TakeruK

Okay, a very good provider in California is Anthem Blue Cross. I don't personally use it (my school's insurance is a different one) but my spouse has been on this through both the "Marketplace" as well as off-marketplace plans (through her work). I searched their plans for a catastrophic coverage and I found this one: https://shop.anthem.com/sales/eox/abc/ca/en/shop/plans/details/snq?execution=e1s19. This is the only catastrophic plan they provide because this type of insurance is now not very popular given that the marketplace makes better plans a lot more affordable. Also, most other companies will offer similar plans. This plan costs about $160 per month. It's good because it's an "off marketplace" plan so it will be a little easier to get onto and off. However, read the plan carefully. For things like an emergency, it says you pay 0% after the deductible. The deductible for this plan (and many such plans) is $6600. So, even with this plan, you will have to pay $6600. However, this is better than having to pay over $100,000 for a serious emergency. Another option is to just go for a better plan. If you go to the other extreme (Platinum), your deductible is $0 and your out of pocket maximum is $4000/year (so, no matter what happens, you will not pay more than $4000 for covered services). With this plan, your copay for the hospital is $150. If you stay overnight, it's $250/day up to $1250. If you incur other costs, you will pay the listed copays (flat rate) or coinsurance (percentage of total cost) until you reach the $4000 out of pocket maximum. This plan will cost you $320 per month. Info for this plan: https://shop.anthem.com/sales/eox/abc/ca/en/shop/plans/details/snq?execution=e1s24 To summarize, I know shopping for insurance is complicated and confusing (my wife and I have been through this so many times already). Here are some things you should keep in mind: 1. Almost all the companies are the same in terms of cost. Anthem Blue Cross is a major one. Other big companies are Aetna, United HealthCare, and Kaiser. 2. There are two types of plans "HMO" and "PPO" (or sometimes EPO). HMOs require you to use a doctor in their limited network. PPO and EPO plans cover different amounts based on whether you use their (wider than HMO) network vs. out of network. For your purposes, you should just make sure the nearest hospital is covered by the plan you choose. I'd say to pick a PPO plan over a HMO plan for this purpose. 3. There are 5 level of plans: Catastrophic (hard to find now), Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum. Premiums range from $160 to $350, ish. With the Marketplace making the market more even, these labels are pretty consistent across all companies. Better plans will have lower copays, lower deductibles, and lower out of pocket maximums. 4. When you choose a plan, read the benefit (or ask the agent on the phone) carefully. Deductibles are pretty high (with the lower plans) and if a benefit says "after the deductible is met" then it will likely be useless to you. These deductibles are meant to be met over the course of the year, which means you pay pretty much full cost for the first visit or two (or three or more!). Since you are just worried about the super expensive costs, it might be better to go for Platinum coverage. It will cost you an extra $200 but given that you will only use this plan if you get into the hospital, you are basically choosing between: - Get no insurance and have a very low risk of paying thousands of dollars for help - Pay $160 for minimal insurance and have a very low risk of paying $6600 - Pay $320 for maximum insurance and have a very low risk of paying $4000 So it's up to you to decide what level of risk you are willing to take! Hope this helps!

Oh I forgot to repeat this from my earlier post. I think it is probably what you should do first: Contact your new school and ask about this. Sometimes the student plan will let you enroll early/late because of special circumstances like students arriving before/after the insurance registration date. Our school does this as we have many students that start in June or July but our insurance does not begin until September 1. Our school lets these early arrivers get paid and get benefits as soon as they begin, no need to wait!

I'll have to give an update to my previous post since health insurance laws have changed! In California, you will technically qualify for CoveredCA (aka "Obama care" or "health insurance marketplace/exchange plans") for those 3 weeks. Normally you can only enroll during the regular enrollment period (Nov 15 to Feb 15) but special "qualifying life event" such as new F1 or J1 status allows you to enroll at a special time. You won't qualify for the plans once your school's plan kicks in but you are eligible for the first month. You can get out of the plan at any time so you can get out of it after one month (they will actually kick you out once you dutifully report your new school coverage). However, I'm not sure this is worth the hassle. You can't enroll until you actually get to California, and then by the time you get it set up, you would be just a few days away from your school's plan starting and you will have to go through the whole process of cancelling your plan. In addition, unlike Canadian health insurance, the deductibles on these plans are quite high so it's unlikely you will incur so many medical expenses in those 3 weeks that you will need your insurance. The only possibility is that you get hit by a car or some other emergency that sends you to the hospital. So I would second rising_star's suggestion to go without insurance, if you are willing to take the risk that something catastrophic might happen. But even if you have insurance, something like a hospital visit will still cost you a ton of money. If you get sick or face some non-emergency, I'd wait until your school insurance kicks in. But if it's serious then go to a walk in clinic anyways and ask if they have discounted rates for uninsured people. One time, I made a mistake of going to a clinic not covered by the plan and they ended up reducing the fees by a fairly large fraction (so that it was just a little more expensive than if I had gone to the right clinic). Alternatively, you can schedule an early visit back to Canada (maybe for Canadian Thanksgiving? or during the US 4-day Thanksgiving holiday) so that your Blue Cross insurance period will be shorter. Or, when you book your flights, sometimes the airline offers travel insurance that includes both catastrophic insurance for ~30 days as well as trip cancellations. Maybe opting into that program is the best way to get what you need. Or....change your moving plans so you arrive closer to the date that your insurance starts!

I agree with fuzzy that we can't answer these questions for you and that choices #1 and #2 make a lot more sense. All of the questions about pay and reimbursement of expenses completely depend on what you and your adivsor/schools agree to. I know several students in similar situations and each one is different. If it helps to see more examples, here are some: (You are not the first student to have to go through this!) 1. One student's advisor moved to a school in Europe. The student spends about 8 months per year here and 4 months with their advisor in Europe. They remained a student at the current school and took on a new coadvisor. While in Europe, the student is considered "on leave" from our school and is funded and paid by their advisor in Europe. While here, they get paid by our school. Their advisor pays for all of their flights (probably 3 or 4 roundtrips per year). The pay in the European school is a lot higher than here, but that is offset by the fact that the student has to pay full-year rent here in California because it's too expensive/too much hassle to continually sign short term leases. 2. Another student stayed here while their advisor moved to the Eastern US. They continued to be paid by our school here and remain a student here. They did not change advisors at all (this student was 2 years from finishing) and instead, just have a long-distance advising relationship. They meet with their advisor about once every 1.5-2.5 months. Sometimes their advisor pays for them to fly out (if there's a specific thing they need to work together on) or the advisor flies back and meets with all of their old group at once. 3. Another student moved with their advisor to a new school but remained a student at the old school. The advisor paid for moving expenses, however, since they remain a student from the old school, the stipend came from the old school. Lucky for them, the cost of living in both places were similar. Unfortunately, their old stipend is lower than the new school stipend so they got paid less than the students around them. They also remained on their old school's student health insurance program etc. So, for all intents and purposes, they were simply a visiting graduate student at the new school, with no access like library, insurance, benefits etc. at the new school. This created some complications but they managed to make it work. 4. Another student (first year) had their advisor move to the Eastern US and their advisor even paid for them to come visit the new school to see if they would like to switch completely. In the end, they chose to stay at the current school and switch to a new advisor. The possibilities are endless and you need to talk to your advisor to find out what will happen. This is a stressful time and although some of the questions you list here aren't the most fun to talk to your advisor about, they should understand that this information is necessary for you to make the best decision for yourself. Your advisor should hopefully be trying their best to ensure you get the support you need. However, you must advocate for yourself. If you need something (help with moving, help paying contract cancellation fees etc.) then you must ask for it. In the above examples, part of the reason why the advisors there are able to pay thousands of dollars for their students to fly around a lot is because they negotiated for money to do this in their startup with their job offer. If you need something, you have to ask for it!

To be honest, I really rather not read what my LORs say! I think that if I did, I would overanalyze every sentence! I'd over-worry about the negatives and probably create other problems trying to compensate. And, I might get big-headed about the positive things written and not improve as much as I could. There were one or two fellowships that required LORs to be delivered in a sealed envelope and I felt so anxious even just holding onto the sealed envelope!

In North America, academic LORs are supposed to be confidential assessments of the student. Professors will usually not want you to see what they write because it could hamper their ability to earnestly assess you. The admissions committees will also want to know that you did not see the letter, which means they know the professor was able to be frank with them in the LOR. In practice, I don't think people will actually write horrible reviews of a student (they would just decline to write the letter). But practical or not, this is the norm in North America. This is why when you start applying to North American schools, along with the LOR writer information, you will be asked to check a box that will waive your FERPA rights to view this LOR. You are highly encouraged to waive these rights for the reasons stated above. It's basically an unwritten rule that you are expected to waive them. The way I see it, this waiver is meant to address an unintended side effect of a law meant to protect students. If you are not familiar with FERPA, it is an American law that protects your permanent student records at your school. It ensures that only you and those who "need to know" can access your record. It also grants you the right to view your student record at any time, upon request, so that bad people cannot put unfair evaluations or notes into your record (i.e. you have the right to know what's in your record). However, if the school files your LORs in your student record, then when you make such a request, you will be able to see your LORs. So, this waiver exists so that the school can still hide the LORs from you if you use your FERPA rights to view your records. Some important things to note: 1. When you waive the rights to use FERPA to view your LOR, you are not stating that you have not / will not view your LOR through other means. If your non-American LOR writers want to show you your letter or provide you with a copy, that's all okay and you should still check off the waiver box. 2. Not waiving your rights does not guarantee you access to the LOR either. If you are rejected from a school, they may destroy your application materials right away and since you did not enroll, you do not have a "student record" with them, and thus there is nothing for you to view. If you do enroll in a school, if they do not archive your LORs, then you won't be able to view them either. 3. Waiving your rights does not mean the school won't show you your LOR for other reasons either. All you are doing is waiving your FERPA-granted right to view LORs in your student record. So, to make sure you don't cause a misunderstanding, be sure to waive your rights to view your LORs when you apply to US schools

It's a statement that's used here to help new graduate students get a sense of what kind of effort is expected to be put into coursework. Especially since most people entering the program have GPAs close to 4.0. That said, no one is going to be kicked out or get in trouble for having straight As. A student might only get some advice/counseling if their research advisor is unhappy with their research progress and it turns out that they have a 4.3 GPA. And I say "might" because this will only happen if the student is lucky enough to be in a program that is looking out for their students and finding ways to help them meet the program requirements. If they are unlucky, no one will notice and they will continue to put too much effort into classwork and then flunk out due to unsatisfactory research progress or take much longer than necessary to finish.

If you (re)take the exam in early October, it will not be too late for December deadlines. However, keep in mind that there are minimum time limits between taking tests (21 days I think). So if you take it in late September, you will not be able to retake in early October.

I see. In this case, I definitely do not think the PhD is the best route to get this. You might be lucky and find one that fits your needs, but in general, PhD programs do not train you in this way. For example, in my program, all of the core classes are very introductory. I am in a multidisciplinary field so each of our core classes would be at the level of a upper level undergraduate course in that field. All additional training comes from specialization that you learn from doing research, not in formal coursework. To me, if you "just want to learn more", then I think you should look into other programs like the ones you mentioned in your original post. I'm not in your field so I don't have exact suggestions. But would you be able to just take advanced courses in the topics you want to learn from a University? Coursework is a tiny tiny part of a PhD program**, so it doesn't make sense to me to enter a PhD program if you just want what you wrote here. If you keep your regular work you can probably afford to pay for the courses. (** in fact, in many programs, courses are so poorly taught because they are very low priority. We're expected to learn as we do our research, the coursework is just there to provide some very basic fundamental training) I agree that specialized skills are not necessary to create good research. However, the way our academic system is set up, we want to train highly specialized people (with PhDs) and then have them do more general work. Their work would be coloured and shaped by their specialized training. In my interdisciplinary field, at the grad student, postdoc, and faculty levels, we generally take in people who have majored (for grad students) or specialized (for postdocs/faculty) in one particular field and then have them apply their training to solve the wider problems. We have grad students who have BS in Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology, Geophysics, or Geology. Each one of us is somewhat specialized and we apply our background to the wide interdisciplinary problems. And although each one of us might not have a ton of knowledge beyond our background and core classes, the idea is that the combination of all of us working on small parts of a big problem can lead to solutions in our interdisciplinary field. Our faculty are hired in this similar way too. In my opinion, when we do have need for a broad array of interdisciplinary techniques (as in my field), I would rather see the problem worked on by 3 or 4 different specialists rather than one person trained in all aspects. For better or for worse, this is how academia tends to approach it, which is why, as you correctly said, you will be at a disadvantage when you apply to grad programs but do not identify research interests that align with existing faculty. I don't think your desire for advanced mathematical training is a good fit for a PhD program.

I noticed I might have made an oversight in my post above. In that post, I assumed that you were not interested in any kind of academic research at all. However, this might be a bad assumption, since you simply said that you are not interested in Math as a subject but you really enjoy using mathematical methods to solve problems! So another suggestion is to find another field where you can apply mathematical expertise to solve academic research problems! If you're not opposed to the idea of academic research overall, many astronomy and physics fields will take math majors if they at least have the basic physics undergrad courses (which you can take if you need them). And another non-degree suggestion is that you can try to find work in these fields as a staff scientist or other permanent professional research staff in various research groups at Universities, industry, government labs, etc. You can and should certainly expand to fields beyond Math. Many fields, such as my own, have limited understanding of statistical methods and really need experts to help us get the most out of our sparse (and expensively obtained) data.

By definition, PhD programs are designed to train students to become researchers in their field. The PhD dissertation is an investigation that pushes our current knowledge of a specific topic. So it sounds a little weird that you say you want to do a PhD but you don't want to do research. Note that although I say that the PhD programs are meant to train you to become a researcher, this does not mean that the only desired outcome of a PhD is to do academic research. The PhD training is great training for a lot of other non-academic careers and it would enrich your skills of using math to solve problems. However, the PhD "certification" is that you are a trained researcher. The reason why a PhD is a valued asset for non-academic careers is that you would be bringing the experience of someone trained to do academic research to your workplace (even if the workplace is not academic research work). I'm not saying you have to like Math for the sake of the subject itself and not even saying that you have to like Math research. Instead, why do you actually want a PhD? The PhD is training to become an academic researcher and if you don't want that training, then why get a PhD? However, if you do want that training, but just don't want to do academic research beyond the PhD, then that makes a lot of sense. You will just have to get through the parts of the PhD that you don't like and hopefully the benefits of being trained as a researcher will benefit you in the future.

It's a good idea to talk to other grad students in your program to find out these things. It's especially useful if you are looking for a new place to live--you don't want to end up living in an unsafe area of town where you are not comfortable walking around after dark. But that said, this is hard for anyone to advise because what we feel safe with / threatened by really depends on each person's experience. Grad students come from all over the world with all sorts of backgrounds so what feels unsafe for one could be different for another. For example, my current city has a very low crime rate. There's still parts of town that people consider "unsafe" but based on my experience, I would call these "neither safe nor unsafe" because I grew up in a bigger city with more crime in general. Where I live, I have yet to see an actual firearm out in public. As St Andrews Lynx said, while there are more guns per capita here (Wikipedia says 89 guns per 100 people), this does not mean 89% of people own a gun. The only time US firearm laws have made me uncomfortable was when I was in Arizona (on a prospective grad school visit) and a grad student was driving me in their car and the radio played an ad for a gun fair. Gun fairs are fine, but it was weird to hear it advertised in a way you would advertise a state/county fair (it basically just stopped short of saying "Fun for the whole family!!"). Other grad students in Arizona said that they have seen people carry guns in retail stores in the mall, but I haven't seen any of that in California.

(emphasis added). I'm sure different fields have different norms, but I just want to point out that, whether fair or not, expectations on professors and students are not the same. Just because it's okay for a professor to do something at a conference does not mean that a grad student will be accepted doing the same. And, in addition, maybe the professors are being judged negatively for wearing backpacks but since they are professors, they don't need to worry about that

What are the other choices? Remember that in these questions, you are not simply selecting a choice that is correct, but selecting the choice that is best supported by the text and best answers the question. It may be possible that most of the choices are correct statements, but only one choice is clearly the best answer.

I'm sorry that the first year of grad school has not gone well. I am also sorry and surprised to hear the lack of resources (especially mental health resources) from your school and your school's insurance plan. My student insurance plan covers the first 25 visits per year to a mental health professional for free (no copay, no deductible) and then after that, it's only a $15 copay. Mental health support is something that students here have lobbied very strongly for. About 20% of students here (also the national average) have seen a mental health professional while in school. I am telling you these things because in addition to the great advice above, I just want to let you know (if you didn't already know) that many graduate students go through similar struggles too. Taking care of your mental health is important and your concerns are valid! For the socialization aspect, I agree with the others that making 2 good friends in one year is awesome. I think the only people that say "you make best friends for life in grad school" are current faculty members who are reflecting on their past with rose tinted glasses. In reality, I think grad school is a tough and grueling experience for you and your loved ones and you'll face a lot of challenges. In the end, when you overcome the challenges, it's much easier to think back on the tough times and feel a stronger connection with your old grad school friends because of the shared experience. Another related thing is that grad students generally have more diverse backgrounds and experiences than undergrad students. In undergrad, we are more or less starting a brand new phase of our lives and I feel that we tend to try to make friends more easily because we are still gaining independence and finding out who we are. In grad school, we are more developed adults that have a good sense of what we like and don't like. A personal example: In college, I would make an effort to befriend almost everyone I met in my program. But in grad school, I am friendly to everyone but I don't really try to become good friends with many people. I find the people I do enjoy spending time with and spend my time with them. For the rest of the students, we are just "work friends" (i.e. we are friendly to each other and we chat at work, but outside of things like BBQs or gatherings where we invite the whole department, I wouldn't hang out with them). In both of my previous grad programs, my first year was nothing like the rest of my time there, both in academics and socialization. The first year, for me, was mostly getting to know people and finding the ones I wanted to develop better friendships with. The second year and beyond was when these friendships really developed and I felt like they are my good friends and have that strong connection you are mentioning. I'm the type of person that makes acquaintances/work friends easily but it takes time for me to get to know someone enough to consider them a good friend. Maybe a lot of people in your program are the same way and it will just take more time. Finally, with regards to applying to a new school, it will absolutely hurt your application if you cannot get a supportive letter from someone in your current school. I think you can still get into another school without a letter from your current school, but it will make things harder. Especially since the reason you are giving to the new school for changing school is that there is a lack of research fit. If that's the case, then there should be no problem, in the new school's eyes, for you to get a letter from your advisor at your old school. If you are planning to apply to new schools this fall/winter (For Fall 2016 start), then you do have some time to develop a strong enough relationship with a faculty member here to gain their support in applying to a new school. They can write you a letter to demonstrate to the new school that you are a strong and capable student and they might even be able to help you navigate your current school's procedure for getting out with a Masters. If you don't think you can get this in a few months, then maybe you want to consider waiting another year. Apply in fall/winter 2016 for Fall 2017 start. This will give you another year in order to either: 1) find something at this current school that works for you or 2) prove yourself to at least one faculty member so that you can get a strong letter from them. If you go this route, you might not be in any program for the 2016-2017 school year, which means you might have to move. But a year is a long time away, and a lot of things can change! Maybe another opportunity might appear for you or your husband. Good luck!

Unless your field/program is different, it is common for academics to expect that they will have to submit the LORs for you electronically each time you do it. They also expect to have to do this for you multiple times because generally, you will ask them to write LORs for grad schools, for grad school fellowships, and maybe even jobs after grad schools. Some of my LOR writers have submitted 3+ LORs for me, for different things that required them. In addition, the admission committees will find it strange that your LOR is dated for 2013 when your application is for 2016. And the online link, in my field, often includes two forms: one for basic questions like "rank this student..." and another for the letter itself. You should reach out to these academics now and let them know you are now planning to apply for grad schools this fall and if they are willing to write you a letter. Like java0008 suggested, when you do this, you should help them remember who you are by providing information such as your transcripts and a brief statement of your research interests/goals. You should also attach their old PDF since they might want to reuse a lot of their old letter (and it will remind them why they like you!)

I agree with the above. The test questions won't reveal the answer with an "a" vs. an "an". I vaguely remember seeing some instances of "a/an" in the text but I also took the "old" GRE so maybe they have changed the way they write these questions. If you do see an "a" or "an" followed by a blank, I would follow juilletmercredi's advice and go with the best answer.

I remember those ticket booklets! My first family vacation that involved a plane as a child used them and our family booked our tickets through a travel agent as well. I remember I thought it was cool since it was one of the first time I saw carbon copy technology and that my parents were "Mr." and "Mrs." but the children name's on the ticket were "Master (Name)". That was our only experience with those tickets though, since the next time I flew anywhere (years later), e-tickets became the norm. When I started traveling more regularly with etickets, I used to be super paranoid and printed multiple copies of the boarding pass, at home and at the airport, and put them in various places (my jacket, my bag, my backpack etc.) just in case. But that was not really necessary since using the eticket or booking confirmation, I can always reprint it anywhere! However, sometimes having more than one boarding pass is useful because some schools will require a physical boarding pass to reimburse you and when I split costs between two schools, sometimes both schools want the boarding pass so having two copies is nice. Nowadays, I just save a PDF of the boarding pass when I check in so that I can print it out if I ever need it (luckily my current school will reimburse me with just the eticket receipt, no boarding passes needed).

Just to clarify further, the actual "e-ticket" is electronic only and this information is stored in a database, not a piece of paper (hence e-ticket). The printouts that you can make (at home or at the airport) are just copies of the same information and are mostly for convenience. It's also a good idea in case the airline's computer system crashes so that you have a backup. The e-ticket is issued within 24-48 hours of making payment and you normally get an email with this information. Usually the email contains both the eticket and the receipt showing how much you paid. There is only one e-ticket for each reservation, no matter how many legs/connecting flights you make. This e-ticket is then used to get a boarding pass which can also be printed out at home (or in a hotel or at a computer cafe or library etc.) or in the airport. Each flight on your eticket/reservation will have a separate boarding pass. Airlines will not issue a boarding pass until you check in (either online or at the airport) and most airlines will not let you do this earlier than 24 hours prior to your flight. If you print a boarding pass at the airport, it will usually be the size of a Number 10 Envelope (i.e. rectangular, 1/3 of a piece of letter-sized paper). If you print it at home, it will just be on your printer's paper. The boarding pass contains information like which terminal/gate to report to in order to board your flight and it's what you show to the gate agent before you board the plane. This might be what virtua meant by "actual ticket" since at many other places, such as the theatre, you show your ticket to someone at the door before you can enter. If you print your boarding pass early (usually more than 6-12 hours or so prior to your flight), the airline might not have assigned a terminal/gate to your flight yet and this information will not be on your boarding pass. When you get to the airport, you should check the screens to find out where to go (or ask someone for help). PS: You can also get mobile boarding passes which you get on your phone. Sometimes this is just simply a barcode that appears on your phone but for some airlines, they have apps that keeps track of your etickets and boarding passes. If the airline offers this and you have a phone capable of using it, I find it the most convenient way to present a boarding pass (although I always keep a physical copy of the e-ticket confirmation somewhere just in case). I especially like the app because I can check in using the app, get a boarding pass, and the boarding pass automatically updates with new information (such as gate/terminal location) whenever it is assigned or updated.

Assuming that everyone else is equal between the two choices you have (i.e. no special terms that affect your amount owed in the future, like changing interest rates), I would just compute how much interest you would save on either loan repayment option and do what saves you more money! There are loan calculators online and perhaps financial advisors can help you. At my current school, part of our grad student benefits package include free financial advisor meetings with TIAA-CREF, the investment company that is partnered with my school. But many banks will also offer similar free services if you have certain accounts with them.

Sometimes you are unable to print boarding passes for connecting flights because of some random reason or another. It could be particular airline policies or maybe you just happened to try to print your pass while the other airline's system is down (happened to me before). Like fuzzy says, you will then have to print the boarding pass once you get to that leg of your trip. Just to add to what fuzzy said: 1. You might have to go to a different terminal/building in order to print the boarding pass, especially if you are switching airlines and/or flying internationally. But you will have to change terminals anyways in order to catch the flight! 2. If your connection is really early in the morning (e.g. 3am or 4am local time), the airline might not have staff working, especially if it's not an airline from the country you're in. For example, I connected at Los Angeles once and needed to get to an Air Canada flight (at 7am) but it was 3am and the Air Canada staff at Los Angeles only work when their airline is flying. There was some problem (forgot what it was) but I needed to go in the long line and talk to a person but there was no one there yet. So if it's the middle of the night and you don't see the "long line", don't worry--they'll arrive in time to work the flight and help you!

In one of my old labs**, the PI was on sabbatical the entire time I worked with the lab so I only interacted with her through a Skype call every 2 weeks (in our lab group meetings) and occasional email. Instead, my daily interaction was with the Lab Manager, who held a MSc. The way that worked for me was to email both the Lab Manager and the PI to ask for the letter and the idea for the Lab Manager to write and the PI to sign was something they brought up. I feel that if your old PI has your best interests in mind, they would automatically suggest this if you ask both of them for a LOR from the lab at once. If not, it sounds like you have a good relationship with the research scientist so maybe just asking that person would be enough for them to suggest the PI sign it and they might advocate for you on your behalf. Otherwise if you end up having to ask for it directly, you might have to find a delicate way of asking the research scientist to write the letter but get the PI to sign it, without offending the research scientist (or the PI). But I guess given the choice of research scientist vs. PI for asking that direct question, I'd go with the person I have a better relationship with (the research scientist). (** Caveat: I am not currently in a lab field, but I did work in a real lab group for awhile in undergrad. I used this letter (written by Lab Manager, signed by PI) to successfully get into my MSc program [all grad programs in Canada start at the MSc level] and get a NSF-level award for grad school, but I did not use this letter to get into PhD programs. This was also more than 6 years ago now, so maybe my experience with this is out of date!)

In general, it is pretty tough to find 3 faculty members who you've all done research under and can write you strong LORs. When people say to avoid LORs from postdocs, it really just means that if you can ask the faculty member to write it instead, you should. I would say that the majority of applicants will be in a situation similar to yours, where they can find 2 strong faculty member LORs and the last one will be not "ideal" but that doesn't mean it will hurt you! In your case, I think you should certainly go with the research scientist instead of a random professor that you have not worked with before (i.e. only taught you classes). However, if the research scientist is in a different lab than your current PI, would it be possible for you to talk to the research scientist and your old lab PI about getting a LOR from that lab? Sometimes what might happen is that the research scientist will work with the PI to write a letter and have the PI sign it. But generally, I think it's best for them to suggest this, instead of you asking outright (maybe my experience is not representative though).

A research-based MS will certainly allow you to be exposed to more research topics. But it's not the only way to achieve this, and it might even be a bad way to get this (especially if you have to pay your own way through the MS). As fuzzy mentioned, some fields might have rotations or something similar. In my program, we don't have lab rotations but we do work on two distinct research projects in our first year and don't commit to a thesis topic until the end of the second year. What most of us have been saying above is not that you have to get enough experience to decide on a specific topic before applying, but to be more open-minded in your application. For example, you should identify the sub-field (instead of sub-sub-field) and then take a look at the best schools in that sub-field (or maybe even the best schools in your field). Usually the top institutions will have a lot of interesting stuff going on and there's no reason to stop yourself from applying to the best schools in your sub-field just because they don't have exactly the work you want to do. You can use conversations that you will have with scholars over the next year to determine what else you could be interested in and thus the best school for you when you pick your grad school next spring. And as fuzzy hinted at, there's a lot more to picking the best program for you than simply best research fit. I have also said before that I think it's much easier to change your own interest than to change your advisor. Your time in grad school (and potentially your future career) can be influenced by your relationship with your advisor so I would never sacrifice good working relationship for the sake of pursuing a particular topic. Overall, what I (and I think others) are trying to say is that: 1. Apply to schools in your chosen sub-sub-field but don't limit yourself to that 2. You don't have to try out everything before getting into a PhD program. Use the school visits and the process of picking a school to find out what else is going on. Apply to the best schools in your field / sub-field and find out! That is, maybe you will pick a specific topic/sub-sub-field when you pick which school to attend, but it's better to make this specialization in your school-choosing phase, not in the application stage. Also, if you can try to make it to a big general conference in your field/sub-field this year, you should do so! Come listen to what else is going on in your field/sub-field. A big annual professional society conference is probably one of the best ways to get a pulse on what kind of stuff is happening all over your field/sub-field. --- As for questions like "What are you doing in XYZ lab then??", I'd focus on the transferable skills. One of my undergrad research was in medical imaging lab. The research questions and topics are unrelated to what I'm doing now, but the technical skills are the same. I learned useful image processing techniques in medical imaging that I now apply to astronomical imaging. --- It might be more field dependent but I see most faculty moving away from their grad school work as they mature beyond their PhD. Many postdocs will do their first project as an extension of their PhD work and near the end of postdoc #1 (or starting postdoc #2), they will branch out more. My supervisor is a new faculty member and my project is one of the major branching out away from their PhD's sub-sub-field. Also, as I said in the last post, being flexible and having a lot of different research interests is important as it will allow you to be more productive. When you complete a PhD, you are expected to be a super specialist in that one research question. But when you are looking for jobs, departments want faculty who can be experts in their sub-field, and have many different lines of research in many different sub-sub-fields. And as fuzzy said above, diversity of research even at the grad school level is important in case the unexpected happens (lose advisor, get scooped, funding cut, etc.). I would not be too worried about straying away from your original ideal project. Even if you never get to do that sub-sub-field, how do you know you won't find another sub-sub-field you would enjoy just as much or even more. In general, I think to be a successful academic, you need to be able to identify the interesting research questions in your field and jump on them at the right time. You can't do this if you constrain yourself to a single sub-sub-field.

As I thought about my response, I realised there are really two entangled issues which I will attempt to separate in the following: First, I think having a sub-sub-field in mind at the graduate school application stage is way too narrow. It sounds like you have thought about your goals and I'm sure that you made a well educated decision to specialize in this sub-sub-field. So I feel a little bad saying this, but I also think it might be important to keep in mind: At this stage, even with a couple of years of experience under your belt, you might know what you like, out of the things you've done, but you still have only scratched the surface of your field (and even sub-field). Deciding that your chosen sub-sub-field is the only thing that will make you happy may be premature. I'm saying this because I got the same advice. I did a co-op work program during my undergrad degree so when it was grad school application time, I already had almost 2 years of full time research experience (in a variety of subfields too)! I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do in grad school and beyond: study the physics near-Earth asteroid orbits, which was what I was doing with my undergrad thesis. My advisor said the above to me and basically told me there was a whole giant world of planetary science out there and although I know I love asteroids, there could be so many more things out there that I would also enjoy that I don't even know about. Now, I don't work on asteroids at all because I did find something fascinates me a lot more: giant planets around other star systems! I'm still using a lot of the same skills and expertise I learned from asteroids (the laws of physics are the same in our system as other systems!). I'm very happy that I followed my advisor's advice and tried more things. Asteroids still hold a spot in my heart and I keep up with the literature and even attend some sessions on asteroids when I'm at planetary science conferences. Also, even though the whole point of a PhD is to become an expert is a very very narrow thing, it's generally to your advantage to have strong foundational knowledge across many fields. It will help you understand more talks in your field, and eventually, it will be a desirable trait for hiring committees. So, I'm suggesting you keep a more open mind when it comes to grad school. Again, I know you probably have a lot of past experience and have thought about your goals a lot in order to come up with such a well defined and concise sub-sub-field, but being this narrow can really limit you: not just at applications but also your own development as a scholar. Grad school is just the start of your academic career and why begin it by closing doors on all the other sub-sub-fields? Most scholars do work on many different sub-sub-fields over the course of their career so I would suggest you just find as many areas of interests as you can find and explore. People do change their areas of focus over the course of their career--most faculty members I know are not doing the same sub-sub-field as their PhD work. And in the current job market, it helps to be flexible and able to fit into as many job descriptions as possible. If the opportunities for grad school in the sub-sub-field are limited, it doesn't bode well for postdoc and permanent position openings. --- The second thing I wanted to address was writing about your interests in your SOP (the first part of your post). This might depend on the field, but my advice would be to definitely not strongly express interest in only one very specific area or one lab/mentor. There are almost no benefits to be this specific and lots of negatives. If you appear to only have one potential PI and that PI is not taking students (or is taking someone else), then you might end up rejected. Also, having such strong interests may make you appear naive and unprepared/unknowledgeable about the field as a whole. Also, the tone of the phrase you wrote ("temper that by saying you're willing to compromise and try other things, even if you think you'll be less happy") is not a good way to approach this in the SOP either. I know you will certainly write and present it in a different way in your application, but for the reasons I wrote above, I encourage you to not view it in this way and to not allow this perspective to subconsciously affect the way you write and talk about your interests and other sub-sub-fields. Instead, my advice for discussing your interests in the SOP is to first identify your goals in graduate school. Tell the committee why you want to be there and what you hope to achieve. There are a few ways to frame your goals. I chose to frame it as a set of skills I wanted to develop in order to become an independent planetary scientist. Then mention your specialized interest as an example of a way you can achieve these goals. This will show that you have put a lot of effort into thinking about what you want but it will also not limit you since you are saying your sub-sub-field is one potential grad school path, not the only one. I think framing it this way is also better than saying something like "I really want to do X, but will also do Y and Z" because then you just sound wishy-washy / eager to please. Stating one specialized interest as an example shows that you have thought about your goals but also signals that you are open to other projects without sounding indecisive. --- I hope this advice was helpful! I know some of this does read as if I am dismissing your passion for your chosen sub-sub-field because it's "just undergraduate research". But reading your post reminds me a lot of how I felt about graduate programs when I was first applying 6 years ago. Obviously we are not the same person though so maybe some of the above is too much of projection of myself onto you. But I hope at least you are able to get something useful that you can apply to your own situation out of this