department/school policies forbid it. I don't think the act in itself is cheating, if that makes sense? Note: I do think that for most classes, the point of setting writing assignments is to have the student develop and build their writing abilities, so it makes complete sense to forbid editing services (whether it's a professional one or having a friend proof-read it). But in some cases, I can see a scenario where spelling/grammar is not part of the assignment and thus not important so I would not mind if my student uses an editing service (whether it's paid, the campus writing center or a friend/family member reading it over). This would be analogous, in my mind, to allowing the use of calculators when the point of the assignment is not to do arithmetic (or allowing use of Wolfram Alpha to solve integrals when the point of the assignment is not to solve complicated integrals).

When I applied to the UC schools, they were not really concerned about CA residency prior to applying---after all, why limit themselves to just California residents when the best American students will likely be from all over the country? Since an out-of-state student will just cost more for the first year, the question they were concerned with was whether or not you would be able to establish California residency by the start of your 2nd year at the UC school (so if you are starting fall 2016, then what matters is that you are able to claim CA residency by Aug/Sept 2017).

I second rising_star's suggestions. Congratulations! Also, most PIs I know would certainly be upset and sad that one of their students left, but ultimately, the ones that care about their students will be happy that their student is successful. You need to do what's right for you! I also want to say that a leave of absence is a great idea if it's a possibility. My school offers up to 2 years for a leave of absence for things like this (sometimes students leave to start their own company etc.). However, be clear on the terms of the leave---at my school, you are promised admission and funding when you return, but not necessarily a position in the same lab you started in (unless your advisor agrees to it).

I just want to second fuzzy's suggestion that if you are concerned that your partner will plagiarize then when you submit your assignment, or that if you felt the distribution of work in the joint assignment was uneven, then when you hand in your work, you should write your professor that specifies exactly which portions are yours and which are not. Do this before any accusations of plagiarism happen. It's your judgement whether or not you think you have seen your partner do something that would be plagiarism and if you suspect it, then you should follow the procedure for your course/department/school to report it. Also, if you do not think this collaboration is fair for you, you should try to find a different partner next time (or if you are assigned partners, ask your professor for a reassignment).

If you are asking if you can use professional editing services for the courses you are taking, then the only people that can answer that question is the people in charge of your courses, department policies and university policies. Follow the rules and guidelines set by your school, department and instructors. We can't really help you answer that question here!

Thanks for sharing! Indeed, what you said about doing all these little tasks that combine a large number of different skills (e.g. people management, directory structure setup, programming, doing complicated data analysis, presenting and writing papers etc.) are all normal graduate student responsibilities! Research experience is definitely more than just another thing to tick off---it's so valuable in the application process because it shows you have at least experienced (and maybe are also proficient) at some of the key skills required to become a successful researcher

You don't have to fill the entire 1-2 pages if you don't have that much to say. Just say what you have to say. You don't need to limit yourself to things relevant to CS studies because the whole point of this essay is for the school to learn more about you outside of your field of study!

I think it's really useful for graduate students to have their own website. You have so much more control over the design and content than LinkedIn. I do not use LinkedIn at all. My website is the first hit on Google when you search my name plus my field. In my field, this is the most common way to find someone---you want to be able to search their name plus either their school or their field and find more information about them. Maybe you saw their name on a paper, or a poster at a conference, or briefly met them at a talk. Or you heard someone else mention a paper by them and you want to find more information. One thing other users of LinkedIn tells me is that if you are logged into your account and view another person's profile, the other person will know who viewed their profile? Websites are a little more anonymous. But if LinkedIn has all of the information you want to display anyways, then perhaps there is no need to create a separate thing. Other reasons I like hosting my own website instead of going through LinkedIn etc. 1. I can customize the look to be the way I want 2. I own my own data, not hosted through a third party commercial entity. (My website is hosted by my department's servers, so it also looks a little more legit to be a URL like dept.school.edu/~TakeruK) 3. The pages on my site are an intro with my picture and contact info, a page dedicated to explaining my research in accessible terms, a CV page, a bio page and a list of publications (with links to journal websites for my articles). 4. I also use my website to put up a PDF of my poster or some slides from a talk when I'm at a conference in case someone wants to view it more closely (or someone who can't travel wants to see). 5. And I also use the non-public (i.e. linked) parts of my website as a way to upload files for collaborators to download (although I don't do this with confidential or proprietary stuff of course). 6. I don't have this yet, but I know many other people host their codes or other useful science products for the community to use through their website (although nowadays, there are more and more other services such as git). Overall, I also really like having a website because it's a space on the Internet that I can carve out and claim as my own. It's a tiny tiny insignificant part of the Internet for sure, but it's mine!

I missed this earlier---yes, I would say that it's useful to specify which program you are applying to even if all the programs within a department uses the same application. And even if the entire department reviews all applications of all of its programs together. It's helpful for the admissions committee to know which area of the department you are interested in and would fit in. But this doesn't change how the letter is addressed though. The program name is useful for the letter writer to say something like "I am writing in support of AjjA's application to your Molecular Medicine PhD program" etc. and you can refer to it by name in your SOP too. Also helpful for your letter writer to know which program you are interested in so that they can focus your letter towards that.

It seems like you have made some mistakes with regard to proper attribution and citations. That sucks, but it's not the end of the world. I know it sounds scary but the only thing you can do is to come to the meeting with all of the materials you used to prepare for the handout and the presentation. Be prepared to listen and learn about the expectations. It is likely that this will be an educational meeting rather than simply a punishment meeting. You will probably lose points on the assignment and learn more about expectations of your program.

Yikes, I am sorry to hear about that. Finished since April??? I agree with fuzzy that there isn't much you can do now and your LOR should cover the fact that you are finished but are waiting for factors out of your control! To add to fuzzy's suggestion for the future, when my group sends paper drafts, we always specify a timeline and say something like "no response will be interpreted as silent acceptance". I guess this is a difference between fields, because we usually give authors about 2 weeks for a response, depending on the paper's length and whether or not we have sent earlier drafts. We often send one draft when it is about 80% complete in case any coauthors want us to include/exclude certain data or to add/remove certain techniques. Edited to add a clarification: Along with the time limit, we also say that if anyone who wants to comment but would need more than 2 weeks, to please let us know so we can accommodate them. I'm happy to wait 3-4 weeks for some good comments, but don't want to wait not knowing if anything will actually come!

I'm not sure why you need to worry about how your recommender will write the address, it's up to them. I also really do not think the address matters at all.

I gave my recommenders the name of the school, the department/division that administers the program, and the name of the program itself. I used the name of the official program name, i.e. what my degree would say (in my case, it would say PhD Planetary Science). Usually the official department/division website will list the program's official name (and degree requirements) but you can also check the course catalog (or "Calendar" in Canadian schools) as well. In your example, based on the information here, I would check the program requirements. I think Immunology and Genetics are two example subfields of Biological and Biomedical Science, right? If your school offers distinct PhD programs in Immunology and Genetics separately, then I would be sure to indicate this difference. One thing you can check for is the degree requirements for someone in Immunology vs Genetics. If they are different (i.e. different required courses etc.) then I would differentiate them. In my example, I am part of an earth science department, and my program is Planetary Science. Although other programs in my department (e.g. Geochemistry) follows similar degree structures (we have the same timeline and procedures for our qualifying, candidacy and thesis defense exams), our course requirements (both content and number of courses) are different. So I made sure to specify to my recommenders that I am applying to the Planetary Science program. I wouldn't worry about telling the recommender what to use though. I simply provided all the necessary information and you can trust that your letter writer knows what to do with it and how to properly address the letter etc. according to the norms of your field. Note: Even though a single department might administer several degree programs, admissions committees may be composed of people across multiple programs. At my current program, my earth science department administers 6 different PhD programs but the cohort of students are considered together as a whole by a committee composed of professors in all 6 PhD programs. (There are also no quotas on each PhD program either, so cohorts for a particular program can vary between 0 and 8 new students but the long term average works out).

These would all be warning signs for me too that the lab's culture is not a good fit with my personality. However, this is why you have rotations right? My advice would be to work hard through the rest of the rotation. Do you have your next rotation set up? If not, I would invest a bit of time talking to students and trying to find a lab with a culture very different from this one. My personal preference is that i place a lot more value on lab*/PI fit than research fit---I'd gladly change my topic to be in a better work environment (*note: I'm not in a bench science, so "lab" to me would be a "research group"). If you do have a rotation set up already, does your program do 2 or 3 rotations? Or more? Try to make sure you get at least one rotation that is significantly different to this one. You should try a wide range of lab environments to see what you like best (after all, maybe despite these hesitations, this might still be the best lab for you but you won't know if you don't try something way different). One question: The students I know in bench sciences with rotations on my campus don't generally feel like they need to decide within the first few weeks of their rotation whether or not they must commit he rest of the year preparing for this to be their "chosen lab". Many of them say they do not think about any commitment until the end of the first academic year (3 rotations) unless they find a rotation that is just so amazing they know it's "the one". In my opinion and based on the above, unless there is some other factor that is making you rush, I don't really see the point in deciding now that you will prepare for becoming a grad student in this lab. Why not wait until you've experienced all the rotations (i.e. at least a few weeks into your last rotation) and then decide? Even if this means you are a few months behind in your preparation, it's better to be a few months behind than to commit the next 5 years in a lab environment you hate.

Cool I think that birth certificate is all you need to prove citizenship for domestic tuition so you really don't have anything to worry about anymore!

Although it sounds like we all know the common definitions for resume and CV and the differences, I think it is still worth clarifying to the school what they are asking for. Sometimes, people use CV and resume interchangeably. So, I think you should just ask if there is a page limit on the resume document and make sure whatever you submit follows those guidelines.

Yes you should clarify this. I don't think graduating early would be a boost, but that's just information based on my field.

If you "waive your right", what you are actually doing is waiving your FERPA rights to view the letter if the letter would be part of your student record. FERPA grants you the right to request to view your student record. You are not waiving any other rights to that letter (e.g. your letter writer can choose to show you the letter, or the school can even choose to show you or you might find some other way to request access to the letter). All you are you doing is waiving the right to view your letter through the rights granted by FERPA.

Unless the school states that there is a rolling deadline, or that priority will be given to applications by a certain date, then the actual time you submit your application should not matter at all. For all of my applications, I submitted as close to the deadline as possible because I had so many other things to do that I sometimes could not find time to do that last tweak on my application until the week of the deadline. Also, there was a paper that I was waiting for a decision to update my application! In most cases, I submitted within 48 hours of the deadline (tried to avoid the day of the deadline just in case Murphy's law kicks in and my internet or the school's system goes down etc.) There is no application-specific advantage to submitting early. But if you are the type of person that likes to get it out of the way and if it will help your mental health, you don't need to feel like you have to hang onto it until the last minute either!

Probably yes. Talk to your school with the deadlines prior to early December. In 2011, I took the subject test in mid-November and got the scores in mid-December, which means all of my schools with deadlines prior to Dec 12 received my scores after the deadline. When I talked to each one of them, they were fine with receiving a delayed score. They all told me that they don't start receiving files until January anyways---December is just used for them to compile all of the files for the admissions committee to review.

You are still a Canadian citizen. Just because you have an expired passport does not mean you lose your Canadian citizenship! It would be a good idea to be able to prove Canadian citizenship prior to starting your Canadian graduate program so that you are charged the appropriate tuition rate. I am not sure what the rules are exactly (i.e. at which date must you be able to provide this documentation to qualify for the domestic tuition rate). You can check with the school for details. NOTE: Before reading further, remember I am a stranger on the Internet, not a lawyer or any sort of expert. So please read this suggestion and decide what is best for you, consulting experts if necessary. That said, I think the most straight forward path to take is to apply for a new Canadian passport while in the United States. I am assuming you cannot just renew your passport because of the name change. But I think you already do not qualify for a renewal because it sounds like your passport is expired for more than 1 year. And, also if your last Canadian passport was issued before you were 16 years of age, you also cannot renew. Therefore, you will have to apply for a brand new passport. I suggest a passport because it's one of the easiest ways to prove Canadian citizenship. To start the new passport application process, go here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/passport/apply/new/apply-how.asp You will have to apply by mail and you will have to provide proof of citizenship (I am assuming you were either born in Canada or had Canadian parents, so you need to document that). You also need to provide proof of your legal name change, which should not be a problem. An alternate route to applying by mail would be to physically enter Canada (use your US passport) and then apply for a Canadian passport while in Canada. The disadvantage is that you will have to travel. But the advantage is that if there are issues with your documents, you will get it sorted out immediately at the Passport Canada office, instead of you sending in things, it getting rejected and sent back, then you re-sending everything again etc. (plus less likely to lose things by mail). Note that Canadian passport photos are a different dimension and have different rules than US passport photos. When you get your photos taken (if in the US), make sure you print out the page with the passport photo guidelines and ensure they follow it. Finally, one thing you have to decide is when to apply for that Canadian passport. You could wait until you decide to accept a Canadian school's offer. Or you can even wait until you arrive in Canada for school (again, depends on when you need to prove citizenship for domestic tuition rates). In either case, when you do apply though, you should say yes, you are a Canadian citizen because you are a citizen!

Although there may be some weird field-dependent thing going on, I'm going to assume that the answer in Philosophy would not be different from another field. In your World A and World B examples, I do not think you would be at any inherent disadvantage in World A. Given that there are a lot of applicants to each program, I'd consider these two potential scenarios that might happen in World A: A1: The committee next year does not remember you so this is effectively World B. They might not remember you because there are way too many applications each year. Or, maybe the committee is different this year than last year. Or, maybe the committee's first pass at applications is to divide all of them across the X subcommittees and only those that make it through the first pass gets considered by the whole committee, and this year, your application goes to a different subcommittee. Or some other variant. A2: Your application is remembered from last year. Maybe this is because you were a close decision and they agonized between you and another candidate. In this case, they will certainly be looking for differences. In your example Worlds, you say you have noticeably improved materials, so you should not be at a disadvantage in World A. Sure, there could be other scenarios such as a committee mis-remembering who you are, or not actually reading your whole application and thus missing the improvements, but screwups like this can happen even in World B.

ashiepoo72 gave great advice. I'll just touch on one additional point. In your post title, you say "suspended from ... masters degree". I would choose my words carefully here. I know that technically, the word "suspended" could just mean that you delayed your studies by a year. However, in North America, in the context of school, "suspension" has the connotation of a disciplinary action and that your school required you to take time away because you did something bad. This was what I was expecting to read when I clicked on your post, but your writing states that you chose to take an extra year for personal reasons. So because of this connotation, when you do briefly mention this (as ashiepoo72 suggested), be sure to not use the word "suspended" or "suspension" or anything like that. Make it clear that you chose to take the time off for personal reasons and that is completely fine.

Yeah, three years is great! But it's not a huge difference than the current OPT period (right now, it's 12+17 months = 29 months). So the net difference is +7 months. We'll definitely find out more soon. This DHS proposed change has been known for a long time now. But as I said above, laws can change with changing governments, so no matter what the outcome of this DHS decision, it should not play a factor in your graduate school choice. Maybe it's more important if you are planning to stop at a Masters (not sure of your plans), but if you are here for a PhD, 5-7 years is a long time and OPT might change again by then. Or maybe not. I am actually on J-1 status, not F-1 so OPT doesn't even apply to me. Instead, J-1 graduates can choose "Academic Training" (AT) and for postdoc positions, AT can be as long as 36 months. So I am hoping my F-1 friends will soon enjoy the same benefits I also want to say that I followed the philosophy of "a lot can happen in X years" when making my plans too. The reason I chose J-1 was that my spouse is with me and as a J-2, she will be able to get work authorization and work, while a F-2 dependent cannot do this. The drawback of J-1 status is that after my J-1 status expires, I must return to Canada for 2 years before I can get another US visa (however, not clear if another J-1 is possible). However, a 5 year PhD + 3 year Academic Training means that it would be something like 8 years before I have to deal with the consequences of the J-1 home residency requirement. At this point, it's still 4+ years away. Who knows what will happen by then. I chose to have 8 years of job security for both of us now than to worry about what we will do with the home residency requirement later. I think for you, the same should apply---you'll get much more benefit from picking the best program for you now than to worry about whether or not you can do OPT in the United States after graduation (don't forget, there are other options to work in the US besides OPT).

You can do whatever you want for a SOP, it's your personal touch to the application. I don't think you need to worry about things like being auto-rejected if you don't do everything exactly one certain way. Have you asked why your proof readers are wary of your anecdote? My personal preference is to start a SOP or similar document by getting right to the point. Say what you are here for and what you want to do. I don't think you need to say why you are interested in your field, unless you have a really interesting or compelling story. For most people, it's something boring though! In general, I don't think anecdotes are always bad. But there are two major disadvantages: 1. They often run too long and detract from the main idea of the essay (I've seen SOPs where a good 1/3 of the essay is the anecdote, and I'm left wondering "where's the content?") 2. They might not be as compelling or interesting as you think and just delays the reader from getting to the part that they actually care about. So it's up to you to decide whether the advantages are worth it