TakeruK

Things that I think prospective students who are visiting programs should avoid discussing: - Starting arguments about politics or things not really relevant to the program (I see that you are in political science, so maybe some topics are more appropriate than others) - Harassing other visiting students or current students - Speak disparagingly or inappropriately about other students, faculty members, other schools you've visited, etc. - Boast about your other accomplishments or other acceptances (for some reason, I seem to notice sometimes there are one or two prospective students are often trying to one-up the others) - Go on and on about how much another place (whether it's another school you visited or your current school) is better than the school you're currently visiting I hope the above is all common sense and falls under basic etiquette! There are also things that I think one should be careful while discussing but not necessarily avoid completely. It's a matter of discussing it in the right way or with the right person. - Finances are okay to talk about but it is tricky and you have to find the right way to do it. I think it's more appropriate to discuss this with a current grad student than it is to discuss this with another prospective student. But you kind of have to judge it yourself: some people are going to be more comfortable discussing specifics than others. I think if you are comparing packages just to figure out if you have the best one or not, then that might make people uncomfortable (or if it seems like you are doing that). But if you are asking and discussing finances from the perspective of trying to figure out if you have enough to live on, then that's usually more acceptable. It might also be easier to have this discussion after the visit is nearly over and you have heard from people like the department head or the graduate coordinator. This is because these people might explain how the funding structure in the department works. For example, at my PhD school, it is very simple: everyone gets exactly the same stipend and funding package. - Negative aspects of the program. It's important to learn about what makes people unhappy as well as what makes them happy. While I am always happy to be honest with visiting students because I want them to make the best choice for them, rather than just get them to come here, there are right ways to ask this as well as wrong ways! Sometimes people just point-blank ask me something like, "What is something you hate about your department?" and they won't get a useful answer out of me. Instead, I think it's better to talk to current students to get to know them first and they will usually share more as they get to know you. Also, if you have specific concerns, you can ask them a neutral question about the topic (e.g. instead of "Is the teaching load too high?" you can ask, "how do you find the teaching load? is it manageable?" etc.) - Similarly, if you want to know about the bad attributes of various faculty members, don't ask it upfront. It's better to have these discussions privately with students since you will be more likely to get a sincere and useful answer if the student isn't worried that what they tell you will end up hurting them. So, they won't say the most candid things if they don't know you at all and maybe not while they are in the department / during the day (i.e. wait until the social events). Also, in the list of "don'ts" above, don't repeat what they said to other people or other schools. If students hear you telling people about all the negative things you learned about School X or Prof Y then they will correctly assume that you'll be just as indiscrete with the information they might provide you. Overall, make sure you balance the tricky topics with things that are easier to talk about and leave a more positive impression of you. Try to keep the sensitive topics only to things that are critical to your decision making. This is going to be the first impression you leave on many other people and then they won't see you again for months, so if you leave a really bad impression, it has months for the impression to solidify in people's minds. So, stay professional, stay positive!

If you just asked today then maybe they haven't had time to get to it yet! Or, if they are indeed seeking approvals and such, that might take some time. I wouldn't worry about it---I know that the admins at my PhD school were always very careful to only provide correct information so whenever they were not sure about something, they would check with all the right people before sending a response!

Originally, when writing about prestige of a fellowship, I was thinking about the external fellowships, not University-internal ones. I don't think there is any large gain in prestige from a university-granted fellowship, unless it's something that comes from a University-wide competition and is well publicized, but even then, the level of prestige is not much to an external reader of your CV (however, as I wrote above, it can help your reputation within your department!) I wouldn't pick a fellowship over a TA/RA just because of the prestige though. I don't think it makes a huge difference. However, I would certainly consider a slightly lower ranked school with a fellowship that means I don't have to do any TA or RA work and can focus on my dissertation over a slightly higher ranked school that required a large TA/RA work load. I would choose the funding package and school/advisor/research fit combination that would allow me to be the most productive!

I personally wouldn't rule out a program just because they are not 100% thorough and transparent about post-grad job placements. As you might imagine, it is quite hard to keep track of everyone who has graduated, especially beyond their first post-grad position. Even when a department tries to keep track, whether they are successful depends on the willingness of their alumni to respond to surveys and such. Something like Princeton's chart would be amazing but even that chart can only show people who have self-reported. Looking at the recent Dissertations, about 6 students graduate per calendar year. I don't know what the expected number of years you would be on the market in your field, but if it's N years then one might expect there to be 6 times N candidacies listed. Otherwise, there are people missing, which are likely people who aren't interested in academia any more. So the absolute numbers on these charts are good, but the percentages aren't great. Also, there seems to be 83 students on the department webpage but if only 6 dissertations per year, then maybe something is happening to them (or maybe the listed students are probably in other departments too and/or include Masters students so they might not have their dissertation listed on this department page). In any case, I would also be concerned about a department having a chart that appears to be thorough but is incomplete or hiding some information. And these charts often do not distinguish between graduates who are interested in academic positions and those who are not (and whether they became not interested in academic position as a result of the job market or not). For small enough programs, the current students are the ones that best know where their cohort has gone, so ask them about it too. And I find that asking professors about the students they have advised will get you much more accurate information (graduates are more likely to stay in contact with their advisors than the department). Some profs put info about their students' current positions on their CVs too!

I would say that you should ask the person you've been corresponding with, so in this case, the department admin. If they don't have the answer, they will either seek approval for it on your behalf, forward your request to the right person to approve it, or redirect you to the right person to ask. Typically, there is already a protocol in place so they would already know if there will be reimbursements or not so they will likely be able to just answer your question.

A. Yes, it is appropriate to send gifts. It is not necessary though. If you choose to send a gift, I would wait until everything is completely finished and you send the gifts along with a nice note thanking them and describing where you have decided to attend and what you will be doing there. Usually, the gift should be something that is meaningful for your relationship with that person. For example, in the past, I knew one of my advisors really liked tea, so I gave him a box gift set of nice teas for him to try. For my postdoc job letter writers, I ended up with a job in my home area (which was what I really wanted) so when I flew there in advance of moving in order to secure an apartment lease, I also bought some local food from my home area to bring back as gifts. B. No, I do not think digital gift cards are an appropriate gift though. I think money is also inappropriate and gift cards are basically that. I think if you want to send B and C a gift, you should FedEx or USPS parcel mail it to them. However, as I said above, some relationships make more sense to send a gift than others. In your case, I think it makes sense to give something meaningful to your advisor (Dr. A) but a nice thank you note mailed to Dr. B and Dr. C is sufficient. If you were able to physically give Dr. B or Dr. C a gift, then something small but nice like a box of chocolates would be okay, but that's probably not worth mailing to them. C. For people I had close relationships (i.e. my PhD advisors) with, I spend about $50 on their gifts. But this is not really a gift for writing a letter, it's more like a thank you for spending the last 2-5 years mentoring me and working with me. As an undergrad, I think I spent around $25 for my advisor and for people who just wrote letters, a thank you note or a small box of nice chocolates (around $10) was the standard. After my PhD, since I was actually moving onto a postdoc with actual income, I gave $20-$25 gifts for letter writers who weren't my advisor/on my committee. Note: I just provided the $$ amounts here because people often shy away from mentioning concrete numbers so I thought the raw data would help. This is by no means a standard amount and people should do what they can afford or feel comfortable. At almost all stages of your career though, this will be awkward because you're almost always gifting to someone much more established in their career than you and to be frank, likely earn way more than you. So the real "value" in the gift is not the amount but the meaningfulness of the item to you and the recipient.

If you decide to attend the school and don't find any assistantships, then you have no funding. It's weird that they say "assistantships on campus". Does that mean that the department has no assistantships for its students at all, or that they are not able to offer you one and you would have to do some sort of administrative assistantship on campus (e.g. working in an office) or other places on campus (e.g. writing centre?). Is it normal in your field for graduate students to have to work outside of the department for funding? And is it normal for your field to not fully fund its students? If the answer to both is no, then I wouldn't consider this offer. It's basically an admission with no funding, which is equal to a rejection in my perspective. I think that if your field normally works as TAs and RAs in the dept for funding, then having to work outside the dept will mean less contact with your faculty and colleagues. It will most likely mean doing work not related to your areas of interest at all and basically provide you with no benefit other than the funding. You would be at a disadvantage compared to students who are able to gain experience relevant to their career goals. In addition, I believe that a department who admits a graduate student needs to be responsible for funding the student too. I would worry that I would be treated as a second-class student and a department that admits but not funds its students would raise red flags for me. If you still want to consider this offer, the next steps should be to talk to the coordinator and ask him about the process of finding an assistantship. Also, ask him to connect you to all the students in the past that he has mentioned who were able to find graduate assistantships on campus. Talk to them about their experience to find out what kinds of jobs are there, which ones might be better and how hard they had to search for one.

Definitely more true for things like consistent employment, or even part-time shift work. A student at my school had to get permission to do evening bartending work, mostly for fun. This resulted in something like signing a conflict of commitment agreement that clearly delineates what is expected of the student in terms of what the commitments are. I can't speak for all schools but at some places with this policy, it isn't the intent to forbid all outside work, but that the department wants to know about it and knows there is a plan to ensure the outside work doesn't interfere with your commitment to the program. (For example, for shift work, the student might agree in the part time work to only take Friday evenings and weekend shifts, or something if that is enough for the school). Freelance writing isn't something in my field but I think an equivalent might be freelance tutoring. Usually this isn't going to be a problem. Some schools even create tutor databases so that those who need tutoring can search through grad student profiles to find one. I mostly wrote the above in response to the person planning to still teach part time (although I guess I was answering a question from a freelance writer!). The distinction, I think, is that as a freelance contractor you are the boss of yourself and you don't have any obligations to another employer. The school can influence how you act but they cannot do so to another employer. Although one should still be careful, since most policies don't make this distinction so a department unhappy with your progress or you for some other reason might not allow it either. Finally, the delineation you mention might be more clear in a program where you are paid a stipend to be there. In that case, the reasoning would be that you are being paid by the department to write the journal article, not the Salon article. For programs in my field, we are generally paid a research assistantship or fellowship to do our dissertation work. But even in programs without this, the way our funding is normally organized is that we are paid a stipend and tuition waiver to support our studies and in return we are expected to perform some hours of TA/RA work per week. So, in this case, it's not like we are only paid to do TA/RA work and nothing else---we are still expected to work towards our degree (as an experiment: consider what would happen if you stopped working towards your degree---it's likely your TA position will be terminated as well unless you have a contract that prevents it). But perhaps your particular programs may have different arrangements.

Very common. I hesitated to write this earlier because I know you all have done tons of research on the programs and such. But I hope you would appreciate the following warnings: 1. The majority of graduate schools that fund you will not allow you to take extra work while you are receiving that funding. Each school has their own set of regulations and some are more strict than others. However, the intention of the program is that you are meant to be primarily engaged in your work as a graduate student while you are funded. It's not like undergrad where you are there mostly for classes and you need to work in order to pay the bills. That said, non-disclosure is certainly and option and that's something each person has to decide for themselves whether or not they want to go this route. It does cause more stress and depending on the wording of the policy, breaking it (i.e. if you're caught) can lead to more severe consequences than seeking an exception to the rule in the first place. Personally, I am okay with it morally if the extra work doesn't break the intention of these conflict-of-commitment rules (even if it breaks the "letter" of the rules). To me, the intention is that you will always place your work with the graduate school first, ahead of all other jobs. So as long as you don't let your side jobs get in the way of what the school expects you to do (including cancelling shifts at other places of employment at the last minute if something else comes up) then it should be okay. 2. The majority of grad schools also expect you to be in attendance for most of the time. While it may be possible to only come in a few days a week, it's not going to reflect well on you and you will be missing out on what is arguably the purpose of grad school, which is to enter the academic community and be part of it. But it might be harder than you expect to schedule classes all on one day and any TA positions you may have. Typically, the understanding for grad programs I've been part of is that you're expected to be around for business hours. So, a class may have an extra meeting here or there during the day if the prof has to travel or something. And it would be rare to schedule TA appointments and classes around people's personal schedules. I'm not saying it's not possible to do things like only come in a few days a week or work on the side. Just be sure you will be able to get what you want before committing to the school.

The advice above from @FishNerd is awesome and I agree with all of it. A lot of it sounds very similar to what we did too. I was married at the end of the first year of my Masters after 6 years of being together before that. We moved from Canada (where you typically do a 2 year MSc then a 3 or 4 year PhD) to the USA where I started over with a 5-year PhD. It was a lot of work and I was very glad to have the support of my partner throughout the entire PhD. A few months ago, I reached the point in my life where it turns out I've known my partner for more than half of my entire life (we were good friends before we dated). Here are some of my own thoughts on how to nurture a long term relationship through the tough trials of academia. I do have to note that it is "easier" for us because only one of us is an academic and I have heard from other couples that it's much harder when both are academics. But still, many non-academic people have very time consuming and demanding jobs too. 1. We considered grad school an investment in ourselves and a decision for both of us. I know you're past this stage now but the philosophy remains. The decision of where to go for grad school was 50% me and 50% my partner, even though I was the only one attending the program. Similarly, when I applied for post-PhD jobs, we applied the same idea. 2. Before starting the PhD, we had a good talk about life and career goals and ensured that we were both moving on a path that allowed both of us to achieve our goals and our goals together. We are both clear on our long term plans and we had a "long game". It was a long term plan that we both truly wanted and it had to be one that we both were happy with and would choose (not just one we would compromise with for the other). Once we had this plan, we made all decisions with the plan in mind. The plan also really helps when times are tough in grad school. We would just go back to the plan and remind ourselves what we were doing and why we were doing it. We also reflected on the plan regularly to ensure that we really were making decisions that will benefit both of us, since sometimes we might end up neglecting the other's goals accidentally. 3. We identified our main worries about grad school / academia and made plans to mitigate/avoid them. For us, the biggest worry/concern about academia is that the often quoted goal of a TT prof position is very hard to get, and there might be some undetermined number of postdocs between graduation and the TT position. In addition, we were concerned about the nomadic nature of academics and we weren't really keen on moving around forever. We were/are happy for some short period of adventures and living in different places and moving around but we didn't want to wait forever before we could settle down, start a family, buy a home, etc. So, our mitigation plan to preserve our long term goals was to set a time limit on this academic career thing. Our time limit was 10 years from the start of the PhD program. After this time, our commitment was that we will be in our geographical area of choice, no matter what, and settle down there. It's where we grew up, it's where our families are, it's where we want to grow old etc. For my field, 10 years means a PhD, and then 1 really long postdoc or 2 shorter ones. It is more important to me (and both of us) that we live in our area of choice than what work we do. So, from then on, every major decision we made was towards this goal and we kept this "exit plan" in mind when the going go rough, when it seemed like we would never move back etc. So I only applied to PhD programs that were at the top tier since limiting myself to an geographic area means that I better be very competitive for any academic positions there. Similarly, when applying to postdocs, the question was not, "will this lead to a faculty position in the future", or "will I be able to stay in the field if I do this postdoc" but instead, "will this postdoc lead us to moving back to this area in the future?". Having this backup plan felt really good and it was a critical part of keeping ourselves happy with all the uncertainty that comes with a career in academia. For us personally, it directly mitigated all of our worst fears and concerns about going on this path and was a key component of our healthy and strong relationship. 4. We synchronized our schedules like @FishNerd suggested. My partner had somewhat fixed hours and I just matched my schedule to theirs. 5. As @FishNerd also suggested, we prioritized ourselves/each other/our personal lives. In grad school, I think the most important and one of the hardest things to learn is saying "no" to people who have power or influence over you. However, we need to prioritize a good balance of work and the rest of our lives. It took me a few years to figure out how to do it, but I felt like my stress levels went way down, our relationship thrived, and everyone was much happier when I finally decided that I will prioritize every part of my life equally in terms of scheduling. That is, I decided how much I wanted to commit to each part of my life. So I decided that 8am to 5pm on Mondays to Fridays was 100% dedicated to work, minus break time. This was also my partner's work schedule. So I would happily accept any work engagement, meeting request, etc. during these hours. However, the rest of the hours in the week belonged to us. There were some key core hours that we both agreed that we would clear with each other before committing ourselves. In particular, weeknight evenings from the end of work to dinner together were time meant for us. So, neither of us would make commitments during this time without checking with the other. To be clear, this doesn't mean that we only ever spend this time together or only with each other---we often met up with friends for socializing or did our own things too, but standard procedure was to give the other a heads-up. So that meant that if anyone asked for any work related thing after 5pm or before 8am, I would generally decline or ask to reschedule unless it was absolutely urgent. Some students I know are less good at saying no, so they feel like they need a good excuse every time their advisor or a prof asked them to do something outside of work hours. I simply said no, I can't, and if it's a mass email where others can see, I usually specified the reason like, "Sorry, I can't attend the meeting at 5:30pm because it is my responsibility to cook dinner for my family and I need to leave at 5pm to do that" because I wanted to set a good example for more junior students and also to change our academic culture of having to work all the time. Note that I think this reasoning for absence is just as valid for non-family reasons too, such as planning to meet your friends that evening or your plans to go to the gym or even just your planned down time. Of course, there will be times where the nature of work requires extra work hours put in beyond the regular work week and that gets scheduled in as needed. However, I feel that if you are not careful about scheduling, it is easy to have work bleed over into all parts of your life, potentially damaging your relationships.

First, I think I wrote in the other thread on the same topic that grad schools and med schools have very different criteria because the difference in the nature of the work. Some things that are critical in the integrity of the medical profession don't quite apply to grad school. Not that I am saying graduate school in research science is less moral or a bad place or anything, and not to say that PhD researchers don't have important impact on the world, but it should be clear how physicians impact their patients in a very different way than academics impact society. Writing about depression or anxiety would not get you expelled from a graduate program. Reducing the stigma of getting mental health support is a major goal for almost all Universities, especially with their student groups, so this will not hurt you. Fear of "snapping and losing control" is probably the part that you might be worried about. I still find it hard to believe that graduate programs would even entertain unsolicited emails about their applicants from strangers showing screenshots of blog posts and such. As I said, graduate admissions is very very different from medical school admissions, and to be honest, I think most people involved would just ignore these unsolicited emails. But I don't know the exact nature of the screenshots nor the strategy of people that would send this information to schools so I can't say for sure. Ultimately, the admissions committee, the ones with the most say in your admission decision, will not be able to determine things like whether or not you are in a good mental space to be a productive scientist. It's not their job to do so and they don't have the training to do so. After admission, the person who is sending these screenshots in would likely have to contact the Student Affairs office or something along those lines. If your screenshots violates specific policies (e.g. Title VI, Title IX, conduct policies, etc.) then the screenshots would have to be sent to the correct office. If the office deems that there is a credible risk to the current student population based on this information, then they might take some action, such as calling you in to the office to discuss the details. Unlike your med school experience, this wouldn't really be a "trial". Instead, this should be a discussion with the framework of finding you the resources you need to continue to be a member of the community. You said that you aren't in the same psychological state now and that will matter. They will look at your entire history and the goal is to move past it, not punish for past behaviour. Of course, I don't know the exact nature of your past so I don't know what will happen for sure. And each school is different. I'm writing based on how I know my graduate school handled cases where they got information regarding a student's potential risk to the community. I haven't heard of a situation where the information came from an external source---usually these cases are initiated by someone else on campus. But the point of this is to say that there is a key difference between med school and grad school. It appears that there are many more strict and important professional standards from the medical community and there are offices and resources at med schools whose goal is to protect these standards. But in grad school, the offices and resources exist to protect their own students primarily, including you after admission. The goal is to ensure students, including those accused of misconduct, get the support and help they might need. The goal isn't to exclude these students from the campus, but instead, to ensure that they can be a productive part of the community.

Going from (Canadian) MS to PhD, I got final confirmation that all degree requirements were met days before I moved. And the graduation ceremony took place months after I already started at my PhD. Didn't fly back for that (did walk for BSc and PhD though). One thing I forgot to note above: If you (or anyone else reading this and considering the same things) are an international student, your I-20 or DS-2019 will only allow you into the US 30 days prior to the start date on that document. The start date often defaults to the first day of orientation or something like that. So, after accepting an offer and confirming an earlier start date (with a RA contract or whatever funding), you need to also ensure the school's international office knows about the earlier date too, so that you can have an I-20 or DS-2019 with this earlier date and allow you to enter the USA.

Hi! Food: yes, of course there are lots of these! Biking: yes, biking is very popular. however, it may be difficult to bike from the city to UBC depending on what direction you're heading from and how comfortable you are biking on busy roadways Sports: Yes, there are actually several. The grad student society organizes intramurals. Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics in 2010 and the ice hockey arena for the olympics is on campus Climbing: Very popular in Vancouver. I am not sure if there are any on campus, but there are many in Vancouver Skiing: Expensive so I never did it as an undergrad. Car is the best way to get up the mountain but you can probably find people to carpool with

Seconding rising_star's advice, especially about the changing RA thing. At most programs in my field, you only RA for your thesis advisor so accepting an admission offer with an RAship for a certain prof means you are basically choosing that prof as your advisor (for now, anyways). If your field is the same, one way to phrase this question would be to first ask the prof about how students and advisors are matched up, (i.e. whether it's a determination made at admission, in first year, later on etc.)

Right after you accept the offer. Usually, it makes more sense to discuss details of a summer position after your PI knows you have committed.

I used the sample calculations from the Wikipedia article. Here's the link to the 2018 marginal tax rate table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Marginal_tax_rates_for_2018 Don't forget to subtract the 12,000 standard deduction if you qualify for it (most Americans should). That's a new change for 2018. Also, students do not pay FICA taxes so you can ignore that part of the calculation. It's not always the best idea to use what grad students have as net pay since their deductions and withholdings can be different than yours. In general, the tax rate is going to be between 10% and 12% for most single American grad students, maybe less if you have a lower stipend.

Email the person that sent you the flight info. Ask them if there is an itinerary or lodging details ready yet. They would either send it to you or let you know when it would be ready or direct you to the right person to ask.

Other people in your field can answer your other questions specifically for your field. But this question has a general answer for all fields at all stages of academia. And sadly, the answer is no

1. Ask the question. It's a good question to ask. 2. Ask the DGS (only) if they have a better idea now of who you might meet with. Ask the POI (only) again about potentially meeting while you're at the visit.

To add on to what others said above, a few more differences: - Fellowships are usually sourced from some sort of communal funds. For example, the department may have a pot of money to award them, or the school, or some extra agency (big national ones such as NASA and NSF, as well as small private ones). On the other hand, research assistantships usually comes out of someone's budget, often a professor's grant. - Because of this, you often have a little more flexibility / academic freedom when you are doing research funded by a fellowship you've won/earned than if you are being paid by someone's grant as a research assistant. In particular, at many schools, this means you are not reliant on your advisor for most of your funding, meaning that you might be more able to start side projects with other profs, or forge your own research path to some extent. - Also because of this, if you are being funded externally to your advisor (e.g. fellowship), this might mean your advisor has extra money to spend on you in other ways (travel, equipment, etc.). Relatedly, you'll come with a lower price tag to any advisor and you might be able to secure a spot in an advisor's group where you might not have otherwise (since they might not have enough funds in their grants to fully support another student). - Some fellowships for grad students come with tuition support (usually not enough to cover the whole thing but defrays costs for your advisor). - Some fellowships for grad students come with research funds. I had one that paid for the equivalent of an extra 2 conferences per year. My advisor held formal approval on spending of the funds but it was basically my money to spend how I wanted. It was especially useful in my final year when I was applying for jobs to "invite myself" to give talks at schools where I wanted to meet people since if you're paying your travel costs, many schools will be happy to host you as a seminar speaker and cover local expenses. - Generally, fellowships are more valuable and prestigious than assistantships and look better on your CV.

I find that the structured funding like you suggest rare in the United States. They are very common in Canada though, where many assistantships** are unionized and your salary is defined by your level of experience. Also, in Canada, the normal progression is indeed Bachelor->Master->PhD, so a first year PhD student is, almost by definition, 2 years more advanced than a first year Masters student. In the US, since many people often go Bachelor->PhD and not everyone does a Masters, it is less likely for schools to pay more if you have a Masters degree. But if you are in a unionized position, you might find something like that. Since US schools are rarely unionized, you won't find this very much. Most US schools will treat all new PhD students the same, whether they have a Masters or not. Some schools do give a pay bump when you gain PhD candidacy. I think this is more common for schools where your tuition costs decrease after candidacy (since you generally no longer take courses). This is also common in Canada. (** almost all TA/admin assistantships are unionized, RAships are less commonly unionized)

1) Yes, it's really typical, in my experience. 2) Not that strange if you have been communicating well with the PI and they know that you are seriously considering their school. If you're not there yet, then get to that level and then ask. However, if you aren't going to base your final decision on this answer, then there's no rush, you can always ask this later. In truth, I don't think it's a good idea to base your decision on whether or not you can start early. 3) Depends on you! I didn't really take a break because I defended my MSc thesis, packed up my things, submitted the corrections, took 1 week off with family and then moved to PhD school. Two others in my cohort started early in the summer too. At my PhD school, approx. 30% of new students each year don't have any long break between what they were doing before and their PhD program. I think if you have had a tough undergrad/MS/whatever you were doing before and need some time to recharge then do that. But if you're ready to go and there's a funded summer position waiting for you, go for it. Most students who did start early in the summer are super productive during their first year of grad school. One guy I know even submitted a paper based on the summer work before grad school even began. Most others use that summer to either finish up a previous project with a new collaborator at the grad school, or to get a head start on their PhD research. It's much easier to keep research going during the first year if you started it in the summer when there's only research to do, instead of having to get started with both classes and research at the same time. Overall, I would say that unless you do get an extra paper out during that summer (rare), the extra benefit in productivity of starting early levels off around the end of the 2nd year (i.e. students starting early and students that did not end up at around the same level). So it's not like you are doomed to be less productive if you choose to take a break either. So it's up to you. I think that if you feel like you would be bored and if you want the extra funds and the position is available then go for it.

It is fine to ask her to submit the letter at an earlier time. But the best way to do it depends on the situation. Did you tell her the April deadline not knowing that it was for "late" applications only and the real deadline was January? If so, tell her your mistake and that you would like her to submit her letter sooner. Ask her when would be possible, maybe gently suggesting that you hope it would be possible within 2-4 weeks. Or, did you change your mind about when you wanted the application submitted? If so, tell her that your situation has changed and that you are hoping to submit and finalize the application well before the April deadline for funding reasons. Or some other scenario? In any case, I think the key things to remember are: 1) tell her what's going on: it gives context/reasoning to why you have changed your request at the last minute and 2) approach it as if you were asking her to write the letter for the first time: you wouldn't want to ask someone for a letter and give them only a week or less to do it. Normally you approach them weeks in advance so expect the same lead time. If she is able to get it done sooner then you're in luck

In my field, a TT equivalent is some other permanent job / career path. So, for example, a staff scientist position at a national lab. Another example is that in some countries/places, they don't have the concept of tenure (many US schools also do not have tenure). So permanent faculty positions at such places also count. Of course, when we say permanent, nothing is actually permanent (not even tenure!) so it's really "indeterminate length position". Or, to simplify, I would interpret the columns as (1) permanent positions in academia, (2) term positions in academia, and (3) positions outside of academia. I'm not sure about this 3 groups and 2 percentages thing either, maybe I am just misunderstanding the formatting? But asking them to clarify would make the most sense.

My PhD department was similar in that the overall program decides who gets in or not but there are a few different concentrations that make recommendations individually. I think they basically rank their candidates and provide rationale on why they want those candidates and then the program as a whole decides on who gets offers, keeping in mind some sort of balance (but not always, sometimes a concentration may only admit 1 or 2 students if the other concentrations have much stronger candidates). Then, it's up to the concentrations individually to notify their people. Since these other news come from other concentrations, I wouldn't read too much into it yet. It might be that the program as a whole has already made the decisions but since your PI isn't on the committee, he doesn't yet know. Perhaps your concentration has delayed notifying its candidates for some reason. It could be that the person in charge of sending out notifications is away right now. Or, it could be that they are still working out some details for a couple of applicants (funding, etc.) and are waiting to notify everyone at once. Or, the program as a whole has made some decisions but not finalized yet, so they haven't announced anything yet.