TakeruK

I agree with everyone above that it doesn't make sense to be choosing to go to an unfunded Masters when you already got into your goal (which is a funded PhD). But, it's your choice! To answer your question -- no, I do not think there are any grand/general rules that prohibit you from deferring grad school to attend another grad school. At my current school, it is common for undergrads here to be admitted to the same school for PhD studies on the condition that they defer their admission for a year and spend that in-between year somewhere else (e.g. a Masters). However, you should check with School A on their conditions on deferral. Since they offered it to you, you can ask what the conditions/stipulations are such that you would still have your admission offer for Fall 2014. As for ethics, I agree that it is unethical, and also unprofessional, to accept School A's offer to defer admission for 1 year if you know that there is no way that you will be attending School A in Fall 2014 (i.e. your Masters will not be finished in a year). But, if your Masters at School B is indeed a 1-year program, then what you are proposing sounds like an okay thing to do. If you are also worried about the ethics of the situation, then come clean to School A. Tell them that you are deferring their admission for a year because you want to try to get into School B's PhD program. I'm not saying that you must tell them but if you do, then you know there cannot be any repercussions later on for any potentially unethical behaviour. In addition, if you tell School A your plans, then they will let you know if your deferral would still be valid a year later. Remember, that being granted a deferral is a privilege, not a right, so lying in order to get a deferral would definitely be unethical.

Extended warranties are expensive, but since time is money, they could be well worth it, depending on what you need out of your machine. As Sigaba said, your computer can break at the worst possible moment, and in that case, you want to just get it fixed, without extra effort on your part. I would think that this is especially true in businesses. But, depending on what you plan to use your machine for, an extended warranty may not be necessary. For me, I do my work on my work machine, and mostly use my laptop/personal computer for personal things. Sure, I might put in an extra hour or two in some evenings to put together a powerpoint, or work on a homework assignment, but if my laptop breaks, I can just go into my office and work there. So, I don't have to worry about putting in the extra money to ensure that I have a machine running at all times. In fact, our department has an excellent team of IT staff that ensures all the machines in the department do just that! So, I see jeffster's point, that for a personal computer, where constant access is not vital, the extended warranties are not often useful. I have replaced Dell parts on the standard warranty before, it's not terribly convenient. I think it took about 10 days for me to send in my machine and for them to send back the fixed machine (they send you a box, then you send them the computer in that box, then they send it back to you -- so it's 3 mailing cycles!). I think Applecare has a much better turnaround time. I haven't used it before though but my friend's power cord/charger got fried and he went in the store and immediately got a replacement free of charge and without having to wait for shipping either. I also like the idea of being able to access the manufacturer directly through a retail storefront (there aren't any Dell stores). So, for a personal-use only computer, I would just put aside the money I would use on the extended warranty and spend it on repairs down the road if necessary. If no repairs are necessary, then horray! I have money saved up for my next machine! But, I know in some fields, grad students don't have offices, work computers, or IT staff so in that case I would think an extended warranty is well worth the investment.

Just to clarify, if you are applying for F-1 student status (the standard international student status) then you need to show proof that you have money to pay for the first year and this will appear on your I-20 document. However, if you are applying for J-1 student status, then you need to show proof of funding for the entire program length, not just the first year. The numbers on the DS-2019 (J-1's version of the I-20) will reflect your total stipend/expenses for the whole program.

I agree with going 3x 10 pounds instead of 1x 30 pounds. USPS sells some boxes too, and you can also buy them at UPS stores, FedEx locations etc. The extra cost is probably less than the price of any one massive textbook, so it's well worth it! In Canada, liquor is only sold at certain liquor stores so sometimes you can go there and ask for old wine boxes, which are really sturdy. Sometimes they aren't allowed to give them to you directly (for some weird reason) but it's okay to pick them up from the back once they put the boxes out for recycling. Depending on where you are, maybe liquor is sold at grocery stores, so you can check there too. When we were moving, I also regularly looked in my apartment building's recycling room to see if anyone threw out a useful box. I guess another good idea is to go to the bookstore and ask them for leftover boxes -- surely those boxes can handle books! As for protection -- I guess it depends on how much you care about the books. For most of my textbooks, they are hardcover, so it's pretty hard to damage them when they are all tightly packed in a box (use newspaper to fill in gaps). I wouldn't worry about padding each individual book though, unless you want to do it for a few really treasured ones (then maybe put it in your suitcase?). I would be more worried about weather damage, since boxes aren't usually waterproof. If you don't want to buy plastic containers, then one thing you might do is to put all your books in a garbage bag then put it into the box. I would put one stack of books per bag, not one book per bag! If you reuse any old shipping boxes, definitely block out any old labels and especially barcodes. Using tape is quick and easy but if you only have the clear stuff, then just tape printer paper over the old markings.

One idea is to find out if your school's student organization runs a tutoring service. When I worked for my school's tutoring service (free for students, but we're paid by the student organization), we gladly accepted donations of old editions of textbooks which our tutors used to reference material as necessary. Since our policy was to never work with students directly on the assigned material, it didn't matter that the editions were old so that the assigned problem numbers don't match up! The material is probably still the same.

This might depend on your program but I personally do not find much use for a physical planner. I used these a ton in high school and university because I just had it in my backpack, which is always with me. But at grad school, I have a desk now, and whenever I leave my desk (to go to a seminar, class, whatever), I just want to grab the minimal things (notebook, pen, coffee/tea). Like fuzzy, I use Google Calendar for everything! I am at my computer most of the time, so whenever I do have to schedule something, I'm probably already at the computer so Google Calendar is easy to pull up and add an entry or find an opening. If I'm away from my desk (e.g. in class, seminar, at lunch), I can access my calendar on my phone. I don't like physical planners because then the info only exists in one place so if I forget it, then I can't see what's inside! My phone is always attached to me though. I also like Google Calendar because it's easy to set up a variety of different calendars in different colours that you can click on/off. For me, I have a different calendar for classes, for departmental events (e.g. seminars, meetings), for travel, for doctor/dentist appointments, and for meeting with supervisors etc. Having everything appear at the same time can be overwhelming, especially during the year where there are tons of classes going on. So, in the same idea of "big rocks"/"little rocks", I use the separate calendars to separate different priorities and when I need to focus on the big picture, I can turn off the little stuff or vice versa. I also really like electronic calendars because I can share them with my wife very easily. If I used a planner, we would also need some other bigger calendar at home where I'd write in dates I'm travelling or evenings where I have late classes/meetings, or nights where I have to be running a telescope. With Google Calendar, sharing these events with her means she can easily find out my schedule at her convenience! I think Google Calendar really does organize most of my life! For physical stuff, I keep a separate "lab notebook" for every project I work on and date every page/entry. For coursework, I have a filing cabinet next to my desk with hanging folders and a file folder for each course. As I get materials handed back, I file them away for each course and at the end of the term, I organize the folder so that all of the handouts, homework, notes, etc. are in some logical order in case I need to refer back to the material. I print a copy of the syllabus and keep it at the front of the folder for easy reference. I also print out extra copies of the problem sets, final exams (if it's allowed to do so) etc. to replace any copies I might have lost or thrown away in frustration. I used to keep my desk in messy piles (e.g. a pile for project 1, a pile for project 2, a pile for coursework) but I recently got one of those document trays from IKEA to make things a bit neater. I also have a drawer that I reserve for travel related documents. Whenever I book a flight, hotel, car, or pay for registration, I print out a confirmation and immediately put it in the drawer. I also use Gmail's "label" feature to store the email confirmation in an easily findable location. This is because you often make these reservations weeks or months ahead of the trip and sometimes the last day before a trip is hectic because of last minute stuff. So, this prevents me from having to dig through all my piles of papers to find that confirmation # etc. and this makes sure everything I need for both travel and reimbursement is in one place. For data on computer, I use Dropbox and Mendeley to keep everything synchronized across my work computer, home computer, and other work computers. All homework materials and things I write are in Dropbox so I can work on my problem sets etc. at home if I want. I usually only keep research data on my work computer. This is because the files are often huge but also because I don't want to be doing too much research work at home. My Macbook can connect to my work computer remotely to run things on the work computer if necessary though. I use Mendeley to keep a common repository of all papers as well as an easy bibliographic tool. Finally, I also keep all my travel documents (boarding passes etc.) on Dropbox so that I can access all of this information from the Dropbox app on my phone. With these two pieces of software, I never have to worry about manually (i.e. with a USB stick) synchronizing files between my computers and trying to figure out which version is the newest one!

I would go with the prof at the other school that offered to write you a LOR. It sounds like it's more relevant to the programs you're applying to. Having two research based LORs is pretty great!

Does this mean you have just finished your first year of university/undergrad and are considering course selection for future years? If so, can you still change your concentration? The difference between a math major and financial math isn't too large right? I made a similar "size" change in the 3rd year of my degree. Or, is there no financial math degree? If you cannot change, then I think what you have outlined is one good plan (i.e. get more familiar with your research interest courses/profs sooner). I think it is especially important to get to know the profs in your research interest to get experience in that field. However, it might be a good idea to consider the following points: 1. How sure are you that you want to do financial math? I'm not saying this to question your interest but just to point out that many people's (including mine) interests evolve and change over time as they are exposed to more of their field. So, it might not be a great idea to completely devote your courses to basically complete a financial math degree in the first few years and then do the pure math requirements only later on. Maybe a mixture where you make sure you take the most important 2nd/3rd year math courses (the one that are pre-reqs for all 4th year math courses) in the 2nd/3rd year and take some of your electives as courses relevant to your research interest. Maybe this is what you meant anyways. 2. If you stay in a math/stats/CS concentration, you want to demonstrate to the admissions committee that you are a competent math/stats/CS person. I don't think it's a good idea to neglect your actual major in favour of financial math. To me, financial math sounds like a multi-disciplinary field and I think a good strategy to succeed in these programs is to actually have a very strong foundation in one of the key skills (e.g. math) and then enter the field using your strong foundation to tackle the problems in the new multi-disciplinary field. For example, many students starting in Planetary Science come into the program with a Physics or Astronomy background (but not a lot of e.g. Earth sciences) and they can then use the tools they learn in Physics to work on problems like heat transfer through the Earth's mantle. You don't always have to have exactly the same undergrad concentration as grad school, especially if the grad school interest is multidisciplinary. So, if you are going to major in X, my opinion is that you would be much more attractive to grad school if you presented yourself as someone who is very well trained in X, but also have enough experience (research or courses) in field X-Y to make a good impact on X-Y using skills/perspective from X. That is, I'd encourage you to take courses in your research interest sooner, but don't do it at the expense of weakening your original major too much. I'm sure the experience is very different for each person, but I just want to say that in both my application cycles (MSc and PhD), I did not ever receive a conditional acceptance that stipulated that my final GPA must be near my application GPA. The only explicit requirement ever given was that I finish the degree that I said I was going to finish. I did get some vague conditions, like "your admission is subject to final approval from the Faculty of Graduate Studies upon receiving your final transcript", but this happens when there are University-wide minimums for incoming graduate students. However, in this case, the minimum test scores/GPAs etc. are generally much lower than the GPAs of those admitted (since the 'competitive GPA' is generally somewhat higher than the 'cutoff GPA'). Again, I'm not saying it never happens nor that my small sample size is indicative of the process in general, but I'm not sure that it is super common for schools to make this strong of a condition on your final final transcript.

I think a lot of the questions here are just so dependent on your individual programs/departments, that it would not be very helpful for anyone here to try to answer, other than to show you the large range of possibilities you might encounter. Most of the programs I looked at would not even consider you for Spring admission. But there were also one or two schools that I applied to where I knew someone who did get in, fully funded, in the Spring session. In my field, I have never heard of a school accepting a student to a full time PhD program and NOT offer full funding. So, in these fields, getting admitted is dependent on the availability of funding, thus many schools that do not have money to fund Spring starts would not admit students to start in the Spring. In addition, I know many of the programs in my field are small enough that certain core courses are only offered at certain times (e.g. a fall pre-requisite for a spring course) so starting in the middle of the year can mess things up. So, this is one reason why the answer to your question can vary wildly from field to field and even department to department. I would encourage both of you to research your specific departments that you are interested in and talk to them directly about the funding situation for Spring admissions. One good question is to ask how many students have been admitted, how many with funding, and how many admitted without funding but found funding later on. But also keep in mind that if Spring admissions are rare, then be wary of both extrapolating from old data and extrapolating from small numbers / small sample size!

I agree with juilletmercredi. In addition to what was said, consider also that many papers go through a lot of drafts and re-edits. If the "final draft" was the first time you saw it, as a coauthor, then it's not a "final" draft. As a coauthor, you have the right (and responsibility) to make sure the work with your name on it is of sufficient quality, so it would have been okay to tell the main author that you are not okay with publishing this yet until your concerns are met. Like juilletmercredi said though, you would have to just make the time. If the first author insists on publishing it as is, which they also have the right to do, then the best course of action would probably be to remove yourself from the author list.

Hello, here are what I have been able to find out during my application process last year (Canadian students are international even though our countries are quite similar) 1. International students definitely pay out-of-state tuition for the first year. It might depend on your visa status (F-1 vs. J-1) whether or not you will count as a resident for your state so that tuition is cheaper. I ended up at a school where international and domestic tuition were the same, but it really seems like international student generally would pay the increased tuition rate. We are not considered residents for tax purposes, voting, etc. and for out-of-state American students, the websites say you should register to vote in your school's state to get residency after a year. So, since we can't do that, I'd assume that International students generally will pay out-of-state tuition during the whole degree. But, many fully funded programs (if they exist in your field) will cover your tuition, so it's not really an extra cost to you. It does make you more expensive and thus the department has a disincentive to admit international students. 2. Credit hours have different definitions everywhere. At my undergrad school, 1 credit hour = 1 hour in class or lab per semester, so a full semester = 15 credit hours. At my MSc school, 1 credit = 1 full year long course (no matter how many hours in lab), so a full undergrad semester = 2.5 credits. At my PhD school, 1 credit hour = 1 hour of work you're expected to do in the course (including readings, homework as well as class), so 1 course is usually 9-12 credits, and a full semester (for undergrads here) can be something like 45-60 credits (depending if they overload or not). 3. Again, this depends -- profs go on vacation at random times. At all of my schools, the department office keeps track of who is in or out on a whiteboard. So, if you really need to, you can email the secretary and figure out if they are around or not. Otherwise, you could just email them, and see if you get a vacation auto-reply, or if they don't respond within 2 weeks, try again. 4. I can't answer that question for you specifically -- it really depends on your background and how much preparation you want to do. There are lots of threads in this forum where other people described how much work they had to put in and you can maybe compare your current level with how much these others prepared. I wrote the old GRE (prior to the August 2012 revision) so my stats won't be as useful.

I used "Page 1 of 1" for single page documents just to make it clear that there is only one page

Are you talking about courses that are normally 4th year courses? Or are these the lower level courses that you are expected to take in 2nd/3rd year for your degree? I think it would be better for an applicant to demonstrate that they have already completed the lower level requirements when they apply to grad school, but if these courses will be completed in 4th year, then it's not that bad. If these are normally 4th year courses, then you don't have to worry about getting them completed earlier. Normally, I wouldn't think it's a worthwhile idea to go out of your way to complete requirements ahead of schedule. But if you have space in your schedule and think you will do really well in the course, then it might be worth it to complete a 4th year course in 3rd year so that you can show off your strong grade. But remember that one grade doesn't really make a huge difference in overall GPA. Also, another advantage of completing it in 3rd year is that you can take the grad level version in 4th year, if your school allows that. This would only be a good idea if you are certain that this course is relevant to your graduate education goals. Otherwise, I'd say to just wait until grad school to take the grad course (so that you don't have to pay for it). Finally, I would like to point out that many of my applications asked me what courses I plan to be taking but won't show up in my transcript at time of application. So this is a chance to show the admissions committee that you actually will be taking that important 4th year introductory course etc.

I do the same as Eigen -- if I am manually controlling the alignment, I choose to left-align text that is the page width and justify 2 or more columns (I think the column separations look weird if not justified).

To your first question -- Canadian grades are also slightly different than US grades (although much more similar to US than UK grades!) Some US applications specifically instructed non-Americans to NOT enter a "GPA" in the application. Instead, they just wanted to see our transcripts and determine our academic level themselves. At other schools, when I ask how the GPA should be entered (had to convert from a 100 point scale to a 4.0 scale) and they said to not bother doing it -- again, they will determine academic standing themselves using the full transcript. Of course, you should still clarify with each school, in my opinion, but you don't have to worry about the different systems. I am sure many schools get a ton of applicants from the UK and they might even have faculty who studied in the UK so there are probably standardised methods in place to evaluate transcripts from the UK (and other countries where they have lots of applicants). To your second question, maybe someone more familiar with you and your situation can answer better since I think this is really dependent on the circumstances. Maybe you have a mentor or advisor at your current school? From what you have said, I would probably mention that health issues forced me to take a year off between 2nd and 3rd year but not say that health issues affected my grades in the first two years (sounds too much like an excuse). But of course, this depends on the circumstances!

Schools cannot access any grades that you don't send to them via an official or unofficial transcript. So, if they wanted your grades before your first semester grades are finalized, then they will not see them nor consider them in your application. Even if you are applying to your own undergrad school, they won't see your grades if you don't submit a transcript from your own school. Some Canadian schools usually have deadlines in mid January or early February so that they will see the first semester grades. Like the above person said, if you have already graduated and are in e.g. a masters program, then they will see all of your undergrad grades and whatever masters grades are completed at time of application. So, yes, it's the same situation for everyone. Finally, although the 4th year grades aren't necessarily used in determining admission, the school will still ask for a final final transcript (that indicates you actually graduated) before you can start your grad program. If your GPA has gone down, it is normally okay unless your admission letter specifically required a certain GPA. In most cases, they don't and they only require that you still graduate with the degree you wrote in your application. However, these final grades can still make a difference when you apply for fellowships etc. in grad school.

When I started my PhD last fall, I decided it was time to buy a new computer because my old laptop was on its last legs (the battery no longer charged and it would suddenly shutoff if it got too hot, too cold, held at the wrong angle, or if you looked at it the wrong way). I considered all the possibilities of what kind of machine to get: "ultrabooks" (e.g. Samsung Chromebook), tablets (iPads as well as others), or "regular" laptop (but then Mac or Windows or Linux?). Even though I am not in theology, I'm writing here because the main reason for determining whether or not a tablet/iPad was enough for me was not driven by what kind of work I needed to do, but more to do with personal use! So I would say to consider more than just what you need for school when deciding what kind of machine to get. e.g. do you want to watch streaming videos? play DVDs? play games? etc. Personally, although the iPad would be awesome, I just can't deal with not being able to directly access files on my machine. So I could never use the iPad or any tablet as my primary device and I can't afford to have a secondary device! In the end, I chose to buy a Macbook Pro for my personal use. Having used Windows almost all my life, work purposes did play a tiny role in the end to convince me to switch to the (prettier but more expensive) Mac because Macs are much closer to the Linux computers I use at work. For work/school, I am currently using an old Linux computer that my supervisor had but I hope to one day get them to buy me an iMac (my MSc supervisor spoiled me and bought me one; it introduced me to the world of Macs and I never want to go back now).

I can relate to this! Doing half-hearted work is not very productive towards research nor does it help you refresh yourself. Sometimes I'm afraid to really take time off because what if I never want to go back? But I don't think we would have made it this far if we didn't have true desire in our field -- maybe buried deep down with all the less-fun part of grad school/research. Maybe a true break can help remotivate you!

I think many introverted people "learn" to be extroverted when necessary, such as teaching a class, giving a talk, attending a networking event etc. I consider myself fairly introverted and at conference receptions/coffee breaks, I would be perfectly happy just standing in a corner with a friend or two and eat snacks / have drinks. But, I feel like I need to force myself to mingle more and just introduce myself to random people to get to know them. After all, that's the purpose of those events/conferences. Sometimes I use guilt to help me get the energy/willpower to talk to strangers, like telling myself that "hey, your supervisor didn't pay for you to just come here and sit in a corner! go talk to some people!!". Often at academic settings, there are lots of other introverts too so it's somehow easier to talk to random people if you know that they probably feel as nervous as you do. However, after one of those events or even after a big presentation in a course or a seminar, I feel pretty drained and exhausted! Although I know many people that would probably describe themselves as more introverted than me, this comic sums it up well: http://schrojones.deviantart.com/art/How-to-Live-with-Introverts-Guide-Printable-320818879?q=gallery%3Asveidt%2F34464099&qo=3 Also, some of my other friends have pointed out that our society seems to think that extroversion is the ideal and that introversion is something to be overcome. This may cause introverts to feel like they have to be "pretend extroverts" (e.g. see http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/about-the-book/) Your story of sitting next to him in the presentation room also sounds familiar. I find that it takes me awhile to actually make friends with other people. I'm friendly, but with new people, I usually wait for them to approach me more often than me talking to them. So, if someone that wasn't already a friend sat next to me, even if it was someone I have seen before, I might say hi but probably not say much else. I'd assume that they just happen to sit there, so there was no reason to start a conversation. But if they did start one, I would probably be happy to talk to them. Maybe if I started more conversations, I would make friends faster but I think this is a self-regulating process -- if I am in a situation where I really wanted to make friends, I would probably be more outgoing in trying to find friends. But if I have enough friends to satisfy my "social energy", then while I wouldn't be sad if I had more friends, I probably would not be as motivated to seek more!

I wouldn't use a letterhead, but I guess if you are submitting a paper application, it's worth it to invest in a pack of "nicer" paper (the stuff you usually print resumes/CVs on) for all your application materials. In your shoes, I would print everything on the same paper though! As for headings, even for electronic applications, I always included my name, the program I'm applying to, and an application ID number (if one was assigned to me) at the top (in the "header" margin) of every single page. I do this partly out of paranoia that the page would be lost/separated from the rest of the package (even though for an electronic application, it would be easy to find it again) and also so that any reader can just glance at the top to be reminded of my name if they see something they like! I only put headings like "Statement of Purpose" in the top section if there are multiple narratives to submit. But, if it is just a CV and SoP, then it's pretty clear which is which so I didn't label them such. However, some schools wanted a SoP, a personal statement, a list of courses, a list of awards etc. so then I labelled everything.

I'm not in the stage where I have / about-to-get a PhD and applying for jobs, so this might be very naive, but I originally had the same thought as Zorah -- it's not like jobs you apply to require you to list every year of your life right? That is, just because you did it doesn't mean that you need to include it in the CV (even though the term CV literally means just that). I mean, if you are applying to PhD programs and the applications require transcripts from every school attended etc. then sure, you should include it. But as far as I know, transcripts are rarely required for jobs beyond the PhD. Do post-doc applications also require you to discuss every single program you've enrolled in? Again, maybe I am missing something critical, but after getting a Masters and a PhD, it seems very unlikely that people would care what you did in the year between your undergrad and masters. Even if you leave a gap in the CV, that's something like 5-7 years ago!

For me, it was only two departments (Earth & Planetary Science vs. Astronomy). With more searching and talking to faculty there, I found out that the people I was interested in were formally associated with one department but had adjunct status in the other. After talking to them, they also said that students in one department were free to find supervisors in another, but it was easier for those with adjunct status. In the end, they advised me to just apply to one department and to pick that department based on the best fit since I would be more likely to get in the department that had a better fit for me. They also suggested that I might want to consider each department's coursework and exam policy since I would be following the policies of the department that admits me, no matter who I work with. Finally, they said that some people prefer to choose the department that their advisor is more strongly connected to (i.e. has an office in the building) because it's easier when your office is near your advisor's (of course, this depends on the person). At other schools, they said that you can actually apply to multiple departments within the same application (just tick off the boxes) or that you can pick Department A first and then ask them to send the application to Department B if you don't get into A (although if you do this, you should probably talk to Dept B as well, in case Dept A sends your application after B has made its decisions!) So, I think the best thing to do is to talk to the three profs and see what they say. I'm assuming that your research interest is something multidisciplinary between the 3 departments, instead of having 3 extremely different research interests! That is, there is some connection between these 3 profs right? If you have three independent interests then you might have submit separate applications after all.

Maybe. I think competitive awards are often granted to the best applicants, regardless of history, so I wouldn't say that having won awards in the past would directly help you. However, one would expect to see a correlation between those who win competitive PhD awards and those who have won awards in undergrad, because if you are one of the best at the PhD level then it's likely you were one of the best at the undergrad level. That said, I do think listing them is still helpful because I think they do help with admissions. Winning prestigious competitive awards is usually an indicator that the student is talented and/or able to win more awards in the future. Both traits would make an applicant desirable to the admissions committee! In addition, there are some awards where winning previous awards would greatly increase your chances. For example, in Canada the major government granting agencies (NSERC for natural sciences/engineering and SSHRC for social sciences/humanities) have awards at the undergrad, masters, PhD, doctoral, and professorial levels. Winning one of the lower level awards and getting good progress reports submitted from your advisor will help you win a future award from the same agency. When I listed awards in my CV for PhD applications, I think competitive awards are valued more. I left things like "Dean's Honour List" etc. out, because that already appears on the transcript. I tried to indicate the "scope" of the award (i.e. was I competing with others in the same department? same year level? university wide? province/state wide? national award?). I also tried to indicate the level of competitiveness / prestige of the award by listing the award value. Some people are against indicating the dollar value though. I tried to keep each award to just one line in my CV like this: 2010-2012 Granting Agency Name, Award name -- $X / year Fortunately, usually the granting agency has some indicator of the scope, and with the combination, people who are curious can just google both phrases and find the criteria for the award etc. They don't always have time to look everything up, so that's why I usually provide the dollar amount -- if it's a big number, it might cause them to be more interested in finding out about the award. However, if you are a US student with US awards applying to US schools, then this might not be necessary since your profs will be familiar with the major funding agencies. Providing the dollar amount helps international students with awards from their own countries, or maybe US students with major awards from their own university that might not sound prestigious.

Just a tip -- check with your school to see if they have a discount with any providers. I am getting 15% off my monthly plan plus no activation fees from T-Mobile because of my school. I know that my school also has directly partnered up with other providers as well.

Clearly, you should counter with "Bester regards"