TakeruK

I would say "normal" is between 1 and 4 weeks, in my experience.

I feel like you do not understand the purpose of affirmative action programs, nor do you understand "unconscious bias". There is a lot of literature online where academics discuss these issues in our academic world and how to implement effective policies in evening out the "playing field" for people of all backgrounds.

Here's just a hypothetical example. Suppose a school has 20 spots to fill and they know to expect about 30% to 60% of their offers will be accepted. If they go for "30%" and make 60 offers, they might be in trouble if they get 40 people showing up. But if they only make 30 offers, then they might not actually fill up the whole class. Also, for many schools, they might not be the top choice for a lot of students (especially true if the school is at the high end of second tier or the low end of a first tier school) but they will get a lot of very strong applicants. It's hard to tell whether or not you're a top choice for a candidate. So if they make an offer to someone who got into programs they liked a lot more, they may be hoping that the person will say "oh I actually got into other programs and I'm not considering this program anymore". Although sometimes students do withdraw their "safety" school offers when they hear back from their favoured programs, not all (many?) will do this. When they first make their original 30 offers, in some years, they might hit a large fraction of people who applied to them as safeties. Or, in other years, maybe most of them do want to go and it would have been a mistake to make 50+ offers! So, it makes sense to do admission in waves--admit some number from the top of the list first, and hear back from the ones that already are planning to go somewhere else. For some of the offers I got, the first thing they asked was whether or not I was still interested in their program (they were not making me decide yes/no but just wanted to know if they were still being considered). After they hear back from the first group, then if they project that they will need more people to fill spots, they might make a second wave of admission. That's one possibility. Another possibility, which comes from the way some grant review boards operate, is that when picking the best candidates from a large field of applicants, sometimes it's very clear who the top are but not as clear who the middle ranked people are. That is, again if there were 20 spots and say, 500 applicants, the committee might unanimously agree on who the top 10 applicants are. These people might be strong enough that everyone is able to vote yes on them. So, the committee might decide to devote the first meeting to identifying these top candidates and sending offers their way first. Then, in the next meeting, they can sit down and discuss how to fill spots 11-20, where there will be disagreements and debate. This also works for the school because the top applicants will probably get a lot of positive results so they want to get their offer on the table sooner rather than later. But not all schools do admissions in waves or even have waitlists. My current program makes all of its offers in about the third week of January and that's it. There are no waitlists. They only make as many offers as they have room for and in rare cases, we get 0 new students coming in if all of the prospective students decide to go elsewhere. Usually this means a larger incoming class the following year! So, unfortunately, it's not always true that no news is good news.

Most students in my program take on average 3 classes per quarter and it's the standard expected courseload (sometimes 4 or sometimes 2 though). It's hard to take less than 2 because of the required classes and taking more than 4 would usually raise concerns from advisors about time for research. My school lists the number of credit hours as the "total number of time expected for this class", and most courses are 9 credits (3 in class, 6 for reading+homework) or 12 credits if there are a lot of labs required. So not quite the "3 hours studying for every hour spent in class". These guidelines are ill-defined though--it's not clear if they are supposed to represent a minimum to pass, or the expected hours for a satisfactory grade (and also not clear what this is). And, a lot of profs don't really take into account these hours. We might be told to spend X hours on a project when X is not a reasonable number considering we have 60 hours total after accounting for 30 hours in lectures. However, from the campus wide surveys, one of the main questions is something about how many hours we spent on course material compared to the number of credits listed and the majority of the surveys show that students do spend about the right amount of listed hours. For me, I could spend 3 hours studying for every 1 hour in class, but I think I would prefer to use my time in research and I basically follow a law of diminishing returns. I find that spending 5 hours on a problem set is very much better than 2 hours, but there's very little difference in 8 hours vs 5 hours, so I just spend 5 hours. I think managing our internal perfectionist is very important for time management in research heavy graduate programs. Here, I can give you an example related to our fields. In our program, we are often encouraged to take shortcuts in our problem sets. e.g. if we are numerically integrating something, a rectangle rule will often yield an answer that is good enough and it's super intuitive, while I would probably have to spend 10-15 minutes extra just to look up the coefficients for and properly write code to do Simpson's Rule or Trapezoid rule etc. Or, I can just use order of magnitude values such as 3g/cc for basaltic rock density instead of looking up the precise value for whatever temperature and pressure it is on Mars. Our course TAs and instructors generally have the view that getting computations exact to better than 10% or 20% is not really learning any more geology/physics/astronomy but it takes a lot more time. Of course, there are certain exceptions where you do want to get an exact answer. But outside of these circumstances, this is what I mean by not being a perfectionist. It works better when TAs mark with this philosophy too though--often an order of magnitude estimate gets graded the same as an exact answer, or the difference is a 95% instead of 100% (i.e. none). Finally, I should note that if you consider time studying for comps and quals, it's very likely graduate students will spend more than 3 hours studying for every hour spent in class! I'm just talking about the time spent on a class while you are taking it, here, because the amount of prep you need for quals/comps will vary a lot from person to person! PS: These are great questions to ask to the graduate students at the specific program you are interested in! I'd recommend talking to students about how many classes / how much time on classes when you visit them. Many of them probably come from non-quarter systems and will have a lot of specific and relevant information that will relate to you

I didn't know there was a national ruling regarding the status of graduate students as employees and had always thought it was up to each school to decide? As the linked article states, the entire University of California system has unionized TAs. To clarify though, the unionized examples I gave above were at Canadian schools, and in Canada, graduate students are considered both students and employees and there is a lot of effort put into separating these roles. For example, student related pay (e.g. fellowships, scholarships) are paid through the school's Financial Aid department and usually come once per semester while employment related pay (e.g. RA, TAships) are paid biweekly or monthly and they come through the Human Resources department. We get different pay stubs, tax forms etc. separating these income sources. Generally, PhD programs publish a list of program requirements (certain courses, attending seminars, thesis work completed etc.) and when we work towards these goals, we are considered students. All of our employment related duties are contracted so that clearly defines when we are to be considered employees. I think the difference is that in the US (for example, my current program), graduate students are just paid a lump sum, split into whatever pay periods, but there's often very little distinction to us where the money comes from. And, for some reason, graduate programs here are allowed to make employment related work into "academic requirements" (i.e. they require us to TA to get our degree). I am guessing this doesn't happen in Canada because the union Collective Agreement always stipulates that all unionized work must be performed by unionized employees and follow the Agreement, so it's not possible for Canadian schools to make TAing a requirement to get a PhD. I personally think that all PhD students should TA for personal development but it's a shady practice to make what is normally paid work into a "training experience" to avoid (directly) paying students and thus avoid having to call them employees. So I guess after whatever legal barriers are passed (somehow the University of California has done this?), convincing the entire student population to undergo a major change might be the hardest part of unionization (especially since the lifetime of a graduate student is fairly short). But if there are legal barriers and a school's population want them to change, this would usually require a lot of action on part of the students. And then it's the same barrier of convincing a majority of the students to want this change!

I also agree that this difference in prestige is very small and probably not going to matter. At the same time, the difference between "decent" and "excellent" research fit might not be that big either. In terms of thinking about post-PhD career plans options, here are some of my thoughts. I am not in your field and know pretty much nothing about it though, so I'll just offer thoughts and let you decide what is actually relevant. 1. What do you mean by "research fit" precisely? Do you mean that you get along well with the faculty and that the faculty there do exactly what you want to work on? Or do you mean that the program has a very strong research program and the right resources to help you achieve your goals. In my opinion, one of the things you can be flexible about is the exact topic of research. So, to me, I never looked for graduate schools based on the exact topic I wanted my PhD thesis to be on. Instead, I made a list of certain goals/skills/experiences I wanted to achieve during my PhD and my choice of "fit" is the place that will let me enable these goals. For example, I wanted to learn how to use telescopes and become an observational astronomer. This meant that my "topic" fit can be anything that is observational in the department, whether it's asteroids in our Solar Systems or planets in other solar systems. So, in my opinion, I don't usually think of "fit" as "I want to study [topic X]" but rather "I want to become good at [skill X]". 2. Related to the above, what about the resources available to you at each of these programs? Let's say that I did want to study topic X, subtopic Y using telescope observations. However, sometimes a school with the best research fit (many experts on topic X, subtopic Y) might have fewer resources available to you than a school with only a decent research fit (some experts on topic X, but they mostly work on subtopic Z). You will be much more likely to succeed when you have the resources available to you. Resources can be things like funding to attend conferences, funding to "buy you out" of other commitments like TAships (unless developing a strong teaching background is your PhD goal, then you might want the opposite of this!), equipment to do experiments, good location/big city where a lot of other academics will visit and give seminars, etc. In my opinion, if I am indeed a badass scientist, I would be better off where I have the most resources to fulfill my maximum badass potential. 3. I also don't think PhD students need to be completely 100% in love with their PhD thesis/work. You definitely need to not hate it and be miserable, but really, you might only need to tolerate it. I think it's hard to stay as freshly motivated and in love with a topic after 4-5 years. And, for most that are entering grad school, we probably have 2-4 years max of research experience in the field. Our research careers (if we go that route) will probably be 40+ years long. Even after grad school, we would have only completed a tiny fraction of our total research career. So, I think this means two things. First, how can we really really know what we actually like to research--our exposure to our field is pretty small. Second, it's not like what we do in grad school is going to dictate the rest of our research careers. Most professors I know change paths after grad school. Many postdocs I work with do not work on the same topics as they did in their PhDs just a few years ago. The field is changing all the time, so it makes sense for our interests and research goals to change too. 4. So, also related to the above, if you are mainly concerned about post-PhD career plans, instead of worrying about research fit with your choice of topic, I'd consider more about the program's research fit with what kind of work you want to do later on. For people in my field, I'd advise them to work on topics that will be likely to get grants/jobs in a few years. One way to think about this is to think about what space missions are scheduled to arrive at their destinations at the time of graduation. At this point, there will be a ton of data, and lots of people looking for scientists who know how to interpret it and analyse it etc. For other fields, I would suggest a similar approach for whatever big projects that exist there. Also, if your eventual career goals are not research based, then consider that in your decision too. For example, there are some schools in my field that are very research heavy and has very little emphasis on teaching. Grad students might only work as a TA for a couple of semesters in their whole degree. This is not going to be an ideal place for someone whose career goal is to work in a primarily teaching position. 5. Finally, one thing I also did consider is prestige of the school outside of your field in case you are interested in working outside of your field. There are some schools in my field that are not very big names to public as academic powerhouses but they are very well known to be the best within the field. But if you are looking for a job in industry or something outside of academia, it would help more to have the shiny school brand name even though the program might not be as good as the one at the less shiny brand name (of course, usually the best program in the field will make the other 4 points here better, so I would say this is one of the least important points). Also, if you are planning to work outside of academia in a certain geographical area (e.g. not the US) then perhaps the bigger name schools will have more international recognition. Hope these were some useful thoughts to think about and help you

This totally depends on what country you are from. I'd start here: http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english.html and use the "Visa wizard" to determine this. At the same time, I would ask your department to put you in touch with the school's International office, because they would know exactly what you need. They might also need to provide some documentation for you to get your visa as well. I would begin right away in case this takes some time. Many countries are on a Visa waiver program with the US so fill out the wizard (asks you where you are from and why you are visiting). If you need a visa, it will likely be a B-1 or B-2 class visa (http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/visit/visitor.html). The Visa Waiver program countries for the B class visa is listed here: http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/visit/visa-waiver-program.html. Note that some countries (e.g. Canada and Mexico) have other agreements with the US and these citizens also do not need a visa, but they are not listed on this program! Note: I'm not an immigration expert and even these US government websites might not cover whatever special cases you might have. I would strongly encourage you to ask whoever invited you to visit about visa requirements and get them to put you in touch with the school's international office because they are the experts!

I think this is a good thing to do and I find it encouraging that some US schools are starting to follow the Canadian system of unionizing graduate TAs (and in many places, RAs, as well) to develop/protect these rights. I do wonder about the quoted disparity in TA pay though. At schools in Canada, all TAs are paid the same base hourly rate (about $40/hour), no matter if you are supervising a Physics lab, leading an English class discussion, or proctoring an auditorium of Chemistry midterms. I think this is the fair way to go. It's also not generally true that all disciplines are paid the same stipend, and I think funding availability should in some way depend on the "market". The disparity between Science PhDs and Arts/Humanities PhDs is pretty small though in Canada. The biggest difference is generally the source of funding. At my MSc school, while all TAs are paid the same hourly rate, almost all of an English PhD's student funding came from TA work while for me, as a science student, only 1/3 of my funding came from TA work, which freed up a lot more of my time to work on my degree. I think students themselves are a big hurdle to overcome when it comes to something like this. At some point, resources are a zero sum game, and those in better-off positions (I think generally true that science students are better funded) might fear losing some of their privileges. I volunteered as the Physics department steward for my MSc school's TA union and the majority of science students I talked to were either against the union or completely uninterested! This leads to fewer science students involvement in the union and increased suspicion/misinformation that the Arts/Humanities students were taking over the union and following their own agenda. I tried my best to provide correct information when possible, but it was very hard especially when at the beginning, I was one of the very few science students involved! My main reasoning to argue for something like a union even when we're in a privileged position is that it's far better to have these benefits in writing and protect them (practical) as well as ensuring equality for all types of students/fields (idealistic). Also, a lot of what unions protect are disadvantaged students--those with high medical costs, or increased costs through dependents, or international students who might not be familiar with the norms and ensures the same rights for everyone. So, everyone gets sick leave and everyone gets conference leave, it's not a matter of how nice of a supervisor you have nor how much "skill" you have in interacting with your profs (in reality, those with parents in academia or did their undergrad at a school with more professor interactions will have an unfair advantage in knowing the norms of interacting with academics). And even for those who have it all, there's no guarantee that we'll always have it unless we have it on contract. Unfortunately, I feel that most people will not know the importance of a "Bill of Rights"/unionization until they actually need it themselves. Other things those who are thinking of a "bill of rights" etc could consider (things in parentheses were in contracts at schools I've been to): 1. Sick leave from scheduled TA work (for yourself being sick as well as family members, unpaid leave but it's the department job to find a replacement, not you when you are sick. however it's best to find someone yourself and trade classes so that you still get paid). 2. Better paternity/maternity leave (we have 1 year of leave per child, all "clocks" get stopped--maximum TA time, time to quals/comps/defenses) 3. Conference leave (1 week unpaid leave--the department can choose to reschedule your time though so you still fulfill your commitment and still get paid). 4. Cost of living stipend increases (usually 1% to 2% per year) 5. An agreement to not increase tuition/fees to cancel out #4 above 6. A published priority system/protocol for how TAships are assigned so that there is a fair and transparent process. 7. An official grievance system for students to bring up unfair treatment as well as job protection and legal protection against retaliatory actions due to student complaints. 8. Legal counsel provided by the union against the school if necessary.

I think these guides--the good ones at least--should be useful to all academics at all levels. In the example book I mentioned above (Marketing For Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times), there is a lot of useful information at the senior undergrad/graduate level, when we are first giving conference talks/posters on our own research, but also helpful tips for senior graduate / new postdoc level on how to apply for the big grants, and in the author's opinion, helpful stuff for more senior faculty to remind them what graduate students are seeking ("know your audience"). More generally, I felt like as a BSc student, I was not yet advanced enough to really develop my own voice/style in research. I was mostly just doing what my supervisors told me to do. I am not sure if I am the norm, or an underdeveloped exception, but it was not until grad school that I started to become more independent and started thinking about myself as my own researcher, not just an extension of my PI's group. So, I would think that these resources are useful at many different levels although I would not be surprised that some of these books would be better suited for certain phases of our careers.

I understand that you will feel bad about saying no to people who have been so great and I felt the same way. But if it helps, did you know that in many physics programs, they actually only expect/want 30% to 50% of their offers to be accepted? That is, if they are aiming to fill 40 spots, they might make as many as 80-120 offers! This is not true everywhere of course, but in many cases if everyone said yes, it might actually pose a problem (but usually not so serious that making fewer offers in future years won't fix).

In my opinion, you should stick to facts mostly and avoid too much interpretation of your grades. It's their job to do this, not yours. So, all of the bolded text are things I think you should remove. You don't have to draw attention to a C in Precalculus. You should not predict your grade, even in 272, and you are not really in a position to comment on your future grade trend. I also don't think you need to defend your GPA etc because it should be obvious that some courses are elective/not required for your major, since your major requirements is probably similar at the schools you are applying to. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to imply/suggest that you got low grades in the "extra courses" because they were "extra". You cannot convince the committee that you would have gotten any other grade if you spent more time on it etc. In other words, avoid hypotheticals and stick to the facts.

I had 12-13 week semesters (2 semesters/year) in undergrad/MSc and 10 week quarters (3 quarters/year) in grad school. It's different and like you would expect, the term goes by a lot faster. I won't be TAing under this semester until next quarter though, so I can't say much more about TAing. Here are my thoughts. Pros: 1. Shorter terms means classes are more focussed and specialized. I feel that profs realise their limitations and make a real effort to actually complete the material on time and plan each week's material carefully. In the semester system, we often would only get through 80% of our syllabus. 2. More quarters = more variety in classes. Combined with more specialized classes, this gives you a much better selection of what classes you want to take and what topics you want to learn. Something that might be 2 semesters long would likely be 3 quarter classes and you can sometimes choose to only take the 2 quarters that you're interested in. For example, the "Astronomical Instrumentation" class at my current school is split into 3 quarters that cover different parts of the EM spectrum. I can take only the quarters that cover optical and IR (what I use) and not have to learn about radio telescopes or X-ray/gamma ray telescopes. 3. Classes end faster! Learning is fun but when you are feeling pressure to produce research, having everything end in 10 weeks lets you get caught up in research again faster. We have breaks between every quarter which are great for this. 4. If you fall behind and end up having to cram for a final, you have less material to have to cram. 5. The quarter system allowed me to get all my course requirements finished in 4 quarters (1.3 years) instead of 4 semesters which would be 2.0 years. Cons: 1. If you miss a week of a quarter for a conference, this is already 10% of the quarter! But see Pro #4 above too. 2. If the TAs are slow at returning marked work, you might not get your first problem sets back by the time week 4/5 (i.e. midterms) roll around. Most TAs are good at doing their best to get stuff back to you before a midterm though. 3. If you are ordering your textbooks from a slow source (i.e. not Amazon Prime), you might be 2-3 weeks (=25%) into your quarter before you have your materials. You can mitigate these effects by using the library reserve though. Overall, the quarter system was new and a big change. Maybe not as much for me as my American semester friends since it seems like US semesters are 16 weeks but Canadian semesters are either 12 or 13 weeks. I think I would prefer the quarter system for graduate school but the semester system for undergraduate work.

So many people from Vancouver area in Kingston We drove our car from Vancouver (Richmond) too. Also, I agree that bike theft is a problem and most of my friends with bikes actually choose to store their bikes inside their apartment for extra safety.

This is true in many of my programs too, but they usually don't ask for this "down payment" (or "registration deposit") until like June or so.

Yes! They totally do. Grad school grades are pretty much meaningless because most programs want you to spend most of your time doing research. In Physics programs, the department mostly care about your academic knowledge through your performance in qualifying and comprehensive exams. Don't slack off that last year. When you apply for fellowships/scholarships in the first year or two of grad school, you will have very few grad school grades (in first year) and only 1 year of grad school grades vs. many years of undergrad grades in your second year. Also, you probably took 5 courses per semester during undergrad but only 2-3 during grad school. Your undergrad courses will be dominating your GPA for future scholarship applications.

I would say that it really only makes sense to bring whoever is actually going to be living with you at the new grad school location. So, usually, parents are not involved in this and fair or not, it would reflect poorly on the student. Grad students are expected to be independent researchers and I think bringing a parent along makes you look like you are still dependent. I think a good exception would be a case where due to personal/health/family issues, your parents are moving to be closer to you as well. If it's a 20 hour round trip, could you not just fly there? Or is the school not paying for the trip? If there is no reimbursement, then I guess it also makes sense to bring whoever is willing to share the drive (and costs!)

I agree with the above advice! Cooking your own meals can really save a lot of money--I spend about $2-$2.50 per person per meal when I cook but eating out can easily cost $10-$20 depending on where you go. $2-$2.50 is cooking good "real" food too. It's not worth it to cut it down to $1 and eat crap like ramen etc. though. To reduce cooking time, I cook a large dinner and leftovers are lunch the next day! The only other thing I can add to the above is to ask every single place if they have some sort of employee or student discount for your school. Usually, most places (e.g. phone companies, insurance company) will accept your stipend paystub as proof of employment. Sometimes it helps if you introduce your position as "Graduate Researcher" instead of just a "student", depending on whether the discount is for employees or for students. Also, your school's website may have a list of where they have agreements with providers, so google for that!

Even at state funded schools, I had stipend offers. To me, "full scholarship" means tuition covered and a stipend either in form of a RAship, TAship, or fellowship. But perhaps this depends on the field. In your shoes, I would ask right after this offer was made whether or not further funding in form of a TA or RA ship is possible. It won't hurt to ask of course. Some schools in my experience will only put a smaller stipend in writing (maybe 9 months TAship) and say that RAships for summer funding are available. In this case, I would ask to see how often these RAships are actually awarded (for the places I asked, it's pretty much assured that everyone who wants an RAship will get one). Also, most schools will put an actual number in writing with they say "full scholarship". If this was not the case, perhaps ask them to clarify what is actually offered. In some schools, first year students do not TA and are paid a stipend through fellowships or other awards instead.

This is a type of thing that you would put in a SOP to show why you think University X's program would be a good fit for you. So I would not word this as a "reason to apply", but more like one of the many ways this program will meet your own goals. For most of the programs I applied to, I cited the expertise of their faculty, their access to certain equipment, and existing collaborations. So I agree with fuzzy that this is a good thing to say if there are formal/official connections between these programs. For example, if some of the profs in one school/institution has adjunct status at another. That would be an example of a very strong connection though, it doesn't have to go this far. But in my field, a lot of national labs or independent research centers (NASA centers, for example) are located very close to large universities and there are existing connections between them. In many cases, a student at the school might be advised by a faculty member at the school as well as a researcher at the institution. But if these connections don't already exist, I think you may be presuming too much and/or getting ahead of yourself if you are making plans to collaborate with other programs in your SOP. If this is important to you though, it would be a good thing to ask about after you are accepted (e.g. during a visit weekend, ask this to both profs and students).

You can ask but it's rare for them to do this for graduate student. One school I got admitted to did offer everyone up to $1000 in total support for visit weekend expenses and moving (so you could choose to not visit and save it all for moving if necessary). My current program also makes a 0%, no fees loan of up to $2500 available to new students to pay for startup costs. They pay the loan out just before the school year start (about 1 month before our first paycheck) and then give you a 6 month grace period then you pay it back in 18 monthly installments. So, this can be helpful if you put all your moving costs on a credit card, then use this $2500 loan to pay off the card immediately and avoid interest, and then pay off the $2500 loan over the next 18 months without any interest or fees! So maybe ask if they can do that too!

My wife and I drove about the same distance (4000 miles) across Canada (including detours) for our move to my MSc program. We had a 2002 car and we made the trip in 2010. At the very end (30 km = about 20 miles left), the car gave up! We got it towed to our final destination though with AAA and the repair was about $2000 (still was worth it than to try to find another car though). Driving instead of flying was way more expensive but we took it easy (3 weeks to drive) and made it into a vacation. Definitely a good experience though--we would have never seen all those parts of Canada if not for the trip! I think driving between places where there are airports is a good idea! I think you should get all of the roadside assistance type stuff (AAA etc.) and carry extra oil, windshield wipers, etc. for your car (but it sounds like you would know this!). During a rainstorm near Toronto, our windshield wiper broke off completely while we were on the highway! We also installed an iPod hookup to our car's sound system so it would play directly through the speakers (instead of those very static-like radio transmitters). It was $100 but well worth it for our sanity (and relationship) during the long drive days! Finally, with AAA membership (well CAA for us in Canada), we were able to request road maps for all of the major cities and highway maps of all the provinces we were driving through. Back in those days, we didn't have smart phones with GPS so those were pretty handy for finding ways to random small places off the main highway that we wanted to see.

I'm not in your field but I also brought my spouse with me on some visits. I asked the school about it ahead of time and they were very accommodating--inviting her to join the grad students in all of the social events and meals (even paying for her meals when she was with me and the other grad students). While I was having meetings with profs/students, they also set up a desk for her in the department for her to check email / get rest in between her exploring the campus/city. They were also accommodating in their arrangements for us. We were able to drive so there were no issues with paying her expenses (they reimbursed me a government rate for gas/usage of personal vehicle). Originally, I was supposed to stay with a graduate student but I said we would prefer to arrange our own lodging and let them know that we were able to get a greatly discounted hotel rate through my spouse's employee benefits. They gave us an amount and all of the expenses (mileage, food, lodging) was under the amount so we went ahead with that plan. I would recommend asking the department ahead of time and not expecting anything for your spouse to be covered. Depending on the structure of how these visits are funded, it might be impossible (for internal audit reasons) for them to pay for some expenses if your spouse is with you. But for some schools, they have a lot more flexibility in accounting to pay for whatever they want. Giving the department advance notice will probably result in the best outcome for both parties though! (Edit: Also, I agree that this is just like bringing a partner along on a business/conference trips. Many conferences even organize side programs for the companions of conference attendees to do during meeting times!)

I strongly agree with this. I don't think this is a good direction to go in your SOP. I would be wary of sounding like you know exactly how Professor A will run his lab when you are not even a student there yet. Unless Prof A has directly told you that he will be more hands-on with you because you are one of the first students, then you don't know this for sure. And even if you do, the admissions committee won't know that you know this and this will sound like you are trying to say that you know Prof A better than his colleagues know him. I would avoid this route. Also, in your original post, you mention something like "Prof A will be better for me than the average advisor". This sounds negative towards other types of profs and although you will work better with some types than others, you should avoid negative associations! Instead, I would suggest that we take a step back and figure out what you are really trying to convey in this paragraph/sentence and refocus the words to achieve that. I think you want to tell the committee that you are a good fit with Professor A and you are excited to be part of a new lab? If you are absolutely sure that this is true then maybe you want to change the sentence to convey how excited you are for an opportunity to start new research in a brand new lab with Professor A. This will convey that you have talked to Professor A and found that you are a good fit.

I think it's important that not only a PhD program offer funding, it should actually offer enough funding so that the students can survive on it (at a reasonable standard of living). I think an offer of something like tuition+$10k/year stipend or even $20k/year stipend in an extremely expensive city is pretty much equivalent to no funding at all, to me. The way I see it, is that an undergraduate degree can set you up for a decent job, at least $30k/year and probably more depending on your field. So a stipend of $20k/year is not really you making $20k/year, I see it as "paying" at least $10k/year in opportunity costs to go through grad school and learn the skills. Money isn't everything though and it's important to have job satisfaction, but as others said, being financially in trouble is very emotionally draining. So, I would never ever accept an offer that would not allow me to save up a little bit each year. I don't need to be making tons of money, but I don't want to put myself in financial trouble if academia doesn't work out after a PhD.

Congratulations on your acceptance! I don't think a thank you note is appropriate, because you normally do not send a thank you card to an employer for hiring you. An email expressing your appreciation and excitement is very appropriate though. Normally, the acceptance notification comes via email, with information about the school and program and an invitation to ask questions (and sometimes to arrange a visit) so it would be natural to respond to that email with whatever questions you might have. But in your case, perhaps an email thanking them for the opportunity to study at their program is good and if you are interested in visiting the campus, maybe you can inquire if that is possible as well. This is also a good time to a few questions about the program if you have any!