TakeruK

Just wanted to respond to this point. At my PhD school, the counseling center (or at least certain people within that place) was a confidential resource, which means no action will be taken from them unless the student asked for it. In the USA, there are very very few exceptions, notably the Clery Act, where they must report if they have knowledge of certain crimes. Again, not sure where you are and which laws apply to the resources available to you. But if you are still interested in this resource and your main concern is mandatory reporting, you can ask them about their mandatory reporting responsibilities before revealing certain details. It's okay to not share everything if you think it might hurt you and although I can't speak for your campus, the people in these resources that I know always want to put the student first and they will not pressure you to reveal details that might result in a mandatory report. In some cases, they might stop you and let you know that if you continue, it might become a mandatory report incident so that you can choose whether or not to share.

A good rule of thumb on an interview and during your career, is to treat everyone with respect and the way you'd want to be treated, whether or not they have any power to influence admissions or other important decisions for you.

Can you ask for an alternative date to take your midterms? My professors were always very flexible for these things.

I agree with @balaenopter_a, this wording sounds like you are ready to accept the offer. Just delete your third sentence and it would be great. I don't think you have to worry about being direct about funding. They already saw your application where you are eager to join the program. Also, money and funding should not be a taboo topic.

I also think this is an important factor to consider. This happens to many cohorts on my PhD school's campus, or even in large departments where there were a few other women, there are often lab groups with very few women. If you like the school and the program, it might be a good idea to find out whether there are groups on campus that can provide community, mentorship and support. At my PhD school, there is a very successful "women mentoring women" program that is cross-discipline so if there aren't a ton of women in your department, you can still get some mentorship. There are also some discipline specific communities e.g. "Women in Chemistry" that meet to specifically discuss academic, professional and life challenges. They also invite leading women chemists from around the state and country to come give talks and also meet with the women to allow extra networking opportunities etc. Asking about these programs can also give you a sense of how much the department cares about recruiting, training and supporting their women colleagues. P.S. I am not a woman, these are some ideas based on discussions with my colleagues while on committees to support women and other minorities on our campus.

In my opinion, it doesn't matter if the partner is a bf/gf of one year or a spouse of many years or anything in between. The school doesn't need to know about the length or seriousness of your relationship. The bottom line is that if this is a decision that you and your partner are making together, then that's all the school needs to know and it's appropriate to include your partner on these visits, to a certain extent. For many of my grad school visits, my partner visited with me and the school made efforts to convince my partner that their city/program is the best fit for both of us. I made it clear from the beginning that the final decision is 50% me and 50% my partner's. Normally, during the day, I would do all the normal visit things and meet with professors and students while my partner explored the city etc. on their own. All the schools included my partner in evening meals and social events. One school was memorable because they even included my partner during the visit day itself too. They arranged for my partner to have a visitor's office/desk while I was in meetings so that they could do their work, check email, research apartments, etc. In my PhD program and almost all the programs I visited, partners of current students joined in the social events in the evening too. This was a great time for my partner to learn about the other aspects of living in the town from other non-students. And my partner was happy to do this for others who visited our program in future years. It was important for us to find a program where the culture is that the partners and families of students, staff, and faculty are all welcome at social events (not just during the visit weekend, but throughout the year). I was very happy in my PhD program because we were very much like a large family and there would be events with everyone's family invited every 2-3 months throughout the year. However, it is not appropriate to use a visit weekend as an excuse to see your friends/partners. As @AP says, this is a work trip and the school is paying for your trip for work/business reasons. It's not a trip for pleasure. That said, if you do want to attach a personal trip to the work trip, that should be perfectly fine. It's very normal for academics to do things like stay a little longer at a fun conference destination for a personal trip attached to the end of a work trip. Just keep the two separate, pay for your personal expenses yourself and be sure to give your full attention to the school while on the "work" part of the trip. So, if you want to take advantage of the fact that you're already close to your bf's city when you are visiting the schools, the best thing to do is to book your return flight for a few days later and meet up with your bf during that time. Ask the school to ensure that it will be okay for you to have a later return date (especially if they are booking your flight for you). You don't have to say exactly why, just note that you want to stay a little longer to see the city and for personal reasons and that you'll of course pay for all expenses on the extra days (and be prepared to pay the difference between the later return date and the original date if the flights cost more). I had a bunch of friends in one area so I stayed an extra weekend (the visit was Thurs/Fri) to spend time with them and to scope out the city. Flew home Sunday night instead of Saturday morning. I'm not here to judge you on what you do, but I'll end with one more piece of practical advice. The visit days are quite long, usually going from breakfast to events after dinner. For the students visiting my program, they are bussed from their hotel to campus at 7am and the expected attendance events go to 8pm, with optional social activities often going to 11pm on the first night and could go past midnight on the second (and final) night. So, to me, it makes sense to involve your partner when you want them to be in the same city so that they can determine if they would like to live there, maybe scope out areas that they might work or live, etc. But with these super long days, it's not really a good setup for catching up with your partner and spending time with them. If your partner is going to visit you mostly for the sake of spending time with you, you might end up both frustrated and distracted. It would be far better to arrange to meet up with your partner after the visit. Maybe they can meet up with you the day after the visit and they can accompany you while you explore your potential new town, or if there's a nearby city you always wanted to visit, you can do touristy things there together after! If you're booking your own flights, the normal procedure is that you should get a quote for a flight there and back on the regular days and get reimbursed for your alternative arrangements up to the cost of the original itinerary.

This is terrible behaviour and completely inappropriate. If you have not already sought out help from someone who actually has power over your advisor, I think this might be a good time. I would recommend going beyond the department, personally. I'd go to the Graduate School itself. For the comments regarding American women are stupid and are prostitutes, you can go to your school's Title IX office (if you are in the USA) or to the school's human resources or similar department if you are not in the USA. But as others said, the power dynamic is great and there's never a guarantee that you won't be retaliated against. Even if the country you are in has laws against it, be careful who you trust.

Most STEM programs will have funding for 12 months. Like @Emily Roberts said, in some cases, the initial offer for the first year may only be 9 months because it might be a TA offer or a fellowship that only covers the school year. You should ask the department what happens in the first summer and also beyond that. Often, if the school has a model where the department provides funding for the first school year because you're mostly doing classes and then summer + future year funding comes from your future advisor, then the offer will just have the first 9 months and you need to secure a RAship for the summer and beyond. In this case, you should ask to find out how often students are able to be funded for the first summer. Some programs, in my field at least, don't require you to be an RA or even be on campus for that first summer. So sometimes people go home that summer, get another job, study for quals etc. Not sure how common this would be in your field. If you're asking me, I greatly prefer 12 month funding because I don't want to have to go home or find something else for the summer. Internships aren't really a big thing in my field and I am coming to grad school to do research with the profs there, not to find internships. But this all depends on your field and your own goals of course! That said, I would be fine with an initial 9 month offer if all students who want a summer RAship get one (as the case with one of the schools I was considering). As an international student (although only from Canada), it would be more of a hassle to not have the final 3 months of funding secured (for foreign student status eligibility) and I would not want to have to give up my lease etc. and have to find another apartment again if I had to return home (similarly, my partner would have been settled in the new place by then and it would be tough for them to return home and leave their job etc.)

In 2012 I got a rejection letter through snail mail. It was the only notification I got from that school. At least it was printed on very nice fancy paper. I also got every acceptance letter through snail mail too, but arriving weeks after I got the PDF version via email. Regular mail from US to where I lived in Canada often takes about 1.5-2 weeks though.

The standard in STEM fields is to offer something like, "Funding is available for the first year and up to 5 (or some number) years, subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funds." Other similar alternative wording might say "duration of studies" instead of setting a strict limit. Usually the wording is clear or at least implies you'll be funded at the same level throughout your degree. However, pointing out that almost no school will actually promise more than 1 year of funding at a time, unless you have a special fellowship or something. They need to reserve the option to withdraw funding if you fail, or in the rare case the department goes bankrupt or gets defunded, they don't want to be legally liable to pay you. If you get something like this, just a quick check with your POI or other grad students on visits is a good practice, especially to ensure that the funding is indeed on the same level each year. Another common offer, that is slightly less good, is: "Funding of X dollars is available for the first year. Funding for subsequent years is subject to....[same as before]". This is similar to the above but it might mean you won't get the same amount of funding each year. It might also mean you may have to re-compete for funding each year. Definitely worth a check. Ask questions like "how many students get the same funding for whole degree" or something. If the answer is over 95% then you're good, but if it's a competitive funding environment every year then you might want to consider that when making your final decisions.

No one can say "definitely". I found that more wintery places plan their visit dates as late as possible so that they get better weather. In contrast, warmer places take great delight in inviting students to visit in early February where half the country is still frozen but you can walk around in shorts eating an ice cream cone.

Oh wow, that is soon! Given that today is Friday and there is a good chance you won't get a response before Monday 1/29, you probably should submit that fellowship application if you feel comfortable applying for it.

It's up to you to decide whether you think you qualify for any fellowship and while it's great that you are thinking of others, I think you might qualify for this one. But I don't know you and I don't know the fellowship so your judgement is better than mine. That said, the fellowship committee will also ensure that the fellowship goes to the right person, so if you are not sure about your eligibility, you can either ask them or apply anyways. That said, if you don't want to apply unless you have to, I would advise you to delay asking until it's necessary to know. When is the deadline for you to decide whether or not to apply for this fellowship?

Second this. It took a few years for me to really master this. But it's also okay not to have eye contact with the speaker 100% of the time. I usually write without looking down but for important notes, I do break eye contact to write. If something really important comes up, it's acceptable, in my opinion, to say something like, "wow, that's really interesting, I really want to make sure I get this right" and then take 10 seconds to write it down. I usually do this if a prof suggests I read a specific paper or contact a specific person and I want to get the citation/name right.

If the trip is not a huge burden to you (e.g. no taking time off work, away from family etc.) and you are not 100% decided against Rice, then you should go. I learned a lot more about each city after visiting and some cities I had thought were great turned out less good and some I wasn't as excited about turned out even better.

Yes, to be clear, I advocate for taking notes in meetings too! You could just jot down their answers next to your notes on what the questions were and copy everything over later. That's why you have the pen and pad/folder/portfolio/etc with you. One other piece of advice: if people offer to walk you from one office to the next and you know your way around, you can politely decline and say that you need to go to the bathroom. Or, if you are near a bathroom and they point out which door to go to next, you can just say that you'll make a quick detour first. This won't really give you much time to write anything down, but sometimes even just 30 seconds to breathe before jumping into another interview can be helpful.

I purchased a Amazon Fire tablet for this. I have e-books that I only read when traveling as well as shows I only watch while traveling (download the show from Amazon Prime Video and/or Netflix). I like the tablet because it's lighter and thinner/easier to pack than a book, and it means I can have access to multiple books and shows without adding to my packing list and then I can read/watch whatever I happen to be in the mood for.

It's fine to ask, but why wouldn't you apply for a fellowship anyways? Unless I am misunderstanding, isn't it better to be funded by a fellowship instead of an assistantship? (or can you be funded by both for extra income?)

Great list. During the last couple years of grad school, I was travelling quite a lot, so I just bought an extra copy of all the "basics" that just stayed in my suitcase. I also had a mini supply of travel size items at home (went to CVS and bought like 5 of everything I needed) so that I can just grab what I needed/refill etc. Another useful trick that helps me save paper is to forgo the travel binder and get PDFs of all of my travel docs onto my Dropbox, then offline-sync them so I can access them on my phone without an internet connection. I used to always print everything but realised I never touched that file during most of my trips (but then I could use them to prepare the expense reports). My contingency against cell phone not working (battery dead?) is to have a single page with all the flight, hotel, etc. confirmation numbers.

In my opinion, yes, you can be explicit about the fact that you have notes and want to refer to them. Although I am not an interviewer for clinical psych PhD programs, as an interviewer for other things, I always appreciate a candidate that is well prepared and did the research ahead of time. I think the smoothest way is to have one question you really really want to ask ready to go and ask that first. Have your folder on the desk and open it to your page and ask the next question if they ask you whether you have more questions. Take notes if you need to but do it briefly. The only thing in your comment that concerns me is that you say you have "a long typed list of questions". I would not recommend bringing this entire list and showing it in your interview because 1) you won't be able to ask them all anyways and 2) how are you going to pick which questions to ask when there's a huge list. I had one interviewee do this and it was quite tedious for me and the other interviewer to slowly go through every single question on their list and watch them write each answer down carefully. I appreciate their thoughtfulness but it certainly didn't end the interview on a smooth note. So, my advice is this: Before you enter each interview, jot down a few notes on the questions you would like to ask. Hopefully you still remember the questions you have in mind so a couple of words can help jog your memory on the actual question. I think typically you can ask 2-4 questions in an interview, so depending on who you are talking to, jot down reminders for these questions. Open your notes to this page only at the interview (use the same page to jot down any additional notes based on your interview). Then, after the interview, transfer the answers to these notes onto your master list of questions. This can be done right after the interview or at the end of the day, depending on how tight your schedule is. If you have back-to-back interviews, make a mark on your master list so that you know you have an answer to that question, and then pick another 2-4 questions from your master list for the next interview.

Second the above advice to talk with current grad students in the program to see what their life and expenses are like. Remember that some people may have different expenses, income sources or savings. Sometimes it's a tricky topic to raise, but when I was a student I tried to be as direct and honest about my personal finances as possible, even though these topics are generally "socially taboo". But sometimes people at the same school with the same stipend have a wide range of living conditions because of income sources like a partner that earns a lot that supports them, family that supports them, saved income from a previous career, as well as extra expenses like supporting a family, sending money home to their family in a foreign country, paying off previous loans etc. Most students I met during visits were honest with me about how they live and I have tried to do the same for students that visited my program. Sometimes you have to ask directly and it might be awkward, but at the same time, it can be an important piece of information about the next 5 years of your life. That said, our grad student government did survey some schools around the country to find out what fraction of students stipends are going towards rent/housing. Our motivations were to petition our school to raise the minimum stipend because stipends have been going up at a slow rate ($1000 every 2 years) while rent increased much more in the last 4 years (average rent went up by $250/month from 2012 to 2016, which is $4000 per year more). We ended up getting a $2000 increase in a year where we would normally get a $1000 increase. So that was nice, but still have not yet covered the gap. Through this survey, we found that many students in similar grad programs to ours spent around 30% to 50% of their stipend on rent. So I think 2/3rds of your stipend on rent is pretty excessive. You probably know that the "recommended" amount is 1/3 of your income on rent, but to be honest, unless you are in a low cost of living area, this is not very realistic for grad students living on their own. Where I did grad school, the typical one bedroom rent is about 2/3 of the stipend. Most grad students find a 2 bedroom place and share with another student and this drops the average cost to around 35% of stipend. Grad students who can actually get down to the 1/3 recommendation do so by sharing a house with 3-5 others, or they might be couples (with two incomes) sharing a 1 bedroom, or they were able to get subsidized student housing (approx. half the market rate). For students in my field, life on a grad student stipend is usually described as "enough to pay the bills but not much more". For a single student with no extra expenses (healthy, not supporting a family, no loans to repay), I think a student in my field should be able to end up a few thousand dollars per year after necessary minimum expenses if they share rent and cook their own food. Everything that is "discretionary" spending comes out of this small sum, e.g. eating out, taking trips, visiting home, cell phone bills, buying a car or car maintenance, etc. and whatever is left goes into savings. Again, this is for the typical student in my field as stipends do depend a lot on field, and it's not counting extremely low/high cost of living areas. Finally, one note about budgeting/comparing stipends. A lot of people want to take the total stipend value and multiply or divide it by some cost of living factor. e.g. They might compare a $16,000 stipend in one area vs. a $18,000 stipend in an area that costs 25% more and say well, that $18,000 stipend has the buying power of only $14,400 when compared to the $16,000 area. But I don't think this is a fair way to compare stipends unless you happen to also want to stay in the area you do grad school forever (which is rarely the case). In the end, in terms of future financial stability, the only number that matters is how much money you have left (or owe) once you graduate, since ending up with $2,500 (or whatever number) in the bank after graduation is worth the same whether that was in NYC or Laramie, WY (just example cities). So, instead, I think the better way is to take each stipend offer you have and subtract out all the costs you know you will have to pay. Make sure this is still a positive number. I think it's pretty safe to directly compare the "discretionary income" amount because to be honest, it's usually quite low so small differences like how much a bottle of wine costs in one place compared to another is not going to make a big difference. But if you want, you can also subtract out the amount of discretionary spending you would like to spend in order to achieve the quality of life you want. Hopefully this is still a positive number. This number is basically how much you can save each year (or how much you will go into debt each year). You can definitely directly compare this number since its spending power has nothing to do with where you do grad school.

This is the same reason I did a Masters before a PhD too. I am just thankful that this is the normal path in Canada (2 year Masters, 3-4 year PhD) and both programs are always fully funded since Canada treats the MA the same as the first 2 year of a US PhD. It also gives a lot of people an easy way to leave the program after 2 years if they realise that either grad school or that particular program/advisor is not the right fit for them. In general, about half of Masters degree graduates don't go onto a PhD program but have tons of other good opportunities and/or do things more interesting to them than suffering longer in a bad fit grad program for another 3-5 years.

I think the best way to approach it is to: 1) tell the school that you would like to accept their offer and are very excited to attend, 2) but, you would like to stay in your current position at XYZ for another year because of [reasons: include the academic ones (skills) for sure, include the personal ones if you feel comfortable)]. Ask them if this would be possible and what the terms of the deferral are (i.e. you want to know if your funding is still secure, etc. They might not permit deferrals at all, or they might make you compete for funding again. Definitely ask before accepting the offer and get whatever you need down in writing! You don't want to be starting in Fall 2019 and be surprised about the status of your funding or that you now have to TA when you were expecting a fellowship etc. As for who to speak to, it should generally be the person who sent you the acceptance notification, as they can probably redirect you if necessary. If your program assigns you an advisor right at the start, then maybe talk to the potential advisor first. Speaking with these people at the visit weekend could work out but you don't know for sure if you will get to meet with them. However, given that I think you should ask this only when you are ready to accept their offer, this can probably wait until after the visit dates (in case you actually don't want to attend after all!). So, you could wait and see if you can talk to the relevant people during the visit dates and if not, do it by email afterwards. Even if you talk to them in person, be sure to follow up with an email to confirm things and to get things in writing.

Maybe Canadian schools? I remember seeing mid Feb and even March 1 deadlines in Canada when I applied (a different field, but Canadian school timelines are generally different).

Awesome Intriguing that for PhDs, the timeline for acceptances isn't earlier than rejections as I would have thought!