TakeruK

Asbestos is present in tons of old buildings and I think by law, the owners have to disclose to all leasers/renters that there is asbestos in the walls etc. so that we don't go around disturbing it. If you are super paranoid, then you should only live in the newer (and expensive!) buildings. But in reality, you will probably be in tons of buildings with asbestos in them (at work or at school) anyways. My current building in California also gave us a "lead paint" warning disclosure because at one point, the walls were painted with lead paint, but they have repainted the place several times over. But since there was lead paint at one point, they have to disclose it to all future tenants now. I feel like California (and/or the whole US?) has a lot of laws like this (e.g. Prop 65) where even the smallest potential risk needs full disclosure. I guess people sue each other a lot or something. The problem with all these disclosures is that like the OP said, it's hard to tell when something is a real risk and when something is just a "don't sue us" disclaimer (e.g. "Caution Coffee is Hot!"). You see Prop 65 disclaimers in pretty much every single business!!

My wife and I went home 3 times during the first year of my 2-year MSc degree (all 3 trips were related to our wedding, which we had in our hometown), totaling about a month off. But then we didn't go back again until I finished my MSc (we had planned/budgeted for 3 trips in 2 years). During the PhD, we will aim to go home about once a year. Maybe more for special circumstances. My next trip home is actually free, since there is a conference in a nearby town and I'm going to stay an extra while to visit family. Despite living in a different country, we are actually currently closer to home now than when I was at my MSc school! We would hopefully be able to travel more than once a year, though we would probably want to visit other places than just going home. After my coursework is finished this year, I think the biggest constraint on our ability to travel/visit home is not getting time off from school, but it's because travel is expensive!

It's normal to feel an equivalent of "buyer's remorse" right after deciding. One person explained it to me as, before you accept, you have multiple opportunities and possibilities at all these schools. So, when you decide, you are also effectively closing the door on the other possibilities, and no matter how good your final choice is, by definition, it is not as good as all the opportunities combined. Of course, thinking that you had *all* of the opportunities at once was incorrect! Some people don't really feel like they actually made the right choice until the school year actually starts! But for others, they might feel more welcomed/better about it once the summer starts and they begin to do things to prepare for school. The actual decision process is very anti-climatic -- after months of working on applications, agonizing over LORs and the waits, and even the excitement of visit weekends, once you submit your final decisions, that's it. There's nothing to do for a few weeks/months, and "remorse" can set in now. That said, if your friend really thinks he should have gone to the other school, then I think it's probably worth it to "burn the bridges" and take the better path for him, if possible. But it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between actually making the wrong choice and just feeling like you did. In addition, it's very reasonable to pick a program because of better finances. Being worried about paying bills can really impact your performance! In terms of how bad "burning bridges" is, it depends on how the situation is handled but usually people understand that sometimes people change their minds. The "damage" would probably be localized to the school that he would be leaving, but not something that would be, say, a scandal in his entire field.

I had meant to include this link with my first post, which was where I got a lot of my info when I first found out about the whole taxes on fellowships deal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States While we are studying in the US, we are still "residents of Canada for tax purposes" (unless you did drastic things to get rid of your Canadian residency status). This means that you are allowed to claim the tuition and fees you pay to your US school as Canadian Education Tax Credits!! You probably know that you can save / carry over education tax credits from year to year, so at least when you return to Canada, you will have a pile of tax credits and you might not have to pay (or pay only a reduced amount) of income tax for awhile. (I only found out about the tuition thing just last week, so I have to file a correction to my already submitted return!) Here's something you should read about filing Canadian taxes as a Canadian resident who is living in the US: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4131/ (I find it easier to view in HTML). See especially the first few sections on what it means to have residential ties in Canada. The "factual resident" (i.e. resident for tax purposes but not actually living in Canada at the moment) description below explicitly describes students as a type of factual resident. Just to be safe, you should try to keep as many ties in Canada as possible -- don't cancel/close your bank accounts, change your permanent address to be a Canadian one (maybe a parent or family member?) etc. Here is another publication from the CRA about being a student in another country: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc192/README.html Of particular interest is scrolling down to the section about the Tuition and Textbook amounts (direct link: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc192/rc192-e.html#P192_0010) where it tells you which version of the Form TL11 you need to complete next year (TL11 is the equivalent to the T2202A but for foreign universities). Also, by the way, if you are used to filing taxes online, unfortunately, if you are living outside of Canada, we will have to mail in a paper tax return! And we are ineligible to file our US taxes online because we are not residents of the US. So it's like the worst of both worlds? Fortunately, we do not have to pay "double taxes" though -- we file income from US sources with their IRS and any income from Canadian sources with the CRA.

Even in the hard sciences, after you get past Nature and Science, there isn't really a journal that could trump them all. In astronomy/planetary sciences, there are something like 4-5 other journals that would be roughly similar. And considering that Nature and Science is very exclusive, most people in the hard sciences will be in a similar situation as you described for the humanities and social sciences above. In my field, I don't think it matters too much whether you publish all 4 of your papers in the same journal or in different journals. The editors / editorial process may be different but chances are, you are not really going to get different peer reviewers because chances are, many authorities in the field have published in all the similar journals and so they would likely be peer reviewing submissions from many journals. Also, it's not like people read journal articles by reading a physical or electronic copy of a journal issue cover to cover. So, in my field anyways, you don't really have to worry about not reaching a specific audience by choosing the "wrong" journal. The people interested in your work will find your article through some centralized indexing/abstract service, such as arxiv, Web of Science, NASA ADS, etc. When we (fellow grad students, as well as post-docs and profs) discuss a journal article, we might not even remember what journal it was published in until we look up the actual bibliographical reference. But there are still some good reasons to pick one journal over another. The first one is impact factor for the particular topic/subfield of your general field but as discussed above, sometimes the differences aren't really there. Another one could be if your paper is expanding on previous work, you would probably publish it in the same journal. Or, you might find out that another group is doing very similar work so you might coordinate with them to submit your independent work simultaneously to the same issue of the same journal. Or maybe the same differences in editorial policies and timescales for review might be important. Finally, in the sciences, the PI is often a coauthor and a lot of times, as students, we end up submitting where our supervisors suggest.

Backing up your stuff is essentially important!! You might think "well, I'm super careful with my laptop, I won't lose it!" and while that may be true, there are lots of other ways you can lose your data. For example, the hard drive could just decide to just die / fail one day. This actually happened to my work computer a few weeks ago -- it was five years old and apparently hard drives tend to fail after 5-10 years. Fortunately, my department backs everything up automatically on all of its computers, so the IT people were able to restore it to exactly the condition I had it minutes before the failure In my 6 years of doing research, I've experienced at least 3 hard drive failures where important stuff would have been lost if they were not backed up. I've also almost lost important files because of accidentally deleting the wrong directory etc. If you are in a computational intensive department, you probably have dedicated IT staff that maintains all of the computers in the department so it's a good idea to talk to them to learn how your data is backed up -- sometimes only certain parts of a computer is backed up regularly, so you should be sure to store an extra copy of critical stuff there! Personally, in addition to the regular backup done by my department's IT people, I store an extra copy of critical code in my Dropbox (both for safety and convenience -- it allows me to access my code to explain it to people without needing to be at my workstation). I also store my homework / coursework / any papers I'm writing on Dropbox so it says synchronized and allows me to work anywhere. For everything else, (e.g. raw data) I generally do not keep that stuff on my laptop -- I can remotely access my work computers from my laptop if I need to work while away from school. I would also recommend asking your PI to buy you an external hard drive. It was one of the first things I asked for when I started my MSc! They are relatively cheap now, you can probably get 2 TB for about $100 and it's well worth the investment for your research group, considering that it probably cost them many orders of magnitude more to get that data in the first place!! (Someone told me that the big telescopes effectively cost about $1 per second to run, so even just one night of data is effectively worth about $36000).

I know what you mean about the lose-lose-lose options with telecom in Canada! My wife and I are on a family plan on T-Mobile with unlimited data*, text and 1000 minutes** of talk (it seems like a lot of the monthly plan option is "unlimited" or "nothing" so this is actually the lowest family plan offered that has text and data included). We pay about $85 per month ($95 if you include our insurance policy) for both of us -- my brother gave me his old smartphone (also a Samsung S2) and my wife bought a new smartphone (an older model, about $300). We are in a 2 year contract but that was necessary in order to get my school's discount rate (15% off the monthly rate) but we are here for at least 4 years so we might as well sign a contract and get the better rates. Also, it seems like in the US, the only meaning of "long distance" is another country! Our families are still in another country but at least this makes it easier for me to call/text my wife when I'm at a conference or traveling for research in the US. *Fine print: We actually have 2GB of 4G data (per line) and then unlimited at some lower speed, but we're almost always on wi-fi so our 4G usage is small. We can't reduce our 4G amount because the next smaller step is only 200 MB (and large overage fees) which is not enough. ** Fine print #2: Their only choices were 1000 minutes or unlimited and many other monthly contract plans at other companies don't even offer 1000 minutes, they just charge more for unlimited only. Calls within the T-Mobile network are free as well as calls on evenings and weekends...so I think we barely touch 100 minutes between the two of us per month! In Canada, we had "dumb phones" and we paid $80 per month for just unlimited text, 100 minutes of *local* talk and no data. I think being able to use a smart phone (and the insurance policy) is totally worth the extra $15 per month. We did also consider pay-as-you-go plans, but they aren't really worth it if you want to get data. I feel like if you can get on a family plan rate with someone else, you can get on a plan where your individual rates are just as good as something like Boost etc. I think the definition of "family" just means same billing address. I know some roommates who sign onto plans like this together (but I would only advise that if you know the other person well, since you are both jointly liable for the account!).

Unfortunately, yes, the US tax on fellowship system is completely different from Canada's, where we do not pay taxes! The amounts quoted are pretty much always the untaxed amount since the amount of taxes you pay can vary a lot from person to person! I think some people on the forums here might be able to avoid paying taxes on certain fellowships but things like teaching fellowships are almost always taxable. However, as the text you pasted said, the amount used towards tuition or other supplies that are mandatory for your course are not taxable. That is, you can estimate your total tax liability by: 1. Sum up all sources of US-based income, including tuition waivers, if you have any. 2. Subtract out the cost of your tuition and fees. 3. Subtract out the cost of any other required costs you incurred and you have kept receipts for. For example, textbooks, lab equipment, etc. 4. For non-Americans, we can only subtract another $3800 for a "personal exemption" (we do not qualify for the "standard deduction" as we are non-residents for tax purposes). Now you should have a remaining amount which is your taxable income. For the 2013 tax year, the tax rate is 10% for the first $8925, then 15% for the next chunk (up to $36,250, which I doubt most grad stipends will go over). So if you end up with a taxable income of $20,000 after step 4, then you pay 10% tax on the first $8925 = $892.50, plus 15% on the remaining, which is (20,000-8925)*0.15 = $1661.25, for a total of just under $2700 in taxes! As non-residents we qualify for virtually no other tax credits or tax breaks, except for having dependents. On top of all this, you also have to pay State Taxes, but this is a smaller amount. The California state tax calculation is really annoying though. Fortunately, you pay taxes per tax year, so your income in the 2013 tax year should only cover a few months (Sept to Dec?), which means you probably don't have to worry about taxes until April 2015 (for the 2014 tax year). In my experience, because I am a non-resident, my fellowship income has taxes already withheld, but this may vary depending on the exact classification of your income.

I found this document: http://travel.state.gov/visa/laws/telegrams/telegrams_2734.html It is a memo about how border officials should interpret your intent to return while on F-1 or J-1 status as a student. It notes that students are in special circumstances (as opposed to people on Business or Tourist visas) so while a return ticket can prove intent to return to home country, it is not the only way you can do so. The memo also mentions that students are in a young/early part of life where we might not own property or even know where we want to go with our lives. So, the memo states that although a student's plan might change over time, intent to return should be evaluated at time of entry and they shouldn't speculate on what could happen while you're in the US. I don't think the memo is necessarily written proof that you don't need a return ticket and the memo may be outdated now? However, everything is pretty vague -- the only concrete thing is that the border official should feel that, at time of entry, you plan to leave the US when your F-1 status ends. This is a subjective judgement and it sounds like the memo is there to remind border officials that students don't have concrete plans -- so as long as we don't show a concrete plan to stay in the US, it's okay (in my opinion).

A major shortcoming of the Canadian system is that Canada has much fewer resources than the US. I don't even know if the per-capita government spending on graduate education is even higher in Canada, but the much larger US economy allows for much larger scale missions, studies, and opportunities. For example, a search on Wikipedia shows the budgets for our respective Space Agencies: Canadian Space Agency 2009 Budget: 0.350 Billion CAD NASA 2009 Budget: 17.7 Billion USD Although the US has about 10 times as many people, this shows that the US spends about 50 times more on its space program than Canada does! Of course, NASA's mission statement is very different from CSA's mission statement. But overall, for certain fields, such as planetary science, the resources and opportunities are just not available in Canada. I guess what I'm trying to say is that for a lot of things, you can say Canada is just a scaled down version of the US (by a factor of 10). For some fields it might mean that there are just less Canadian scientists working on the same problem. For other fields, such as missions to Mars for example, work at that level is just not possible for a smaller country such as Canada. Other similar advantages of being in the US are funding and access to more telescopes! I think this is a good reason why many Canadians in my field spend some time in the US (either grad school or post-doc). On the other hand, the Canadian government awards fellowships for the social sciences that are worth about the same as the natural sciences and engineering. That is, there is a Social Sciences and Humanities equivalent to our equivalent to the NSF. My American friends tell me that there isn't that level of federal funding / support for the social sciences. I'm not sure of exact numbers but while the social sciences/humanities fellowships might be equal in value to the natural sciences, I'm not sure how the total number of awards compare, in Canada. Another downside of the Canadian funding system is that when our government cuts funding to the sciences, they tend to cut from the "pure" (as opposed to "applied") sciences and emphasize research with practical or economical value more strongly. Perhaps that is the right thing to do in tough economic times but many feel that cutting too deeply into our "pure" research might save money in the short term but will hurt our progress and ability to contribute to the international field in the long term. Finally, government funding of our Universities is dropping. The government used to be responsible for the majority of our Universities' budgets but now at some schools, the fraction is somewhere between 40% and 50%. Schools have responded by some combination of cutting services, raising tuition, increasing enrollment sizes / class sizes (which might not be terrible overall except when they accept extra people with the intention of weeding people out).

No you don't need a return ticket for entry on F-1 status, for the reason you cite above. US Immigration recognizes that while students are temporary visitors, they are in a different situation than e.g. Business or Tourist class visitors. You would need your I-20, your passport, and your paid SEVIS fee receipt (I-901? or something like that).

Undergrads / students are involved in faculty appointment (and at UBC, they also sit in one of the panel interviews for applicants to the Department Head position, which involved applicants internally and externally), but I would not expect that we were given an equal vote in the process. What usually happens is that each of the student societies (e.g. Undergrad Physics Society, Graduate Physics Society) each elect one representative to participate in the hiring committee. Through a meeting with their respective societies, each student representative gathers the thoughts, concerns, questions etc. from their constituents and brings these ideas to the hiring committee meetings. This is helpful for the professors on the committee, who might not be as directly involved/exposed to the things that directly concern students, especially the undergrad students who are generally more anonymous and further removed from professors than graduate students. When students are able to sit in on panel interviews, they can also ask the applicant direct questions about their ability to contribute to the department. For example, if the undergrads want to get a class in, say, computational physics, they might push the committee to hire someone with this area of expertise. They can also ask the applicants about their ability or desire to teach courses like this. Or, if the students think the department could use more outreach programs, they might push the committee / ask the applicants about their interests in this. In the end, the student representative brings this information back to their respective student societies and we debate on which person(s) we would like to see hired/promoted. In the end, the student representative will present the recommendations of their student society to the committee, which may include a recommendation for or against a certain applicant, but I don't think the students really get a full vote equal to the other profs. Instead, our opinions are more like "advice" for the committee to consider based on what the undergrads/grads want out of their programs. Obviously, the role of students is not to judge how effective that prof will be at research etc. since we are not experienced in that. But we can provide useful insight on the other parts of the application. That is, the students can really only judge some aspects of an applicant. Sometimes, student opinion is solicited in another way. At one school, during the tenure/promotion process, all students are also asked by the department to write letters of opinion about Prof X who is under review. Students can write anonymous letters if they wish, and they can write letters recommending for or against the Prof's promotion.

Reimbursements are not "blown off" although it might feel that way since the process takes a long time and is out of your hands! When did you email them the receipts? You should not expect to get a receipt acknowledgement email. What usually happens is: 1. The department admin staff takes your forms and receipts. 2. They check it for completeness and have to find whomever is authorized to sign off on the expense to do so (it could be the staff, or it might have to be a specific prof) 3. They send it off to the University Finances department 4. These people audit the request and make sure all claims are legitimate. A case like yours could take extra time (since you're splitting with another school) 5. There are usually extra paperwork when the person being paid (i.e. you) isn't a member of the University (otherwise it could just be easily direct deposited in your bank account etc.) 6. The Finances department mail you a cheque directly. Obviously, I don't know exactly how it works for every school, but it's probably something like the above. My point is that early on in the process, the paperwork leaves the hands of the department / people you have contact with and no one really knows where it is. Step #2 could take a long time too if the person is away or really busy / absentminded. I would wait a couple of weeks and then email the department (or call if you prefer) back to check on the status. The most they could probably tell you is that they've submitted the forms to the Finances department. After that, you really should just wait, unless you really need to know where the money is, then it's okay to ask the department for the ID number of the claim and follow up with the Finances department directly. Overall, you should expect it to take 1 to 2 months for your claim to be processed. I think the longest I had to wait was almost 3 months, but even the most efficient schools take at least a month. I would suspect that external claims are probably lower priority! Edit: Reading your posts again, I was a bit confused. The first post, you said you emailed them your receipts. In the second post, you said you just wanted to get the expense report form to start the process?? Maybe the person you sent the receipts to thought that you wanted them to fill out the form themselves, so it might also be on their "to-do" pile. It might be worth a phone call or email again soon to confirm what's going on!

The way I understand it, there is a small but important difference between a "visa" and "status". The "visa" has your photo on it and looks like a passport page. It is also attached to one of the pages in your passport. The "visa" simply allows you to enter the US for some specified reason (e.g. tourism, business, work, school). There are two restrictions on visas usually: time and # of entries. The length of your visa and how many times you may enter the country is dependent on treaties between the US and your home country and does not necessarily reflect the time on your I-20. It doesn't matter if your visa expires during your time in the US -- you don't have to leave if your visa expires. The visa is only used for entering, not staying, in the US. For example, I know some PhD students who only get issued 1-year visas because of their home country even though they are in 5-6 year PhD programs. This is a hassle because this means if they visit home (or even go to an international conference) after their visa expires, they will need to apply for a new visa before they can re-enter. In your case, it seems like you have the opposite case -- your home country gets a 4-year visa with the US even though your program is only 2 years. "Status" is something like F-1 or J-1 and the proof of your status is not the "visa", but the I-20 or DS-2019 form. The I-20 proves your F-1 status, which is what allows you to actually stay in the US, and apply for a driver's license, social security, etc. Unlike your "visa", you do have to leave the US when your "status" (I-20) expires!

At our international student orientation session on immigration rules, they told us that the school always puts the maximum possible date on the I-20 to make it easier for both the student and the school if the program takes longer than expected. For example, I think the maximum on-paper length of a PhD at my school is 6 years (you would have to apply for permission to extend your degree beyond this) so my DS-2019 (the J-1 equivalent of an I-20) says my program is 6 years long. My actual program expected finish time is 4-5 years. So, I suspect that your Masters(?) program has a maximum length of 4 years so they just put down 4 years as the maximum end date on your I-20. If you are worried though, the best thing to do is to check with your school's International Office (or whomever issued your I-20). As for moving in early, I think the general rule is that you are allowed to enter the country 1 month before the start date on your I-20 or DS-2019 (and your I-20/DS-2019 won't reflect this 1 month earlier date). Again though, check with the school's international office or US Immigration if you want to be absolutely sure.

I think it's okay to ask about startup loan or other related financial matters after you get an offer from a school. In fact, during the visit weekend and in any phone calls or emails between you and the department after your offer has been made, they usually give you a lot of chances to ask questions about the program. In my experience anyways, they encouraged questions from all sorts of topics, from academics, to research interests as well as logistical things like these loans and where to live etc. It might be a little weird to ask before applying to the school, but I think most people will understand that the availability of these funds could make a big difference. These loans are usually administered by the Graduate Office, not the department, so you should be contacting the Faculty of Grad Studies / Grad Office / School of Graduate Studies / whatever else the school calls themselves. It might be easier to ask these people because they would know more about these programs but also your first impression with your potential new department won't be as awkward. However, you can usually find the information about the loans etc. on the Graduate School's webpage. Check under financial aid or financial support etc. Also, check under "Incoming Students" or "Current Students". Right now, the schools are probably updating their pages to provide info to the students arriving this Fall, so checking now and over the summer should give you a lot of information. Finally, I forgot to mention above that some schools will also waive your application fee if you can demonstrate need. So, make sure you check carefully on the application information webpages to see if you can apply for a fee waiver!

With assistantships, it is usually "employment", that is, you work as a RA or TA and then they pay you. So, like any other job, you don't get paid for this until after you've done the work. At my school, they told us in advance that our first pay period will arrive at the end of October. Most of us arrive in September so this means most of us don't get paid until after we've already been there for two months! Even if you are on a fellowship, you might still only get paid in monthly installments, especially if it's an internal fellowship (ie granted by the school). If you have an external fellowship (e.g. from your home country's government), then you should check with them on how it's paid. I have a Canadian fellowship and they pay me every 6 months (it was helpful that their first installment arrived in mid September). However, some schools will recognize that there is a large startup cost and they will offer new students a "startup loan". These loans are usually no fees and zero interest. My loan was for $2500 and repayment begins 6 months after the loan date and payments are expected each month for 18 months until the loan is repaid (or you can repay the whole thing in full if you don't need the money anymore). If you pay according to the schedule, then you won't pay any interest or fees at all. With all that said, you usually do not know this information until you've gotten an offer from the school. Although, if you are curious, now would be a good time to stalk the grad office webpages of the 5 schools you're interested in. Pretend (to yourself) that you've just been admitted and click through their webpage (they are rarely locked) to find out what an incoming student would be reading about. In terms of how much it costs to apply to schools, I would budget around $100 total per school. Most of this will be the application fee, which can range from $0 to $120. If you are only applying to 5 schools, then the cost of submitting GRE scores will be small since, as others said, you get 4 scores for free. If you don't live in a city with a GRE testing centre, then don't forget to budget for travel to a testing site as well. For initial costs after moving, the biggest cost will be the first month's rent plus security deposit. Depending on the state/landlord, the deposit could be as high as 2 months rent (so you would be effectively paying 3 months worth of rent at the beginning). However, it's usually not this high, and you should do some research about the cities you want to move to if you're really worried. Many people choose to live in graduate student housing, if available, to avoid most of these extra startup costs! Another big initial cost is furniture, initial supply of groceries, etc. Again, living in graduate student housing or a furnished apartment can help if you don't have savings to pay for these initial costs. At my school, most new students start in graduate housing for the first year, then move out on their own afterwards. Finally, it also doesn't hurt to ask your new school about getting help with startup costs. You would wait until next year to do this of course, after you've been admitted and accepted their offer. If you don't have savings, they might be able to help you with a no-interest or low-interest loan.

My understanding of this requirement is that they want to make sure you aren't using your F-1 status to otherwise gain entry to the US. For example, they would not want people to enter the US on F-1 statuses just to meet an American, marry them, and then, for example, quit school and get a green card through marriage. So, they are interested in seeing that, to the best of your current knowledge, you intend to be in the US only to complete your studies and that you intend to return home after you finish your school. They want you to say that you don't have any concrete plans to stay in the US or that you are studying in the US with the express purpose of getting a job in the US. I had found a document/memo issued by US Immigration about verifying a student's intent, but I can't seem to find it nor my former post on gradcafe about the document. In that document, it explicitly reminds US Immigration officials that students are a special case since we are mostly young so it's hard to show that we have ties in our former country. Unlike a tourist visa, we can't really have a return ticket before the expiry of our status and we might not own property in our home countries. The document also notes that students might not really know what will happen later on. Being on F-1 status does NOT preclude from marrying an American and staying in the US nor does it prevent you from being hired by a US company and end up switching to an immigrant class visa. They just want you to declare that the sole reason you are seeking a F-1 visa is for the sole purpose of a F-1 visa -- i.e. a chance to study in the US. If you end up staying, that's fine, but they don't want people using F-1 visas (a non-immigrant class visa) as a way to get an immigrant class visa. So, to be safe, I would probably avoid lying about where you're staying, why you've visited in the past, or whether or not you have a SO in the US. Be honest. But there's no need to speculate about the future in a way that might hurt you either. That is, don't say "oh we might get married" or "I hope a US degree will help me get a US job" etc. If asked directly, I would just admit that you are uncertain about the future and for now, your focus is just finishing your degree in the US.

For small amounts of time, (a few years or less), interest compounding (even daily) is almost the same as annually compounded interest. Anyways, this is how you could compute interests: In my equations, R = annual interest rate, for example, 7% = 0.07 N = number of years Principal = initial loan amount Value = final loan amount after N years, including interest -- assuming you don't pay off any of it during this time. For annually compounded interest Value = Principal * (1+R)^N e.g Value = 50,000*(1+0.07)^1 = 53,500 after 1 year at simple interest of 7%. For daily compounded interest Value = Principal * (1 + R/365)^(N*365) e.g. Value = 50,000*(1+ 0.00019178082)^(365) = 53,625 after 1 year of daily compounded interest at 7% annual interest. You can also use an online calculator like this one: http://dailycalculators.com/compound-interest-calculator (this calculator only tells you the interest amount, and it is geared for investment instead of loan, but interest is interest and they're computed the same way)

That's something I've definitely thought about. You might be too pessimistic, but it might also be that I'm too optimistic. We might also have different ideas on what salary constraints mean! So let's put down some very ballpark sample numbers! Right now, my stipend as a grad student is around $30k/year, which is okay but in Canada, I would estimate that a BSc has the potential to earn probably $40k/year and a MSc has potential to earn probably at least $50k/year (position at a teaching college). There's no guarantee that I'll immediately (if at all) get a nice job like this though, so the whole salary constraint thing will be re-evaluated when the time comes for us to consider post-docs. I've looked around at post-doc postings and I see salaries ranging from $40k/year to over $60k/year (these are fellowships). So, what I mean is that we will probably not be accepting a post-doc that is at the $40k/year range in a place that we don't like and/or a place that won't further a career opportunity. Basically, we won't be taking a post-doc position just to stay in academia -- if we aren't going to have a strong chance at succeeding with a university position in a place we like (e.g. our hometown), we might as well enact the "way out" plan now, instead of waiting a couple more post-docs down the road and realising that we're going to have to leave academia anyways to live where we want. If I had to pick a number right now, I would say around $50k/year is what I'd aim for, keeping in mind that I am very naive about the postdoc process and that I would probably want to revise this a few years down the road! It would also be a balance between actual stipend value and other benefits like insurance, moving expenses, research budget, etc. It's really hard for me to know what would be an "acceptable" salary for us to accept a few years down the road, but in general, the idea of that "promise" is that we would only want to do a post-doc that we felt was in our best interests/worth it, not do a postdoc just to stay in academia. This was our plan for PhD programs too, except salary was less important right now (we don't have children yet) and we picked schools that had what was currently important to us (a place we'd enjoy and good future opportunities). The idea was that if I didn't get into a good program for a PhD, then that would be a good time to leave academia. Maybe the PhD will instead be the end of the road for us, maybe not -- it's a few years away and we'll have to wait and see.

Congrats on your acceptance! Your story sounds very similar!! When I first moved for grad school (MSc), my SO and I had been dating for awhile but she chose to move with me. We got engaged and married during that degree. Last year, when I was applying to PhD programs, we also made a list of schools together: I made a first list of schools that are interesting to me and gave her full veto power over any place she didn't want to move to, then we both updated our lists after visiting programs (she was able to visit some schools with me). It worked out that both our #1 ranked schools matched up and that was that! We felt the same way as you did -- ready to start the next chapter of our lives (and a new adventure, since it's our first time living outside of Canada!). Fortunately for us, we didn't have the 2 month rollercoaster though, so that was an easier adjustment. Many people in academia talk about how hard it is for two academics to live in the same city due to all the moving around that academics do. But when only one person is an academic, it is also really hard on the non-academic spouse since the constant upheaval / changing jobs / building new relationships and friendships is tough! Here are some things that made it easier for us (we're on year 1 of our new adventure): 1. We view the PhD as something we are both earning -- it's an investment of time, effort, patience and money from both of us, for something that we think will benefit both of us in the long run. So, we both had equal say in where we were going to move to for the PhD program. We will also continue this mindset for postdocs and beyond! 2. The academia career seems to be very demanding. First we are asked to move for grad school. Then, we move again and again (and again) for postdocs. Then the job hunt for a tenured track position is hard and the only way to maximize your chances of getting hired is to be willing to move anywhere. We don't want to end up feeling like "well, we'll delay our life [i.e. starting family, buying a home, settling down, etc] for another couple of years until this PhD/postdoc/adjunct position/whatever is done" because chances are, we will continue feeling this way at all the stages. So we made a couple of promises to ourselves: i) Promise: We're only moving to places we actually like living in from now on. No more cold places, no more small towns! Exceptions are really cool places that we would like to live in! The next move is a long time away but the idea is that if I don't get a postdoc in a place that is both good career-wise and location-wise, then we'll probably enact the promise below immediately: ii) Promise: We're going to settle down in our hometown (where our family is) or another place we end up loving just as much. No job is worth living in a place far from what we value and we want to raise our children near our families. I am confident that a PhD can help me find something good in our hometown. Even if I don't, I would rather work a job I hate and live in a place I love than the other way around. iii) Promise: We also aren't going to put our lives on hold too much because of the demands of academia. This is why stipend values were an important (but not the most important) part of our grad school choice, and it will continue to be important when we look for post-docs. In grad school, we are already accepting a salary lower than the potential income of a BSc/MSc degree. We're not going to do this at the post-doc level -- if I don't manage to get a position that meets all of our criteria, then we'll also enact promise #2. Overall, I think "promise #2" represents "a way out" of the difficult journey to an academic career. I think it really helps both of us feel better about making such a big investment of our lives in a PhD program, especially since we know that there will be more investments to make down the road. However, the "way out" promises us something we will be happy about for sure. So the next 8 to 10 years (or less) might be an adventure, but I feel like knowing that no matter what, we will have a happy ending, makes it easier to handle all of the fears! 3. I think the hardest part is for my spouse to find work in our new place. Being from Canada, there is a lot of issues we had to sort out before the US would let her work. Fortunately, it seems to have all worked out now, but it took a long time! 4. Take advantage of the benefits of grad school as much as possible (travel opportunities, flexible hours). My spouse joins me on trips when possible (usually she arrives near the end of a conference and we have a mini vacation before flying back home -- this allows us to have cheaper trips since we only have to pay for one ticket). We actually did our honeymoon this way (I went to a conference in France and she flew out and met me in Paris after my conference was over). When my spouse had jobs with odd hours, I changed my work schedule to match hers when possible. So even if she ends up having to work weekends, we can still have a day off together where we do things we would normally do on a weekend day together!

If I understand you correctly, this is something that is true for most journals -- you need a subscription in order to access materials from the journal/proceedings/etc. Some people might have personal subscriptions, but like you, most people will have access through their institution's subscription. IEEE is a big name, so I would be confident the majority of schools will subscribe to most of their publications. Usually, in a bibliography (at least in my field), we don't include the URL even if we accessed the article online, and even if the journal is online only. So, you might want to just delete the URL from your bibliography (or edit your reference management software to disable the URLs) since they won't be useful to someone outside of your school. If you must include a URL in whatever document you are submitting, I second PsychGirl1's suggestion to include the DOI. You can write the DOI as a URL like this: http://dx.doi.org/10.1000/182 (where you replace the numbers with your actual DOI, of course). The DOI is a short and also permanent link to the paper and it will be up to the reader to ensure they have proper access to the publication!

Career options available to PhDs are a little more varied than the choices put here! I chose "love academia and research" because it is the closest match but I don't fully agree with that statement. I would like it more if it said "love academia OR research", since you can do research outside of academia! Anyways, my reason for a PhD is that I want to aim for a job at a university (not sure if I would want to try for a tenure track position or simply a permanent research staff member) but I would also like to be able to teach! At this point, I'm not completely sure what ratio of teaching-research-admin duties would make me the most happy though. But I'm not of the mindset that "only academia/research" jobs will make me happy. They might be the goal right now, but I think there will be many options and jobs that I would like to do and they all either require a PhD or I would have a great advantage if I did have a PhD. So maybe I could check off a little from almost every box!

My school's current health insurance is pretty great. I pay $500 per year for health insurance. It includes standard routine checkups, vaccinations etc. within the right health network. Doctor visits are $15 copay, but free if I go to the student health clinic on campus. Prescription drugs are 20% copay, generic brand drugs are free in some cases. I think this is a great deal, much better than most other plans at other schools. It's about comparable to my plan in Canada and overall, more value for the cost! However, dependent health coverage on this plan is really expensive! The school doesn't subsidize the dependent's cost, so it's something like $7000 per year. I've only seen one school where the health plan is subsidized for dependents! I've also seen a lot worse plans -- one school doesn't even cover prescription drugs at all, which is probably the most common expense. My school's dental insurance is also really great. It's about $120 per year for 1 person, or $200 per year for two. Basic stuff (cleaning etc.) are 0% copay, minor treatments are 20% and major treatments are 50%. Some important things aren't covered though, e.g. nightguards are 100% copay. Maximum annual coverage is $1500. However, this is still the best plan I've ever had -- at my grad school in Canada, the plan cost twice as much and covered half as much! ($750 annual maximum). The two things I would change about the plans are (however I'm still very happy with them as is): 1) Decrease the cost of adding dependents! The high cost is cited due to low dependent subscription but I think most people enroll their dependents elsewhere because the cost is so high. International students don't have the luxury though, since it's hard to get health insurance elsewhere before you arrive and you can't get a J-1/J-2 status/visa without proof of insurance. Also, the school plan is nice because it's no-questions-asked. 2) Cover white fillings (for cavities) in the dental plan! More and more dentists are only doing white (instead of silver) fillings and our plan only covers these up to the silver filling cost. I'm not sure if these dentists are just trying to make an extra buck or they are being honest when they say white fillings are much better for our teeths. Either way, we have to pay the extra cost so it would be nice if our plans could cover it. I definitely factored health insurance into the school decision process last year. I counted it as part of "cost of living" -- basically, I took the stipend, subtracted average annual rent, food, and health insurance (as they are the three biggest expenses we have) and then compared these adjusted values when I wanted to compare stipends.

I am now thinking this may really depend on the field and school. In Canadian science programs, the TAs are never present during the lectures. As I said above, my teaching load was 4.5 hours for 1 course (3 hours facetime in the lab, 1.5 hours prep/marking). TAs who ran tutorials instead of labs might have 1 hour prep, 2 hours facetime in classroom, 1.5 hours marking. I don't know how the humanities and social sciences work but since our TA contracts clearly states that any time a TA is required to attend lecture, they should be logging these as paid hours, I am guessing that these TAs might be attending lectures too! But you are talking about a US school, right? At my US school, the TAs are always present in the back of the class, which is already a 3 hour workload. They also don't seem to get solutions to the problem sets, so yeah, I would guess they work about 10 hours per week per course if you count attending class, doing the readings, office hours, doing the homework, and grading.