TakeruK

Sorry to hear about your frustrations!! It's routine to print out a new I-20--they're not like transcripts or anything like that. I had to get my school to send me a new DS-2019 (same thing but for J-1) because they spelled my middle name wrong. You will also learn (or maybe you already know) that after you arrive in the US, that you need to get a new "travel signature" from your school on your I-20 or DS-2019 each year if you are traveling outside of the US. The signature indicates that you are still in valid F-1 or J-1 status. One time, I needed a new signature but stupidly left my DS-2019 in my office after walking all the way over to the International Scholar office. It was no problem -- they just printed out a new DS-2019 and signed it for me. So, once you reach the 6 week mark, contact your school again and ask if they could re-send it! It's still months before you would need to arrive in the US so I would not panic yet, although frustration is definitely understandable!

Calculus, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations are the essential mathematical tools you need for quantitative work in the earth sciences! Definitely take DEs.

My CV is in this order: 1. Education (lists school, degree name, thesis advisor and thesis title, no courses) 2. Research positions 3. Publications (two sub-headings: peer-reviewed and conference presentations) 4. Awards (fellowships type awards) 5. Teaching & Outreach 6. Volunteer & Service (student societies and community things) Edit: Things I didn't include were non-research employment and anything that happened prior to my first year of University.

No, there is no final check, other than that you finish your undergraduate degree and actually get admitted to the school! All merit-based decisions are made based on your application at the application deadline. If your GPA changes (or you gain more publications etc.) then this will be considered as part of the following year's cycle (if you apply again/to a different award etc.)

The "April 15th" agreement that people commonly refer to can be read in full here: http://www.cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGSResolution_Rev2015.pdf. A few things to note: 1. This is a formal but non-binding agreement between graduate schools listed in the document. There are no penalties for not following the resolution they agreed to. 2. This is an agreement between the "Graduate School" at each of these schools. If your program is not administered by the Graduate School (e.g some professional masters programs, such as MBA, MSW, MPH, etc. are administered by different groups on campus) then your program might not be part of this resolution. 3. This is an agreement regarding financial offers only, not admission offer. In most funded PhD programs, financial and admission offers come together, but it is possible for them to be separate. The April 15 deadline is the earliest deadline a school adhering to this resolution may set for applicants to accept a TA offer, a RA offer, or other financial offers. 4. And finally, you might find that a lot of programs that did not sign up for this Resolution will follow the April 15 schedule anyways, for convenience of everyone

Please don't double post. This thread will be locked, to respond, follow this link:

You say this other prof is not in the history department but is she in the same department/program you are applying to? If not, then is she in a program that has formal (or informal) connections with the program you are applying to? I am not in your field, but generally, I do not think you should spend space in your SOP mentioning things outside of the program/department you are applying to. However, if the other person is in another department that is well connected with yours and if students in your program regularly work with profs in this other program, then mentioning it could be a good idea.

I think victorydance makes a lot of good points about performance vs. price and that is great advice to follow if you want to maximize the performance to price ratio. Weight does matter to me because I think 3lbs vs. 5lbs is a big difference when you carry it around a lot. But as victorydance points out, this is up to each person. Personally, I would also consider how heavy the laptop is when you don't have a backpack. This is because I feel backpacks make me look a lot younger than I am and I would like to avoid this appearance when I am at a conference, for example. So, while I do carry things in my backpack when I go to my office, I usually use a more professional over-the-shoulder messenger bag type container when I travel or if I know I am meeting with visitors around campus. These bags have less back support and I definitely feel even a 1 lb difference. And on a related note, I think brand name does matter. I agree with victorydance that in terms of performance, all brands are really the same and it's what's inside that counts. However, people will judge you based on your computer choices and it's up to you whether or not you choose to conform to the norms of your field or choose to be different. For example, Macs are very popular in my field (my entire cohort all have Macbooks) but I know in some other fields, other brands dominate (and you might even get labelled negatively if you have a Mac). In addition, if you feel happier by sticking to a certain brand and you feel it's worth the price difference then go do it. Personally, I would say "get what you like, forget the haters". Operating system also matter a little based on the software you need. I use some astronomy software that is Mac-only. I am glad that I have a Macbook because it's a lot easier to share files made with Mac versions of e.g. powerpoint with my classmates who all have Macs. My supervisor works on a Mac and my office computer is a Mac, so it helps that everything is streamlined. But I know a lot of geology students use Windows because GIS software mainly runs on Windows machines. My main point is that while performance to price ratio is an important criteria, I don't think it's the only criteria you should consider. Look at what your non-performance needs are (e.g. desire for a brand, how it fits with your other machines you use etc.) too!

Please don't double post. I'll lock this thread and direct all respondents to the other one:

When I went the other way (CAD to USD), I didn't have any banks that were in both Canada and California. So, I just got a US dollar bank draft. The bank held some of it for a week, but since a US dollar bank draft is drawn on a US bank, there is little delay. You can do the same when going the other way! You'll also get to take advantage of the currency exchange rate But as you and others said, TD has a fairly efficient way to transferring funds. Too bad that didn't work for me!

I was just expanding on Vene's comment about staying in the same school. It's generally not recommended in academia, but as Vene points out, it's not as much of a big deal as it used to be. In my comment, I was pointing out that it really doesn't matter if you are not staying in academia!

That sounds fine. It's optional to include the school you will attend (no reason to keep it secret though).

2015ponderings: Just to be sure, these are the facts right? 1. You want to attend School A. 2. School B recently increased their offer to you, making it better than School A. 3. You are asking if it's okay to use the new offer from School B to get a better offer from School A? If these are true, then yes, I think you should just tell School A that you want to attend their program, but School B is giving you a really good offer right now, and is there any chance they can match it? You should be direct. If they say sorry, they cannot match it, then you can still just accept the original School A offer. (To clarify, my advice earlier was to not ask a school to match an offer if you were not planning to attend that school. It's perfectly fine and actually ideal to use a offer from a school you don't intend to attend in order to get a better offer from a school you do intend to attend.)

Also want to add: I think it's important for you to determine if you are >95% certain about industry vs. "more likely to go to industry than academia". If it's the latter, then you do want to take some steps to keep your academic options open. Otherwise, go for the best industry options! If you are looking for careers outside of academia, then it doesn't matter that your undergrad and grad degrees are at the same place. So, if there are other reasons to stay in Michigan (i.e. personal ones) then that sounds like the best choice! Ithaca is about a 6 hour bus ride from NYC, which is pretty far away, in my opinion. When I visited, students say they rarely go to NYC. I'd say that they would go as often as anyone else in the US would go (i.e. maybe once or twice just to see it) so the only difference is that a 6 hour bus ride is likely cheaper than a 5 hour plane ride. But if you lived elsewhere, you'd be closer to other things. I think it's also important to consider how far away you live to an airport hub. If you have always lived near one, moving to a non-hub city is a major change and (in my opinion) major inconvenience. When I lived in Kingston, Ontario (2.5 hour drive from Toronto), all of my travel had an extra 6 hours tacked on because the coach bus takes a windy route to pick up everyone and they only leave at certain times which means I often have to get there 3-4 hours early or arrive just as they are boarding (and risk missing the flight). So, for that reason, it would be a big minus for Ithaca (not sure about Ann Arbor and I don't even know where Brown is!)

If you want the official information on the 30 days thing, here is the official website: http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/study-exchange/student.html Scroll down to the question "Can I enter the United States more than 30 days in advance?" and the answer is: Of course, as a Canadian, you don't need a B visa, you can just enter. The paragraph also notes that you can change your status while in the US, the information on how to do that is here: http://www.uscis.gov/visit-united-states/change-my-nonimmigrant-status-category/change-my-nonimmigrant-status. This is just to provide a "source" for what I said above Also, in theory, you can do this without actually leaving the US. However, given all of this, I think the easiest/best way is to enter 30 days before your program starts! Housing at most schools work with the school calendar and so you should just pick your move-in date to be ~30 days before your program starts (this information should be online already).

One month is correct, however, as a Canadian, you don't need a visa to enter the US, so in theory, you can still come to the US as a tourist until 1 month before your program start date, and then exit and re-enter on F-1 status.

I read daily abstracts from my field's preprint server each morning (usually 3-4 abstracts). If there is a particularly relevant paper, I will read it and make notes (in Mendeley)--I'd say this happens about once every 2-3 weeks. I try to make notes that summarize the paper so that I don't have to read the paper again in order to cite it. If there is a somewhat relevant paper, then I usually put it in my Mendeley folder, read the abstract, introduction and conclusion and make notes. I also make note of whatever method they use. For these papers, I don't make notes that summarize the paper, but instead, I make notes so that if, later on, I wanted to read more about X, I would go back and read this paper. I would say that I find papers in this category about 1-2 times per week. I also skim a lot of papers that I do not save at all. I mostly do this to know what else is going on in my field and for the weekly informal "science news" discussion group we have. I probably skim ~1 paper per day. I also skim/read papers for things like group meetings or classes. Finally, in addition to this, I read in depth the papers that are directly relevant to my work. It's hard to say I do this for X papers per day because it varies. When I start a new project, I might read 1-2 papers per day for the first week, and then I start spending all my time doing the calculations/analysis/work etc. so I don't read that many more papers. I'm impressed by all the people that read 1 entire paper per day on a regular basis. I am not able to do this. To be honest, I don't think there is enough interesting papers out there in my field to sustain a rate of 1 paper per day! I just checked my Mendeley folder for my PhD work and there are 233 papers. I definitely have not read the majority of them in depth and some of them are only there because I needed to cite a single value from the work. I would estimate the total number of papers I've fully read (i.e more than just intro/conclusion) since starting my PhD program to be about 100 (I'm a third year PhD student), which puts me at an average of one paper every 2 weeks.

It turns out SPEAK is yet another one of ETS' tests! I found this practice test online via Google: http://cte.illinois.edu/testing/pdf/TSE_SampleTest060906.pdf. From your TOEFL scores, I don't think you need to worry about it at all. My school had a very informal "English test" for all international students (even from Canada; although I think they have removed this requirement for students who studied in countries like Canada, UK, etc.). It was just 5 minute conversation between you and a staff member about yourself.

I think the biggest place you could be falling short is your GPA and that you have zero academic research experience. To be clear, I am NOT saying that high GPA and academic research experience are absolutely necessary for admissions. However, these are the two main areas that another candidate can "win" over you. For example, I think that someone with a 3.5 GPA and 1 or 2 summers of research experience in a university lab would rank higher than you with a 3.3 GPA and 1.5 years (at time of application) of R&D at a startup. Again, I do think "real world" experience is valuable but at the time of last application, you didn't have that much experience yet and (unless you left something out), it sounds lik you did not do any research in an academic setting. I would classify you as a "higher risk" applicant because of your GPA and non-traditional experience, which brings me to the other important thing I mentioned earlier: you need to be applying to more schools in a focussed area.

Agree with everyone else that the prof's response does NOT appear pissed off at all. In fact, they are still trying to convince you to come visit the program one more time! I agree with rising_star that since you are now certain of your choice for School A, just respond with your last sentence. For future reference (or for anyone else reading this), I strongly recommend not including any reasons at all when you decline offers. My advice would be to simply thank them for all their help in visits/emails/chats/etc, say that you are not going to accept their offer, say where you decided to go (optional), and close with something like "I hope to see you again at future conferences or collaborate with you again etc.". Don't give reasons and especially do not criticize their program. If you had especially meaningful interactions with the prof, then you should address that in your letter too.

There are more advanced options than Powerpoint--for example, you can use Adobe InDesign or Illustrator. These programs are a lot more complicated so it might not be the better choice if you don't already know how to use it. I don't know how to use it well so I stick with Powerpoint. But my friend who does design as a hobby makes amazing posters using InDesign. He also makes slides this way.

pastina: The Canadian Government has some postdoc fellowships that international people are eligible for. NSERC (our equivalent to your NSF) funds people at all levels (undergrads, grads, postdocs, faculty) and for postdocs and beyond, there are some awards with no citizenship requirements. The goal of this program is not just to spend money on Canadians, it's also to attract smart foreign people like you to our country Note: You are not eligible for the standard NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship ($45k/year) but you are eligible for the prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship ($70k/year): http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PD-NP/Banting-Banting_eng.asp(yeah, these are very prestigious and hard to get, but so are the Fulbright!) For all other NSERC postdoc programs, see: http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PD-NP/index_eng.asp There are also field-specific postdoc fellowships that are open to international people. Maybe you can check your field's national society in Canada for awards, and you can also check your field's major institutions in Canada to see if they offer any program. For example, the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (in Toronto) offers a number of postdoc awards tenable at U. Toronto and other Canadian schools (several of my US friends are receiving these next year!). These opportunities are often advertised along with jobs in your field's main job register (the Canadian fellowships in my field do show up in the American Astronomical Society's job register, so maybe yours will have them too). I hope that is helpful and answers your question! Please feel free to PM me for more personal questions (or just reply here). Or please clarify if this is not what you meant I can also answer questions about Canadian schools/living in Canada etc.

That's a crappy thing for that person to do. I think at this point, the best thing to do is to stop talking science to this person. Also, if you feel it's an okay thing to do, I think you should push a little further on the authorship for that paper already written (if it's not already submitted). Mention that you were 3rd author in the original discussion. If you get pushback, I would stand down but then request that future collaborations have a written, signed authorship agreement prior to major work in the project. That is, I would only push a little on the already written paper so that your lab agrees to have written authorship agreements in the future. It's up to you if you want to pursue this path though. If these agreements are not standard in your field, then you might be breaking the norms too much and it might not be worth it. For my field, while these contracts are not the norm, they are also not so rare/weird that anyone would object to them (my first project involved a complicated authorship contract). Also, in my field, 3rd author is a huge difference over 5th author, because some citation systems use "1st, 2nd, 3rd et al."

In addition to all of the above, here is what I do to manage my time (some have similar things mentioned above): 1. Use procrastination as a tool to help curb your perfectionism (if that is an issue for you). It was hard for me, at first, to get used to the idea that I should not try very hard on my homework and aim for the "diminishing returns" point instead of perfection. I often need to limit my time spent on homework for each course to ~4-5 hours per week. Sure, I can set a 4-5 hour block to do it and make myself stick to it, but sometimes I found it help to not start the homework until the day before it's due in order to prevent myself from spending a whole week on it! Also, if there are mistakes in the homework, waiting until the last minute means the prof/TA will point them out and you won't have to waste time getting stuck on those. 2. Set weekly goals for your research. Give yourself freedom to revise your goals as necessary, but if you don't treat research as a priority, it can easily be overlooked. Many people, including me, start out with the mentality that "research is what I'll do after I do coursework, attend seminars, etc." Instead, make it one of your priorities, with meeting your goals just as important as getting that reading done or that assignment finished (but make sure you set realistic goals). 3. Don't burn out! Make sure you get enough breaks too to stay motivated. It might be tempting to just work through lunch / eat at your desk but you need some break time and spending that hour with colleagues/friends can be a good break. Make sure you eat well and get enough sleep. I found that as I got older, the late nights I used to do in undergrad to get things done aren't great ideas anymore. I can't work on homework until 2am, then wake up at 6am and go to school at 100%! Even working 1-2 hours past my bedtime usually screws me up for the next day, losing much more than 1-2 hours in productivity.

For that name issue, I would contact the school and let them know what your passport says. I'm not sure if it will be a problem? Note that you will have to use your passport and your I-20 for ID purposes in the US (and every time you re-enter the US) so ideally, you might want to consider getting your passport corrected (if it's possible).