TakeruK

Firstly, I am assuming you are also a graduate student right? And that your TA work is how you are funded? Usually my advice is that we want to emphasize ourselves as scholars and researchers, not (just) TAs. So I would actually advise you to leave the TA part out and replace it with "PhD Student", "MA Student", "PhD Candidate" or whatever title best describes you! Personally, I advocate strongly for context-specific signatures! I would only include my TA role/position when I am writing an email where I think it's important to clarify my role. For example, if I was a TA for a class with hundreds of students, multiple TAs and maybe even multiple faculty members, I might write it as Name Phys 101 TA, Section B Office, Office Hours M 4pm-5pm I also personally choose to only include my formal email signature on the most formal of emails. I don't have a default signature set in Gmail and I just type it out each time I need to include it. I work in a very small department (and my classes are tiny: 3-4 students is the norm) so in practice, I almost always sign my email with just my first name.

Yes, this is a normal thing to ask for

I think rising_star and I gave two different approaches to school selection. One thing we both pointed out is that lower ranked school doesn't always correspond to a more likely positive outcome for both of you. In addition to what was already said, I would also wonder whether or not starting all over again at a low ranked school is going to make much of a difference in the long run. I think you really have to evaluate the value of spending another 4-6 years in order to get e.g. a ranked 100 school PhD, or just finishing up your PhDs where you are now (it sounds like your wife is very close to finishing). Given that your current program is not a good fit at all, I am sure that moving to a different one will be an improvement. But as I said, is it an improvement that's worth 4-6 years of your lives? What are your long term career goals? Is moving the best way to achieve this? Or can you achieve this even with PhDs where you are now? Can the schools on your list lead you to what you want in the long run, or would it be just as hard to enter whatever career you want with a degree from e.g Oregon State as it is with your current school? I don't think 20 schools is an unreasonable number to apply to if you have the so called "two body problem" and also the complication of quitting. In physics, most "traditional" students straight out of undergrad hoping to solve the "two body problem" routinely apply to 15+ schools, so for our field, I don't think 20 is that much of an outlier. However, going back to the point above, make sure that the 20 schools you do apply to will actually help you achieve your career goals. That is, applying to 20 carefully selected programs is fine, but just applying to 20 programs at random will probably not get you the result you want. Unfortunately, I am not knowledgeable enough in US school names to tell you where to apply to. And finally, about applying to multiple schools in the same city (as rising_star suggested also): you said that it's tough to find cities with schools of similar ranks. However, have you two talked about or considered what would happen if you got into schools of different tiers/rankings? Just to use example numbers, I think it would still be worth it for both of you to apply to schools in the same city that might be ranked, say, 60th and 80th. Both of you should apply to both the rank-60 and rank-80 school and if only one of you gets into the rank-60 school and the other into the rank-80 school, you at least have that option. But this also depends a lot on what your priorities are, both in terms of your individual career goals but also your long term non-academic plans. For most academic couples I know (generally in the postdoc/faculty job phase), the couple will either choose a long distance relationship to give each partner the best opportunity possible, or the partner with the best offer on the table goes to that institution and the other partner gets whatever they can find as close to it as possible. The best option for you two of course is a very personal decision. But I think you should have that discussion (if you haven't already) before making this list of 20 schools.

I think it is great that both of you have finished your qualifying exams at your current school. That will certainly count for you. However, as you mentioned, I also think that the fact that you have been in grad school for 5 years now will count against you. If you two are to start a new PhD program, it would be another 4-6 years and some schools might wonder why your spouse would not just finish her PhD at the current school and why you did not stay and complete your own PhD. That is, I do think "quitting" a current grad school will count against you and but also that you both stayed at this school for so long (both of you quitting right after your Masters would be a bit different). But it sounds like there are severe issues with the current graduate program that is prompting you both to leave! One thing that can really help your application would be the strength of your LORs from your current program. Since it sounds like there are issues, this might be tricky, but I think securing 3 really strong LORs will make all of the difference in this case. As you say, you want to show that what happened at this school won't happen at the next school and if you can get this idea confirmed in the LORs, this would be very important. I think it is a very very good idea to apply to a large number of schools when you are trying to get two people to the same place. One word of warning though, smaller programs might have fewer spots for students, so it might be difficult for them to admit two people both in AMO. Also, you are both "risky" because of your history, so a school might be hesitant to admit two students that are "risky". So my main advice would be to be a little bit more flexible and strategic when choosing your school locations. I must admit, I am not familiar with US schools so I do not know where all 17 schools on your list are. But, if all 17 schools are in 17 different cities, then this makes it harder. Instead, maybe you want to consider picking some cities with more than one school and then applying to all of the schools within that city. That way, you can get admitted to different schools but still be in the same city. This will greatly increase the odds that you are both accepted into a graduate program and that you are both living in the same city.

I think the solution presented in the video is the "best" solution. I can't think of another solution that does not use the so-called "30-60-90 special triangle". I was experimenting with another method and got the answer (C) but I found that I made a mistake in the early logic, so it sounds like this question was designed to catch silly mistakes like the one I made! I think the 30-60-90 triangle approach is the best approach because it's one of the skills listed by ETS as essential for the GRE Q. Also, I think you are better off learning this approach rather than some method that would only work for this one question, because the 30-60-90 triangle will be used for a lot of other questions too. However, I can offer an alternate explanation of the exact same method used in the video. Sometimes it might help to hear another way of explaining it? I don't think any particular way is superior, just different: In the video, go to the 0:52 mark (everything up to this point would be the same). The video goes on to talk about an "enlargement factor". If this confuses you, here's another way to look at it: (note this is using the exact same mathematical method, just with different words) 1. Because both the ABC triangle (left) and the "base 30-60-90 triangle" (right) all have the same three angles, that is 30, 60 and 90, this means that the sides in the ABC triangle are proportional to each other. (You may recall that this is a AAA similar triangle, if that helps, but if that doesn't mean anything to you, then it's also not a problem). 2. You can now "match up" the corresponding sides between the two triangles like so: h / SQRT(3) = 12 / 2 What happened here was that I first picked the value I want to solve for, which is "h". Then I found the corresponding side in the "base triangle" (on the right). Since "h" is the side that is opposite to the 60 degree angle in the left triangle, the corresponding side in the "base triangle" (on the right) is SQRT(3), i.e. the one opposite to the 60 degree angle. Then, I write this as a proportionality: h / SQRT(3) Next, I matched up the other known side of the left triangle, which is 12, the side opposite the 90 degree angle. The corresponding side in the base triangle has length 2. So on the right hand side of the equality, I put 12 / 2. 3. Now, I can solve h / SQRT(3) = 12/2 for h by multiplying both sides by SQRT(3) and I get: h = 12/2 * SQRT (3) which is the same as h = 6 * SQRT(3) since 12/2 = 6. Now the rest of the solution is the same. Again, this is the exact same method as the video! Just another way to say the same things. For questions that require comparing to the base 30-60-90 triangle, I prefer matching up the sides with fractions and solving for the unknown side as above.

Hi there! I am a Canadian on J-1 and my wife and I have left the United States and returned on multiple occasions now over the last 3 years. I'll answer your questions in order. However, note that I am not an expert and I'm passing on information that my own school's international program / my experience have taught me. My own program always says that the only person responsible for maintaining legal status is yourself, so please take these as suggestions on how you want to interpret the laws. 1. Your DS-2019 should already have been signed by your responsible officer. My school tells us that the first signature is also a "travel signature" and is valid for 1 year. The whole purpose of the "travel signature" is that someone responsible for your SEVIS record attests that, within the past year, you are still in good standing. You entered the US for the first time with just that original signature! 2. Although in theory, travel to Canada or Mexico for less than 30 days usually is allowed without issuing a new I-94 etc., this is rarely put into practice. I also think that this only applies to nationals of countries other than Canada or Mexico. As a Canadian, you will definitely want to properly document that you left the US for those days and returned. Keep good track of the exact dates you enter and exit the US from now on because you will need them for certain things later (e.g. filing US taxes). 3. Even if you don't have a valid travel signature, it is possible to re-enter the US without a valid travel signature. Of course, this is not the recommend route, but again, since DS-2019s for PhD students are issued with a long validity period, the only purpose of this signature is to show that this potentially old document is up to date. Even if you meet all of the requirements, it is always at the discretion of the border agent whether or not to admit you to the United States. This is what my school has to say about traveling without a valid travel signature: 4. I'm surprised that you still got a paper I-94 stapled into your passport when you entered the US this year. It sounded like you entered via a land crossing which might have not yet switched to electronic I-94s. I got a paper one back in 2012 when I first entered but ever since 2013, I've only got electronic I-94s. With an electronic I-94, whenever you leave the country with your passport, they will know and record it for you. You can download a copy of your I-94 after you re-enter the US. As I said above, sometimes airlines or border agents do not remove your I-94 when you enter Canada for less than 30 days. However, when you re-enter the US, yes, you will have to go through the whole process again. There is no difference between the first entry or a re-entry as a F-1 or J-1 (and F-2/J-2). You might get fewer questions since in theory, the first person would have already verified all of your documents, but this is hard to gauge since every border agent is different and the amount of questions you get seems to be both random and dependent on the mood of your border agent. The process did not take 45 minutes for me though, for the entry and all re-entries, my interaction with the border agent lasted about 5 minutes (however, waiting in line certainly took awhile, but that depends on how busy the crossing was). One thing that would be faster though, is that if you had all of your things with you the first time, customs should be a lot faster with a lot fewer things to declare! Finally, just a note: I have never crossed the border on J-1 status on a bus before. If you have another form of transportation (e.g. a car), I would highly recommend that over the bus. They will have to review your DS-2019 again and stamp another stamp into your passport, so it's not just a matter of quickly checking everyone's passports on the bus and waving them through. I'm not sure what the bus company's policies are on how long they are willing to wait for you (I'm assuming that the bus company expects some people to need extra screening!) Anyways, hope that is helpful!

I also echo everyone's suggestion of requesting a leave of absence. At my school, your situation certainly qualifies for a leave of absence. I hope the following thoughts are helpful: 1. Go to the right people for help on obtaining this leave of absence. This means going right to the people who have the authority to issue the leave of absence. At my school**, this means going to the Dean of Graduate Studies office (and their admin staff), not the program admin staff. The program admin staff are probably awesome and amazing, but at most schools, this is way outside of their jurisdiction. You will get much more support and useful action from those who are trained to work with students through these situations. (**Note: policies may vary between schools, but in most cases I've seen, the ultimate authority is the Graduate Office even if the department chair also needs to sign off on it) 2. The Graduate Studies office should help you navigate the school handbooks and policies. Usually the program will have to approve or sign off on the leave of absence in addition to University/Grad Office approval. The Grad Office should also help you figure out how to frame this request for a leave of absence to your department/program. The program should not be asking probing questions and you should only need to reveal whatever personal details you want. I find that it's more comforting, to me, to talk about the personal details / family situations with someone who I do not directly work for or work with, so I would always go to the Graduate Office first, find out what the options are, get whatever approvals from them, and then with their help, decide how to frame this when bringing it up to my department. At this point, we would have developed a strategy and know ahead of time how much information I would want to reveal. 3. Ultimately, the leave of absence policy is there to help students like you. There should not be a "burden of proof" on you to show that you "need" it. You should be able to take the leave if you feel you need it! 4. If the Graduate Office at your school is not supportive, you could also consider your student government as an advocate. 5. I understand that you are very frustrated with your first year at Graduate School and it might sound like by suggesting a leave of absence, we are saying you should still stay and give it a shot. I want to clarify that I don't think this is the case. You definitely should leave and drop out if you feel that is the best thing for you. It is not a failure to do so and in fact, you would be much worse off if you stick through a PhD program just because you didn't want to drop out. But think about a leave of absence as just keeping options open. Taking a leave doesn't mean that you necessarily have to come back. It might be worth the little extra effort to get a leave approved and then once the leave is finished, you can decide what you want to do. At my school, leave of absences are granted for up to 2 years. So, if you were a student here, I would think it's better to take the leave, be with your family and take care of other priorities for two years, and then re-evaluate your situation. If you want to come back after 2 years, then grad school will be waiting for you. If you are happier not returning, then there is no pressure to return. It sounds like you want to get out of grad school right now so I just want to say again: Applying for a leave of absence does not mean that you are "keeping yourself in grad school". It's a leave, so you can leave all of that behind and focus on other priorities in life during your leave!

I also do not think it is "uncool". The approach of the moderating team in this community is to let discussions express the diverse experience and background of our users. We don't intervene except when users post against our forum policies. Usually, we only have to take action where there is harassment or advertising/spam. I also agree with Eigen that the most important part of grad school preparation is the research of programs and that is something I feel that the student must do herself. I think a parent could certainly be a good consultant, but the student must really make time to do this work herself. Yes, the current studies are important, however, one needs to plan for the future as well as "live in the present". I think one common thing that happens to both college students and grad students is that in our 2nd and 3rd year of the degree, we settle into a routine and we are secure in the sense that we know where we will be for the next year at least, so we just focus on the priorities that are happening now. However, as we near the end of the degree, we really have to take a step back and balance the immediate priorities (that assignment, that term paper) with long term goals (that grad school application, that GRE test). Welcome to TheGradCafe! I hope you will enjoy being part of the discussions here. The only difference between you and a lot of other users here is that most discussions asking for advice / feedback here are initiated by the person seeking help themselves. It could be a little weird/awkward if you were to ask for advice on behalf of your daughter for example, because there will be an intermediary. This is not because you're a parent, this happens when someone is "asking for a friend" too. It's harder to give advice when you know that the information you are receiving is interpreted and repeated by a third party instead of a direct source.

I would definitely pick option #1 for sure as your second letter. For your third letter, it's a close call between options 2 and 3. I think I would slightly prefer option 2 unless you feel that the content of Option 3's letter would be significantly better than option 2 (it might, since it sounds like your project really impressed this person). However, option 3 may not have a ton of experience supervising students because you say they are a lecturer rather than a professor. However, if this person is very experienced and have supervised many other students too, then this could be a better choice. Just my thoughts though--I think both #2 and #3 are great options.

I don't think you need to worry about this. The point of a graduate program is to train you to become a strong independent researcher and it is during grad school that you develop the ability to write papers that are deep. Since this sounds like work from your undergraduate years, no one will fault you for writing a paper that is not as good as a paper from a grad student/professor. After all, if you are already able to do this, then you don't really need grad school. It might be different in other fields, but generally in the sciences, incoming graduate students aren't expected to come in already trained to write academically. This is part of our graduate training. Also, you may be too hard on yourself. Maybe the writing and paper isn't as bad as you think. After all, the professor was willing to put their name on it. I'm not saying that people never put their name on work that they aren't proud of, but we also have to remember that as students, we are still trainees and we should give our mentors the benefit of the doubt sometimes. But of course, since I don't know the details, I can't really make a judgement and I don't intend for this to be one, just playing "devil's advocate" so to speak. And finally, to continue playing devil's advocate, it might also be possible that you have an idealized sense of what should go into a scientific paper. Maybe I am out of line here and you have way more experience than a typical grad school applicant, but I just want to provide some ideas to provoke thought (and it might help another person reading this). I feel that many undergraduate students, myself included, have an idealized view on what the paper writing process is like until we go through it a couple of times ourselves. The real process is a lot less pretty and neat! One of the first biggest things I learned when writing papers was to properly define its scope. A paper does not have to cover every little detail or nuance. You may consider this not deep, but in the reality of the academic world, there are very real deadlines on getting publications out. You don't want to publish completely wrong things or utter crap, but once you have a fully formed idea and some analysis, it needs to go out the door! In some sense, it's quantity over quality. There are also other good reasons to do this. Science is about communicating ideas. It's no good to hold onto your data or your studies/analyses until you figure out every single nuance. You're holding onto valuable and useful knowledge that can advance your field. Usually, the standard protocol in my field is to publish as soon as you have a single coherent idea with a well-defined scope. If you can provide an new answer or insight to a single scientific question (even if that answer comes with a bunch of conditions), that is generally the time to write it up and publish. As you find more answers that cover other areas of scope (maybe a different set of conditions), then they can be published as follow-up papers. I'm simplifying here, of course, because depending on the significance of your result, you might just first publish one answer under one set of conditions, or compare several possible answers under multiple conditions. The main "trouble" with research is that we are trying to seek answers that are just beyond the edge of current knowledge. There's a lot we don't know so we can be searching forever. One of the hardest parts about writing, in my opinion, is knowing when to stop looking and communicate our results. This comes with experience which is why I would generally say we should follow our advisor's lead on this (except in scenarios where there are clear ethical breaches of course).

I also do not think this should be a problem.

Maybe this is a difference in field, but this information would certainly be redundant to the CV. In my CV, I list all of my previous research projects, under "Research experience" with the title of the project, supervisor, location, and a short description of what I worked on. It only takes up one page on my CV, not four though, but maybe this is because you have a lot more experience, or maybe because I summarized my experience really concisely (5-6 lines total per project). I feel that any more information beyond the 6 lines would be unnecessary information to have on a CV or anywhere else (except for the schools that specifically ask for this information, as NYU did for you, of course). I did not include outcomes like publications in this section though, because I have a separate CV section for publications. Also, sometimes I worked on a series of small research projects so instead of counting them as separate projects, I just grouped similar projects together into one appointed position. For example, my undergrad thesis work was actually 3 separate projects but with a common theme, so I list it in my CV as one single entry as an "Undergrad Student Researcher with Prof X" and summarized my work for all 3 projects together. To answer your question about the other schools, I think you should find a way to communicate your past research experience in a clear and concise way through your CV. Maybe 4 pages is pushing it so maybe you can find a way to condense the information (or remove less relevant projects?). That is, if NYU is the only school that is asking about research experience, I think it would be worth the time to work this information into your CVs for other schools (as long as you don't make it crazy long!). However, I'll give this advice with the caveat that the norms in your field may be different!

Yes, even if they were your direct supervisor. When an undergraduate asks me for a LOR (as their TA or their direct research supervisor), I always tell them that if they absolutely have no other options, I would write one for them rather than leave them without an LOR, but I always strongly suggest they ask my own supervisor for the letter instead (either the professor of the course I'm TAing for, or the PI of the research group I'm working for). If the student is unsure about asking the supervisor because they have had less contact, I'd offer to either let the prof know that a request is coming, or even come along in a meeting between the student, prof and me. And when it comes to generating content for the letter, the professor will certainly talk to the grad student in order to make sure the LOR contains all of the great things the student has done. Ultimately, the content will be the similar but it will carry a lot more weight with the prof's signature (and also the prof can probably offer a lot more insight than a grad student can).

I'm sorry to hear this happened to you! If you are still able to access on-campus resources, would your school be able to offer any advice? Here are my thoughts, but this is coming from someone without the same experience as you. I hope it helps you decide what is best for you! I think something should be mentioned because your junior/senior GPA is a lot different than your GPA in the first two years. I think that if you don't mention anything at all, your GPA shows a downward trend, which is not a good thing. I think this would have a place in your SOP. However, I still don't think that you "must" mention it. Your overall GPA is still a decent GPA and if you prefer to not discuss this, I don't think you have to! But assuming that you do want to discuss it: The amount of detail provided depends on what you are comfortable disclosing. You don't want to take the focus of the SOP away from your academic accomplishments so I feel that what you wrote here would be the most detail you would provide. (In fact, I think some version of your 2nd paragraph here would fit into a SOP). However, it is also fine to make it more vague if you would prefer. You can still use the 2nd paragraph of your post here, just replace the third sentence with something less detailed. But, in my opinion, I don't think it would be an "empty excuse" if you left out the details. That is, I don't think you need to feel that you have to specify that it was sexual assault. I'm just saying that you should write what you want people to know. If you prefer to leave out the details, that's fine. If you want to say what it is, and feel uncomfortable with the vague version, then write what it is. There are also two other approaches that you may want to consider: Many applications have a final page that either has an input text box or a place to upload an additional file with any other additional notes you might want to add. If you feel more comfortable writing about this in this area instead of your SOP, this is an option. Also, sometimes people prefer to have their LOR writers bring up the issue. If you choose this route, you can be vague in your SOP or leave it out altogether. Hope this was helpful to think about! And I hope you get additional thoughts from others here too!

This depends a ton on what your target goals are and where you are currently at. I think it would be a really good idea to take a practice exam now (you can find practice exams for free all over the internet, and also from the ETS* website, or you can purchase them from GRE prep companies) and see what you would score if you took it right now. For some people, only a few hours of studying is needed to get to where they want (usually just to get used to the test format and understanding what ETS wants from you!). For others, months of studying is required. Sorry that there is no clear answer, but so much of it depends on each person! *ETS = the company that creates the GRE

I didn't think you were purposely trying to cause any harm by that statement, which was why I just wrote a gentle reminder! However, I think many of us, sometimes myself included, make these casual assumptions that don't really contribute to our goal of an equitable environment. So I think it's something worth pointing out when I see it. To get back to your question, if you are just trying to find out, in general, "Does program X plan to take students for Spring 2016?", I agree that rising_star's suggestion of the Director of Graduate Studies is probably the best faculty member to contact, rather than the department head. Other people you can contact are people with titles that might sound like "Graduate Coordinator", "Admissions Assistant", "Academic Assistant", etc. Depending on each school, sometimes they are faculty and sometimes they are administrative staff. It doesn't matter though because they both should be able to answer your question. I don't think it's "too bold/direct" to ask a faculty member vs. the office staff member as both will be very busy, however, questions like this are part of both the faculty member's and the office staff member's job. If the first person you contact doesn't respond, then try another person with a similar sounding title. You will probably get one of three replies: "Yes, we will consider applications for Spring 2016", "Although we do consider applications, spots are very limited" or "No, please apply for Fall 2016". If it's one of the first two, I think it's probably a good idea to contact individual professors you are interested in as well. Find out if these professors themselves have spots open and/or are interested in taking a student in Spring. Most programs do not admit very many (if any) students in Spring, so I would want to know if my professors of interest are admitting students, not just that the department will admit some students.

Fair enough but perhaps I didn't pick the best example to show without context! In my understanding, exacerbate is supposed to mean "make [something bad] worse" but, in my opinion, it should only be used when it's already established that the "something bad" is bad. For example, "I missed the bus by 5 seconds. The fact that it just started raining only exacerbated the situation". In the example I was thinking of, the authors attempt to describe the atmosphere contents of a planet using a model that they compare to the data. They say that the potential existence of clouds exacerbated the quality of the fit of their model to the data. However, prior to this, they did not mention any existing problem with their model fit and the figure they refer to with this statement actually looks like a good fit, except for one small area. They are focusing on this area as it was an important area, however, this was not stated. So, I was a bit confused when I first read this sentence because "exacerbate" implied that the fit was bad, but at first glance, the data looked good. I had to look up "exacerbate" in order to be sure I didn't misremember the meaning. I felt like the use of "exacerbate", while correct, makes the reader take two steps in logic with just one sentence. The reader has to first realise that the authors are saying the fit is currently bad and then realise that clouds made things even worse. But if the authors had used "made worse" instead of "exacerbate" then it would be clear right away that both the fit is bad and clouds made things worse. I try to keep my scientific writing at a more accessible level of English because although "English is the language of science (or at least my field)", I think that's a little unfair. I would want our field to write in a way that is as accessible to as many non-English speakers as possible. I think the above use of "exacerbate" did not achieve this and for a reader who is unfamiliar with that word, the reader might miss the authors' point completely (because at first glance, it didn't look like a bad fit). I usually aim for high school English level of writing, and I avoid using idioms. So I do agree with you that words like exacerbate (or any word really) does have it uses. My main gripe with words like this is when people use the more advanced version when the simpler version will also work (and has more clarity). I think that in some situations, the more precise meaning of a more "advanced" word is necessary and the author should use it. Thus, I still use a lot of scientific jargon in my writing because these are words anyone studying the field (whether or not they are a fluent English speaker). And jargon is invented/used because the precise meaning of the word in a scientific context is required!

I wrote my test before the ScoreSelect system but something similar to Jay's Brain happened to me. In the old system, you can select whether or not the school sees all of your General GRE scores only, all of your Subject GRE scores only, or all of your General & Subject scores. For one school, there was a problem in submitting the GRE score (I had the wrong institution number) and instead of making me pay for another score report, they said that for decision-making purposes, they will accept the printout as Jay's Brain described. However, my problem was that I didn't want to submit my Subject GRE scores to this school (they were optional and my scores weren't great). So what I did was scan the PDF, edit it to block out the Subject scores (as well as information on what other schools received my scores, as that appears on my copy of the score report). I made it obvious that I blocked it out (to be clear that I haven't "doctored" the scores) and wrote a note on the scanned PDF that I blocked out "non-essential information". So, unless the whole purpose of the school's request was to circumvent ScoreSelect (which I think is a bad thing to do), the school should be okay with this.

1. No, unless the applications state otherwise, you do not get your money back if there is no space. 2. Yes, you should ask the professors you are interested in and/or the department head, but only after checking the website to ensure the information isn't already there. 3. Generally, not a good idea to assume that the admin staff are "office ladies". 4. You should also contact the schools for information on fee waivers if the cost of the application is a concern for you.

I am sad to hear that you got such bad advice from your career support center. No, asking or receiving a fee waiver will not negatively impact your admission chances. The whole point of a school offering a fee waiver is because they want excellent students who cannot afford the high fees to apply. It's an application incentive, not a punishment! If they are going to use fee waivers as a way to encourage applicants but at the same time, hold it against you, that would be incredibly silly! At my school, we are very supportive about granting fee waivers. You can get fee waivers for tons of different reasons, including yours. Most schools make basically zero money on application fees--it's not really a source of income. I'm at a top 10 school and I know that many people who might be very good are hesitant to apply here because to be honest, even if you are a great student, the chances of getting into any particular top program is low. So, some very intelligent and bright students who are first gen students and/or have supported themselves and/or have other costs and/or have financial trouble might decide that applying to my school is not worth the "return on investment" due to the high cost and high risk. This sucks! We don't want to lose out on excellent minds like this, so we have a very generous fee waiver program that attempts to encourage applicants to apply. However, almost every program will require you to ask for the fee waiver--it's not going to be automatically applied. You'll have to talk to the right office (often the Diversity office) and you'll get information on how to waive the fee. Since the fee payment is kind of separated from the application materials itself, it's unlikely the admissions committee will even know if you paid the fee or got a waiver.

Yes, on test day, you are able to send your score to four schools for free, as part of your testing fee! https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/send/

I didn't put any strategy or "mind games" into answering this question. I don't think this information will help you or hurt you. So what if an applicant is applying to one high ranked school and a lot of lower ranked ones--that high ranked school isn't going to turn away a great applicant because they have "tainted" themselves by applying to lower ranked schools! That's silly!! I answered honestly. I applied to 8 schools in total and most schools only ask for 4 other names. I chose the 4 names somewhat arbitrarily, but usually in programs that are most related. Generally, I already had 3 out of those 8 schools in mind as my "top choices" so I usually included those three. But really, it was whatever I felt like writing when I got to that question--I can't remember which schools I wrote for which application. The reason they want this information has nothing to do with your admission decision. It helps them to know who the competition are (as philstudent1991 said). It also helps them determine how many offers to make. For a school that wants to fill 5 spots, for example, and if they normally make 8 offers in the first round, and they find out that all 8 of their top applicants list their main rival school as another choice, they make might another offer or two because they might anticipate losing more candidates that normal to their main rival school this year. And I think it would also help them recruit their top applicants better, if they know who their competition are.

I don't actually think this is a good thing and I would not advocate for it at my school. This biographical information should be a part of the admissions process and information like your name, race, gender, age etc. should play a role. But I will clarify and say that this is the point of view of someone in a long, research-based PhD program, not short professional programs. I think details such as race and gender should play a role because it is important to view our applicants as people with histories and backgrounds, not just a bunch of statistics. For example, I think an admissions committee should treat an applicant with a 3.7 GPA during college while working a part-time job to support their family different from someone who achieved a 3.7 GPA without having to work at all (because their family paid for their college or maybe because they won scholarships in high school etc.). Similarly, a single parent applying to an astrophysics PhD may not have summer research experience because they were a single parent and could not afford additional childcare. Without the extra biographical information, this applicant will not be able to compete against applicants who were able to obtain research experience in some other way. In my opinion, because it is impossible to judge people on purely objective means (i.e. GPA and other numbers) and because judging people purely on these numbers does not really truly measure merit (see examples above), I think that removing the biographical information actually make admissions less fair! It creates a huge advantage for those who are able to score highly in whatever metrics each program provides because there is no information about the real person behind the application to put these numbers in context. Of course, a committee can use this information "for evil" and discriminate on the basis of gender, race, age, etc. However, I take the less fatalistic approach of believing that we can train ourselves to recognize conscious and unconscious bias and make fair decisions. And finally, removing the biographical information does not really work in my field. We're fairly small and if you include important information like the publications you've had written, your name will be there. Also, if you are a really strong candidate, it is possible that someone will recognize you simply from your anonymized details. And even if you are moderately strong, it's common contact faculty members ahead of the application cycle. Faculty are smart people, they will probably be able to put two and two together from their prior interactions with you + your application information.

I don't understand what you mean by the benefit here. I don't see any benefit to including a Physics GRE score to a statistics program, even if you had scored very highly on the Physics GRE. And I agree with fuzzy that 45th percentile is not a very impressive score. (I scored 44th percentile first attempt, then 52nd percentile the second time). I applied to astronomy and planetary science programs. The former requested PGRE scores and some programs in the latter group did not. I did not report my scores when it was "optional" (but did if it was "required" or "recommended"). Fortunately, as these programs are not directly physics programs, I don't think my middle-of-the-pack scores made a big difference. However, in you case, if you do not need to report your Physics GRE score to a non-physics-related program, then do not report it. I don't think it will provide any benefit to you.

I think this is a close decision, which makes it tough but that also means either choice could work out well for you. Addressing some of the cons: Lab 1: "Con: limited space / nowhere to actually sit in lab": Will this always be the case? If you joined the lab as a full member, would you be assigned a place? Or is this true for all students, senior or just starting? The one time I worked in a lab field, no one had workspace inside the lab itself--it was very small and we all had desks two stories up and only went into the lab to do our specific experiment. So, this didn't sound like a big deal to me. However, if everyone else is in the lab and you're put down the hall or someplace else, then that would suck. "Con: Adviser might move": How concrete is this? Is this a concern because the adviser is a stellar researcher and is "overqualified" for the current school? Or, has the professors already said they are considering an offer at another school right now? I would not be worried unless the professor themself said this was a possibility. Lab 2: "Con: Low on money": 2 years on fellowship is not a bad start at all. It's rare to know that all the funding is already in place prior to starting in a new lab! I think the lab's general track record of finding funding for its members is more important than the exact status of funding for your future work right now. However, this generally does mean that you might end up having to follow the money and working where the funding applications are successful (whereas in a well funded group, you would generally have more freedom). "Con: All dudes right now": Can you talk to other women in your department to find out why this lab might be all male right now? It could be "innocent" things like coincidence/low numbers or it could be due to less innocent things. Maybe find out whether other women considered this lab but decided against it and find out why.