TakeruK

I agree with DerpTastic that the first three words make the answer a/d instead of c/f. This is because if "for" went with special pleading, then it would not make sense (to me) for the exhibition to have been "overlarge" if the painter had "undiscovered" or "hidden" talent. That is, if the painter's talents were undiscovered and hidden, then there would not be enough material for there to be an "overlarge" exhibition. Also, "disappointing" along with "special pleading" hints that the painter's talents were limited in some way, rather than hidden/undiscovered (which implies the talent is there but is unknown). That's just my thoughts anyways. I agree that the GRE Verbal is an annoying test though! I don't know many people who write sentences like this in real life!! Edit: To clarify, what I meant was that I think the GRE Verbal is NOT a grammar test. So, I would say that ETS expected test takers to come across this sentence and they might think "Hmm, does the prepositional phrase mean 'advocating for' or 'to have been'?" And then ETS would expect test takers to consider all choices and the "best" choice is to use the "to have been" meaning and choose a/d because that does not result in any inconsistency in meaning, whereas choice c/f with "advocating for" would have resulted in the inconsistencies mentioned above. That is, remember that the GRE Verbal is mainly a vocabulary test, not an English grammar test and I think that will help you. All of these questions (even the reading comprehensions questions, in my opinion) are testing whether or not you know the meaning of these words and subtle differences between them! So, if I understand you correctly, then yes, I agree that the GRE V has a very strong semantic bias and keeping that in mind will help you do well.

We did the name card passing to the reader too, so if you are not there, the reader has no idea what your name was even. There was always three people on the stage at the same time. One standing next to the reader, one shaking the hand with some guy (the Dean?) and another taking a picture with another guy (the Chancellor?). You stand next to the reader and they call your name, people clap. You walk to meet the first guy and shake his hand. Once you do that, they call the next person while you go ahead and shake the other guy's hand/get photo. This made 200 people go by mercifully fast and the entire shebang was finished in about 90 minutes, thankfully. They announce your degree name at first and then call up everyone's name in that program, so you don't get the major/degree name with your name unless you are the first or only person graduating. GPA is not announced at all, nor is any honours etc. However, the program booklet had everyone's name, attending or not. Our ceremony was over a month after our last exam so they know whether you graduate or not. In fact, you get your actual degree/diploma about an hour before the ceremony, when you are lining up to go into the hall. It was a really hot day so it was very useful as a fan (they put it in a hard folder that you take on stage with you for photos).

I would recommend calling the admin person in the department responsible for the reimbursements and getting an update. If they still refuse to talk to you, maybe check with the University Financial department to see if your file is there now. The fact is that reimbursements, especially for non-school affiliated people, can take a really long time! If you submitted your receipts in early March, you will probably see a reimbursement around late April or early May. So, it is still within the timeframe where I would not yet assume the school is trying to deny you the money. But it has been an acceptably long time that you should be able to call and get an update. It is a bit strange that you have not heard anything back after 5 attempts to follow up (although they might have been really really busy?) Still, this is pretty unprofessional and maybe it's true that they are de-prioritizing you because you did not accept (which is bad). Hopefully you will get an answer soon! Maybe it's stuck somewhere waiting for a signature and people forgot about it and a phone call can speed things along!

I also agree that it's bad form to take an offer and reject it. I also agree with Djentbot that it is even worse for the school to not expect students to take offers without knowing financial aid. In addition, with masters programs, especially ones where you are expected to pay for yourself, it's not as frowned upon to change your mind, in my opinion. Therefore, in your shoes, I would wait until May 2 in case the other schools make a decision. I would let that school know that I really would like to know the financial aid offer. If they still refuse to promise me a number in writing (or give me an extension) I would take their offer on May 2 and then reject it if a better one comes along. This has negative impact on people of course, but it is not your responsibility. It is the school's responsibility to not lose spots to good students like secfh18 by giving students like colby11 all the information they need so that they can make an informed decision. In my opinion, we, as a body of current and potential graduate students, should not let the mindset that we really want to go to grad school force us into making bad decisions for ourselves in order to maximize our chances of getting in. I feel that actions like the school refusing to disclose financial aid is exploiting all graduate students, including the ones that lose a spot because someone will turn down the offer after they realise the funding is crap. If I was in the OP's shoes, I would have some lower limit of financial aid necessary for me to even attend. What if I accept the offer and the financial aid is way too low? I'm not going to feel bad at all that I had to turn down the offer--instead, I would be angry at the school for withholding useful information and causing me to waste my time, their staff to waste their time, and potentially a student like secfh18 to lose out on a spot.

Now that I think about it more, I think my group was also smaller...10,000 students at 200/ceremony means 50 ceremonies but there were probably more like 20-25 ceremonies. They grouped together people based on majors...so physics and astronomy went with other "physical" sciences like atmospheric science etc. I heard that some of the Arts/Humanities ceremonies were much bigger. I guess one weird thing is that if you have a double major, e.g. Computer Science & Physics, then you have to graduate with the major that came first in alphabetical order (even if you were a Physics student that added a Computer Science major later on)!

The video thing is interesting and makes things go a lot faster! I am curious--how big was your school and how many people participated in each ceremony? My undergrad had 44,000 undergrads (so maybe 10,000 or so graduate per year) and they handle this large volume by doing 3 or 4 graduation ceremonies per day for 6 days or something. So, I graduated with a group of only 200 ish people, which makes the ceremony mercifully short! I made some really close friends in University so it was a great feeling to cross the stage with them and also because my family would have liked to see it. I know people from schools with yearbooks. Generally, these books are not like high school ones but more like a journal of what happened on campus that year, which makes more sense! I don't think there was anything especially strange about my undergrad ceremony. Our University's mace is pretty cool though (http://graduation.ubc.ca/event/about/university-mace/) but I think all schools have a cool mace right? I didn't walk for my MSc since the ceremony was after I already started my PhD and I'm not going to walk for my MS later this year. I'll probably walk for my PhD though.

First contact the place you want to go and find out if their offer is still valid. Some schools will actually hold their offers for a period of time (1-2 years) but if all the funding is already allocated, you might be out of luck. However, perhaps you can work something out. Hopefully, this can happen fast so then you can let the school you accepted know about your change of heart ASAP. If you are very certain that you don't want to go to your current accepted school (i.e. would rather not go to grad school than this school), then you should let your current school know right away. No matter what, there will be some negative consequences due to backing out of an offer at this point in time, and potentially costing the school a position, a student, and maybe some funding. You will just have to accept that is the case and decide if it's worth it for the better school. Ultimately, you should pick what's best for you!

The easy way out is to be honest and accept whatever consequences that come from it. As fuzzy outlined, everything else is a much harder way out with much greater consequences.

I don't think most programs consider grades on research/thesis courses as part of a competitive GPA used to determine things like fellowships, admissions, etc. Like jenste, I am only familiar with Canadian medical schools, and I know that their admission averages tend to be closer to the 3.6-4.0 range.

OMG THAT CAT IS SO FUZZY

Every program has different meaning when they say "recommended". They might mean that "if you have a good one, you should submit an academic LOR". Or they might mean "yeah this is a requirement but we are using the word recommended anyways". I agree with the above poster--ask the school! Just to provide an example: my current program says the subject GRE test is "strongly recommended". Some students in my program submitted a score and some didn't, but we all got in! (Before this experience, I would have thought "strongly recommended" is code for "required" but I guess not always!)

Oops that wasn't super clear. My school uses different vocab than I was used to at other schools so I mix things up a lot! "Program" means "major" to me, so my program = the Planetary Science PhD program. There are 20 ish students in my program, with an average of 4-5 per year/cohort. But the number varies wildly due to resources available. In recent years the numbers have been: 4, 0, 7, 1, 5, 7, 2. My program is a part of a larger "Division" that oversees 6 different PhD programs. My school uses the word "Department" to mean "Program" but in many ways, the "Division" is similar to the "Department" too (for example, some PhD requirements are governed at the Division level). Not all programs are the same size, but there is roughly 100-120 grad students spread across the 6 programs that is housed in our Division. The entire Division admits about 30-40 students per year and hopes for an incoming class size of 20, so this is where I got the 100-120 number from, and also explains what the distribution is fairly uneven, since it's hard to get exactly the right proportion of accepts from each program! This means that I know the 20 or so other students in my program (in all years) very well--we all have offices on the same floor and building. We mostly see the other people in classes or during Division-wide social hours like above, so we mostly know people outside of program that are in our year, but we do see the same people over and over again. We rarely see people outside of our Division, except for the Astronomy people interested in Planetary Science (Astronomy is in a different Division).

I think I also went from being super-serious-about-school-only to someone who has other interests as I grew up (i.e. during college). I was not as "intense" as Gnome Chomsky's book on elite high school students (never pulled all-nighters and didn't do much school stuff after school, but I was involved in a non-academic youth group). I did definitely took my studies seriously (what I would also define as "nerdy") in high school. Part of it was my parents' influence but like VioletAyame, a lot of it was self-imposed. One example motivator that would be an example of both was that I knew my parents immigrated to Canada and left everything behind so that their children can grow up and succeed in a better country. I agree with VioletAyame that I would definitely encourage my past self to be more balanced, if time travel were possible! It's complicated though -- during my teenage years, I found it tough finding an "identity" but one thing I could rely on was people's expectations of me to do well in school so I kind of just went with that since I didn't know what else I could be!

They can't really do anything directly to you. They might not be happy with you changing your mind and they might remember if you apply there in the future or interact with them in the future. Or they might not! Just be polite as possible and apologize for any hardship.

That sucks!! I have heard a little bit about this new change in Canada. I don't know anything about it though. I'll follow the lead of many Americans I've met who apologized for the craziness of US Immigration (even though it's obviously not the doing of any actual person!) and do the same for Canada's new crazy system! Sorry! Hope it works out!

The part I called arrogant was the part where you say you are better than someone else without really knowing these other people. I think this is arrogant because: 1) You are not the graduate admissions committee. How do you know whether or not you are actually better than another applicant. That is, you are not qualified to make statements on who should / should not get admitted to any particular program (not saying I am qualified either--most of us here are also graduate students, not faculty members!). So I think it is arrogant that you imply you know more about what is a "good fit" for graduate school than the committees that decide this. 2) You have limited information on these people. For your friends, you probably do know more about their entire profiles since you know them personally, but for the "other people", if you are just comparing their online profiles, you are basically just making a judgement on a few numbers! So, I think it is arrogant to assume that you are better than these other people because your numbers are better. You don't know all the information! I agree that it's natural and normal and healthy to be disappointed when things don't work out. But the mature path forward is to figure out how to improve for the future (as you said here). The immature reaction would be to try to find fault with the system and shifting the blame to someone/something else. For example, your statements about how other people with "worse" profiles than you got in. If they got in and you did not, wouldn't it be true, by definition, that these people had better profiles than you? Perhaps you don't intend to say arrogant/immature things about the other applicants. I should clarify--I meant that your actions here are arrogant and immature, but I don't really know anything about you as a person. You might be a great person! I am sorry if I insinuated otherwise. But even good people make mistakes sometimes and sometimes it's hard to see the impact of your statements because you know your own intention. The impact of what you say resonate with people much more than the intent, though. This was why many people reacted to your statements in this way and which is why I thought I would bring it up to let you know!

That is a good point. Technically, we are not supposed to have any extra time between graduation and new job (which is why I said what I said above). I think F-1 expires by the date on your I-20 or 60 days after you finish your program, whichever is earlier. I think "finish your program" generally means as soon as you hand in the last piece of work required for graduation (i.e. corrected manuscript, in most cases). So, even if your I-20 was for another year, if you have already finished all of your requirements, the 60 day limit will take effect no matter how long your I-20 is good for. However, I understand that in practice, this is pretty difficult for anyone to enforce. I remember getting the information that purposely delaying your graduation date (i.e. just hanging onto your corrected thesis so that there is less than 60 days between that and your next job starting) is against the rules, but again, it's not something that is easy to enforce either. This is what I understood from my friends' experiences, but no first hand experience (yet). Sorry to hear about your limbo I am guessing that your school won't extend your I-20 because you are already finished / about to be finished? It sounds like you have some kind of solution already though. But for others who might encounter something similar, one way my school gets around the "limbo between grad and postdoc" is to hire the graduated student as a researcher for the time in between on OPT status, usually to finish up whatever work is leftover from the thesis. That way, the new PhD remains on F-1/J-1 status continuously from PhD to future jobs. But having not done this myself yet, I won't be surprised to learn I will have a mess of immigration status limbo waiting for me (my school has a deadline of May 31 to submit everything and J-1 status is only valid for 30 days past program end date, so I'll have to deal with this unless I find a job that begins July 1 basically).

I had an error on my DS-2019 (the equivalent to the I-20 for J-1 status)--my middle name was misspelled. My school issued a corrected DS-2019 right away and advised me to wait for the new one to arrive before doing any further paperwork (I'm Canadian so there was no visa application, but I still had to pay the SEVIS fee and all that using my DS-2019 form number). But if you end up with a new I-20, check with your school on the current best practice. However, I agree that you should first check with your school to ensure the end date is actually correct. My school issues I-20s and DS-2019s for the maximum length of degree allowed, so that the international students have the most flexibility! So, my DS-2019 end date is 6 years after my program start date, even though the program is actually only 5 years long. Our F-1/J-1 statuses end when our program ends [with the exception of OPT] anyways, so it's not like this actually gives students a longer stay. But, people will often forget that their I-20/DS-2019 expires in 5 years so this prevents last minute stress trying to get a new form issued in year 6. On the other hand, some schools might be more conservative and issue a I-20/DS-2019 for the shortest amount of time possible. Because the school's international office, as our sponsors, are responsible for ensuring we comply with our foreign statuses, it's understandable that some places are not willing to issue I-20s/DS-2019s for a time longer than is necessary. As beccamayworth said, the school can renew the I-20/DS-2019 whenever they want/need so it's really not a big deal if you need to change the end date later!

I think this is the comment that sticks out to me the most. I am not from India but I also come from a culture that values academic achievement in a way similar to India (I think). So, from the point of view of an outsider, my honest opinion is that comments like this really show a student to be immature. In my opinion, success in North America (maybe most of the world too, but my experience is only in North America) is not defined by things like test scores, grades and CV experience. Your comment here sounds very arrogant and entitled to me. It sounds like you expected to get into more/better places than your friends because your profile is slightly better than theirs. Graduate school admission is not a game where you get "points" for high scores etc and then the one with the most points get in. I think there are a lot of factors that cannot be quantified when it comes to admissions, for example--how would you "fit" in with what the department is currently looking for. The other part that I thought was entitled sounding was that it sounds like you felt the schools owed you an explanation because they rejected you. This is not how it works--you might be able to ask for tips on how to improve next time, but it's rare to get an actual reason for rejection. Part of the reason is that they don't remember or note the exact reason for every single rejection they give and the other part is probably to avoid people trying to defend themselves or trying to change the school's mind. Unless you have good reason to suspect wrongdoing, the professional thing is to accept that the school does not want you and move on. Anyways I wish you the best and I hope you consider what others have said to you in this thread and consider more deeply how your comments might impact other people in the future!

*the math team -- didn't exist (or I would have ) *Chess team -- didn't exist *band geek -- nope *took all AP/IB classes -- my school only had one but I didn't take it *did research -- didn't even know what this was until middle of undergrad *tutored -- guilty! *spent summers interning -- nope, summers were for fun! *involved in academic extracurriculars -- my school didn't have any *competed in a Spelling Bee -- I don't think these exist in Canada past elementary school level (didn't do it then either though) *spent years studying for the SAT/ACT-- not necessary in Canada *dreamed about getting into college -- yep, university was definitely a goal! *dreamed about getting into grad school -- didn't know what grad school really was until my second year at university! *took college classes -- nope *took classes for college credit -- nope *studied a few hours every day -- well, doing homework every day? *studied on weekends -- only to complete homework and study for tests *anything else I haven't though of -- As a high school student, I felt like my "job" was to be good at school. My parents worked, made food, paid the bills etc. so my contribution to the family was doing well at school. So that's pretty nerdy I think!

This is an accurate breakdown. Unfortunately, for the I-20, they usually use some "averaged" cost so the textbook number is usually way too high! However, $2000 out of $44.7k isn't a big difference! You will definitely need to show support for approximately $44.7k. But if you think there is a mistake for tuition, you should talk to your department to make sure there isn't a mistake! Sometimes the department will list the 9 month tuition only, or leave out the fees, or they only listed the domestic tuition! Definitely get it clarified, but needing to show costs for about $40k-$50k is a normal amount. Edit: Are you getting any funding from the school? If you are going to work as a TA or any kind of RA, that counts towards your funding support too! And, a big part of fees is sometimes student health insurance. It could be several thousand dollars per year, depending on whether your TA/RA work covers this benefit or not. For non-American students, we pretty much have to take this insurance though, unless you are covered by someone else's plan, somehow!

I definitely think so. My program is 20 ish graduate students, but the entire Division is probably 100-120 graduate students in total.

I think this is really relevant in all fields, not just Philosophy! Good read! I agree with point #1 in that it's bad practice to attend a conference for only your session (whether it's going home early or skipping all the other sessions). I also think it is dishonest if you are being funded to attend--then you should attend! However, while I do agree that it's "bad academic manners" (BAM) to only attend your own session, the opposite is not true. I don't think anyone is expected to attend every single session unless it's a small focussed meeting with no parallel sessions. My conferences tend to be 5 days long (Mon-Fri) and I usually try to take the equivalent of one entire day off (either skipping two half days or a full day) in order to do whatever I want in the city that I'm visiting. In most meetings, you will burn out listening to everyone and there will be sessions where you have no expertise or are not interesting to you. I'm not saying that you should only stick to sessions on your topic--it's important to have breadth--but it is fine to perhaps focus your energy on only 70% to 80% of the meeting. In a similar vein, I don't think it's bad practice to attend only 3 out of 5 days at the meeting. This can cut your costs in half, especially if you have to worry about child or pet care while you are gone. So I don't agree with "all or nothing" but I do agree that it's BAM to act selfishly and only go to conferences for your own personal gain. I think Point #2 is very important though. The Q&A section of a presentation is not the place to get into an argument about who is right, in my opinion. Usually there is like 5 minutes of questions, which is no where near enough time to do a serious scholarly debate. It's also not the place to embarrass the speaker or show your own plumage. Instead, the purpose of the Q&A should be for clarification of the speaker's arguments and methods. It's not a time to criticize or "peer review"! Also, questioners should be conscious that other people have questions too, it's a pet peeve of mine when one person asks one question after another and is completely oblivious that others might want to ask their own questions! And it's an even bigger pet peeve when people don't ask questions at all but just make statements promoting their own work!! Point #3 applies to session chairs as much as they do apply to speakers. I feel it is as much a BAM for someone to go over as it is for someone to not cut off the speaker at the proper time. Point #4 is interesting. In my experience, half of the time, our nametags are turned the wrong way around anyways. But I think having institutions listed is important. It's up to us to be decent human beings and not judge people based on their affiliation! I think it's useful when people who are applying to graduate programs want to find current grad students in that school and the affiliation listing is really the only way they will know. The conferences I go to also have other markers like "first time attendee" (to encourage people to reach out and talk to nervous newbies), or "grad student/jr. member" or "full member" and executive positions are also marked. I find these helpful and I find that they encourage professors to talk to the more junior people (and to help grad students meet each other)! Also, sometimes the location of the school is a good icebreaker, like "Oh hey, I grew up near University of X!" etc.

I agree that you should be careful because sometimes professors will say one thing and then when you get there, the reality is something else. Sometimes this is just misunderstanding or maybe something changed (e.g. a grant they were applying for to fund your project didn't go through over the summer). I am not sure how much the prof has already explained to you about your future project. If it sounds like a definite project is planned and if you think that is a good project for you, then it might be a good opportunity still. Some other things to consider are backup plans--are there other profs you could work with at that school if this prof doesn't turn out well? Also, it might be a good idea to talk to the other graduate students to ask about this prof--is this prof known for telling students one thing and then changing their projects?

1. Don't go!! Not worth it, in my opinion!! 2. If you intend to apply for a F-1 student visa/status, then you only need to show funding for 1 year to get your I-20. If you intend to apply for a J-1 student visa/status, then you do need to show funding for all 5 years to get your DS-2019. Unless you have a spouse that is intending to work while you are in the US, there are almost no benefits for J-1 status (and in fact, extra restrictions).