TakeruK

I don't remember but to be honest, 168 V / 164 Q is just as good as 164 V / 168 Q so I would say that not knowing which one is which for another 2-3 weeks would not make much difference--just enter the scores when you get your score report!

Definitely the department address! (Or sometimes the school's general mailing address is enough)

I think you would have to ask them to clarify whether applications submitted by 12/18 are given preference over applications submitted by 1/4. It might depend on field, but I would highly highly doubt any admission committee will convene in between 12/18 and 1/4. But I only have experience with a small number of schools, so who knows. Here's my single experience with a dual deadline: At one school, international applicants are asked to submit by 12/1 while domestic deadline is 1/1. I decided to apply to this school at the end of November so I asked them how strict the 12/1 deadline is for international students and whether I could get an extra week if it's strict. They said it's not strict at all, however, the admission committee will start meeting in early January and since international students mean extra legwork for them (have to convert GPAs and verify degree equivalency etc.), they want international applications in early so that the admin staff can do this in December and then send all of the applications to the Admission Committee in early January (after doing the same for the domestic students). In the end I applied by 12/7 or so (with all my final documents submitted by 12/15) and nothing bad happened (I got an offer). So, my interpretation of a "recommended" and "final" deadline would mean that they suggest you get the materials to them by the first date because that leaves time for slow things (e.g. LORs, mailed transcripts, GRE test scores and so on) to arrive in time or in case the admin staff notices a problem (maybe you entered the wrong GRE reg. number so they can't pull up your scores) and then they can fix it. If you wait until the final deadline, you might end up disadvantaged if a problem comes up and you can't get it sorted out prior to the committee meeting. However, I would not interpret it as the school will prioritize / de-prioritize application submitted after the "recommended deadline". Also, my current program (different from above anecdote) states that the subject GRE score are "strongly recommended". Many students in my cohort did not even write the subject GRE and they were admitted with no problems. So, this leads me to believe that grad programs use the word "recommended" to mean "not required". It might be in your best interest to submit it early to avoid admin problems or to submit a subject GRE score if you want to prove your ability, but it is not required and simply not following the "recommendation" would not negatively affect your application. Of course, word meanings are subjective, I can only share the two experiences I've had here. I think the best thing to do is to just ask the program if your application will receive less consideration if it is not submitted until the second deadline.

If Dr. X and Dr. Y are both independent professors (i.e. it's not that Dr. Y works for Dr. X; but instead, Drs. X and Y simply collaborate) then there should be no problem at all. It's pretty common for graduate students to get multiple LORs from one collaboration when they apply for postdocs etc. However, even if Dr. Y works for Dr. X then it's not necessarily a bad thing either. To me, it sounds like you do work with Dr. Y and that work is independent and separate from your work with Dr. X, which I think is enough to say a letter from Dr. Y is going to provide new information that Dr. X cannot already cover. I think it would really only be a problem if Dr. Y was a staff scientist employed in Dr. X's research group and that while you might work directly with Dr. Y, ultimately, the PI is Dr. X. Or, if Dr. X and Dr. Y are jointly supervising the exact same work so that their letters would be referring to exactly the same skills/experience (although if you don't have another option in this case, this might still be better than a prof that doesn't know you as well).

In addition to what julletmercredi says, you can also go to your department administration for help (depending on how your department is structured and/or how the grants are paid, it might be a better idea to go to your advisor who can then ask the right admin staff person for help). Department admin staff are trained in doing things like this for the professors' grants all the time, so they probably know the ins and outs of each granting agency pretty well. It's also in the department's best interest for you to get to keep as much money as possible since that means you'll cost them less, so I'd imagine they would be glad to help out. In my current program, we just provide all the relevant information about the grant(s) we may have and the department admin staff sorts it all out and makes sure our total take home stipend is correct (especially for grants that don't fully cover our stipend).

It's true that future graduate students are not a protected class so it's not illegal for employers to discriminate on that basis. To me, morality is subjective, I don't think there exists an objective morality at all. I also do not think legal is the same as moral nor is illegal the same as immoral. I know this is not what you are saying, but just clarifying that I consider being lawful and being moral as independent. In my opinion, the employer, both at the interview stage and at other stages like annual reviews, promotion review, etc. have so much power over the employee. When you are asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" while under promotion review, there is basically no possible answer the employee can give other than "working for your great company!". I agree that this question is not as inappropriate as "Do you plan on having children?" but it's also the kind of question where there is a great power imbalance that makes a honest answer not viable for the employee. The equivalent in academia is professors asking if students want to work in academia in the future. At least in my field, every student is advised to always say yes unless they trust the professor enough to be honest. So, I don't think it is usually appropriate for an employer to ask that kind of question. Employers don't really get any useful information since employees know there is really only one answer that they can safely give. I say "usually" because I think this is an okay question if the employer and employee do have a good relationship and trust such that the employee actually does feel comfortable enough to be honest so that this is not a case where the power imbalance affects the answer. Anyways, I guess what I am saying is yes--future grad students (or more generally, employees with future goals beyond their current employment) are not a protected class by law. Employers are understandably upset when employees leave but yes, that's their problem, not yours. What I really meant by my post above was not to say that it should be illegal for employers to ask this question and make employment/promotion decisions based on the answer, but that while I don't like lying to people, I don't feel that it is immoral at all to lie when you know the truth will cause unfair action taken against you. Finally, as to contracts for staying, what I meant was something like incentives. That is, a job offer that states some bonus after staying on for X time, or increasing benefits, etc. This way, the employee has something to gain for staying, and the employer also wins because they get to keep the employee.

Normally, you don't want to be too specific in your research interest when writing your SOP anyways. In my opinion, your example of "network modeling as applied to healthcare systems" is already too specific! In astronomy, people generally classify themselves in two ways: the method they use and the class of object they study. For example, "method" usually means "theory", "observing/data collecting" or "instrument builder" and the class of object is very general like "planets" or "stars" or "galaxies" etc. So an astronomer's SOP might say something like they want their PhD work to be on collecting/analyzing data on planets around other stars. However, it's not really necessary to go into this much detail even. And I think especially since you are coming from a different background, it is understandable that you might not have specific research interests yet. I think the main goal of the SOP is to convey to the admissions committee that you are very motivated and excited to pursue graduate studies. One way to do this is to show a good understanding of what research topic you want to tackle. However, that's not the only way. For people who might not know what they want to do (especially if they have limited research experience) or for people coming from different fields, I think the best thing to do is instead focus your SOP on your goals in graduate studies. What do you want to get out of the program and why is this program well equipped to help you reach these goals? In most programs, you don't need to have a predefined project before you start!!

Here are some potential sources for travel grant money: 1. The conference organizing committee 2. Volunteering at the conference in exchange for free admission 3. External travel grant organizations (I only know the ones for my field unfortunately) 4. Your school's Graduate Studies office 5. Your school's department 6. If you hold a fellowship, the source of the fellowship might have additional grant money available for fellowship holders 7. Your field's national society (usually you have to be a student member to qualify) 8. Your school's graduate student society Good luck!

Can you ask your program director to help you get in touch with your advisor? Or basically be on your side and support you when you talk to your advisor about getting more of your needs met?

I am also morally against lying. However, I think this can sometimes (many times?) be a very inappropriate question for a boss to ask an employee. In my opinion, it would be immoral for a boss to ask an employee a question where 1) the answer is not related to their job description and/or 2) the employee would feel concern about giving a truthful answer. For example, questions like "Are you married?" or "Do you want to start a family soon?" or "Will you go on a date with me?" are all potentially inappropriate questions for a boss to ask an employee. (If it is important for the company to know whether or not the employee will stay on long term, for a project or whatever, then I think the appropriate thing to do is to ask them to sign a contract so that the employee can always decline without giving the reason for not staying). So, morality is complex with situation like this. I don't think I would feel it is immoral to lie about an answer to an inappropriate question.

This is something I wonder about a bit too. It might be dependent on field or even specific research project. For my current project, I have a library of about 200 papers but I probably have only thoroughly read about 20 or so. In the paper that I am finishing up, I think I cite about 50-60 of these papers. For the ones I didn't thoroughly read, I just know what GeoDUDE! wrote above--i.e. their main result and how they got there. I find that when I start a new project I might read a bunch of key papers in the field. For example, several papers that set up the problem, then several that describe the method I'm using, and then one or two from each of the other methods that I am not using. That is usually enough for me to get started on analysis, writing code etc. Then, I read more papers as I run into problems or need to know about specific things. I collect papers along the way, which is how I ended up building my 200+ paper collection on this project. I probably only had a dozen or so when I started doing science. Maybe it's just my field or my preference, but I generally start doing work first and read later (or as I get stuck). It's also important to keep up to date on the field. I do this by scanning abstracts of newly posted papers on the arxiv.org database each day and read/skim the ones I find interesting. It goes in my library if I think I might cite it in the future. I also stay up to date by going to seminars and conferences. I make sure to keep an interest on fields outside of the one I'm working on too, with special interest on fields that my skills might directly relate to.

Thanks! I don't know how I read "bad" as "good" in your first post!! I interpreted the corn example as something that works most of the time and it's just a matter of perfecting the procedure so that toxins remain at low enough levels when it gets to our plates. I agree with you that it's terrible when corporations take advantage of other people (using GMOs or otherwise) in order to maximize their profits. But I see this as a problem of corporations/capitalism, not an inherent problem with GMOs itself!

My school uses Delta Dental for its student plan, and I haven't ever had any problems with them! They are #3 on your list. I also just checked what plan they have for professors, staff, etc. and it's also a Delta Dental plan.

So what you are calling "good GMO" is the type of GMO I am thinking of. What is an example of a bad GMO practice then? I admit I haven't googled this very much but mostly because when I try to look for it, I usually see arguments in the vein as "we shouldn't do it because it's not natural", which isn't really a valid reason. This was what I was trying to say about my thoughts on processed foods. That is, I think we should avoid them because they contain additives and extra sodium we don't need and could be bad for us. Or, understand and accept the cost to our health for the sake of taste, convenience, economy, whatever. I personally would think it is silly to avoid processed foods just because they are processed.

For almost all of my applications, they send the email either: 1. When you enter the contact information for each recommender (you can usually skip right to this page and not fill in the rest of the application yet) or 2. When you enter the contact information for all of your recommenders and then hit "send" on the LOR page. (again, you can skip right to this page if you want the requests to go out now but not fill in your application info until later). In only one case did a school require me to actually submit the application before they would send the LOR request.

I don't think it would look bad at all. You said you just started a few weeks ago. You sound very unhappy with this project and it sounds to me like there are no benefits at all to staying (sure, you can publish the results, but you can also spend that time on another project or one of your current projects and publish too). The only reason, in my opinion, to stay is if you feel the last few weeks is not representative of what you think working with Prof X would be like and that you want to give it more time before you make a decision. In academia (at least in my field), projects go flat all the time. The project I just dropped over the summer was something I had been working on for 2 years (not full time). It really sucked for both the professor and for me to not get a publication out of it, but we finally realised that the remaining amount of effort required to get to publication would not be a good use of either of our time--we would both benefit so much more if we spent those X hours per week on different projects. Don't get stuck on a crappy project with a supervisor that does not match your work style. I think in my example above, both my supervisor and I would probably be happier if we recognized that the project wasn't going to work out a long time ago.

I would agree that for research projects, anything you can't devote at least 10 hrs/week to is not worth your time. I would also agree that I personally would not like to work with someone with this attitude. It sounds a lot like there is some mismatch between what the prof expects of you and what you are able to do and the prof might not realise all the other commitments you have. If you are not putting the 8-10 hours a week you said you would, then I think it's time to re-evaluate. I'm not saying it's your fault for not working enough--after all, it's easy for grad students to accidentally over-commit ourselves! Why do you say that you can't quit? If I was in your situation, I might feel that classes and 2 other (more interesting?) research projects are a better use of my time. What's the benefit for you to stay on this project, and is it worth the additional stress and time away from your other projects? It is hard, but sometimes you have to cut your losses and walk away from a project that might lead to a publication but isn't worth the "opportunity cost". This recently happened to one of my side projects and I don't regret it at all! If you do want to stay then I think you have to be honest with Prof X and give him a real number of how many hours you can realistically work on his project. Then you and him both have to decide if that number is high enough for it to be worth continuing the project. Moving forward, whatever number you set, you should stick to it. Don't work less but also don't let yourself work more and add more stress while taking your time away from other projects. Other projects that are both more relevant and actually provide funding maybe!

I also cook most of our meals but I agree with juilletmercredi, I don't really consider it "clean eating" and I don't know if I'd define "processed food" the same way I see people who do identify as "clean eaters" define "processed food". Also, I don't think "processed foods" are inherently bad--I occasionally eat a microwave dinner or instant ramen noodles. I just avoid making it a regular thing I consume since there are a lot of additives that don't really do anything good for you. But I'm not sure what "processing" includes. I almost always use canned beans even though they are more expensive because soaking dry beans takes too much time/planning. I use boxed chicken stock for the same reason. I buy yogurt because I don't know how to or want to make it myself. When I think "processed food", I really only think of "processed cheese" (aka. "American cheese" in the US), Cheez whiz, TV dinners, instant ramen noodles, any "just add water" type of food, etc. Also, as for GMOs, I don't really know what the big deal against them are. I don't consider them processed either. Humans have always genetically modified produce in order to achieve desired colours, looks, taste, resilience etc. Basically every single banana is genetically modified! I also think GMOs are one solution we should consider in helping feed our growing planet!

There usually are not rules about using the name of the University to indicate your affiliation since you don't have to ask permission to do so for things like putting it on your resume. However, I would be careful and check the rules for things like the University logo or other things that you don't own the copyright to. Definitely follow surefire's advice and check if there are any requirements for standardized cards etc. In my opinion, if you want to make your own card, you should avoid using any University or department logos and anything else that might infringe copyright!

For me, it's worth it to get dental insurance. I pay $250 a year for both me and my wife (it's about $150 if it's just me). Our plan pays a set amount for each procedure, with a $50 deductible for any work done beyond basic cleaning and x-rays. There is a $1500 annual maximum. In the last two years, the two of us have claimed about $1000 or so per year in dental benefits (root canals and crowns are expensive!) so it's been worth it. A cleaning and comprehensive exam at my dentist costs about $30 and x-rays cost an extra $20 or so (once per year). So, the basic cost for regular maintenance is about $160 for both of us. Makes sense to pay an extra $90 per year just in case we need extra work done (a filling would cost $120 and the plan pays about $90).

I have not even thought of it that way! Excellent!!

Oh I just remembered something -- I did also attend a grad fair that was very terrible and a big waste of time, so they are not all good! The big difference with the terrible grad fair was that it was not specific to my field. That is, instead of e.g. the University of X physics department booth, it was the University of X School of Graduate studies booth. So, then all you get to talk to are people who work in the Graduate Admissions office. They are all very nice people but not very helpful because 1) they won't know anything about your program's specific admission requirements and 2) since it's so general, you aren't going to get much more than what you can learn from the school website. So, make sure you will get to meet professors and/or students from the exact program you are applying to, not just random representatives from the school! As for business cards, no I didn't bring any to the grad fairs. It might depend on field, but in my field, I think you have to be pretty exceptional for a school to specifically recruit you to join their program (and if you are that special, they will put in the effort to find you, no cards needed!). I do think business cards are useful for post-grad school jobs and I plan on creating some for me once I reach candidacy (within this school year).

This is interesting and I might have had a weird experience, but it was the opposite for me. My very first University physics course was taught by a very inspiring retired professor and he absolutely insisted that we complete our homework in pen, for the same reason you say here. We were expected to, after some initial scratchwork, to turn in everything we wrote, so as we write up the homework solution, if we found that we made a mistake (oops, missed that factor of 2 there!), we were to just cross out the wrong values and rewrite them. The incentive was that if we were originally right (oh yeah, that factor of 2 isn't supposed to be there since we're considering emission from both sides of the sphere), we would still get full points. In hindsight, although more points was the incentive, the true motivation behind this policy, I think, was to get us to think like experimental physicists. The professor was one of the frontier experimental particle physicists in Canada so he was probably training all of us to be experimentalists! However, that course had a huge influence on me (I can honestly say it was the single biggest reason for me to be a Physics degree) and so I used pen for my physics and math homework for quite awhile afterwards.

This is an interesting point. And I do agree that the strategy of "be who you are" can end up hurting you if you just so happen to be interviewing with the one person in the entire department that will judge you for your hair and so you miss out on being part of a really great department that would have totally accepted you! But in my opinion, that's a risk I would personally be willing to take (and so my post above was prefaced was "it depends on how important" this was to the OP. In addition, I would also say that if the other person can't see you as "the person with the green hair and the research experience in xyz" then it's really the other person's problem. When a ton of people have research experience in xyz, it can be helpful in conferences and interviews to stand out in some way. I mean, this is why some resumes/CVs have a "hobbies" section, or SOPs have personal stories and/or "hooks".

I'd say it depends on important it is to you. If you feel that this form of self-expression is a fundamental part of who you are then I would say go ahead and dye it. Personally, there are some parts/aspects of me that I don't want to "tone down" or hide during interviews (I guess I am thinking about post-PhD options here) because if they don't like it at the interview stage, I'm not going to be comfortable later when I'm actually there. I'd rather get turned away! In general, I would advise people to be themselves as much as they can during interviews and visits because you are able to demonstrate your knowledge and ability best when you are comfortable. For what it's worth, the newest professor hire in my program started this summer with their hair dyed a bright unnatural colour. No one cared. Most people thought it was pretty cool!