TakeruK

Only your spouse (you need a marriage certificate, no common-law relationships allowed; which is one of the reasons I did a MSc in Canada first) or dependent children under 18 are eligible to come with you into the US as F-2 or J-2 status. Not all J-1 statuses will allow for dependents. For example, you can have J-1 status if you are a high school exchange student, but no J-2s are allowed to accompany that J-1. But J-2 spouses and children are definitely allowed with J-1 Doctoral Students. When I was applying for J-1, the law was that same-sex spouses are not eligible for J-2 status in the United States, even if they are legally married in their home country (e.g. Canada). However, since the US Supreme Court has struck down part of the "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) last year (one news story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/supreme-court-doma-decision_n_3454811.html), same-sex spouses legally married in their home country can now immigrate to the US as if they were different-sex spouses (yay for equal rights!): http://www.uscis.gov/family/same-sex-marriages

For the CGS-M specifically, I would say it might be much higher than the "background rate" (i.e. number of people who decline admission offers in general). This is because if you are good enough to get the CGS-M at one place, it's likely you also applied to other schools and also applied to the CGS-M, and each good person can only accept one offer! That is, it is probably true the top 5% in each field will be accepted pretty much everywhere and get CGS-Ms everywhere, and since they can only take one offer, there should be some that are released to alternates. I would probably also say that lower-ranked schools will probably go deeper into their alternate list, since the top students might apply to them as a "safety" and if they end up going to a top program, they will free up a CGS-M spot!

I am also a Canadian in the US. I am on J-1 status. I just want to clarify that we often confuse two distinct but similar things when we say "F-1/J-1". A visa is a document that gives you permission to enter the US. It looks like a page in your passport, with your photo and all that. As mentioned above, Canadians do not need a visa to enter the US. There is also a thing called "immigration status", which gives you permission to remain in the US for a legally defined purpose. This is your I-20 (if you are on F-1 status) or DS-2019 (if you are on J-1 status). You will get this document from your school's International Office and it is very important! You basically use this every time you need to prove you are legally allowed to be in the US (to get Social Security, open a bank account, get a driver's license, etc.). In order to be eligible for F-1, your I-20 must show enough funding support (either from the school, from Canada, or from bank accounts) for 1 year of tuition, fees, and living expenses. In order to be eligible for J-1, your DS-2019 must show enough funding support for all years of your tuition, fees, and living expenses. In addition, the J-1 status requires that most of your funding does not come from personal/family savings. But for most PhD programs in the sciences, the school will fund you through fellowships, RAships, and TAships. You don't fill this financial information yourself--you give the info to your school and they create this document for you. Finally, in order to get the DS-2019, the school has to agree to sponsor you on J-1 status. Some schools will refuse to sponsor students on J-1 status even though they meet the US Department of State requirements. As for F-1 vs. J-1, F-1 is the far more common option. I think the only real reason to pick J-1 is if you have a spouse that would like to work while you are in the US. Your spouse cannot work if they have F-2 status (if you have F-1) but they can work, with permission, if they are J-2 (and you are J-1). It took about 4 months for my spouse to get her "Employment Authorization Document" (EAD), which is a card valid for 4 years (length depends on a lot of things) and allows her to get a Social Security number and find employment. There are some extra eligibility criteria to get the EAD though. For post-graduation, there is something called "OPT" (Optional Practical Training). Both F-1 and J-1 allow you to remain in the US for 9 months after graduation if you are working in a field related to your PhD research. You do have to apply for this and you have to secure the job within 60 days of graduation if you are F-1 (30 days if J-1) [usually people have a job before they graduate if they go this route]. However, if you work in a STEM field, there is 27 month extension to OPT for both F-1 and J-1. Therefore, no matter which status you choose, you can work for up to 3 years in the US on the same F-1/J-1 status as a postdoc or other job in related field. Finally, it sounds like you have heard about the 2 year home residency requirement, which is only for J-1 students who 1) are getting training in a field from a special skills list for their home country, 2) have government fellowships, and/or 3) received medical education/training. So if you were not considering J-1 at all, you don't have to worry about this! Canadians are not subject to (1), and it doesn't sound like your program is (3). So, as long as you are not being covered by a government fellowship (e.g. NSERC, since we don't qualify for US ones), this would not affect you. But even if it does, it just means you have to be physically in Canada for 2 years before you can immigrate to the US. This does not mean you must return to Canada immediately after your PhD--you can go elsewhere first. Also, you can request a waiver from your home country to release you from this requirement!

It's because it's complicated! Usually, the answer is yes, unless your fellowship is specifically one of the non-taxable ones. Your best bet is to ask other people in your school with the same fellowship (although tax situations can vary between people), or ask the source of the fellowship directly, or read the IRS documents, but I find those very confusing!

Eigen, I agree with you that there are pretty strong incentive to not drop a funded offer like this. I would say that these strong negative consequences are part of the nature of the job market for PhD students, not because it is an unethical decision. I also agree that a decision like this will damage the school. I would argue that a system that lets money go to waste like this is broken, and it's not our (the students) responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interest of the school / the system. I think that by treating academia as different from the "regular" job market (i.e. that our job is our calling instead of a job), we are letting the system take advantage of our desire to do research. I agree that grad students are in a weird situation where it's kind of like a real job and kind of not like a real job market. For example, in a real job market, if 3 years into my job, my employer changes the terms of my employment (stipend change, benefits change, etc.), I can apply to a competing employer and switch jobs. But in the grad students' case, we have pretty much no leverage to do anything like that. We are tied to our employer for both our pay and our qualification, which gives them a huge advantage over us. So, this is why I think it is not reasonable to expect students to be concerned about what happens to the funding at the recruitment point. I think we might have to agree to disagree whether a decision to attend grad school as a "backup" is in good faith or not. Finally, it might be true that if more and more students change their minds in the summer as better opportunities open up, then schools won't make funding offers until the Fall. But I don't think this is a realistic outcome. Schools want good grad students as well, and if they don't make offers before other competing factors (e.g. other jobs), then they will lose students. Perhaps the entire application cycle might shift from December-April to March-August, but that won't benefit the school either since they probably want more advance notice to plan for their incoming class. I don't really see a downside to a March-August application cycle either. Or, perhaps, the funding model for schools/students will evolve to recognize the fact that students have other choices. Ultimately, it might not be fruitful for either of us to speculate on what might happen, but getting schools to recognize that students should certainly change their mind if a company offers them a better job is in general a good thing.

I think you could show this but it probably won't make a difference if stipend > all expenses. As far as I know, it's just a matter of meeting the financial needs, not that you get more points for the more you exceed it. That is, to get a VISA, you just need to meet all the criteria--having extra in one won't make up for a lack in another.

Yes, in general, PhD students qualify for the "student status" required for a student credit card. Whether or not a student qualifies for credit in general is a different question. However, it's good to note that most people qualify for a regular credit card with a lower income than some PhD stipends, so unless you did something to your credit in the past, I'd say most PhD students should be able to get a credit card. My advice is that you should get a credit card as soon as you are able to, and begin building credit!

As others said, you still "screw over" (i.e. cause potential funding and personnel/staffing difficulties) if you say you will attend the program and then take a job offer on say, August 1 (before the school term starts). Funding is not always transferable! However, I would disagree with the others and say that it is not your responsibility to worry about this. In my opinion, accepting a PhD position is the same as any other job offer and you are allowed to quit school/your job at any time, unless you have a contract that says otherwise. It is the school/program's responsibility to absorb any risk of a student changing their mind, and they should have made plans for cases like this. Because I have the opinion that grad student = apprenticeship level job, taking a grad student position offer should not mean you are not allowed to change your mind! In fact, if for some reason, you take a school's offer but in August, another school decides they want you after all (for some reason) and makes you another offer, you should be free to switch and in my opinion, there are no ethical problems with doing this. I would consider all of these actions as typical and natural in the job market that we currently have. I should note that while I think it is ethically okay, this is not the same meaning as "there will be no consequences". There will definitely be consequences! As we said, backing out after April 15 causes problems for the school. The profs there might not be happy and they might remember you. In addition, if you drop out after officially starting a PhD program, and then you decide to apply for more PhD programs in the future, you will have to include this your application. It will not look good for future PhD programs if you have dropped out of previous programs! My advice would be to carefully weigh the pros and cons of your decision and do what's right for you. I think there are no ethical issues with saying "yes" to a school on April 15th as long as you make it in good faith (i.e. have all the intention of actually attending that school at the moment you made the decision). So, if you don't have any other job offers by April 15th, then I would say that you don't really have any other opportunities at that moment and I would count your acceptance as one made in good faith.

Hello, I am a Canadian at a US school and I will be travelling to the UK for a conference this summer. My American friends are going too and they have already looked into this and found that they do not need a visa to be in the UK for a short while. Generally, you would use this link for UK visas: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa Many conferences will give you information on whether you need a visa. For example, here is one meeting from 2013: http://www.mercury2013.com/visa-information/ They also link you to https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa and the specifically say that you should say you are a "business visitor" when you attend an academic conference. When I enter this information as someone holding a US Passport, visiting for business and for less than 6 months, I also get "no". This is a copy and paste of what appears: (Of course, you should confirm this yourself with whatever sources you trust!) ----- copy and paste below ----- You may need a visa to work or do business in the UK. Whether you need a visa depends on your circumstances. Business visits You don’t need a visa if you’re coming to the UK for activities allowed under the following visas: a business visitor a sports visitor an entertainer a prospective entrepreneur a visitor doing a ‘permitted paid engagement’ (you must have been invited to the UK because of your expertise) - you can only stay for up to 1 month However, you should bring supporting documents to show at the border. You may want to apply for a visa if you have a criminal record or you’ve previously been refused entry into the UK.

I would first advise you to check with your MA institution to see if you can hold the SSHRC for part of the time. The SSHRC Award Holder guide: http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/using-utiliser/guide-A/regulations-reglements-eng.aspx does not say you must be doing research. (Note: most of that award holder guide is only for awards from before 2013 but the section on General Regulations applies to all award holders, it says). For both NSERC and SSHRC, I know that the CGS-M generally is meant to fund you for graduate studies, not specifically for thesis research only. It is generally not awarded to those in professional Masters programs though, as far as I know. But, there are non-thesis based Masters programs in both NSERC and SSHRC fields. One requirement is that you are a full time student and there is an upper limit on how many hours you can work (as a TA or whatever). But I also know you can interrupt your CGS-M for up to 4 months (i.e. one co-op term) for work related to your program of study (i.e. co-op) one time. Since the CGS-M is a one-year award only, and your MA sounds like it might be 2 years long(?), you might be able to hold the CGS-M during the months where you are a full time student. If you do your 8 courses in 8 months and then followed by 8 months of co-op, then you can at least hold your CGS-M during the first 8 months. If you do like...2 semesters of courses, then a summer of co-op, then another semester of courses, you might be able to hold your CGS-M during the first two semester, interrupt your award for summer co-op, and then resume the CGS-M and finish out the award in the last 4 months of courses. These are just examples of how it might work--but only your school will know what is actually possible. You should check with them before you make a decision! And of course, whether one option or another is better really depends on your goals. If you are sure that you don't want a PhD, then would a Masters thesis be helpful in your future career goals? To me, it sounds like co-op will get you much better experience. When I did co-op (different field though) during undergrad, it paid pretty well--I think my salary worked out to be something like $2200/month so after 8 months, it's comparable to the value of the CGS-M (although I had to pay co-op fees, and it would be taxable income while the CGS-M is nontaxable).

I've only snowboarded once (in Grade 7 as a field trip) and never skiied. After I moved away from Vancouver, one of the first questions I get after I tell people where I'm from is "Do you ski/snowboard a lot??"! I think it's worth it to try at least once, while you're there!

1. Pokemon Master http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/31/happy-early-april-fools-day-google-is-looking-for-pokemon-masters/

I agree with what the above said, but I would say that it's perfectly okay* to accept a PhD offer and then quit after a year if you decide that the PhD route is not for you. (*okay as in ethical, you're still a good person etc. etc.) There are consequences of doing this of course--firstly, there may be some conditions on your funding that you finish certain requirements. Also, you will have a really hard time getting back into academia if you do this. However, I am assuming you mean "if academia is not for you" when you say "if it's not for me", not just that particular school. If you are sure you want to do a PhD but aren't sure if this particular school is the right one, then I think you should follow jenste's advice of asking if the offer will still be valid next year and then in the inbetween year, apply to more programs, strengthen your profile etc. I know that in my field, offers of admission might actually be valid for more than one year (although the funding guarantee only comes if you accept the offer in the first year--you might have to be "reconsidered" for funding if you want to take an offer in a later year).

From what you wrote, you should be fine. They know that students and/or young people in general do not normally have strong ties like owning a home! What you describe sounds like almost all of the international student friends I know in Canada and the US.

Depending on the year, the letters might actually go out not exactly on April 1. You may or may not get an email either. This is based on comparing my experience with others in the past years. I'm just saying this so that if you don't hear anything tomorrow, don't panic

It's probably not a big deal, but I agree that you should probably let them know about the change. However, I think you should wait until after they accept you before you let them know, since it doesn't matter at all if you end up rejected.

This page has a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_insurance_companies (Scroll down to medical insurance companies). Some of them are better than others of course. I don't know enough to tell you which ones are good though, so you'll probably have to check up on these companies yourself! Yes, cost of insurance varies from place to place! Basically, health insurance is sold like car insurance in the US, where the goal is for the company to collect more money in premiums than they pay out in benefits--they usually want to pay out only like 70% of their collected premiums. Another thing you need to know is PPO vs. HMO plans. In a PPO plan, you are free to use any provider you want. However, there is a network of doctors etc. that have agreed to be on your insurer's "network". When you go to a plan in "network", there is a reduced fee that the doctor agreed to charge in accordance with their contract with the insurer and your plan will cover more of the costs. If you go out of network, your doctor may charge you more and also your plan will cover much less. For example, in my PPO plan, if I go to a doctor in network, I pay 20% of the cost of treatment. If I go out of network, I pay 40% of the cost of treatment! In a HMO plan, you have a lot fewer choices in your provider. You have to select from providers in their network and have to choose a primary care provider. If you go outside of your network, you will not be covered at all! Maybe someone else who is on a HMO plan can explain it better. I know that in general, they tend to be a bit cheaper. Both PPO and HMO plans are available through the ACA ("Obamacare") marketplace. I agree that health care in the US is confusing and scary! We've made a couple of mistakes that probably cost us about $1000 more than it would if we had known what we were doing. Being from Canada, we're not used to an environment where health care is a business instead of a public service, but we're learning =/

I'd say this is usually good advice because it's really rare that a dress shirt + slacks will be way too formal that you'd stand out in a negative way. But it can still be more formal than everyone else, especially if the event is happening during or right after work hours. For example, my current program has an accepted students reception dinner at the end of the first accepted students visit day and the dinner is with profs, current students, and other accepted students. Because it's just at the end of our workday, all of the profs and students wear what they normally wear to work, so in this case, a dress shirt even without jacket and tie would be overdressed! As I said, for most people, being slightly overdressed like this is no big deal but if you are really self conscious about your dress, then it would be best to ask ahead of time

If you are in serious trouble of not finishing your MA, you should contact your PhD program immediately and check--my PhD program definitely wanted me to show them proof of completion of my MSc after I arrived. If you put your MA as part of your application, they considered the fact that you are expected to come in with a MA as part of their decision process! What if they chose you over someone else because of your MA experience. In addition to the very likely requirement from your PhD program, you should also finish your MA for yourself and for all the other reasons the others listed above! You've gone this far already, don't stop now!! (Obviously, if finishing would really mean more harm than good, then that's different, but if it just means more effort in getting people to meet to advise you and putting in the work, it's worth it in my opinion).

Do you mean informally learning a language (i.e. self-taught) or learning it as part of school? I haven't learned any languages informally but in Canada we were required to take French courses to a certain level and then I continued it all the way to Grade 12. I found that the way I learned new vocabulary (and incorporated it into my French usage) the best was to just memorize a short list of new words every week and use them in daily exercises. In high school, each week, our teacher would give us about 10-20 words and we would write sentences with them, and use them in our worksheets for that week. We were also encouraged (but not required as part of the class) to write extra sentences with these words to remember them. In addition, we always had a French-English dictionary so that at any time in class we wanted to use a word we didn't know in French, we would pause to look it up. Eventually when you look up a word often enough, you remember it for next time! Anyways, this was how it worked for me! I am a kind of learner that learns best from repeatedly practicing the same skill over and over again, whether it's remembering a word, or how to solve an equation etc.

Yay!

I think the best thing is to ask the department! I've seen events like this go both ways!

Hmm after looking further into the Retina Pro specs, I am agreeing with GeoDUDE! that you don't actually get very much bang for its buck anymore! It's not much more powerful than the Air (if at all) and several hundred dollars more! In order to get something similar to my older model Pro with Retina, the cost is something like $1600! (although to be honest I haven't been super careful checking the stats). So if I could re-vote in my poll, I would say either older model Pro or go with the newer Air! As for the ethernet port, I just want to chime in to say that I use my ethernet port almost every day--whenever I bring my laptop to the office because the wifi is really really crappy in my building. Also, with a wired connection to the departmental servers, I am able to transfer data etc. at speeds averaging 20-50Mb/s between my laptop and my work computers! And many times when I take my laptop to travel, I end up in places with no wifi and only wired connections. Of course, I think you can buy adapters for the Air for Ethernet use too, if necessary!

I've never been sorted into any house other than Hufflepuff (the best house, obvs.)

Just an update--as of this year, the NSERC PGS-M program is no more and only CGS-M will be awarded (note: in the past pretty much every Masters level NSERC award has been a CGS-M except for the ones that take them to the US). Now, you apply for the CGS-M directly to the school you want to attend (much like a OGS if you have done that before) and the school itself determines who to give awards too (not NSERC). Also this means you must keep the award in Canada. Unfortunately, it's the same sad story for every international student--very limited funding opportunity from their home country and even fewer in their host country (almost all federally granted awards will require citizenship!). There may be some and I hope others can point you in that direction, but I literally know 4 potential awards I can apply to at all! I honestly would highly recommend applying directly to PhD programs in the US (they don't have the Undergrad-Masters-PhD system like we do in Canada) unless you are specifically doing a professional Masters, in which case, I am not sure they are funded in Canada anyways so it's not a huge difference. At least in my field, it's totally not worth paying anything out of pocket for a Masters in the US (especially since Masters in Canada are always fully funded). Good luck!