TakeruK

I don't think you have offended anyone and I actually think discussion of different viewpoints is good. Sometimes we have to think critically about what we're seeing and sometimes it does mean going into slightly uncomfortable territories. Personally, I'm still torn on whether or not this group is genuinely good and I'm misinterpreting the "living in the past" line, or whether or not this group is doing good in the present while (purposely?) trying to erase/deny that bad things happened in the past. I'm leaning towards the former but not completely sure!

Oops -- I had meant to respond to that part of your question too, sorry. I don't know the facts for certain but my opinion/thought would be to agree with GeoDUDE! and say that they do compete with each other. I don't think they share applications between UC schools because 1) schools (UC or not) don't share applications with each other since it's not ethical (although people may talk to each other, it's not like they are all plugged into the same system) and 2) many programs are structured differently between UC schools. For example, when I applied to UC schools, I applied to different departments at different schools because some departments/programs don't exist. In addition, I believe the UC schools I applied to didn't even use the same application system/software! From experience with schools with multiple campuses, every system seems to prefer to have each campus operate as an independent university. I think part of the strength of the UC system is that each campus can have its own identity and ability to adjust things to meet their own needs while sharing some advantages of being part of a very large system (e.g. pooling resources for telescopes). However, the kind of communication for graduate admission decisions you are worried about would undermine the purpose of having independent campuses, in my opinion!

It's unlikely you'll get even more money just by holding out longer. If they wanted to offer you more, they likely would have already. I don't think schools want to get into the practice of offering more and more as April 15 approaches because that encourages students to hold out, which makes the whole process harder on them. If you want a certain stipend value then you should directly ask for it from your dream school. If they say yes, then great. If not, and you are still happy with the current offer, then just accept their offer. Things to watch out for (i.e. answering your last question): 1. Avoid appearing that you are trying to play them for more money. Yes, grad school negotiations are like job offers and you should be able to get yourself the best deal. However, you can earn a bad reputation for appearing manipulative, especially if you already have a generous offer and still want a little more. Note that as an incoming graduate student, we're not in as much of a strong negotiating position as incoming postdocs or faculty. In the latter, new faculty negotiate with some high level administrator, such as the Provost, Dean, or Department Chair and the process is more or less private between them. As a new graduate student, many more professors may be involved and remember that you will be working closely with (and that your success depends a lot on) these people. Be careful of how you portray yourself! So, if you need (or want) a certain financial package, the professional approach is to be direct and just say it. Definitely fight for what you need. But being sneaky and manipulative is poor behaviour. 2. If you are certain (i.e. 100% and no less) that you want to attend a school, simply waiting just to hear back from other schools out of curiosity is poor behaviour, in my opinion. Don't do this. On the other hand, if you aren't completely sure about this school, then you should absolutely wait until you have all the information you need before you decide (not sure if the "100%" in your original post is literal or not). These opinions come from my belief that grad school and academia is a hard enough place to work that we should take care to consider the impact of our actions on others and avoid unnecessarily making things more difficult for others. Sure, you might not face any consequences from your actions now (or maybe not ever). But if I think if you keep up these poor behaviours, it will eventually catch up to you. Note: I'm not saying we should all bend over backwards to ensure no one is ever hurt by us. We do need to ensure we are looking out for ourselves and our needs. But putting others in a bad place for no real gain for ourselves (e.g. simply curious on other admission decisions you don't actually plan to accept) is well...crappy behaviour.

Although this thread has a slightly different focus than the first, it's essentially the same topic (as the OP also mentioned the same question in the original post). Also, I think the two topics are closely related enough that one would discuss both aspects simultaneously, so I'm going to close this thread. Please use the link in the original post, or the following link to find this discussion:

it is possible, under some circumstances, to work off-campus while on F-1 status. These opportunities are called Curricular Practical Training (CPT) and Optional Practical Training (OPT). You can find more information here: http://www.ice.gov/sevis/practical-training as well as your school's International office. In short, this program is designed for international students to be able to work off campus to fulfill degree requirements and/or get extra experience in their field. That is, you would only be allowed to work in your field. In extreme circumstances, you might be able to get approved for non-related off-campus work in order to make ends meet, but this is an exception. The idea of this program is further your training, not to make money to support yourself (since you can only enter the country on F-1 if you already have enough money/funding to support yourself).

Like 1Q84, the way I try to reframe these types of behaviours is that I try to remember that I don't really know the full story. For example, maybe they really struggled with coursework before college and they are now very proud of what they are able to accomplish. Maybe some relatives on FB really want to hear this information. Another way to think about this is that perhaps you are not the intended audience of the post. In fact, I rarely write things on Facebook that I intend for people I see all the time in real life--they're meant for friends and family that live far away. Personally, I also don't think it's really necessary to call it "insecurity" on the other person's part to make myself feel better. Maybe they do want to impress someone else and that's not really my concern. I also don't really feel like I need to "get to know the person better so I can understand why they do this". If someone irritates me, I simply limit my interactions with them to only professional ones. tl;dr: The way I deal with annoying behaviour is to remember to not take it personally; I am not the protagonist of a story where everything happens because of me.

Maybe, but also maybe not. If a school wants to admit X students, it's fairly unlikely that they will make exactly X offers. They will make X+N offers where N is some number they know from past experience. So, it's likely that no new admission decisions will be made until they hear at least N declines. And even if there is a 1:1 ratio between a decline and an acceptance off the waitlist, some schools may choose to see all of their accepts/declines before making any new offers because they might want to balance their incoming class one way or another. Schools do not necessarily have a ranked waitlist so that as soon as one person declines, another offer is made immediately--sometimes they wait until there are enough declines that it is worth having the committee meet again to discuss the next wave. Because of all this, I don't think it's worth considering or worrying about exactly what each school will do with your decline decision. As I said above, do what is best for you while keeping in mind your responsibility to make timely decisions. I believe this attitude is important for success later in academia too. You will always have to do what is best for yourself (i.e. you wouldn't delay/change a grant submission because you might win it over a colleague) but you would be responsible and ethical about your decisions (i.e. you wouldn't purposely sabotage others, you wouldn't purposely delay peer review of a competitor's results etc.)

I think you do not have to inform the current graduate students about your decision, except for the ones that you had close contact with (e.g. they hosted you in their home when you visited) or became friends with and intend to continue your relationship. If you have already set up a meeting with current students at a school you have yet to visit, you should definitely let them know (and let them know ASAP). If you just talked about potentially meeting but had not confirmed anything, then you probably don't have to let them know, unless you either had a prolonged conversation or you feel like they have put time aside for you that day and want to make sure they don't waste their time. In the past 5 years of being a graduate student, I have never received a message from any of the prospective students I talked to about my program during their visit (except for the ones I knew personally prior to their application). And that's fine! Also, our department tells us who is coming more or less at the same time they find out from you anyhow. So it's likely the current graduate students will know too!

It depends completely on the program. But don't use this consideration when making your decision. You need to make the best choice for you, academically and personally. I'm not saying to ignore the waitlist though. You should simply take into account the fact that a waitlist likely exists, so it is your responsibility to make your decision as promptly as possible. For example, your signature currently indicates 7 acceptances and 3 waitlists. If you are able to, I believe it would be responsible to start declining some of your acceptances that you know you won't pick. For example, once I visited schools, I was quickly able to determine my top 3 choices and declined the others right away while I took a few more days to make my final decision. I'm not saying you have to decline some of your 7 schools (some people need that many options due to other considerations like a SO finding a job etc.). But if you are worried about the people on the waitlist, I think declining schools after you are sure you don't want to go would be the best way to do this.

It's definitely true that your grad school's name by itself won't get you an academic job. But the grad school's name does impact your ability to do good science and research! If you take two equally talented people and put one in a "brand-name" school with lots of resources and another in a lower tier school with fewer resources, the student in the brand name school has way more opportunities to reach their full potential. So in this sense, it's important to factor in the school's name--you can't just count on the fact that if you do great work, you'll be recognized. Also, I agree with juilletmercredi that it's important to determine whether or not the NEU graduates are not able to get jobs in academia or whether they choose not take jobs in academia! And it's important to also "normalize" the fraction by comparing it against the national average etc. So, when you say "very few", do you mean something like 20% or something like 2% ? I think it's important to see how NEU compares with the national average for your field, not just the absolute number.

It might depend on field, but I've found that networking is very difficult at an academic/research conference if you are not also presenting something (a poster or a talk). Unless you have extra money lying around, I would definitely not pay $1000 to go to a 3 day conference purely for the purpose of networking. At least, not without a specific goal in mind, it will likely go as you fear--a handshake, some small talk and not much else. To be clear, a big reason to attend and present at academic conferences is to network (maybe even the #1 reason). But in your case, I don't think it's the best use of $1000, for the reasons above. I think it might be better to use that money for small, more intimate networking sessions. For example, some professional fields have local groups meant for young people to get together (sometimes with senior people too) and network over breakfast/coffee/lunch/dinner. Your $1000 invested in these types of opportunities might go a lot further.

I'm actually curious to take this discussion further, if you don't mind? When I read the line "choose not to live in the past", it did bother me a little because it reminded me of all the academics in STEM fields that say things like "we have gender equality now--women are treated the same as men!" and dismissing the problem when things are certainly not equal. Or, in Canada, people say this in order to sweep under the rug the horrible things our Government did to our native peoples, our immigrants and our Japanese-Canadian citizens during the second world war (just to name a few examples, not an exhaustive list!). However, when I read further into the FB page, it does seem to be promoting a good message (everyone is equal and there should not be discrimination) and advocates for everyone. So, that made me think maybe my initial reaction was wrong. You say that this statement is very deliberate and something about the wording does feel that way (which is why it triggered the above memories). Would you care to explain further?

That's a good point and I've thought about that too when thinking about ethics of funding. But ultimately, I think the paradigm of "give chance to attend now, and funding later" actually hurts students more than it helps. For example, all students who are not able to take on the risk of debt will not be able to take advantage of the opportunity to attend now and find funding later. I think this type of funding scheme will benefit universities at the expense of students.

Sometimes directors feel the need to say things like that. Hopefully it's for good reasons though. My current program director told us on our first day that people here work hard and you should expect to be working 7 days a week, long hours every day. That has been mostly untrue--other than a few crunch times, it's mostly been 9-5 ish for most people here. While it's true that at almost any given time on any given day, you can walk into work and expect to see at least one other person working, it's not really true that there are people that regularly work 10 hour days, 7 days a week! However, the spirit of the program director's message was on point -- expectations are indeed higher here and if I have to come in for a few hours one evening or weekend, I can expect to see others there (compared to previous programs I've been to where it's rare to see others beyond standard working hours). This might be similar to the discussion you had. They are definitely right that grad school will be hard and that not everyone who starts will graduate (I see national rates at around 50%, depending on field). They are also right that it's not a good idea to get a PhD just because you think you'll somehow end up with a good job because you have a PhD. Even if you just start a lowly entry position job right now, in 5-7 years, you'll be at a much better position in your career than if you have a PhD. So, I fully agree with Eigen that you should not get a PhD unless it's required for the job you want! Don't go to a PhD program because you don't know what to do next. Have specific career goals and make sure you pick a PhD program that will let you get there. On the other hand, I don't agree with the idea that one should only** pursue a PhD for the love of research and scholarship. You definitely need these reasons to pursue a PhD but it's not wrong nor bad to have other financial reasons along with these scholarship reasons. Personally, I view the PhD as a vocational program, not much different than going to school to become a mechanic or a plumber. Find the program that trains you for the career path you want, determine what you need to do to reach these goals, and then get out/move on. I don't agree with the "only do a PhD for research/scholarship and nothing else" because I feel that it's completely appropriate for a graduate student to ask themselves "Will this help me get to where I want to be?" when determining priorities like "how much effort should I spend on this class" or "should I go to this conference" or "should I volunteer to lead this seminar series" etc. If a graduate student followed the "love of research/scholarship" as their main priority in grad school, there is a larger chance that they will not end up with the set of skills/expertise to reach the goal they wanted post-PhD! (**Note: Perhaps it's my lack of grammatical ability, but sentences like this really confuse me. I'm interpreting the sentence that CrucialBBQ wrote as "the only reason you are supposed to pursue a PhD is for love of research/pursuit of scholarship" but it's possible that you meant the advice was "you should do a PhD only if one of the reasons is love of research/pursuit of scholarship." If the advice was the latter then I definitely agree!)

In addition to the great points raised by juilletmercredi, I just want to point out a few additional "pros" or bonuses to working with untenured professors. I am in my third year and when I started, my advisor was here for 2 years. Ideally, my graduation and my advisor's tenure will happen in about 2 years. Here are some other bonuses/pros that you didn't mention in your original post (I know you are asking about risks specifically but it's good to know the rewards too when considering risk vs reward!): 1. New professors have a TON of ideas. They likely have been keeping a backlog of "wishlist" projects they have been dreaming up since the end of grad school and maybe now is the first time they have the resources (time, people-power, equipment etc) to actually carry them out. You'll get a lot of interesting and potentially innovative projects/opportunities! 2. In my non-lab field, new professors have a ton of startup grant money. If your professor is wise, they would have pushed really hard to negotiate for a comparable startup grant that people that start labs. However, without all the expensive lab equipment and reagents etc to buy, they can spend that money on you! This means more travel opportunities and equipment like computers etc. So far, although I've only made reasonable requests, everything I've asked for has been granted (new iMac, international conference, etc.) 3. New professors might be able to better connect with their students since grad school wasn't so far away. I also recently had a career talk with my advisor and we talked about potential non-academic positions as well. My advisor still keeps in touch with all their friends from grad school who left academia and offered to help me network/contact them should I choose to go that route. I think for older advisors, the longer you stay in academia, the weaker your non-academic network becomes (in exchange for strengthening your academic network of course). 4. Younger professors also went on the job market in the last few years and understand what the current market is like. Older professors were looking for jobs in a fairly different era, so their advice may be a little dated.

Completely agree with juilletmercredi. In planetary science, a fairly small and young field (really only invented about 50 years ago), I'd say there are probably only 5-ish programs that are clearly head and shoulders above the rest. But in astronomy, I'd say all the top 20 ish schools are the same tier, more or less. I also agree with eteshoe--go for the school that offers the best opportunity for you! There is a cycle in academia where the best schools produce better scholars because they have more resources, and they have more resources because they have more money, and they have more money because they have more donors and they have more donors because they produce better scholars, and so on.... Therefore, I think a big part of why graduates from top tier programs get good jobs is because they are at a place where they are much better supported and have everything they need. I think this plays a much bigger role in your future than the nametag on your degree. That is, picking the #1 ranked university will not help you that much unless that #1 ranked university has the resources to help you reach your goals. Pick the right combination of prestige and resources to best support you (keeping in mind that prestige and resources are often extremely correlated!)

I'm not the type of person to read books on how to do things -- when I do have time to read non-work related stuff, I prefer fiction! However, I did read one book after I started grad school. It's called Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times. I would say it's aimed at the new graduate student or even early career postdoc, but it might be helpful to provide additional insight on academia for someone applying to grad school. It's also very recent--published in 2012. The title is deliberately provocative as I know many scientists have a knee-jerk reaction against the idea of "marketing" in academia, but the goal of the book is really how to apply these concepts to turn yourself into a better vessel for scientific communication and how to avoid poor communication from negatively affecting how others perceive you. So these concepts, I think, would be very useful to a reader in the grad school application stage too. If you know what kind of academic the school is looking for, then you can better portray these aspects of you in your application! Finally, the book is focused on the North American academic world. So it might not be as culturally relevant for other places, but it can be exceptionally helpful for someone outside of North America to get a look at how North American academia operates.

Usually not, since that is usually payment in exchange for work.

Maybe this can really be field dependent, but I can't see any future job paying less than what graduate students are paid! Although if I am unable to find work then this could definitely be an issue. However, in my program, people tend to remain as a graduate student until they find a job (i.e. a graduation date is normally set shortly after they get a job offer). Also, my school has "extended graduate student status", which allows students that graduate (in June) to keep working and remain paid / keep their benefits over the summer if their next job does not begin until the fall. It's a win-win situation because the new PhD does not have to go a few months without pay (it would be hard to find a job for only 3-4 months) and the school/supervisor gets a "postdoc" level worker at the price of a graduate student! So these are things worth looking into as well when making post-graduation financial plans. I only found out about this option when people I knew in the department started to graduate but then stick around for the summer!

First, a quick question -- are you a coauthor on this publication that uses a paragraph directly from your thesis? Next, this depends on how you want to pursue this. If you see this as an act of academic misconduct and feel the need to report this, then you should document everything. Usually it is not your job to play detective but Sigaba's advice on finding out whether or not this is trend might help you determine what you want to do. On the other hand, if your goal is to ensure that you can still use your own words in your own thesis, then I would encourage you to talk to your supervisor about this and phrase it as a question. I would actually agree with fuzzy that one paragraph of similar/identical text is not a big deal. But if you are still concerned, then just ask about it. I'd phrase it as something like "is it okay if we both use similar wording to describe X?" instead of accusing the professor of plagiarism. To provide more perspective though, in my field, theses are often verbatim copies of existing published papers (usually with the student as lead or coauthor). In this case though, each "copied" paper comes with the appropriate words that indicate this is reproduced with permission etc. In addition, in my field, a large number of people use the same or very similar techniques and there are only so many different ways you can describe one thing. So, it's not that uncommon to see a nearly identical paragraph in different publications by the same authors. Yes, I agree that this is still technically (self) plagiarism, but at least in my field, academics must acknowledge that it is not practical to rewrite a completely different description each time!

In my opinion, it is not okay to just blanket ask all the schools for more money. Yes, there is some aspect of business/comparing job offers to this but you have to also consider the practicalities of the power dynamics too. The first thing you should do before you start asking for more money is to know what you want. This is true for negotiating job offers in academia and the real world (or even buying a car etc.). You need to go into this knowing what you want to get out of it. So, you need to sit down and decide what school you want to attend. Since stipend is going to be negotiated here, think "If money was not an issue, where would I want to be?". This is the school you need to be negotiating with. Next, decide how much money you need to be happy there. Usually, because of the power dynamic, grad students have the best chance of getting a better offer if they can show a competing offer from a similar ranked school in a similar cost of living area. Now, go and ask for what you want/need, showing the competing offer if necessary. When you are bargaining in good faith, you are saying that "if you say yes to my asking stipend, I will attend your school". You should not be bargaining simply to get a higher offer to bargain with another school. If you do not get your offer raised or they can't match what you need exactly, or if you don't think you can bargain with this school (i.e. perhaps it's the highest offer already) then you have to decide whether the current offer is good enough or move on to the next school on your list. I also would advise you to not negotiate simply for a little bit extra. Definitely push hard if you need the difference to live comfortably but if you already have enough, a few thousand extra dollars is not worth it. Again, some people might say "this is business" but it's not worth it for the potential damage to your reputation. Graduate students should definitely negotiate when necessary but they should do this in "good faith". Just my thoughts!

I feel the same way! My partner took some introductory courses in astronomy for non-majors and that is definitely showing interest/curiosity in my work Also, I think astronomy is one of the more "friendly" academic fields where there's lots of easy ways to engage with the topic without having a lot of background! I also agree that I like separating work and life and I try to basically shut off my "research brain" when I leave my desk. I used to read tons of popular science articles on astronomy (even subscribed to Astronomy magazine) but now that I work in the field, I no longer want to read about it when I'm "off work" lol. I haven't even seen any of the new "Cosmos" series yet and I feel a little weird when relatives tell me that it's a TV show I might be interested in. It's not like I don't enjoy my research -- I definitely do and I look forward to going into work each day to do it, but when I'm not working, I would rather do something completely different! I feel that my partner is interested in my career and my work but not necessarily interested in the details of what I do. And that's great for me! When we talk about our work day during dinner, I usually focus on the interactions I had with my colleagues (e.g. a funny joke, an awkward situation, a cool event that happened etc.) rather than my actual work.

You don't get an I-20 as soon as you accept an offer. Usually what happens is that after everyone accepts, the International office then goes through the list and asks everyone who accepted for information to fill out your I-20s. By this time, you should already know about the other school.

I am Canadian (i.e. also international) and we bought a used car after 1 year in the US. It's very doable! Also, we got a car loan to buy it so it's very possible to get credit in the US as an international person. You will need a US driver's license, so get that first when you arrive. Check your state's rules and regulations for obtaining a license -- California does not recognize any type of international driver license so my wife and I had to go through the whole written test and road test thing with them. We took our test in a rental car (make sure the rental car company is okay with this ahead of time--many are not). In order to drive from the rental car company to the testing center, we needed someone with a US driver license in the car (because we did not have our full privilege US license yet and our Canadian licenses are only good in California for the first 10 days). The biggest challenge with the written test was converting all of the metric units we've learned (e.g. distance to stop from railway etc.) into Imperial units. The biggest challenge with the road test was the logistics, mentioned above. When we bought the car, we got a $10,000 car loan at 1.5% interest from our school's credit union. You will build up a US credit history pretty fast. As soon as you are able to, get a US credit card and start using it. After about a year, we had pretty good credit. We chose to get a car loan instead of paying for it from our savings because it's cheaper to pay the interest than it is to move our savings from Canada, lose out on the exchange rate and pay the currency exchange fees. Getting loans and paying them off also helps increase your credit score. Finally, you will also need to have car insurance on the car before you can drive it away from the dealership. I recommend finding an insurance agent you want to work with (perhaps you will want to bundle your car insurance with renters insurance too for your apartment etc.). Give them all of your information (driving history etc.) and get a quote for the type of car you might be interested in (the main factors are driving history, make/model, year, how much you'll use it and where you park it). If you have a driver's license from your home country, you might want to start this process early so that the licensing office in your home country can send the information/confirmation of driving history to your insurance agent. Once you are ready to buy the car, you just need to let the insurance agent know what car you got (and the VIN) and you'll be insured!

Just want to also say that my advisor is an untenured professor and I started when they were about 2 years in too. At a top 5 program, your advisor is likely a superstar. Even though they are new, they are probably well known enough that a LOR from them 5-7 years down the line will be worth something. Of course, you can check this to confirm. Not sure about your field, but in mine, our national academic society grants annual awards to top young scientists (usually within 5 years of their PhD). Has your prospective advisor won these awards? Nominated? These are all signs that the field as a whole recognizes that they are a rising superstar and this will carry weight later on. In addition, I would recommend you pick your committee wisely. Because my advisor is untenured and my second project is also with another new professor, I tried to seek a balance of experience on my committee. I sought out a couple of committee members because they were more established in the field. That way, I hope to get the best of both worlds! In my field/program, younger professors have a ton of ideas for new projects and a ton of startup grant money (we're not a lab field) so they send you to a lot of conferences, while older professors have the wisdom and experience and are more established in their fields. It's too early to worry about a committee yet, but if you are concerned that a younger untenured professor cannot provide a certain type of mentorship/advice to you, then when you do form a committee, seek out older professors that can fill that gap. The way I see it, I built my committee as a team to develop/train/mentor me to be able to best reach my goals!