TakeruK

I feel like this is something you should talk to your professors about. I agree with bsharpe that usually, applying to 20 schools is too many and you would be asking a lot of these professors! I think applying to 20 schools might be okay in the case where you sit down with your professors to discuss the schools and they are the ones that suggest that you apply to all these schools in the first place! I have not heard of many LORs that only ask for "select an option" / "tick mark" choices. Usually what happens is that the professors get an email with a special link that directs them to your LOR page. Then, they might get asked some rating/option/tick mark questions. However, pretty much every LOR request will also ask them to write a few paragraphs, i.e. a letter, to describe you. Luckily, this is not that much more work for a professor. Usually, they will write one LOR and then copy and paste it over and over again so writing 10 LORs might only be a little bit more work than 5 LORs. My professors said that they expect a LOR would take them about 1 hour to write the template and then 5-10 minutes for each additional school to navigate through each school's page, copy/paste, change school names etc. So, ~10 letters is asking for 2.0-2.5 hours of a professor's time, which is a reasonable request if you have done your own due diligence in figuring out which programs are the right fit for you.

Here is a good tax estimator: https://www.taxbrain.com/tax-estimator.asp Note that depending on your visa status, you may not be eligible for as many deductions as a resident American citizen. I know that as non-resident aliens for tax purposes, my wife and I must file as "Married, filing separately", which does not allow us to claim better tax deductions. That is, your husband may have to file his taxes as if he were a single person. Non-resident aliens also cannot claim the "standard deduction". Actual tax paid would really depend on your personal circumstances but I think estimating about $10,000 is reasonable, so you would have about $50,000 after deductions. The monthly take-home would then be about $4100/month. I think if rent is around $1000-$1300/month, this would be enough income for two people. But that's based on the spending that my wife and I do and it might not be the same for others. Hope that was at least helpful though.

I'm in yet another field and I have never cited anything in my SOP. My SOP Is not a research proposal and in fact, I wrote very little about the details of what I wanted to do in my PhD program. This is because I knew that the programs I applied to did not want us to commit to a project prior to starting. Instead, we are just admitted into the program itself and then we decide our supervisors etc after we arrive and meet them. In my SOP, if you have to cite something then your SOP is far too detailed. I only wrote about the surface level material when referring to my research interests and techniques I wanted to use. For example, I might have wrote about my interest in studying of exoplanets using the big telescope that my school owns and operates. If I was writing a paper on this topic, I would probably cite the paper of the discovery of the first exoplanet with this method (pretty much every paper on topic cites that paper). However, this is a SOP, not a paper, so I did not cite it. Everyone reading it would know about that paper anyways. So, in my opinion, I do not think you should write your SOP like a scientific paper. To me, the SOP is a personal narrative, aka a piece of informal writing. I wrote it as if I just ran into one of the profs while at a conference and I wanted to tell them about me over coffee or lunch or something like that. I wrote it the way I might speak to another person instead of a way I might write for a journal. If I wrote my SOP like I would a journal, it would have dozens of citations since I would be referring broadly to a lot of very general material. I think if I could pick out exactly 2 or 3 papers that encapsulated my entire research interest, then it would be far too narrow!

I can't really say what the "norm" is because I've only done this for one single school. What you did sounds fine to me though. I should mention that my edits were pretty egregious--I scanned the file (with a green background) and then went into an image editing program and painted a giant white box over areas I didn't want the school to see) and then added text in that white area saying "Removed for privacy" or something like that. I mostly felt the urge to make that note because the white boxes looked weird. I think if you were able to hide all the non-important info by just folding, then it should be okay? I agree that you should not be required to reveal anything on that own-copy-of-score-report!

This is only for the PRAXIS test. For the GRE, see: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/scoreselect/ ; specifically, So, you cannot send your best Q score from one date and your best V score from another. Also, be careful about ordering the paper score report and then scanning it because this paper report (that is meant for you only, not to send to schools) will include every test you took and also the other schools you send your scores too. It's way too much info to send to a school. I had to do this for one school because they didn't receive my official score report, so I took the time to edit the electronic file to remove all non-relevant information (I told the school I would do this, so they understand why the file looks altered). A cheaper alternative might be to just take a screenshot of the page from your GRE Account and make it into a PDF. Check with the school to see if this is okay.

I think the main reason they would not want people to do this is that non-degree students will take time away from the professor that they would want to be spending on either the degree students or their own research. I don't think money is the only limiting factor in how many degree students a program would accept. I think that programs also limit the amount of students they accept because they want to make sure professors have enough time to mentor and teach the degree students. Having too many special students enroll would mess up the balance. However, it's pretty common for upper level undergrads to take graduate courses at the same institution though. It doesn't cost them extra money because they pay a set tuition no matter how many classes they take. I TA'ed a graduate course and about half of my students were undergrads. Most of them are seniors but I even had one or two freshmen and sophomores! But not all schools are like this (my undergrad was not and they were very strict on when an undergrad may enroll in a grad class). Like peachypie said though, professor approval is usually required for this. The only non-degree non-students I've ever had in my grad classes were postdocs and staff members!

This is a good point too! To clarify, including the rationale in your SOP would not necessarily take up a lot of space. My SOP was a narrative of my research experience, which naturally requires transition sentences to show how I moved from one project/lab to another. So this transition from one lab to another due to the summer research opportunity only needs to be 1 sentence (and even if you moved from one lab to another "naturally", you would have one sentence to signal to the reader that you're now going to discuss your experience at the next lab now anyways).

I think it would also really depend on cost of living in your area! I think $15/hr is way too little to be charging for tutoring--your time is worth much more than that! As an undergrad, when I was tutoring high school or freshman level math and physics, my rate was $25/hour. When I was a MSc student, the rate that I and other graduate students charged was $30/hr for the same level. Our TA rate is $40/hr and our RA rate was $22/hr so $30/hr seems like a good valuation of our time. Once in awhile, there are weird/rare things that crop up and my surcharge was usually an extra $5/hr if there was something extra (e.g. they wanted help with sophomore or higher level stuff). Now that I am a PhD student in the US, my work permit does not allow me to tutor so I don't do it anymore (although I wouldn't have time anyways!). But if I did tutor, based on the cost of living of my current city, I would charge around $40-$50/hr. However, I would say that since this is a colleague/classmate/fellow student, I would not charge my full "professional" rate. Honestly, I don't like mixing friendship (although you may not be nor plan to be friends I guess) and business so I wouldn't even officially tutor but just offer to help instead (after all, they might be able to help you out with something else you don't know). I also feel that it would be a breach of my personal ethics if I tutored someone I was taking a class with. There's just too much potential conflict of interest and also the potential that someone else will perceive your actions as academic misconduct. That is, even if you are tutoring them in something that was not part of the homework assignments etc., someone else might only see that you are charging a classmate to help them with course material and assume or perceive it as them paying you to help them with homework. Although this did not happen to me personally, I've seen other people judge other tutors who have done this. Thus, I would not want to get any money involved at all! Instead, I would just help but not commit myself to more time on it than I would do as a favour to a friend/colleague. All of that said, since you did ask for advice specifically on the amount to charge, and not whether or not to tutor at all (although I felt compelled from past tutoring experiences to share the above), I would say either 1) charge the full rate for whatever you feel is a good valuation of your time (I'd say $20-$25/hr for a senior) or 2) if you are feeling charitable, I would say 1.5 times minimum wage is a good "charitable" rate because don't forget that you would have to spend some time outside of the actual tutoring hours to prepare, too!

I just want third these two very good points! I feel that sometimes, (usually older) professors have some idealized image of grad school where students put aside everything and focus on their academics/career only. So, they give advice like "don't worry about X until you are done!" (where X could be relationships, starting a family, saving for retirement, buying a home, whatever). But I think this is really faulty advice and I'm not sure whether it's because these professors have a skewed memory or perhaps things were just different back then. At my school, we are currently working hard to make an argument for better quality of life for graduate students and reverse the mindset that "grad students shouldn't have families" that some professors have. So, I just felt the need to emphasize these points by fuzzy and juillet, and let you know that you might get opposing (and what I feel is bad) advice about this from some professors!

This is a common thing that we see in our offer letters. What I would do is ask how often students get the RA and TA ships and whether or not it will be the same level as funding as in first year. If it's like 100% of students who want a RA/TA ship get one and they pay the same as the first year fellowship, then all is good. If RA/TA ship funding is rare then I would be worried.

Extra activities like student leadership positions do not really make any difference towards most grad school admission decisions so I wouldn't draw attention to your illness by trying to explain why you didn't do these extras. Grad schools don't really care about extra-curriculars. It might be a concern that you did not maintain full time status throughout your entire undergrad degree and that it doesn't sound like you have research experience. However, you can probably explain the first part without mentioning your illness if you don't want to, and the second part is nice to have, but not every grad student has a ton of research experience either. I agree with jenste that if you do want/need to mention your illness, you can frame it as a positive instead of an excuse!

I'd go with your research PI and explain why you left the lab in your SOP. I agree that it won't be great to have, however, I think having the reason be clear (and allow you to present "your side" in your SOP) is far better than having the admission committee noticing you are missing a letter from a PI and potentially assuming/thinking up worse reasons than the truth!

I agree with everyone else, from the point of view of a student attending a conference at my own school as well as someone who helped organized conferences, if you are only wanting to step in quickly to see a small number of talks throughout the week, then don't worry about registration and organizers probably won't mind either. I would say that you should not participate in things that directly costs money though (e.g. coffee breaks, meals etc.). I guess it's tough to decide what crosses the line between "a talk or two" and "should pay registration" though. I think one very rough rule of thumb might be that if you are attending more than say, 10% to 20% of the minimum registration cost, then you should probably register. So, if they have daily rates and you plan on attending more than a few hours, then I'd say you should register for the day. If they have weekly rates only, then I think you can get away with attending the equivalent of 0.5-1.0 days. Finally, I agree with fuzzy--just play it by ear. If there is a registration desk, definitely do the courteous thing and ask for permission.

In my program the only non-degree classmates we have are staff scientists or postdocs that choose to take the classes. I think all staff members are allowed to take classes free of charge (but they can't count towards any degree) with permission of the instructor.

Not all schools will simply allow any student to pay the fees and take the class. I think it would really depend on each school and each program. The reason against allowing anyone to just pay the fees and take the class is that non-degree students would take up the instructor's time that the school might want them to use otherwise (on their own research, on advising students, on grading degree students). Similarly, many schools do not allow students to be self-funded for their programs (i.e. if they were not strong enough they get a fellowship from the school, then they are not going to be admitted). Some programs with lots of money don't really consider money as the limiting factor on how many students they can accept. Instead, the limiting factor is actually often time. A professor with "unlimited" funding can only advise and/or teach so many students. Finally, some school are fundamentally opposed to open learning and they think it "cheapens" the value of the degree if anyone has access to the course materials. I really really strongly disagree with this last principle!! (However, I think the other arguments above make a lot of sense).

Do you have to scan the actual paper copy that arrives? Or, can you just print the webpage from the GRE MyAccount online, which would also have your scores? Check with your school! Also, maybe ETS has changed things but right after the test, ETS sends you a paper score report for free (which is how you know your AW score); but maybe this part also takes 2 months? However, most deadlines are December so you should hopefully get it just in time!

Oh I see--was UG a really long time ago? Or are you purposely avoiding letters from UG? When I applied to PhD programs after my MSc, I had 2 letters from research supervisors in UG and 1 letter from my MSc supervisor. I think it is helpful to get letters from as wide a range of your academic life as possible so that the graduate school gets a full picture of you. I would avoid all three letters from a 1-2 year MA program if UG was just directly before that. However, that's just my opinion and I don't know the specifics of your case so I don't think I can really be much help to you, sorry! Even if I went with all 3 letters from my Masters school, I would probably still not mention the GPA trend. But, obviously only you can determine what's best for your case, based on your specific circumstances!

Note: Even if you did not waive your rights to view them under FERPA, you might not even get to see them. You can only access your student records after you have enrolled as a student so if you don't get into a school, you may never be able to view your LORs because they will not have created a student record for you. Similarly, some schools destroy all application files after they make their decision so even if you enroll in the school, they can't show you what's in your file. Your FERPA rights are to know what's in your student record/file at all times, not specific to your LORs, so if the LORs are not in your student record/file, then you can't view them. When you waive your FERPA rights with respect to the LOR, you are saying that if you ever ask to view your student file, the school is allowed to hide your LORs from you. The corollary is that even if you waive your rights, you are still able to view your LORs if the school chooses to share them with you. Again, you are not waiving your rights to ever see them, you are just saying that the school is allowed to choose to withhold your LORs if you ask to see your student record via your FERPA rights. For example, when my colleague graduated, the school gave him all the contents of his student file (I guess that way, he's responsible for them instead of the school) and the file contained his LORs from when he started, despite waiving his rights like everyone else. Also, if your letter writers choose to show you their LOR, you can still waive your rights and it's okay.

I'm not in the same field as you, but I definitely discussed methodology in my SOP. For me, this was equivalent to why School X was a good fit for me! In my case, I wrote about how I wanted to develop skills as an observer (i.e. user of astronomical telescopes) and that I applied to School X because they have the best access to Telescope Y. I don't know exactly what the equivalent in history would be, but if certain schools place emphasis on certain methodologies or have resources for you to develop your skill in certain methodologies, I would definitely bring that up in the SOP.

My personal opinion is disagree. They will see mostly Bs in the first few years and then mostly As in the last two years. Also, although the whole GPA is reviewed, it's likely that many programs will focus / further review the last few semesters and from that they will see As. This is part of the reason they ask for a transcript instead of just a GPA -- they can evaluate trends themselves (or notice to see what your grades are in the courses they would really care about). Get your LORs to mention the trend instead.

Here's an anecdote if it helps: One of the students I used to TA applied to my school. One professor saw that the student went to the same school as I did and asked me if I knew the student, and what I thought about the program there. I also helped this student tailor their SOP to fit my program well. I really don't think my actions had any effect though as the student also got into every single program (all top programs) and it was not like I was helping them with those other applications And from the other side: When applying to PhD programs, I knew someone at many of the schools I was applying to (Canadian planetary science is a very small community). I didn't mention these people at all in my application. One interesting side effect of knowing people in the program was that for some of them, I found out my admission decision through my grad student friend a day before I got the phone call / email from the department with the decision.

In my opinion, I wouldn't mention it at all. I think that a GPA jump from 3.1 to 4.0 will be very noticeable in the transcript. Another option is to ask your LOR writers to mention it.

First, Masters students are not funded very often in the US. But is a Masters program really what you want? I am just asking for clarification because the US graduate school system is different from other countries (e.g. Canada) where students who want a PhD will enter a PhD program right from undergrad--they don't enroll in a Masters program first. It is a bit of a risk for a non-American to invest a bunch of money into a US Masters program but perhaps you have good reason! Just wanted to say that it's not a common path, which is why so few fellowships have funding for it. There are some fellowships that will fund non-American students at American schools. But almost all of these are for doctoral studies: Depending on your home country, the best source of fellowship is probably your own home government. The main science/engineering fellowships that American students apply to (NSF, NDSEG, etc.) are all American citizens only. You may be able to find specific fellowships granted by federal agencies that are open to non-US citizens. For example, in my field, the NASA Earth and Space Sciences fellowship is open to anyone working on a project that is in line with NASA's Science Mission Directorate's goals (i.e. support for their space missions). If this is related to your field, let me know and I can provide more information. If not, maybe you can find a similar fellowship for your field (check the national agency responsible for your field). But that's it--Fulbright (applied through your home country), home country fellowships, and this single NASA fellowship are/were the only ones I am eligible for while studying in the US.

Keep your SOP only about your experience, skills, research, and future career/academic goals. All personal things (e.g. your friend, or if you know a professor etc.) should be left off. You could let these people know that you are applying though, and perhaps they will have a chance to put in a good word for you. However, it's pretty unlikely a grad student friend will have much sway.

You can always ask. If they say no, then it doesn't hurt you.