TakeruK

Also, the best part is that there is no poster tube to carry around--just fold neatly in your suitcase, iron/steam it on the other side if necessary, and it's ready to go! Fabric posters are getting more common but they will still draw a lot of attention because of the different material, which can be nice too

I don't think you need to worry about it in terms of grad school applications--it's something you had no control over!! But you might be concerned about your status as a full time student in this case etc. I know that my co-op program protected us in the event of a layoff so that we would still count as full time student even though we might not be taking classes or in a co-op position. But it sounds like you have this part under control since it sounds like you are working with them to get back in your old co-op placement!

Do you mean you want to visit the schools in person before you apply? If so, then it is unlikely any costs will be reimbursed. I would not recommend this because you get almost no useful information from this type of visit for how much it would cost you out of pocket. At best, you will just be told a bunch of things like "If you are accepted, then blah blah" and at worst, people won't be inclined to free up their schedule to talk to you since you're not admitted yet. There's nothing you can gain from a pre-application visit that you can't also get from a post-admittance visit. One of the most useful aspects of these visits is setting up potential research projects with the profs, getting to know some of your POIs and learning information about the dept/school/profs from the grad students themselves. It's easier to do all this when you already have an offer. On the other hand, if you mean post-acceptance visits, then it would be really likely for you to get reimbursed (at least in my field). The ideal time to visit is during their official invited open house/visit dates but really only because you can meet other prospective students and they might have extra fun stuff planned to recruit you. But most schools/programs in my field will reimburse you if you ask to visit at a different time due to scheduling issues or whatever. I visited my top choice school during their visit weekend and then planned the other school visits around that, asking to visit on a different day where necessary.

Yikes, this is a really sucky situation I don't think I can think of any advice other than to go ahead and talk to your supervisor and see what they or the school can do. Talk to the school too and see if the fees can be waived...it might help to talk to your supervisor first and they would hopefully help you talk to the right people. You might also want to reach out to any student organizations on campus that help students (e.g. the grad student government etc.) and/or the International Office. Basically, talk to as many people as you can to see what you can do! Good luck.

I'm in a geology department and we have a geology map printer that is pretty cheap--charges $5 per linear foot, so a standard poster is about $20-$25. Maybe your school has something similar. Staples would normally charge $70-$100 for the same thing. Of course, the paper quality is not as good, but it's certainly friendlier on the wallet if you have to pay out of pocket! Also, depending on how much time you have, you could try printing a fabric poster!! Here is more information: (short post: http://labhacks.tumblr.com/post/62420107780/the-25-scrunchable-scientific-poster; long post: http://www.ascb.org/ascbpost/index.php/compass-points/item/188-how-to-print-a-fabric-poster). The total price is about $25 or so. The main catch is that you would probably want about 2-3 weeks of lead time just in case there are delays!

For one fellowship application, one professor wanted to see everything I was submitting along with the application (research statement etc.). However, for grad school applications, the same professor did not ask for my SOP beforehand. So for me, I did not have a complete SOP for any of my professors (although I did let them know that it would be ready by Nov 15 if they wanted it--no one asked). However, in mid October, I sent all of my letter writers a complete list of schools that I wanted to apply to, the profs I wanted to work with, and their deadlines. On this page, I summarised my goals for grad school in a short paragraph. I think that, along with numerous conversations with these professors about grad school prior to applying, gave them enough info to write their letters. So, I am not sure if there is really a "standard" practice--probably depends on each prof's style!

Sometimes these invitations are extended just so they can have a quick chat with you in order to get a "feel" for you--they might not even want to see your CV or other "application documents". If this were me, I would thank them for setting aside some time for me and ask if they would like a copy of my CV. Even though your CV/SOP might answer a lot of their questions, I think the purpose of these phone interviews is to find out that same information from you as a live human being instead of a dead piece of tree

Agree with the above! This is assuming that you are applying for a research based PhD program rather than a professional masters type program (although it might still be the same, I just don't have experience with those). If this is the case, then following the above advice, you can finish all the application work before Jan 1 and you actually would not start until August/Sept/Oct 2015. However, to add to Crucial BBQ's post, one issue you might encounter is visit or interview weekends. Some fields/programs will require students to fly out and interview with the program while other fields/programs will accept the student first and pay for them to fly out and visit. It's always in your best interest to go to these, but they can be pretty tough for a working student. In general, they usually take place on something like a Thursday+Friday or Friday+Saturday or Monday+Tuesday etc. and they tend to happen between Feb and March. If you are completely unable to take time off work, maybe you can ask for a Skype interview/meeting instead of a physical visit. Or you might be able to work out a Saturday/Sunday visit (although I've heard that working weekends is not uncommon during tax season). In my opinion, a physical visit is really important when it's time to make your decision on which school you want to attend, especially if you are committing yourself to 5+ years of life there! In the end, you probably want to keep your current employer happy but you have to balance that with deciding what's best for you too! I've found that many schools are understanding of working student schedules and will do what they can to accommodate you (i.e. Skype interviews and alternate visit dates). Good luck!

Application deadlines are probably pretty far away. What I would do is to write back and say that you were planning to have a draft SOP ready in (1? 2? whatever you need) weeks and ask if that is okay. In my opinion, there is no point rushing a draft that won't look good and won't help them, especially since they may not write the LORs until next month anyways. However, it's really important that you do check with them that waiting a few weeks is okay because 1) they might be expecting a reply and wonder why you've been silent and 2) they might actually be very busy next month and want to get the LORs finished in the next few weeks (in which case you will just have to give them the best SOP draft you can write).

I agree with lewin. If you thought you would have given away the answer by defining that term, I think the best thing you could have done was to ask the professor / instructor. I do agree that this is a tough TA situation since you don't want to have students with lesser English skills disadvantaged (after all, you are testing their stats knowledge, not their English) but at the same time, you don't want to provide an unfair advantage/disadvantage either. If there were no one else left to ask the question to (you're the senior TA or the instructor is not present), and there are no stated course rules (some courses have a rule that no questions, even those of a clarifying nature, are allowed during exams) then I would have gone with my instinct (what else could you do?).

Free pens are my favourite pens! But more seriously, I don't have specific brand types that I prefer. I do enjoy writing with a rollerball pen more than a ballpoint pen. So, when I have to grade papers (although I generally enjoy teaching and providing feedback, grading is still really tedious!), I make it less of a chore by going out and buying a rollerball pen in some fun colour (usually green or purple since I don't like grading in red and most people write in blue or black). I do my homework and write in my lab notebook with whatever pen I can find at the moment though, usually a free ballpoint pen from some event or other. Once in awhile, I do have to stock up basic pens and I usually go with "papermate" since it's cheap.

I still agree with you that you should not go with this lab/PI if all these signs are showing a personality mismatch! But for another perspective, I do think that "opportunity cost" is really expensive in academia. The prof might see it this way: They just wrote a huge grant (probably) to get the money to buy that machine. It would look bad on their record if they didn't get their "money's worth" out of the last grant by writing up as many papers as they can. This is something that might be considered in their future evaluation by the organization that gave the first grant and by their tenure committee. So, perhaps this prof is really worried about maximizing return on investment and wants to go through all of his ideas before letting students do their own thing. Or, maybe all of his ideas are on the grant proposal itself and he wants to make sure those projects have priority if there are any reviews or audits coming up etc. Again, I'm not saying that this means you have to work with someone you don't mesh well with, but I just wanted to point out that "opportunity cost" is a real cost that academics have to worry about!

I can't speak for certain about this specific program, but I know that the entire UC system will require American students to gain California residency after 1 year at the school. If the student chooses to not gain California residency, the UC school will no longer pay for the additional cost of non-resident tuition. I think this is a pretty reasonable policy, given that it's not very hard for a graduate student to gain California residency and the fact that it would cause the school a lot of extra money if students just neglected to change their residency. (As long as there are options for those who are unable to change residency for some reason or other). However, I think it would be highly unreasonable if they applied the same policy to international students too, who are not eligible for California residency!! I know that when I was applying to UC Berkeley for astrophysics, they said the same thing as what you have above, but clarified that while American students must gain residency after 1 year, international students are not eligible and thus will continue to receive full support for their non-resident tuition and fees.

Your sidebar info says you are in Canada and you say "MSc" so I am assuming that you are in the same type of program as I was in Canada (i.e. fully funded, the prof you're working for pays the bills, you are accepted to a specific prof/project when you get your grad school offer). In this case, note that the switch is really only possible if the new prof is both willing and able (in terms of time and money) to take you on instead. Basically, changing supervisors is convincing the original prof to let you go AND convincing the new prof to "hire" you. I think it's a great idea to talk to the graduate director confidentially. Make sure you emphasize that the project you and your current supervisor talked about when you got your offer is no longer possible. It's really important to have the graduate director on your side throughout the transition. I think you would definitely want to get this completed in the first semester (i.e. by Christmas). A few months "wasted" is no big deal in the first year of your MSc. I think the profs/graduate director might ask you to try to work things out, and while you should be willing to give it more than a few weeks try, don't let it stretch beyond the first semester. I had a friend where this stretch into 1.5 years and in the end, the friend had to quit the program (with no degree) because there was no research project and at that point, not enough time to complete the extra courses to turn it into a "course based Masters". Good luck!!

If the students aren't literally split into two different sections, I find it helpful to rotate the students I am marking so that everyone is equally affected by any one marker's idiosyncrasies. For example, in one lab course I TA'ed, all of the students were in the same lab section and there were 2 TAs and one prof assigned to that section. Each week, each one of us graded 1/3 of the lab reports and we set up a system so that each student would be graded by each TA/prof the same number of times. We still followed a common marking rubric but since grading is still subjective, we expect that any subjectiveness would be "averaged out".

Although I'm not in Psychology, I think this is a general enough question so I'll weigh in. First, I don't think CVs = narratives. I use bullet points in my CV (2 or 3 per project) and I see this all the time in CVs of professors, postdocs, and other graduate students. In academia, I think the main difference between a CV and a resume is length (or I guess you can view it as how much "depth" they cover). A resume is literally just a summary/shortened form of a CV. However, perhaps there is a difference in fields after all! If I were to write a resume now, I would not list any bullet points at all, just the name of each position and the location/dates. Secondly, instead of listing my research experience as a series of "jobs", I list them as projects. So I have two separate entry for my Graduate Research Assistant position at my current program because we work on two different projects in our first year here. Finally, there's still the issue of having 10-15 projects!! Perhaps you can find a way to group projects into 4 or 5 different groups and use general descriptors that describe the work. In my field, I think that people care about the actual skill/experience gained and the research objective of each project, so that's what I include as the bullet point entries.

Here was the breakdown in my time commitment for my first year (which was very busy): 27 credit-hours of courses (approx. 9 hours in-class time per week, rest is homework) 20 hours of RAship (we also have to defend two propositional projects at the end of our first year) 1 hour of weekly department seminar 1 hour of weekly department discussion group/journal club 1 hour of weekly department social hour I'm counting all research related activity under the RA ship (e.g. group meetings etc.). This added up to about 50 hours per week and I think that's quite accurate for the average hours worked per week in my first year. In reality, I probably spent closer to 60 hours on some weeks and then fewer on others (e.g. during the time where there were no classes) but I mostly remember the long 60 hour weeks, and not the shorter 40-ish hour weeks! There were also a lot of social events that are not school related/sponsored so I don't count them in this list (I'd count them as a use of my free time instead!). In my opinion, as graduate students, it's basically our job to attend department seminars and talks and participate in journal clubs etc. So I count them as part of my # of hours worked per week. However, in the weeks leading up to quals at the end of year 1, I did cut back on some seminars and social hours. But that was a temporary thing, I'm now back to participating in as many department activities as I can, and also spending time on campus-wide events/organizations too!

I agree with fuzzy that it would be best to get clarification from the school, and also that a CV is the standard thing they want. I'd say an academic CV for a grad school applicant should be between 2 and 4 pages. I wouldn't worry about binding too much because it's likely that either 1) the entire application will be reviewed electronically anyways or 2) all of your papers will be put together. When I applied to PhD programs, my CV was about 3 pages because I was doing a Masters program at the time so there were some extra stuff to add because of that!

I can see how this is a topic that can really vary from program to program and field to field. I would spend some time to figure out what is the norm in your department/program. I'm not saying that the professor is not a good source of information for class material, but usually I would not expect a grad student to immediately go to the professor for help. I'll share what I think is the norm in my program for another perspective. Here, I think graduate students are expected to be fairly independent in their learning and the first people they should go to when they get stuck on coursework is their peers/classmates. Usually one person in the class will have figured it out and they will teach the rest how to do it. If they are still stuck, the next person they should go to is the TA. If the TA cannot help them then the professor is a good last step. In my program, professors rarely have dedicated office hours--seeing a professor for class help means you need an appointment. However, the TA almost always has dedicated office hours. My strategy has been to always do the "heavy lifting" with my peers, usually we attempt to solve the problems by ourselves a day or two before the TA's office hours, and then go to the TA office hours as a group. I've only gone to a professor for homework help only once or twice in the entire time here, and almost always as a group. The above is mainly about help on problem sets/homeworks, which is the main reason people seek coursework help in my field. I would say you want to avoid going to professors about this as much as possible, especially as a graduate student. However, it's definitely a great idea to go to the professor for help on bigger picture things regarding coursework. Especially to get a better understanding of how material from week 2 connects to material from week 6, for example. So, stopping by a couple of times a month like bsharpe suggests is a very good idea for this kind of support. In summary--to make the most of professors' office hours, make the most of your other resources (peers, TAs) for lower level / heavy lifting stuff like homework or small questions first. Spend time with the professor discussing the bigger picture and other important conceptual connections!

Whether foreign students are evaluated differently depends on the school and program. Here are some differences that I know about, in order of most significant/widespread: 1. International students might have higher tuition rates than domestic students. For almost all public schools, this will be true. Therefore, for programs that fully fund their students, it costs much more to pay for an international student than a domestic student. The result is that admissions are much more competitive for international students at these schools. Public schools tend to have an international graduate student population of about 10%. At one public school I applied to, the program accepts about 5 or 6 new grad students per year, meaning that on average, they only accept one international student every two years. The application advice I would give based on this is to apply to private schools! Don't let the name/prestige scare you. Your application profile sounds very strong. For me, I am currently at a private school that is generally considered "better" than public schools that rejected me. This is because private schools generally charge the same tuition for everyone, so there is no cost discentive to take on an international student. 2. Whether it's appropriate to do so or not, professors have told me that they consider the reputation of the applicant's school (and school system) when evaluating GPA and test scores. For example, a high GPA from a school or country/system known for grade inflation would mean less. Also, some countries / school systems places a ton of focus on test preparation and this is taken into account when evaluating test scores from candidates from these systems. From experience, professors have learned that sometimes test scores are not a good indicator of ability, especially if some people are better test takers than others. 3. I think professors will consider the opportunities made available to each applicant when evaluating profiles. In some countries/school systems, research is not a major component of undergraduate education and I do think this is accounted for. After all, they aren't just looking for a grad student that will tick off all the boxes on some list. They are looking for indicators that this applicant will succeed in graduate level research. For students in circumstances where they would have very little research opportunities, the admission committees would use other indicators to determine research ability potential. (On the flip side, if you attended a research institution but did not manage to do much research, that would be questionable!) 4. Finally, you are right that LORs by people that the school knows is better. However, I would say this is more of a "bonus" than a "requirement" to get into top schools. It's rare for American students to have LORs from superstars in their field too, and I don't think a letter from someone they don't know in Italy is going to be much different than a letter from someone they don't know in America. That's all I can really say that is general about graduate education in America from the point of view of another international student applying! I really want to stress that the number one difficulty you will face is that you will cost more. This should be a factor in where you apply (check what % of the grad population is international). It's likely that top international applicants will get into more higher ranked private programs than lower ranked public programs.

5 is not too many. Most students ask for about ~10 LORs. I think the most important thing is to ask them far enough in advance to respect their time and efforts!

I would not. While those conversations are definitely good to have to get the right feel for the department, they have very little to do with the point of the SOP, which is discuss your own qualifications, interest, and fit with the department. However, some SOP prompts do instruct you to mention any conversations you have had with professors in that department regarding graduate research plans. And doing so even when not asked is normal in some fields.

I am a first generation college student as well as graduate student and although academic careers don't pay the amounts that people think of when they think of other professions with post-college education (e.g. lawyers, doctors, etc.), having a graduate degree sure makes me a lot more employable than minimum wage jobs that my parents had when they moved to Canada. This is why I think it's necessary for academics to realise that people want to enter their field as a means to make money, not just for the "life of the mind". I strongly believe that those who think academics should not worry about finances are excluding potential scholars who need a decent income too. The idea of the "life of the mind" means academia is restricted to certain socio-economic classes. Here's what I think about the above paragraph: 1. I would avoid absolute words like "overcome all odds". 2. I like the second sentence--it goes well with the third+fourth sentence and shows that you have the drive and determination to finish the PhD. But if you cut it I guess the 3rd and 4th sentences have the same effect. 3. I would be a little bit worried about the last sentence though. It might make you sound naive about the reality of the professor job market and it implies that you believe all English graduate students go on to become English professors. For one, there are lots of other post-PhD jobs that are not professorships but are also full time, stable, pays well etc. Here is one example article showing that in pretty much every field, the majority of PhD graduates do not end up on any kind of full time academic job (much less a professorship position): http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-many-phds-actually-get-to-become-college-professors/273434/. Just remember that this graphic doesn't account for full-time non-academic jobs (and some fields have more of those available than others!). But in either case, I think that you should remove this last sentence from the beginning of your SOP. Instead, I would put the same idea at the end of the SOP where you talk about your plans post-PhD. In most of my SOP prompts, this was an explicit question and I devoted 2-4 sentences to answer it. There's nothing wrong with aiming big with the English Professor goal, but I would want to also write about my goals for an academic career in general (while also taking care to not present these other careers as "failed professors").

I ended up visiting 3 of the schools I had to choose from. I also want to say that a lot of my initial impressions and thoughts about 2 of these schools really changed after the visit (one was much better than I thought and one was much worse!) This is even with talking to profs / students before applying. I think physically going there and visiting is a good idea and in general, worth the extra $100 or so per school to make your list 4-6 schools instead of just 2. Also, if you are flying across the country, that could easily be a $1000 or so trip next spring. Some schools only reimburse $300 or so for invited visits. So, a fringe benefit of visiting more schools (in addition to the most important one of seeing what it's really like in person), is that if you visit 4 schools all in one week that reimburse $300 each, you can do so without any out of pocket costs (but if you only visit 2 you might still be paying a bit).

I don't think this is as common in the current generation of profs as much as it was in previous generations. But even so, if the OP is willing to take the small risk, I think this sentiment is precisely why students need to say that more financially rewarding careers are a motivation for graduate education because it is a perfectly valid reason to go to grad school.