["Fringe benefit" for grad students]

1 hour ago, ibtes said:

A funding letter I received says "The research assistantship also qualifies you for a significant fringe benefit, which amounts to about $612 per month (the actual amount varies depending upon the kind of University-approved medical insurance you select)." 

$612 per month would mean about &7,500 a year and I don't think health insurance alone would worth that much. I'm just curious what the "fringe benefit" usually includes besides health insurance? Also, do we pay tax on this?

That sounds vague but I think it does mean health insurance. Yes, health insurance can be worth that much!! At my PhD school, the monthly premiums for the health insurance plan that covers staff, postdocs and faculty costs something like $550 per month (employees who get benefits only pay $80 per month though, the rest is covered by the employer). My PhD school clearly separated students from staff/employees and our student health plan was $3000 per year (we get benefits too so we pay around $500 out of pocket). When a plan is negotiated for students only, the costs are often lower because students are usually young and healthy (and to be frank, unlikely to seek medical services unless severely hurt). However, many other places lump their RA and TA student employees with their regular employees so the cost of the plan to them goes way up. $7500 per year is high but actually not that surprising. I've seen HMO-type plans with full premiums around $650-$700 per month, so that would match what you're saying.

In addition, if you are counted as an employee, you may also be eligible for a large number of other benefit plans too. For example, a dental plan, a disability insurance plan, a life insurance plan etc. Or, perhaps they will cover some or all of your dependents health insurance too, so the $7,500 refers to either adding up these other benefits here and/or maxing out the number of dependents you have. I would not be surprised if the offer letter uses the highest cost possibility in order to maximize the value of the fringe benefit listed.

[12 credits bad?]

I don't see any reason why this matters? The grad schools want to see that you have completed your degree and I don't think they typically care about the courseload. The exception is that if you have a light courseload and do poorly, it might be more concerning that if you did poorly only in the one semester where you had a larger than average courseload for some reason.

[Strike Imminent: University of Illinois]

56 minutes ago, Sanskriti Prakriti said:

Just so everyone knows, the UIUC strike is on TODAY! Let's hope for a fair contract soon!

Solidarity! Good luck.

[What is a history of good placement?]

4 minutes ago, M(allthevowels)H said:

@hibiscus what @CulturalCriminal said, but with the obligatory adjuncting suuuuuuuuuuuucks. I'm also not sure at what tier medical benefits become part of the package. I think Senior Lecturer at some places?

Oh yeah, forgot to add the stuff about benefits. Usually the permanent/indefinite positions have benefits, including pension/retirement etc. For term/contract positions, it can really vary from school to school. Most schools will have some policy that benefits kick in if you are hired for X hours per week/semester/year. However, due to the course-by-course nature of many temporary instructor positions, schools can avoid paying out any benefits at all by hiring you for just under the minimum number. 

I feel this is super sucky and pretty much unethical but it happens. If the minimum is 4 courses per semester and they need 30 classes taught, they can hire 10 people to teach 3 classes (and pay no benefits at all) instead of hiring 6 people to teach 5 courses (and pay full benefits to those 6). The other concerning trend is that as tenure-track professors retire or otherwise leave, they might replace them with these lower paying, temporary positions to cut costs. 

[What is a history of good placement?]

Just to add to CulturalCriminal's response above:

You can divide faculty positions in North America first into three types: permanent/indefinite, term/contract, and "visiting". As the names imply, the first type are like many other real world jobs: you are hired to work with the University and your employment continues until either party decides to end it. The second type are people hired for a specific contracts and their employment ends when that work is completed, but they might be renewed for another contract. The third type I put in quotation marks because it seems like different fields use that word to mean different things, which I'll explain below.

1) Permanent/indefinite positions can then be further divided into two types: "tenure-track" and others. "Tenure" is a type of job security that is almost unique to academia/universities and the point is to protect researchers from being dismissed due to researching controversial** topics etc. (i.e. provides academic freedom). (**by this, I mean things like publishing papers showing that Drug X is harmful without worrying about the company producing Drug X from threatening the school with their money, or by publishing a result finding the school you work for at fault for something without worrying about losing your job because of it).

Most schools use the following ranks for tenure-track positions:

New tenure-track hires are usually hired as an "assistant professor". You normally need a PhD for this position. They don't do any assisting, it's just the name of the rank. After 5 to 7 years, they undergo a tenure review. Each school has a different tenure evaluation but it's usually an in-depth process that spans several months. If the faculty member is successful, they are granted tenure and promoted to the next rank. Many schools have midterm reviews for new hires after 3 or 4 years to address any problems that come up. If a faculty member is unsuccessful in the tenure review, they are usually either dismissed or they might get another chance after X years. But generally tenure review is intense---it's make it or break it. Some schools have very low successful tenure rates (for my field, MIT and Harvard have tenure rates at or below 50% and I have heard of school in other fields with tenure rates as low as 20% to 30%). 

At many schools, once you have tenure, you are promoted to associate professor. (However, some schools, like my PhD school don't have this rank and you skip to the next one). Getting this promotion usually means tenure, a pay raise, and more service responsibilities on department and University committees. At some schools, you must have this rank in order to chair a student's dissertation committee or a committee may have to have some minimum number of tenured professors. This is the point where people start being considered "mid-career" instead of "early-career". For schools that have this rank, I think professors spend between 5-10 years here.

The last rank of the tenure-track is professor (or "full professor"). This is a promotion that isn't necessarily automatic if there is an associate professor rank. Faculty have to earn this promotion and this usually happens closer to the end of their career. I am sure there are some differences between this and associate professor but since my PhD school didn't have associate professor, I didn't really get to see what the differences are. I think it's just mostly more prestige and expectation of leadership within department and university committees. Some full professorships are named, e.g. a school may have a position called "The Gordon Moore Professor of Computer Science". Usually this means the named person or entity has donated money to the school to help fund the professorship position, or there are a few of these positions around and it's how the department/school recognizes a few select full professor for distinguished service.

Overall, the tenure-track positions are researchers and their duties is a combination of research, teaching and service.

For non-tenure track permanent positions, there is:

Lecturers/Instructors: These are people hired specifically to teach courses rather than hired to do research, supervise students or serve on committees. Depending on the school, they may be able to use some of their time to do some research or they might do it on their own time but it's not their hired function. As CulturalCriminal said above, this can also be a term/contract/year-to-year position instead of a permanent one but many schools do hire permanent lecturers/instructors. They might be paid a salary or on a per-course basis. To indicate seniority, there may be titles/ranks such as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer.

Researchers/Research Professor: Similar to the above category, but these are people hired specifically to only do (independent) research for the school. They might also end up teaching a course or two if the school posts a job search for a specific course and they are successful in winning that competition. Researchers are either paid a salary from the school or they fund their own salaries from winning grants. To indicate seniority, the Research Professor may have ranks that mirror the tenure-track ranks (but they are not tenure track), i.e. "Assistant Research Prof", "Associate Research Prof", etc.

2) Term/contract positions. These are not permanent hires but instead when there is some specific work that the department needs, they might hire someone specifically for that status. The most common type is when the department needs to hire a bunch of teaching staff for a large course, perhaps a large survey undergraduate course. At my undergrad, there is an English writing course that every single Arts and Science student must take (3000+ students per year) and the English department certainly does not have enough professors on staff to teach all of us (we were taught in small groups of 30-40 students per class). So, they might hire instructors on a temporary basis to teach these classes. You might get a contract for an entire year or just one semester at a time to teach a specific class. If you do well and they still need your work next semester/year, they might ask you again. But as CulturalCriminal said, there is little job security. There are various names for these types of positions, including adjunct professor, visiting assistant professor (VAP), instructor and lecturer. Yes, there is some overlap in the names. I am not quite sure what the differences are (see above post, as it seems like it's a matter of qualification and job security). "Adjunct" and "visiting professor" have different meanings in my field.

3) "Visiting" positions. This category might only exist in some fields? I've heard many of my friends in other fields talk about adjunct positions and VAP positions but they seem very different from the positions with same or very similar names in my field. I call this category the "visiting position" because the people who are associated with a University in one of these "visiting" positions is generally mainly employed elsewhere.

In my field, a visiting professor is usually a professor at another University or institution. They are usually visiting the host school on their sabbatical from their home school (so this prof is likely someone who is tenured). Most schools don't pay their professors while they are on sabbatical, so a visiting professor may receive pay from the school they visit for the time of their visit in exchange for teaching some courses. If the visiting prof already has their own external funding, then the host school may just provide basic research needs such as a desk, office, library access, etc. Some schools in my field have special competitive programs where these outside profs can apply for a visiting prof position and that might come with a small salary, a place to live, and all of the above.

In my field, an adjunct or adjunct professor is someone who is actually employed outside of the school but has some relationship with the school for mutual benefit. For example, if a school is located near another institution (could be a non-school research center e.g. a NASA center or a national research lab, but it could also be just another school), the researchers/staff there may want to apply for grants normally only available to people at schools and they may want to supervise students. So, the school can grant adjunct status to these researchers---this puts them officially on staff in this specific way but usually does not come with any pay. But this means the researcher can officially be part of thesis committees and apply for grants through the University. It also gives the researcher access to University resources like libraries etc. The university benefits by having more people that can mentor and supervise their students. Also, the University collects overhead on grants that are funneled through them. Generally, it's a win-win.

Another definition of adjunct professor could be at the department level. There are many fields that overlap but might exist under different administrative systems. For example, Biology and Chemistry may be run very differently at some schools (different dept heads, different chain of command etc.). But professors in Biochemistry might be interested in interacting with students and other colleagues from both departments. But a joint-appointment might be difficult to obtain and the departments may not want to split such a position (also it might mean more service requirements for the person with the joint-appointment). So, a prof might be hired in Biology but then applies for and gets adjunct status in the Chemistry department so that he or she is also officially in the other system.

[Advice on applying to a PhD after working for ten years]

1 hour ago, am_i_too_old_fr_this said:

@TakeruK I want to get a PhD so I can do research in machine learning, either in an industrial or academic setting. During the last few months I've been reading through relevant research papers, trying to reproduce results, and learning about all the things I don't know yet. Then, in a depth-first-search kind of way, I try to fill in the gaps the best I can. It's a long process -- I've only gone through a few papers, but I definitely see progress being made! It's been super challenging, but I find the field fascinating and I'm enjoying the experience more than any work I've done in the last ten years, so I'm fairly certain this is the right choice for me.

Cool! I am not in the field, but know about the process of grad school admissions. I think @spamhaus has good advice and their experience sounds a lot like the successful non-traditional applicants in my field (I do think there are many things that don't change from field to field). Specifically, the things that stood out to me were:

- Spending time doing research in academia in this area
- Keeping in touch with and building relationships with academics for LORs
- Finding someone who was willing to take a risk on a non-traditional applicant
- Finding that it's the top schools with money that they are willing to "risk" on non-traditional applicants rather than stick with the large number of traditional applicants they would get.

From your questions:

23 hours ago, am_i_too_old_fr_this said:

•  I'm looking to apply for Fall 2019 admission, so I have some time between now and the end of the year to strengthen my profile. Assuming I keep my current job (so I only have nights and weekends free), what are the best things I can do at this point? I had a few projects in mind, but would these help my admission chances?
•  I think I can get strong recommendations from my managers at the companies I worked for. They're at the CTO level and well respected in industry, but probably not in academia. I think it'll be a bit of a stretch asking my MS professors since it was so long ago, and they probably won't be able to write anything meaningful at this point. A third option I was thinking about is asking the same professors I got recommendations from when I first applied to my MS -- they knew me well at the time and wrote strong recommendations, so hopefully they still have those LoRs around. Which one of these options would look best to the admissions committee?
•  Assuming I can do well on my GRE and my grades are decent (3.9+ both BS and MS), where should I be aiming? I understand the lack of research experience is a huge negative. Should I consider applying to any MS programs with the intention of doing some research and getting stronger LoRs, and then reapplying to phds afterwards?

1. I think you should do even more self study and also to try to make contact with researchers and work on a project with them, as @spamhaus did. You may not have to quit your job (yet) but it might take longer than until the end of the year. Ideally, you do enough work with researchers that you can ask them for letters of reference. You want to get your background knowledge and experience to the same level as the typical fresh-out-of-undergrad applicant for your desired programs. 

2. I think you are right that you want to get letters from academics. In addition to getting letters from new connections above, perhaps reach out to your old profs once you have this new project going well. Let them know about your new plans and your progress on the new project. You can get a good letter from one of these profs if you restart your relationship with them and build on that. Finally, I think you might want to consider one non-academic letter too. That background makes you unique so you want to also emphasize that. Ultimately, grad schools want people who can and/or have excelled, even if it is not in the specific area of research. Having a top-notch letter showing that you are really great at what you currently do is helpful to demonstrate that you can also excel in their program.

3. If #1 above doesn't work in getting more contact with academia and research projects, I think a MS is a good way to make these connections happen. It will cost you more money and time but if it gets you to your goal in the end, you may decide it's worth it. 

Finally, for a non-traditional applicant, admissions committees generally want to see a few things: i) demonstrated real passion / interest in the topic, ii) success in the other field/area you're coming from and iii) evidence that you can complete their foundational coursework and produce good research.

For i), I think you need to do more than what you have right now to show the committee that you are serious about this change in field. I think answers #1 and #3 above will help you show that you are committed and passionate about this PhD program. Your SOP essay will be quite important in your application to demonstrate what steps you have taken to make the switch. In addition, clearly articulating why you want to change and what your research interests are will go a long way.

ii) is already mentioned above as answer #2 regarding your letters

iii) means they want more than just a researcher. Getting research experience is important but you also need to get the equivalent foundational training as the applicants with CS undergrad degrees (if applying to CS PhD). Most PhD programs view their students as their generalists first and specialists second (most scholars will view themselves this way too). So, don't neglect the other parts of CS if you are applying to a CS program. Self-study in machine learning will be important but you will want to cover other materials in a CS undergrad program too, if you haven't already! At a bare minimum, if a school really just wants to admit you for research in X, you need to at least convince the admissions committee that you will be able to pass their other grad courses and the qualifying/comp exams. 

[Postdoc PhD advisor?]

Oh, that does sound interesting and complex! 

It sounds like you do have some stability here. It sounds like you are saying the postdoc has the grant so they are covered in terms of funding for 4-5 years. To me, this sounds like the postdoc is really a research scientist with a term contract rather than a typical postdoc. Did they refer to their own position as a postdoc? 

You're right that it might be a hint that the postdoc has a chance to become a permanent scientist. But many Observatories like you describe (I'm thinking of Lowell Observatory in particular with this example) don't offer tenure so you either have a term contract or you are hired indefinitely. Alternatively, many other observatories/institutions are "soft-money", meaning that you have a job there as long as you keep winning grant money to support your salary and your research. Some of these "soft money" institutions have backup funding available to help cover a gap in funding or other infrastructure (now, I'm thinking of SwRI). In all of these cases, these research scientists may have adjunct or other visiting status at the University too, or they may even have dual status.

In any case, I think this would be an okay arrangement if you are happy with it yourself. I think it might be worth getting more details on exactly what the regulations are from the school you would be joining (that is, while your advisor and their advisor would be employed at the observatory, you would still be a student at the University and therefore subject to the school's rules instead). Check with the director of grad studies at the astro department (or whoever is in charge of grad students) about who you are allowed to choose as an advisor and who can serve on the committee to ensure you can have the arrangement you want.

Oh I guess I might have missed one thing. Who is the PI of this NASA grant? Is it the postdoc or the postdoc's advisor? If it's the postdoc then I think you really have not much to lose. Many assistant profs are hired after 1 postdoc and if the postdoc is a PI of a major NASA grant, they must be doing well and I think you aren't any better or worse off with this postdoc vs. a new assistant professor. 

However, if the postdoc's advisor is the PI of the grant and they will be your actual on-paper advisor with the University, then I think what I said above still applies, except the timescale is longer now, which is great (however, the postdoc may be more likely to leave the institute and accept a job elsewhere than a new prof).

[Should I trust an unofficial offer ??]

Ask for an extension at School A.

[Campus Visits]

8 hours ago, punctilious said:

Yeah, by the time we have our Harvard visit, the other visits we plan to or might attend will have already passed. So I'd imagine we'd have our minds made up. It would be nice to officially accept during the visit so that we could start our housing application if need be. Do students ever accept before the visit days, to your knowledge?

Yes, sometimes people have already accepted our program when they visit (since the visit is to also learn about the program and the city, not just a "convince you to join us" thing). Of course, we never know for sure (but why would people lie about this?). Typically this is rare though because the visit is usually only 4-6 weeks after the acceptance and we generally have our visit before some schools even give decisions back. This is more common when a student visits outside of the regular visiting dates (typically later on in the year).

Also, some people accept without visiting at all because they might not be able to visit. 

For my school, you can start housing application as soon as you have accepted and for some types of housing, it's on a first-come, first-serve waitlist system (specifically, for family housing). So for those visiting our school who are certain to attend and might be interested in that, I generally give the advice to accept as soon as they are 100% sure so that they can get on the list faster. It takes around 2 years to clear that wait list** usually and being one of the first names on the list for the class of students starting 2018 (or whatever year it is) can make a difference between whether you get a place in your 3rd or 4th year. But this process can be done online, after the visit too. 

** All new grad students are guaranteed housing (furnished apartments) for the first year. This main grad housing is lottery based each year beyond the first year. However, there is a small amount of unfurnished apartments for lease on the above waitlist system at heavily discounted rates (when we were in it, our rent was 50% of market value). There's a max time limit of 2 years in residency (5 years if you have a child), so people generally try to aim to move into this housing in their final 2 years.

[Campus Visits]

8 minutes ago, punctilious said:

We're similarly curious. Husband's POI seems convinced that husband got into Chicago and Stanford or something, based on how he's been trying to sell Harvard. But like... do we play it cool at the visit? Or are we straight up like "Listen... I'm going to Harvard. Don't worry." Lol.

To perhaps help a bit, on our POI call we went through the very same list of questions we had prepared for our UD POI. There's no harm in getting all the information you need, even if it's the only or clearly best option!

If you are for-sure going to Harvard you can say that. We had one prospective student told us at the end of the first day (out of two) that he will be attending our program for sure. The next morning, he told us he officially accepted the offer last night after our evening social event ended!

[What is a history of good placement?]

Not in your field, but perhaps applicable across many fields.

When considering graduate programs and where their graduates end up afterwards, I look for programs whose students "regularly" go onto the career path(s) that I am interested in. I don't think percentages/rates are very useful because:

- They are often incomplete unless the alumni and department are especially good at keeping each other up to date
- Because of small numbers, they often have to lump all academic positions into one category for percentages, or all TT positions no matter where they are
- These stats are based on combining a diverse set of people/interests/talents/abilities/experience into the same pool and it's hard to figure out things like who wanted a TT job but didn't get one and who left the field because they wanted to etc.
- Since they are an "averaged" rate across all graduates, it's not clear whether they will even apply to your specific case. Or to put it another way, even if you had no missing students, knowing that it's 40% academic, 40% non-academic and 20% not didn't finishing doesn't mean that you have a 40% chance of getting an academic job, for example. Probabilities and stats are only really useful when it's something measured over and over again but you are just one career outcome.

So, instead, I think it's more important to just see that whatever path(s) you want post-PhD is actually possible for graduates of this program. This tells you a couple of things. First, that the program's degree is valued by the employers of the career path you want. Second, since students have gone through the path recently, it might mean that there are resources to help you get to these career paths. You don't know how you compare to an "average" graduate from the program (this abstract concept doesn't exist in reality anyways) so it doesn't really matter if only 1 or 2 graduates get TT positions at top tier schools or if it's 4-5 graduates because if you are not as good as those 4-5 graduates then you are just as likely to get zero TT job offers as if you went to the school with only 1-2 graduates placing at top tier schools.

[Declining before a Final Decision]

As others said, definitely let them know now. Saying that you would like to withdraw your application is a good phrase/approach because it is neutral and action specific, i.e. you are doing X. Sometimes when I have to say something difficult, focusing on concrete actions helps with the phrasing. Saying you're no longer interested is a pretty common expression too and you won't be the first nor last to say that to the school. Sometimes, when I over-analyze my own words, I think "no longer interested" might sound like they did something wrong, so then I would feel like I need to emphasize that it's because of other reasons and that makes it all extra awkward. But I only sometimes feel that way. Anyways, there's lots of good ways to say it.

You don't have to say where you are going. They probably won't ask since they probably figure that if you knew you would have told them. However, if they do ask, don't take it negatively, in fact, I think it's a positive thing that they are still interested in you. They might phrase it as something like, "when you decide where you will attend, please let us know" or it might come as a question in an exit survey you get after officially declining the offer. 

But if they do ask right away, you have a choice. You could just ignore the email. Or, you could just ignore the email until you have decided and then let them know. Or you could say that you have not yet decided and that you will let them know when you do. Or, you could tell them the schools you're considering. It depends on the rapport between you and the person asking. I would probably try to avoid comparing them and not really go much beyond naming the other schools you are considering. Of course, you don't have to give them this information at all, but it's generally a good thing to have your future colleagues know more about you and where you are attending etc.

[Honor Society?]

2 hours ago, Charlie Moon said:

Interesting,  I always thought it was some kind of scam/spam (as, under FERPA, there is no way they have access to my grades)

Privacy rules vary from country to country, but in general, they can get this information by something like:

1. Have a chapter of the society at the University
2. Chapter properly applies for and becomes a student club. Now, they are an internal organization/group.
3. They can then request the registrar to forward the student society a list of students in the top 15% of their class, according to GPA. Although I'm not an expert, I believe this is valid under FERPA because it is information for a legitimate academic purpose and the registrar will just forward the directory information (name, contact info). Maybe getting GPA is valid under FERPA too, not 100% sure.
4. Local chapter invites student for membership, asks them to send transcript/GPA/evidence for confirmation to enrollment. Now, since the student has provided the info directly, they can ask for whatever they want. They probably have to properly protect your information and store it according to FERPA or whatever local regulations are in place.

For US students, you can talk to your school about further restricting your FERPA information. I am not at a US school anymore so I don't remember the specific details, but FERPA definitely does allow you to restrict access to your information even more than the default levels. This might help you reduce these types of requests. It could prevent some legitimate requests from going through though.

[Advice on applying to a PhD after working for ten years]

I think the first questions are: Why do you want a PhD? What do you hope to do with it? What are your career goals after this PhD? 

[Honor Society?]

There are many different honour societies and they vary in how they invite people and how people regard them. In Canada, the "Golden Key" is a major one (it's an international society but that's the one I saw the most in Canada). I looked them up to refresh my memory and they basically invite the top 15% of students, by GPA, to join. You have to pay some fee. There's another one with a greek letter name, I think it's Phi Beta Kappa, that is a little more exclusive (I think you have to be elected to the society). And there are also other societies that are just basically scams/spam: they invite students meeting some (very broad) criteria in order to flatter them into paying the fee and joining.

With the legitimate societies, there are often scholarships to apply for, events to attend, and leadership opportunities. It's like being part of a club. I don't really think it's worth it to join because it seems like the majority of members don't actually participate in the events----they just pay for a line on the CV that basically means very little. Perhaps if you want to specifically network or looking for leadership opportunities in the society, then it could be worth it. Like any other commitment, the benefits you get depend on how much time you're willing to put into it. However, in terms of professional and career advancement in academia, I don't see very much value and you can find much of the same benefits elsewhere, for free and more directly impacting you (e.g. through volunteering in your city, or student government etc.). Or to put it another way, there are lots of other things you can be doing with your time that will provide you with benefits in academia. But I am not a member of any of these societies so maybe someone here who is might chime in.

[Postdoc PhD advisor?]

Well, your actual advisor wouldn't be the postdoc right? PhDs take much longer than a postdoc timescale so they will be long gone before you are finished. Who would your actual thesis advisor be? For now, forget about the postdoc and think about this actual advisor. How would you feel about them being your main advisor throughout your whole degree etc. 

It's pretty common in STEM fields for grad students to primarily/directly work with a postdoc for some aspect of their project or for some projects within the entire dissertation. For example, in my planetary science PhD, I completed several small projects and some of them were led by a postdoc but my main advisor and main mentor was still a professor. 

[Transition into data science/machine learning from non-CS bachelor's degree]

Tons of people I know in all sorts of quantitative science fields, including, physics, astronomy, planetary science, environmental science, etc. have finished their PhD in these fields and gone on to data science positions in North America. Many more make this transfer while a postdoc and I know a couple of people who have tenure-track positions and decided to switch. In addition, a PhD is often not required (as @ErdosJr said) as I know a few people who were hired by data science companies while in the middle of their PhD and decided to leave the program for the job.

Data science is less about programming than it is about knowing how to think about data and working with data. The things that all of the above people had in common was that they took time on their own to learn key skills for data science. In particular, they all took some sort of online course on machine learning and had spent time creating some personal project using these skills that they can bring to the interviews. Some students took a more formal approach and officially added a CS minor to their PhD degree. 

I think that if you are dead set on a career as a data scientist, I don't think you need any more schooling and paying for a Masters may not be worth it. There are tons of guides online about transitioning from an academic background to a data scientist so I'd suggest following those. Spend time self-teaching and creating your own projects/solutions. On the other hand, if you are interested in both academia and data science and haven't decided yet, then I'd say you should follow the academic route for now (e.g. apply for funded PhD programs) and develop your data science skills on the side. Then, you can either leave your program or switch after graduation, depending on how things go and what your priorities become.

[Disclosing Disability]

Most applications have questions about your ethnic background, veteran and disability status. However, many schools don't pass this info onto their departments/admissions committees as the info may only be used at the University level for aggregate statistics.

If you want to ensure the admissions committee sees it, you should include it in your SOP somehow. Other places it could go are the "personal history statement" as well as the box often provided which asks if you have any other information to share. That said, I would suggest that it might only make sense to include this information (particularly if you include it in your SOP) if you are able to write a clear connection between this and your application. (To be clear, I'm not saying you're not already planning to do this, just being complete in providing info!)

[Tight Deadline to Accept Offer from 3rd Choice Program]

In Canada, grad admissions are like a job offer (hence, you are asked to discuss it with the POI specifically, not a grad student coordinator etc.) So, like job offers, you are able to negotiate a bit and ask for some things. 

So, you should definitely ask the prof at School C if you could have more time to decide. They might ask you how much time you want/need. So, it might be a good idea to reach out to both Schools A and B and let them know that you are very interested in their program and you currently have another good offer expiring March 2. Ask these schools if they know when they would be able to make their decision, politely. Then, ask school C for an extension to the decision date of Schools A/B plus 4-7 days (in case Schools A/B is late, and 1 or 2 days for you decide).

If you don't get an extension or if you don't get a firm answer from School A or B, then you have a tough decision to make. In the real working world, and later on in your academic career if you go that route, you will often be in situations where you apply to several things and hear back from some with deadlines before you might hear back from others. So you might have to make a hard decision. Good luck!

[Post-Bachelor's ChemE: research assistant vs. lab technician vs. lab manager]

In my limited experience (~1 year) in the bench sciences, I do get the sense that they mean different things but the meaning can vary from place to place because each place may define these official staff ranks/positions differently.

I think research assistant and lab technician are more interchangeable, however, in the lab I was part of, the research assistants were researchers primarily. So they are usually grad students or people with PhDs, but they could include post-Baccs like you. Their main role is to conduct research. The lab technicians in my group were not academics: they were hired to run the equipment and prepare the experiments. There was only one lab manager and it was someone with a Masters degree. They were responsible for the administrative work of running the group, supervising undergrad students (like me at that time) and conducting a little bit of research. However, research was only a small fraction of their time.

[Not Sure if School is Paying Visit]

Yes, be direct and ask. If they say they cannot pay, let them know that you cannot visit without funding at this time. Sometimes that opens up other funding, but sometimes it doesn't. If you can afford to visit at a later date and are willing to do that, then let them know about it after they confirm there is no funding.

[Don't talk about this!!! ?]

2 hours ago, Dreamer109 said:

I kind of want a thread now just so I can hear about some of these horror stories.

Some more stories / things to not do:

- Suddenly show up unannounced at the department without an invitation and ask to meet with students and profs 

- Tell everyone at visit that you already decided to attend somewhere else and you just want a free vacation to this city

- Tell everyone at visit that they are just your safety school / that you really wish you could get into School X instead

- Make unreasonable demands on the time of the host grad students / take advantage of host students' desire to be a good host

- Make sexist/racist remarks to visiting students (in the example I had in mind, this was actually done by profs[!!!!], not the visiting students)

- Being rude to the non-research support staff (e.g. admin assistants) that actually did all the work to plan the visit in the first place (tip: the admins are probably the most important people in the department in terms of getting stuff done, especially when you're a student that need help)

- After receiving clear instructions from the admin staff, booking a first class plane ticket and expecting full reimbursement

Fortunately, these cases are quite rare: the list here comes from my and some of my colleagues, which means for these bad cases there were also several hundred visiting students that were perfectly professional, courteous, friendly, interesting, etc. When I was a student, I always looked forward to visiting students day because I'd get to meet so many awesome people that would be future colleagues, whether in my department or elsewhere (we'd meet up again at conferences and such). So while there are some jerks out there, the majority of people are actually great, thankfully

And the last point is also a reminder that even if you don't choose a particular school, the people will still be colleagues in your field. If you stay in academia, the current students and your fellow visiting students may end up as your lifelong colleagues: they will serve on review boards for your grants/conference proposals/etc, they will choose who to invite to their dept colloquia, they will peer-review your papers, they might get asked to be your external letter writers in a hiring case or a tenure/promotion case etc. For the above "do not do" items that happened to me, I still remember who they are! So, really, don't be a jerk!!

[Don't talk about this!!! ?]

2 hours ago, tigerlilies said:

Is it okay to directly ask professors about their placements? It is something that would be very important to me but it seems a bit... direct?

The website for two of my schools doesn't specify the subfield of the placements or the dissertation committee/chair and for one of them my POI hasn't been at the university long enough to have info on placements out yet (< 5 yrs)

Do you mean what their students have gone on to do, or who they plan on accepting as their students?

If it's the first, yes, you certainly can and should. Probably best if you ask for "recent" placements because if they have tens of students graduated in their career, it might be hard for them to remember where everyone is at a given moment, and recent stats are more relevant anyways. Just keep in mind that post-PhD job success depends a lot on the student too (in terms of their ability/experience but also their own career goals/priorities). So just because the prof's last 5 students have postdocs doesn't mean you will have one, or just because the last 5 students left academia doesn't mean that you will either. Still, it's a good question to ask to see what possibilities are out there for you!

If it's the second thing, then maybe better off asking something along the lines of how students are placed with advisors and whether they are interested in taking on new students for next fall.

[Matching Funds?]

2 hours ago, Xenia2191 said:

However, I saw a thread saying TA positions should be avoided your first year... I'm now worried that it may be a curse in disguise. Hopefully, I win the SSHRC !!!

 

Maybe I'll start a new thread for this but I'm able to afford not being a TA... Is it bad to turn down being a TA?? I just don't want to overwhelm myself with a new province, city, grad school and then on top of that being a TA..... 

It's pretty normal to have to TA for funding as a Masters student in Canada. Like you said before, we generally don't have super fancy programs that can pay fellowships without needing TAs too. I think it might actually look weird/bad if you declined a TA and took less money. 

27 minutes ago, Xenia2191 said:

CARLETON OFFERED ME 36,600$$ for ONE YEAR. Omg . I hope McMaster will match this!!!!!!

Wow! Congrats!! If they cannot match the funds exactly and/or if you prefer McMaster, the tips I got were to ask for other things, such as:

- If they cannot increase the offer at all, converting a TAship into a fellowship could be good for you
- Some amount of travel funds for conferences or research funds (to buy a computer etc.)

Also, make sure to find out what Carleton's offer would be in the second year so you can get the best 2-year overall package

[Don't talk about this!!! ?]

18 hours ago, Dreamer109 said:

So in other words, don't be a dick while you are visiting.

Indeed. It might sound like common sense (and it should be) but everything in my list was actually something a visiting student did! Most of them while visiting my program but a few are stories from my friends and their visiting students.

13 hours ago, csantamir said:

No, it's a hypothetical.

If you are invited as a waitlisted candidate, it's still a good idea to attend so that if you get an offer, you can make a decision quickly about the program. But the specific question you had in mind can be asked via phone/email without a visit.