TakeruK

I think calling a PhD by the title of "Ms." instead of "Dr." is actually a pretty rude act (intentional or not). "Ms." is a title. If you are going to take the time to use a title, why not use the professional one earned by the professor instead of one that refers to the fact that someone is a woman (and could potentially imply that she does not have a PhD). An exception would be cases where everyone, regardless of degree, is "Mr." or "Ms." and I think this post is important to read: http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-call-me-f.html

Are you contacting someone in the graduate office or in the math department? You might get better luck with someone in the department you're applying to (but that depends if the graduate school has forwarded your application to your department yet). Also, since it is December, it's possible that people are taking vacation time. Most administrators I know are usually very busy and spend most of their days in meetings. Hopefully you can get in touch with someone soon, but the deadline is pretty late for McMaster, I think! So you have lots of time to sort it out, don't panic

Did you just recently take the test? If I remember correctly, although you do see "unofficial" scores at the end of the test, they won't appear in your online GRE account until you get all your official scores (e.g. after your AW section is graded). In any case, unless something went wrong, once you choose to see the score, they will be in your profile for the next 5 years. However, when you submit score reports to the schools, you don't have to submit every single score in your profile! It sounds like you want to redo the GRE? So you can do that and if you do better the second time around, you can choose to submit your second set of scores only--if you do worse, you can choose to submit your first set of scores only!

One of the big things that used to keep me away from a PhD program is the incredible commitment one needs as an academic after the PhD. I was not and am still not sure that I really want to move every couple of years for another post-doc or basically be willing to move somewhere for a tenure-track position (if I can even get one). Although I am happy to live in different places during school, I wanted to end up living in my hometown, close to my family. So, when I first applied to grad school, I wasn't willing to go to the US and commit 5+ years to a PhD program and I did a MSc first in Canada (normally we do a 2 year MSc followed by a 3 year PhD at the same school or a 4 year PhD elsewhere). Many Canadians who aren't sure about the "academic life" will do the 2 year MSc first and then decide what to do. During the 2 year MSc, I realised that I really do enjoy doing research and I would enjoy a PhD program. But the real thing that changed about my previous hesitance to a PhD program was my outlook and approach to the uncertainty of life past the PhD--the part where we have to move around without a permanent job and little choice in location. Instead of feeling like academia will push me around, I reversed my mindset and decided that after my PhD, my spouse and I will consider what academia has to offer in terms of postdoc positions and then decide for ourselves if I want to continue. If the salary is too low, or the locations are crappy, at any time, we will just move back to our hometown and we'll find work doing something else. In addition, I realised there are way more academic positions than tenure tracked professors, and our hometown is a fairly big city with lots of opportunities! Living in or near our hometown is very important to us, so we made an additional promise to ourselves that if we don't find ourselves settled in a place where we would be even happier than in our hometown within 10 years from the start of my PhD, we will just move back. So, although it sounds weird, I think I felt ready to commit to a PhD (and what comes afterwards) because we decided on a plan that provides an "exit plan" from academia!

Thanks for updating everyone

I was mostly responding to the words and tone in Loric's original post, where Loric seems to advocate that one should purposely misinform one's LOR writers (which I think counts as "lying"). I agree with you that there is nothing ethically wrong with stating a preferred date for LORs to your writers. Personally though, I would not do this because when I am assigned a task, I would prefer to know the real deadline and manage my own time accordingly, so I always try to do this for other people too. What I did do though, was give my LOR writers a list of the deadlines and then in my conversation with them, say something like "I'll go less crazy if they're submitted ahead of time!" and I also let them know that I will be sending automatic reminders at certain dates before the deadlines. Usually in my conversation, they will ask how my sanity is going during the crazy application season, so there's plenty of chances to bring up the fact that maybe I would have more peace of mind if the letters were submitted early.

I think "hundreds" of post is a bit of an exaggeration. We don't really know all the details behind many of the cases that are posted here. I've read some cases where I think the student did not clearly state their intention to the professor at all! Also, as I said above, the profs in the field know better about what is the right timeline for a letter than we do. The application deadline is mostly for the applicant, not the LORs. If the prof submits the LOR late, they probably know that it is okay. Again, if you are not confident in your LOR writer's ability to write your letter on time, then I would seriously question that choice of LOR writer. If you have past experiences with this LOR writer and know that they often miss deadlines, I would remind them, in a friendly way, at more frequent intervals (maybe every week for the 3 weeks leading up to the deadline?) But to your last point, yes, I agree--not everyone has a good relationship with all of their professors. I said above that I wouldn't choose profs like this for LOR writers but what if the only profs I know are profs like this? That's a tough question. Maybe you would be justified (edit: I should have said "feel like you must use") in using these tactics in this situation because you feel you have nothing to lose, since if you don't do this, you won't get the letter at all and won't be admitted anyways. So I agree that if you know for a fact that you won't get your letters without lying, then it might be worth the risk to lie because you have nothing to lose. However, I think you are being very irresponsible here to advise others to do the same without giving the context. I don't think your advice counts as "helping others" and I don't think your advice here is generally true in most cases. I would even caution against using this advice even when an applicant feels that their LOR writers are not reliable. I would recommend that the applicant try to get a third party's opinion because the stress of application season can mess with your judgement. Taking the step of lying to your LOR writers is a giant risk and it is probably only a good idea if you actually have no other choice (but it is very hard to know this is the case). Edit: I realise that I originally wrote this as if an applicant would be making an ethical decision when lying to LOR writers if they feel they have no other choice. I don't think this is true. Rather, I would still consider it an unethical decision and if I ended up making that decision because I felt I have no other choice, if things go badly, I would know that it was my fault that I chose to take the risk. If my profs found out and refused to write a LOR because I lied, I would 100% take the blame, I would not blame them at all or try to say that "they made me do it". So, I would have no sympathy for anyone who tried to go this route and get caught.

I don't think I can convey how much of a bad idea I think this is. I agree that you should take measures to avoid getting yourself screwed over. But I think this action would greatly increase your chances of getting screwed over. I agree with dat_nerd that if you really want something done by an earlier date, just be honest about it and say "I would really like the LOR by X" but I don't even recommend this. I would not want my professor micromanaging me and arbitrarily deciding that I should have X things done by certain dates even though the deadline is really another date and there was no reason to finish it early. So, why would you do that to someone else? (*Note: in many cases, it does make sense for an advisor to ask their student to finish a draft a week before a deadline so that they can go over it and make suggestions. But it is less likely that will be the case for a LOR!) I also agree with fuzzy that the professors know way more about the "code of conduct" for LORs than you do. It's not like they are newbies to this, they themselves serve on admission committees to your school and they themselves have applied to grad school in the past. I also agree that in academia, integrity is everything. At this early stage in our careers, if we compromise our integrity in a professional setting, we will lose all credibility. But if all that still does not convince you, here are some more practical reasons why I think this is a terrible idea. 1. Outside of rolling admissions, many schools have similar deadlines. The common dates are Dec 1, Dec 15, Jan 1, Jan 15, plus or minus one or two days. In my field, Dec 15 is an especially common deadline. For big name schools, the dates do not change from year to year. So a claim that a school's deadline is Nov 1 would be pretty fishy. If I saw that I would be curious and it would take me 30 seconds to figure out it's a lie. Changing the deadline by a week doesn't really make a huge difference. 2. Your prof has likely sent in letters to most of the schools you're applying for in the past. They probably have an annual routine of doing their letters at certain times of the busy fall semester to meet these deadlines. If you ask for something out of sync with the norm, it might raise a flag. 3. I also think if you can't trust your LOR writer to actually act in your best interests then you probably made a bad choice for a LOR writer. You are already trusting them to write positive things in the LOR, so why can't you trust them to send the LOR in a timely manner (timely as defined by the way things actually work, not necessarily meeting the online deadline). 4. This is probably the most important so I saved it for the end! Most schools use electronic LORs where you register your LOR writer's email address and name and the software sends the LOR writer a link to a page to log in and upload your letter. I am pretty certain (although I have not seen one) that this email/page would also contain the application deadline.

In this poll, I checked off Facebook and My personal website. The only reliable place to get useful information about my academic life is my personal website. I keep that updated. I use Facebook for socializing, including making friends with other people in the field. Sometimes I would Facebook friend nice people I meet at conferences and want to keep in touch with (on more than just an academic level). I have a very basic Google+ page set up just so that if people try to find me on Google+, they will see my name, where I work, and a link to my personal website. I've just started using Twitter. I've only heard of ResearchGate mostly because I keep getting emails from them saying "So-and-so has created a profile on ResearchGate!" and I guess when you do that, it mines your contacts (probably with permission) and emails all of them invites! I don't use ResearchGate, Academia.edu, LinkedIn, or any such similar websites. I don't know anyone who uses any of the above for research/academic purposes. I have some friends with LinkedIn pages created when they were in college when they were looking for jobs or for those looking to get hired outside of academia. Maybe it's just not that common (yet?) in my field. Generally, in my field, the best way to find a researcher is to find their personal website by Googling "[Full Name] [school Name] [field]" where "field" (e.g. Astronomy) is only needed if their name is like Jane Doe. Personal webpages seem to be the main way to get information about people. As I move from school to school, I make sure my old webpages from my old schools point to my new school's page. Most departmental servers are pretty happy to keep your webpage on their servers indefinitely as it doesn't really take up a huge amount of space. I might think about getting my own server host when I am at the post-doc/job hunting stage since I might move around a lot, but that's still far away.

For the programs where I did not wish to report GRE scores, I just did not check the box (even though I did take the test). I don't think this is fraudulent or unethical. My reasoning is that since the score reporting is optional, if I choose not to report the score then they have no reason to ask me if I took the test. In other words, I interpreted the box "I have taken the GRE" to mean "I have taken the GRE and wish to report my score". With the wording of most honesty statement, I do not think it is fraudulent to not report something irrelevant to the application. In my opinion, the school does not have a right to know whether or not you took the GRE if they don't require your score report. This is just my opinion and if you want the safest possible route, then definitely go with what the above posters said and ask what to do. Or you can leave the box unchecked and add that you did take the GRE and wish to not report the scores in applications that have a box for "any other information?" in the last page. Finally, an anecdote: One school did not require the subject GRE score so I did not check that I took the test (I actually took it twice). However, there was a problem with my General GRE score submission via ETS so they asked if I could scan a copy of my examinee score report for them so that they can make an admission decision while they sort out the score report thing with ETS. The examinee score report lists all the tests you've taken (subject and general) and also the other schools that received your scores! I did not want them to know this information so I printed out the report, covered the sensitive information (other schools, subject GRE scores) with paper and rescanned the thing. I did this in an obvious way and even added a note on the PDF letting them know the nature of the material I blocked out. I still got accepted at the school, and no one ever mentioned or asked about my subject GRE scores at all.

I agree--I think that, whether talking about contracted hours or just guideline hours, simply setting a limit doesn't solve everything. It's important for both the TA and the prof in charge of the course to revisit these time allocations and check that the TA isn't taking longer than necessary to do certain tasks. It would be very irresponsible for a TA on contracted hours to know that he/she will run out of hours to complete all of the marking and choose to not bring this up and not do anything about it. Sometimes the TA is spending more time than necessary (e.g. grading in more detailed than required) or sometimes the TA just lacks training on how to do a task efficiently, or sometimes the course enrollment has increased significantly but no one assigned more TA hours to that course. These issues can be caught and corrected early on if people check in and compare their worked hours with the guidelines/contract. But sometimes, the TA might just simply be below-average at a certain task and if all attempts to solve the issues do not work, then the deficiency should be noted in their employment record which would be used to assign future TAships, especially in years where guaranteed TAships run out. At my last school, employment records are destroyed upon graduation though.

I hate to say this because I hate it whenever I have to say something that sounds snobby but I do think that the preparation of a BA student is different enough from the preparation of a BSc student that a MSc program would be hesitant to take a student with a BA without equivalent classes. My experience is mostly with physics programs in Canada, and usually the pickier schools will require their applicants have an Honours BSc to get into the Physics MSc program. Less picky schools generally will accept any student with a BSc that has the relevant experience (for example, at my MSc school, there was an astronomy graduate student with a BSc in Chemistry). So, I would think that most MSc graduate programs in Canada would not take a BA student unless that student has an equivalent amount of relevant courses and training during their undergrad, which I think would be very difficult for someone to do alongside a Honours BA in an unrelated field. But don't just take my word for it--if this is what you want to try, then definitely talk to some grad schools now even. At many schools, a BSc is intended to train someone as a general scientist, with some specialization in their field of major, which is why you will have to know a lot more than just biology to get a BSc in biology. I think the biologists at UBC had to take the first calculus course ("Calculus I" or differential calculus) but they may not have to take further math classes. I also know that some schools have math and physics classes tailored towards life science majors. I wanted to check if what I experienced at UBC is similar at Guelph so I looked up their requirements: http://www.uoguelph.ca/registrar/calendars/undergraduate/current/c10/c10bsc-bios.shtml -- looks like you might need one calculus class and the second one is optional (but you'll need some kind of math/computational elective later on).

The quick answer to your question is that in general, many programs adhere to the "Council of Graduate Schools Resolution" aka the "April 15th resolution" http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/asis/entsup/resolution.pdf where many schools agree to not ask their applicants to accept or reject a financial offer before April 15th. Note that this is a resolution about financial offers, not admission offers, but in funded PhD programs, those two are almost synonymous. Thus, the quick answer is that a school that makes an offer in January will hopefully allow you to wait until April 15 to decide, so that you don't have to accept it before learning about other outcomes. This might not always be the case, since there is no legal binding power of the above resolution. But, in general, many schools will grant you an extension on your decision timeline if you ask for one and let them know there is another decision you are waiting for.

In Canada, most TAs are considered contracted employees of the University, so like lewin says, our assignments have a set number of hours and there is a specific pathway to resolve the issue of not having enough hours to do your work. In my last department, one "unit" of TAship is 4.5 hours per week x 12 weeks / semester = 54 hours per semester. Most students either have one or two units of TAships per semester (depending on if they have outside fellowships or not). TAs in Canada are also paid hourly (about $30-$40/hr) and I think putting a price tag on our time means the department respects that our time is valuable (i.e. we can be using that to advance our careers via research) instead of viewing graduate students as an inexhaustible source of teaching labour. I don't think any of us keep track of our time down to the minute but I do think a lot of people do aim to finish their work within the contracted time and have a general sense when they are working way too many hours. Personally, I wouldn't go and ask for more paid hours unless I was working more than e.g. 10% than my contracted hours. If a professor wanted more TA time, they would have to petition the department to pay for more hours (or for an additional TA to be assigned to their course). I think paying TAs an hourly rate also creates a more efficient teaching load. For example, the department would have more incentive to make sure the TA-to-student ratio for each course is more balanced so that they don't end up paying TAs more hours than is necessary to complete the work etc. So this creates a more equitable working environment where everyone puts in the same amount of hours; it prevents favouritism where some TAs might get the "easy courses" and only have to work 6 hours per week while others have to work 12 hours a week!

Like my previous post, I won't comment on whether or not it's a good idea to get a second BSc. That's a tough decision to make and I don't have anything useful to say about that! But I could add a few more things about getting a BSc in Canada. Maybe the OP already knows this, though. Also, this may be mostly a BC thing while it looks like the OP is in Ontario (although not sure where the OP would do their BSc). Also, it may be of interest to the non-Canadians reading this! In BC at least (maybe all of Canada?), a BSc degree in e.g. Biology would require more than just Biology courses. For any BSc degree at UBC, for example, students must take first year courses in Biology, Physics, Math, and Chemistry. The freshman level courses in these topics usually require a high school equivalent as a pre-requisite, which I know that my friends in BA programs generally did not take. However, if you didn't take Physics 12 in high school, then you can take an extra Physics class in University that covers the Physics 12 material before taking the freshman level Physics class. In BC, if you were not planning to take sciences in college, you would not have been required to take very many grade 11 and 12 science classes to graduate high school. It used to be one grade 11/12 science class was the minimum, and math up to grade 11. At many schools, to take the freshman math class (Calculus I), students are expected to have both Math 12 and Calculus 12 (or AP Calculus) before coming to University. For many non-science majors, students only have Math up to grade 11, so they would be two math classes behind. Again, universities offer classes that will catch you up, though. I guess my point is that although it may depend on what BSc program the OP plans to enroll in, there are a lot of broad science requirements that go into getting a BSc in Canadian schools. These requirements have a lot of HS level pre-reqs which a BA-intended student may not have taken in HS. But all of these courses are offered at University. Many of these pre-req courses are also offered as distance-ed courses and colleges in Canada (called "community colleges" in the US) will sometimes offer these high school courses as a self-taught/"on your own pace" type class. My spouse took some of these to fulfill some missing requirements and the tuition fees are minimal because you pay for the materials and then there are optional weekly tutorials where an instructor helps you understand any concepts you couldn't get on your own and then you take a series of tests until you have mastered all of the concepts. So something like this, if available, might help the OP get these extra courses done while also taking a full Honours BA load. Just be sure that these courses will transfer to whatever school you want to go to. Also, these HS level courses are important because some Canadian universities will only accept students into their BSc program if you have the right high school courses. For example, to get into my BSc program, you needed to have Grade 12 level for Math, English, and two of (Physics, Chemistry, Biology). So the OP might have to either take continuing education classes to meet these high school requirements or take the equivalent pre-freshman level courses at their current University before enrolling in a BSc. But these admission standards change over time so this may be outdated. Finally, I agree that it might be a good idea to just take whatever intro biology courses at your current University that does not require any previous knowledge of biology. You might not even have to worry about getting the first year level physics/chemistry/math etc courses until you start your BSc.

This is a good tactic for mailed decision letters. But your department might inform you electronically too! I am guessing you would probably know how your target schools inform their successful applicants from the Results Search or Google, but I think one common method is first a phone call to let you know, followed by an email with a PDF of the letter, and then finally a hard copy of the same PDF, with maybe a brochure from the school. Most of my rejections came via email, only one school sent a hardcopy only rejection.

If gossip is coming from a higher authority and is making your work/school environment uncomfortable to you, then it qualifies as abuse no matter the content of the gossip. Everyone deserves to be an environment where they feel comfortable and not feel as if your authority figures are saying nasty things about you behind your back. If you feel comfortable about a confrontation, a good first step is to politely and respectfully let them know that you don't appreciate hearing the gossip around you and that they are contributing to an environment you don't feel comfortable in. It might be really helpful to get someone else on your side. This person could be a peer, or a representative from your student society, and/or (ideally) include someone else who is also an authority figure and on your side. If the gossip is of a nature that makes you feel uncomfortable confronting the offenders, or if the offenders are in a position of authority where you do not feel comfortable confronting, I think it is okay by most workplace/school policies to escalate and talk to someone higher up in the hierarchy. Again, a faculty member/authority figure on your side can help with this, or your school's advocacy groups, or your student society. Ultimately, I don't think anyone should encourage someone in this situation to "suck it up" but if the OP feels that "sucking it up" is what they want to do then fine. Confrontation can cost a lot of time, energy, and could hurt relationships. But I would encourage anyone in this situation to think about the fact that if everyone keeps "sucking it up" then this can continue to happen. I would advise everyone to still look out for themselves, and realise that confrontation might hurt them in the future. If someone in this situation chooses to confront and do something about the problem, I would highly recommend getting other people on your side, or at least as neutral observers/witnesses. Document everything and make sure there is evidence so it doesn't become he said/she said.

I don't think I ever had time to go out 3-4 nights a week in undergrad! But I also had a 1-1.5 hr commute so that really cut into my time! In grad school, I would say that during terms where I have coursework, I probably have time to go out once a week, sometimes twice. During times where I don't, e.g. the summer or after I had finished all my classes for my MSc or next quarter when I don't have classes or teaching, I could probably do something almost every evening if I wanted to. That is, I don't really feel the pressure to work more than a regular 9 to 5 plus maybe 5-10 hours on the weekends. But I wouldn't even want to go out every evening because I prefer to spend some of my down time just doing nothing, or reading, or watching TV, or cooking etc. My point is that once you get past the coursework stage, grad school becomes a X hours per week research job (where X is something like 40-50 for me) and you can pretty much be a "regular person" outside of your work hours. However, I know some in the lab fields where you have to be in the lab for certain measurements so that would mean a less flexible schedule. Overall though, being a grad student is busy but if you have other interests, you can and should prioritize your time so that you have the work-play balance you want.

I agree that if the school does not allow you an extension past Dec 25th and the other schools will not give you a decision before then, you should ultimately do what is best for you. This might mean accepting an offer and then declining it later. There are consequences to doing this, but it's up to you to decide if it's worth it. I think it's completely ethical to do this as long as you are willing accept the consequences of your actions. In most cases, you are under no legal obligation to attend the school and a student can always drop out of a school at any time, even before the program starts! Here are some potential consequences that might help you think about what you want to do: 1. You may have to pay a deposit upon accepting the offer and thus you will lose this deposit if you don't enroll. I'd wait as long as possible to pay the deposit, and ask for as many extensions as possible. Usually this is a small cost though. 2. You may make some people at Edinburgh upset and they might use this information against you in the future. This is probably more true for research based programs though and I'm not sure if you are in a professional program or a research program. But depending on the person, this "grudge" might only last a few months before they have other things to worry about. Even so, in your case if you plan to mainly stay in the US, then damaged bridges over in Edinburgh might not hurt so much. 3. If you end up not getting in anywhere else, then you will be going to this school. So, make sure your correspondence with Edinburgh is always pleasant and don't push things too much. 4. If you do end up going somewhere else, to be ethical, you will have to disclose to this new US school that you actually did accept an offer from Edinburgh earlier but you plan to reverse that decision and accept the US school's offer instead. At many schools, when you "accept" an offer, you are signing an affirmation that you have no other commitments at that time. In my opinion, these consequences are minor and it is likely worth it to accept the offer on Dec 25th and wait and see what happens next. You have a tough decision. The right thing to do is to never try to deceive anyone/any school, especially on point #4. It will mean more work for you but I think this is part of taking responsibility for a tough decision. But another important thing to consider is whether you want to go to Edinburgh at all, even if you don't get any US offers! Sometimes people change their minds between application and decision time. I don't think all of the above consequences is worth it if you plan on accepting Edinburgh's offer on Dec 25 and then rejecting Edinburgh in 2014 even if you don't get in anywhere else. You at least owe it to U. Edinburgh to re-evaluate your decision to apply there and decide if you would even attend if that was your only offer.

This is my 4th year as a graduate student but I was a first generation applicant, so I'll add my thoughts too 1. I'm the first in my family to pursue graduate school and also the first in my immediate family to pursue higher education (anything past high school). I have a much older cousin and an uncle who have undergraduate degrees in engineering. My parents moved to Canada as war refugees, so my father only has a high school education and my mother did not finish high school. 2. Most of my struggles are from my complete lack of how universities work and basically a lack of a support network. It was very scary to start University but luckily I had some friends from high school attending too. I commuted from home, which was a 2-3 hour roundtrip commute, depending on the traffic and bus schedules. This made it even harder to get immersed and build a support network of people who knew what academia was like, since I would arrive in time for my first class and go home shortly after my final class. Most of my friends were in similar situation. When it was time to apply to grad school, I had a lot to learn about how everything works. Also, like others above posted, I had to fund my own way through university with scholarships and working as a research assistant later on. As refugees to Canada, my parents were working near minimum wage jobs when I was born so there was no college savings fund etc available. Another part of my struggle came from my family, despite meaning their best. My family didn't quite understand what graduate school meant, and they thought that a bachelors in X meant that you were fully qualified to work in X. There was a lot of resistance to doing more school, especially the idea of moving away for school (since I lived at home during undergrad). Like others above posted, these doubts from your family can really make you question yourself during the big decision moments. But my family has also been incredibly supportive! The majority of their concerns went away after I was able to explain to them how graduate school works, and how you need a post-graduate degree to actually work in your field as a researcher! The hard part was me having to figure this out first with all their doubts. 3. I think I have had a lot of successes despite being a first generation everything-beyond-high-school student/applicant. A chunk of my undergraduate tuition was funded through scholarships. I also won graduate level funding from the Canadian government for both my MSc program in Canada and my current PhD program in the US. I am currently in a top US program for my field. Basically, I feel that at this point, whatever disadvantage I had is now negated and I have overcome the challenges! Yay! 4. One major reason I was/am able to succeed is the mentorship of my supervisors. They played the role of my "academic parents" and guided me through all of the complications and unwritten rules of academia. They helped me understand how everything works so I could explain it to my parents. My family also were incredibly supportive. Even their doubts mentioned above was done in what they thought was my best interest. Throughout childhood, they have always stressed the importance of an education so that I would have an opportunity they did not have. Once they understood what my graduate goals were, they were behind me 100%! My friends and peers in undergrad were also a great. Although most of us were also first generation everything, we figured things out together and eventually became a strong support network too. And finally, the most important part of my success, I think is my spouse! Her support and patience has been incredible. I definitely feel that although I am the one officially registered as a student, the work towards this PhD is something we both have contributed a great part of our time and effort into!

Depending on your school, you might be able to do this and even have some lower level credits from your original bachelor's degree "double counted" towards your second BSc. For example, my undergraduate school, UBC, does allow this: http://science.ubc.ca/students/degree/second. So, if you can also take lower level science courses (may not be possible without high school science courses) at your current school, that might reduce your time needed to do your second degree at a school that will accept transferred credits. This is assuming that you are certain you want to get a BSc in Biology as a second degree. But maybe it's better to keep all your options open and if you're not in a huge hurry to get your undergraduate education done, you could continue on your current Honours BA route and then worry about a Biology BSc only afterwards. Just letting you know about the above info in case it's helpful. I am not really advising for or against switching to biology because I have no idea the details specific to you (and I'm not a major in any of the things you are studying!). Also, I want to let you know that at many schools, you can take the high school equivalent course at University and have that count towards elective credits in your BA so you don't have to end up taking extra high school courses (if that's what you're doing). For example, in BC, we don't have to take Biology 11 or Biology 12 to get into UBC Science, but that did mean I had to take an extra Biology class when I started at UBC to make up for this. However, that one course fulfilled the pre-requisite to take other Biology courses at UBC (where the normal pre-req is high school biology). So maybe you can do the same with the other lower level science/math classes at your current school too!

I agree with Eigen that if this was a project with a long timeframe (e.g. several weeks to a month), then I would be less optimistic that you'll get your way and that you should have planned a "life happens" in the deadline. But I have had major assignments assigned with a due date of a 5-10 days, so being sick for a couple of days is a significant chunk of that. I did note that I don't know if you have a valid complaint since I don't know the details! Also, sometimes other people will just roll with missed deadlines and/or don't say anything, but they still can be disappointed that the deadline was not met. Personally, as a client, I have changed my "service provider" (just to use general terms) and/or gave poor recommendations to others seeking the same service because of missing multiple deadlines due to things that, in my opinion, should have had "life happens" contingencies.

Under normal circumstances, I don't think a person would be rejected because they were anxious about the decision, made a phone call, and annoyed someone. However, it's still better to not annoy people in general! I don't think it's appropriate to ask a school for a timeline unless you have an actual reason to need to know the timeline, or if you haven't heard a decision past some published estimated timeline. Chances are, they might not even know the timeline because it could depend on a lot of different factors, especially with rolling admissions. For example, if a great application appeared right now, they might get accepted right away. Other applications might sit until the department is sure that they won't get better people. So, in your case, your signature says you have one acceptance already. If this school is giving you a hard deadline to make a decision, then it would be appropriate, in my opinion, to call up one the other school and let them know that the first school requested a decision by X and ask if this other school would be able to make a decision on your application by X as well. Otherwise, as much as it sucks to wait, I think the appropriate thing to do is to trust that the school will give you information as soon as they know it and the fact that you have not heard anything yet means that there is nothing you can really gain by calling them.

I'm sorry to hear about the crappy situation! That sucks If you are looking for suggestions (ignore this if you aren't!), I would hand in whatever was completed by the deadline (if it hasn't already passed) and then also hand in the fully completed assignment at whatever date you think the extension should have been granted to. Since you took 2 sick days off work, I would say that a 2 day extension is probably the right amount (unless there is a different extension policy in place). Get this fully completed copy date stamped. For example, you could email it, or hand in a hard copy to the department office and ask the secretary to date stamp it and put it in your prof's mailbox. Maybe take a picture too, to prove this happened. With the assignment handed in, then you can officially fight the prof's decision to not grant you an extension, if you wish. It might take a lot of time and you might end up getting a final grade that is based on the incomplete assignment, not the fully completed assignment until a final decision is made. But if the prof will not agree to mark the late assignment instead, you might have a case if you escalate it. You would probably start with either your Faculty's ombudsperson or your student society's advocate or ombudsperson. I don't know all the details so I can't even say if you have a case, but it might be a good idea to bring this to the aforementioned people because they would know if your situation warrants their time. In summary, if you want to argue this further with the prof, I would first work to finish the assignment within a couple of days past the due date and get it documented. Document all of your correspondence with the professor and your doctor as well. Make sure you get any other assignments for other classes completed on time too. Then, take all of your documentation and bring it to the prof and ask them to grade your "late" assignment instead (or to not impose the late penalty if one exists). If they still refuse, then I would decide whether it's worth my time to escalate it further.

I emailed the ones that were in a different city and said it in person to those who were present. Before I left for the PhD (i.e. at the end of the summer, when I defended my MSc), I gave small gifts and cards to everyone who helped me get into the PhD program (by writing letters and/or advice, mentorship etc.)