TakeruK

I wouldn't say it's a "big" mistake, but it's probably a good idea in general to see the financial package before answering either way. Many schools will actually offer all their students basically the same aid package, so saying yes early isn't going negatively affect you! However, it's definitely true that at some schools, they do have to "compete" for aid, and bringing up your stipend offers from other schools could help a student get a better package, but only if that school really wants the student! This is because at grad school, stipends are basically your salary for your skillset and experience, while in undergrad, financial aid awards are there to recognize / attract the best students. In your case, I would probably wait until you see the offer before saying anything else about financial aid or admission. If it is way less than you expected or compared to other roughly equivalent schools, then you could probably still bring this up and negotiate a little bit. However, I wouldn't try to play this negotiation game unless the difference between packages was really large (more than $5000/year) or if the package is not enough to live comfortably (more than just survive!) on. But for example, if the difference between two offers is like $31k/year vs. $29k/year, I wouldn't do it! Sometimes it might also be easier to negotiate for other things than direct stipend increase. You might be able to negotiate a research account/fund for yourself, to pay for conference travel etc. Or you might get your POI to promise X trips per year.

I think definitely ask, but also inform them by phone call or email before April 15 ends. That way, they know your decision and the snail mail form is just a formality.

If that term/phrase/clause is the same as it was in previous years, then it does indeed mean applying for supplementary funding that is only available to NSERC recipients. I think there is some award named Michael Smith (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PG-CS/CGSForeignStudy-BESCEtudeEtranger_eng.asp) or something that could supplement a student's research costs if for example, the student needed to be in a certain country to do fieldwork for some months, or to do work at an external institution (maybe a collaborator?). It could be helpful since maybe the "fieldwork" time happens during the school year and prevents the student from TAing and thus the extra award could make up for that lost income. Or, maybe the external institution won't have the funds to pay for the student's living expenses abroad so that funding could help too. Just some examples of what it could be used for. This page lists all of the supplements available: http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PG-CS/index_eng.asp (scroll down to "Postgraduate Supplements") As for top-ups, they exist at most Canadian schools! You should check out each school's and department's individual policies. You don't have to apply to these usually, you just tell the department you have an NSERC and they take care of the rest. Sometimes you might not see this money in your department funding package because sometimes the Graduate School handles it. For example, at Queen's Physics, we get a "Salary Sheet" every year that says how much money we are getting and from what source. The top-up award from Queen's doesn't appear on this sheet and is separate! Most schools will top up usually between $3000 and $5000 per award, sometimes as a lump sum in the first year, or sometimes spread over the duration of the award! And yes it's only recently that NSERC holders can be paid an RAship from the supervisor's NSERC grant. Before this rule change, some NSERC students actually cost the department more money than a non-scholarship student since in order to meet the minimum funding requirement, the department had to make up the portion normally funded by the supervisor's grant through some other means!

I think if you are planning on staying in Canada for the time being, the University of Calgary, while not one of the top "brand power" name schools, it is not terrible (maybe you've seen this: http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/11/01/2013-medical-doctoral/) Obviously, the ranking within your field is far more important, though, so it would be hard for us to know how to balance out research-fit with prestige!

In Canada, tuition for graduate students is generally a fixed rate for most graduate students in the Arts and Sciences (different fees may apply for professional programs or other fields). This is different to undergrad, where you usually pay based on how many classes you are taking. This page seems to summarize the fees for grad students at York: http://sfs.yorku.ca/fees/courses/gradfaq.htm This page here, shows the fees for graduate students at York: http://sfs.yorku.ca/fees/courses/index.php?term=fw12&faculty=Graduate%2BStudies (You can change the drop down menu if you're not actually in Graduate Studies. The only other relevant is Masters in Environment, but your signature says PhD). It seems like you will have to pay $4010.82 per term as an international student, which is about $2200 per term more than a domestic student. This includes both tuition and fees, but NOT "UHIP", which is the health plan costs (domestic students do not have to pay for health care in Ontario). I'm not 100% sure how a "term" is defined at York, but there are usually 3 terms per year, so the total annual tuition + fees are York seems to be about $5500 for domestic, and $12000 for international. This sounds about right based on my experience with Ontario universities. UHIP (http://www.yorku.ca/yorkint/uhip/) costs about $700 per year. So, it seems like your total stipend for the first year is 21600 + (1600 x 3 terms) + 3000 = $29,400. It will cost you about $12,700 for tuition, fees, and UHIP, which means you have about $16700 leftover for rent, food, books, etc. In future years, you will only have $13,700 per year leftover. You probably want to check the links again to make sure I did the math right etc. but hope that helps you navigate the confusing structure of fees etc. you would have to pay!

I agree with zabius -- it doesn't sound like School A has much to offer compared to the job! Personally, since my goal for grad school is to get a job doing something I like, and it sounds like the job you're talking about is the same kind of stuff you would want to do at the end of your time with School B, I would lean towards the job more! Depends on the circumstances though -- is the job a permanent position? Is it in a place/city you would want to live? Finishing a PhD at School B might put you further along your career than starting a job now, but with 5 years of actual work experience you could have instead of School B might put you further along than a fresh PhD. And like zabius said, you might be able to go back to school after some time in your job -- it sounds like the job is still in your field? I wouldn't be too worried about not having the flexibility of grad school in a job -- I feel like a benefit like that is something that makes grad school less unappealing, not a benefit you would want to go to grad school just to get! After all, after your PhD, you would be dealing with less flexibility too! I think the lack of research freedom could be a dealbreaker though...but could you climb up the ladder in the ~5 ish years to get some sort of freedom? I am in grad school because I have some career goal in mind. If someone were to give me a lower level version of a kind of job that satisfies my career goals (research freedom would be nice, but not necessary for me), I'd probably leave school for the job! For me, grad school is a means to an end, so if I can skip to the end, all the better, haha. But this is just what I would do, not what I necessarily think you would do! I don't know enough about the situation and what you would want to be able to give a qualified response. But I hope explaining what I would do might give some insight that could be helpful to you or others? Or maybe I just wasted 5 minutes of your time to read this

Canada has been pretty safe from the economic issues of the last decade. However, the Canadian government has been cutting back on research too -- I remember a NRC cut / government mandated focus shift from pure / theoretical sciences to something that would have more economic / practical impacts. This is not at the scale of the US cuts though, but then again, our entire budget isn't at the scale of the US. That is, funding in Canada is generally lower anyways, so a small decrease won't have much of an impact. Graduate students are funded much differently in Canada too. When a prof in the US gets a grant, the school often takes a big chunk out for overhead fees. A grad student in the US cost much more than just their stipend due to this (and tuition). A grad student might cost a US school as much as $100,000 per year! But in Canada, the cost is usually much less, especially since our tuition ranges from $4000 to $6000 per year. So, I don't think there is a bleak future, at least in Canada, for funded MSc/MA/PhD spots. In the sciences, they would not stop funding grad students -- they might reduce the number of students accepted, but everyone will still have funding. Anyways, I think this really depends on what you want to do with your life after grad school. If you want to be able to work as a postdoc abroad, and go into academia, then Canadian schools are already "unknown" enough that going to a smaller program will hurt you. Also, depending on your field and the schools you're talking about, the opportunities and resources available to you might be very different too. In my signature, you'll see that I went from a big school to a smaller, less funded program (Queen's isn't that small, but the program I went to was!) from BSc to MSc. Queen's actually did end up giving me the best stipend, and my main reason for choosing Queen's was to work with a specific prof. However, being in a small department in middle-of-nowhere-Kingston did make some things harder! For example, it might be hard to get guest speakers from other schools to come to Kingston (the only way here is to drive, take an unreliable train, or a really expensive flight from Toronto). The department/school, being smaller, might just not have the infrastructure to provide library support, computer support, etc. I was lucky that I still had access to UBC's Library services through my Alumni Card, since the Queen's Library did not subscribe to some important journals. I'm not trying to put down my former school here, I'm sure they are doing the best they can with the resources they have! I would echo iowaguy's advice to go to the school with better opportunities as long as the stipend is enough to live on. Can you apply for external fellowships? What if you bring up the money issue with your advisors at your current school -- can they work something out? I can't imagine stipends being so vastly different in Canada -- I think the values of my offer just varied by a few thousand per year -- which is a substantial amount of our budgets right now, but in the long term, it might be a worthwhile investment. As for foreign universities, I also looked at UK and Australia. These were nice because being Commonwealth countries, it's much easier for us Canadians to do the immigration stuff and my spouse would have been able to work there without any problems. However, the UK schools have very little funding for international students. Many programs I looked at basically said that we would have to win a fellowship to be able to study there. It seems like a competition at the level of an NSERC but there are also awards granted by the school as well (something like 1-2 dozen for the entire school). Australia had similar funding issues. The fact is, the best funding opportunities for most students is usually their home country! Even a good fully funded offer from aboard will probably cost you more in the long run for things like moving expenses, trips home etc. I'm not saying that it's not a good idea to go aboard, just that I wouldn't expect funding there to be any better. But definitely go if that's the best for you (whether that's research fit or just wanting to travel!). Actually, despite what was said above regarding the funding in the US, I still think American schools are the best place for Canadians to apply for and get full funding. Even with the increased cost of them paying our international tuition, some schools out there will give pretty generous stipends and have the resources to help your research succeed too! Many US universities have budgets that dwarf the best Canadian schools! US Immigration has also made things a bit easier for Canadians (e.g. we don't need a visa, just apply for foreign student status). You could do what I did and stay in Canada for a Masters then go to the US for a PhD. There's lots of personal reasons why I did this but academically, it was because right out of undergrad, I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend 5+ years in grad school and the rest of my life in research so a MSc was a good way to test the waters. Be warned though, many US PhD programs don't recognize Masters for credit so you'd have to start all over again. On the other hand, you could also do a Masters in Canada then do a 3-year PhD in the UK or Australia. Anyways, we might have the same undergrad school and although we are probably in different fields, we might have still considered the same schools. If you'd like, send me a PM and we can discuss more details that we might not want to put in a public forum!

I found that sometimes the "cost of living" rating that the Internet has provided for a city doesn't necessarily help you scale your groceries cost! For example, I'm living in a city with a much higher rated cost of living but my groceries are noticeably cheaper here than my previous city, where the cost of living was lower! I think this is because the majority of your budget will probably be rent, instead of food, so having a really high rent will inflate cost of living more than the smaller variations in price of food. My wife and I budget $500 per month for food, drinks, groceries/supplies (e.g. toothpaste, toiletries, razors, etc.) In reality, we probably spend more like $300-$350 per month, but then once in awhile, we have access to a car and make a Costco run and stock up on stuff in bulk for cheap. So it probably does average out to something like $400-$450 per month. We aren't vegetarians but we don't eat a lot of meat, which reduces our costs a lot! We also make extensive use of a freezer -- we might buy a 2-3 lb package of chicken breast, divide up into portions and freeze. Even smaller things like a loaf of bread is hard for us to finish in one week so we immediately freeze half of it. Like iowaguy, we also think healthy body = healthy mind, so we try to eat well / homemade stuff, instead of cheaper alternatives like frozen pizzas etc. (although we have some convenience food around for really long days -- it's still better to make something like that than to go out for fast food, for example). We also budget $150 per month for entertainment (going out to eat / movies etc.) We don't usually go out for drinks unless there's some special occassion -- it's so much cheaper to make them at home! But it looks like we are consistently going over the $150 mark by a bit each month. So maybe $200/month is more realistic! We try to make our budget stretch by signing up for loyalty cards when possible, and using Groupon!

Even though two others have already said don't do it, I think this is such a bad idea that I feel compelled to add my "no don't do it!!!" vote as well!! It is academic dishonesty!

Very rarely will you get a funding letter that says you will have unconditional funding of $X/year, guaranteed for Y years. There are usually conditions like "satisfactory progress" (which usually means "as long as you don't flunk out" -- they aren't going to keep a student around but not fund them, if they are pulling funding because of your quality of work, chances are, they are pulling funding by kicking you out). A big chunk of your funding generally comes from your supervisor's grant, and sometimes it's hard to predict how much funding profs will have say 4 years down the line. From talking to profs about this, it sounds like most profs are good enough about managing their funding. It's in their best interest to do so -- funding is literally the stuff that allows them to advance their career and keep their jobs! So, some profs might have just one or two big huge grants that cover all their costs. They would then probably time their acceptance of students to their labs to ensure that they don't take on a large number of students just when a grant renewal might or might not happen. They would apply to a lot of grants as well to make sure they get some money. Other profs might be funded from a large number of smaller grants. These grants are unlikely to expire all at the same time, so even if one or two grants unexpectedly do not get renewed, the loss is mitigated. Many schools also assign admin assistant to profs to help them manage their funding! In addition, I know that some departments also have contingency funds when something catastrophic happens. If somehow, a prof loses so much funding that they are no longer able to fund a student, the department might be able to step in to help out. You might have to TA a bit more too. So, I would believe the department to be acting in good faith (i.e. they are making promises that to the best of their knowledge, they can actually keep) when they say that they would fund me for Y years at $X/year level, but with the above conditions. It's not ideal since grad school is such a big investment of time, opportunity, and effort yet you are not 100% certain that you will be fully funded the whole time (but the large majority of grad students will be). However, academia/grants are not always predictable and I think it's part of the volatility of the whole field. If you end up in academia, you'll face the same challenges when applying for your own grants etc.

I'd agree with this assessment! During the years where you have courses, you probably could only easily get away during the breaks. If your course schedule works out, you might be able to swing a 3 or 4 day weekend trip but personally, the amount of work required to make up for it is more stressful than the vacation is worth! After your courses are done, I think it's reasonable to be able to take a total of 2-3 weeks off per year to travel, visit families, go to weddings, whatever. For those working in fields where they might have to tend to an experiment, it might be a bit harder to schedule since you would want to clear it with your supervisor. I think it's hard to judge whether or not this is okay without more details. For example, a few years ago, I went to an international conference, in France. I stayed an extra week to visit Paris with my wife as our honeymoon. This saved me on the cost of airfare from Canada to France because the grant would have paid that anyways. However, I didn't charge any of the extra costs of my time in Paris (hotel, touristy things etc.) to the research grant funding that trip. I think it's all ethical and fair if the cost that you charge to the grant is about the same as what the grant would have had to pay anyways, if you had not taken the personal time. Similarly, I usually charge research travel to my credit card, where I get points and frequent traveler miles. Also, sometimes when on conference travel with a per diem, I might take the opportunity to treat myself to a nice meal at a restaurant, or maybe spend a bit more on meals than I would normally do so if traveling on my own dime. I don't go overboard though, since I know that spending my advisor/my grant's money now means less for me later, but if I am being completely honest, I probably spend more on meals when I'm not paying for it myself. Many conferences in my field will often have at least half a day that's "free" in the middle of the week so that people can spend that time being a tourist! If they didn't do that, then most people would probably just skip some of the sessions in order to do just that. Technically, an argument could be made that all of the above examples are me taking advantage of a research grant (taking advantage of the fact I'm already in a place I want to visit, or getting "free" frequent traveler points, or getting a nicer meal out of it). However, I see them as legitimate "fringe benefits" that come with the job. However, something like intentionally slowing down your work so that you can have a vacation would be crossing the line, for me. If I wanted to stay in Hawaii for a few days after a telescope observing run (="fieldwork" for me?), I would do so but pay for the extra meals and hotel cost myself. I could see some field work trips incurring very little extra cost if you stayed longer (e.g. if you're camping and/or cooking your own food?) though. I could also envision a situation where a conference might end on Saturday, but flying home on Sunday might be more expensive than the extra hotel stay on Sunday night plus the flight home on Monday instead. That would be a lucky situation where you could get an extra day to do what you'd like! However, it would also be okay for the researcher to choose to take the more expensive flight home on Sunday too -- they shouldn't be forced to stay an extra day Except for one or two weekend trips, almost all of my travel in the past ~3 years of grad school has been tied onto conferences or visiting home for holidays or planning my wedding. I feel like when I don't have TA or coursework requirements, I probably could take a week off to do a cruise or some "big" holiday if I wanted to (and make up for it by working extra before/after) but I think the main thing holding me back from doing something like that is budget! I think the difference between grad students and undergrads is that while undergrads have their vacation time dictated by school break sessions, grad students tend to work during these times but then take about the same amount of time as vacation time. We just have the freedom to schedule it around our own classes and research commitments (unless we're in a field where research is all the time!).

Usually the funding offer makes it clear. In most cases, the funding level will not decrease from year to year, unless your first year's stipend is supported by a special one-time-only fellowship, award, etc. You can always ask the department and/or current students to clarify. In most cases, your stipend will actually go up between years (although maybe not every year), but the general trend is if your stipend is going to change, it's likely to go up more than down. In addition, if you are unionized, hopefully your union has negotiated cost of living increases from year to year. At my Canadian MSc school, the unionized part of our pay went up by 1-2% per year. It's not much (few hundred dollars) but it's a symbolic recognition that our pay grade should go up over time, basically.

Usually, when a student gets external funding and if the student already has a funding promise from the school, the general policy is that after the external scholarship, the student would get at least as much funding as they had before the external scholarship. So, it's likely that after the 4 year Trillium Scholarship runs out, you will still be supported by York for the remaining two years.

This is true but it might also be the case that the department will top up the award with funding of their own, or you may also be paid an additional TA/RAship. The award statement says that 2/3 of the fund comes from the government while the remaining 1/3 comes from the school and they can make you TA or RA to earn this money. So, it's possible that the 40,000 per year is the only funding you'll see. With international student tuition on the order of $15,000-$20,000 per year, depending on the school, this usually leaves you with a stipend about equal to a domestic/Canadian non-scholarship student. If you do get a top-up from your department, then you would make about as much as a Canadian grad student on a scholarship! So, it's a pretty prestigious award, congrats on the nomination

I don't agree, there is no moral obligation to anyone. Assuming both schools are following the "April 15 CGS Resolution", then you have every right to change your mind, since it's still before April 15. The protocol "in writing" is to let both schools know what happened and ask School B to "release" you from your decision. This is a formality to protect both schools (for example, to show that School A isn't trying to poach you from School B without School B knowing). I can't think of a reason why School B would not release you. School A is supposed to wait until they get the release from School B before they can allow you to accept their offer. However, reality doesn't always work like protocol. In your shoes, I would definitely attend School A (from the information given here). I would definitely let both schools know immediately (I think that's the only moral obligation) and work with both schools -- they will know what they need in order to properly process your change of decision. I don't think you should feel any moral "guilt" for backing out of a decision -- you have every right to do so. In your shoes, I would feel regret that I caused extra trouble for School B for changing my mind, but I definitely would not feel "now I must attend". There is no legal obligation upon accepting an offer, and you are free to quit school whenever you want, including before school starts! Also, you are probably telling them now, before April 15, so there's still time to fill that spot if the school wants to. I would encourage other students to avoid this situation though by not accepting an offer until you are 100% sure that nothing else can change your mind! In the OP's shoes, I would have declined School C's offer, and just wait until April 15 (or a response from School A) before accepting School B (although I would probably let them know that I am interested in their offer but have to wait until I hear back from School A). Overall, the situation is not ideal -- you might upset someone at School B. But most reasonable people will understand your mistake and would want the best for you. I would definitely feel regret about doing this to School B, but I would not call it immoral or even feel that this is a "moral dilemma". The choice is obviously School A over School B -- it sounds like the advantages of A overwhelm any small problems that might arise from declining B.

I don't think asking them will affect their decision (positively or negatively). And, it sounds like they do want you there, so once they have decided, they will probably let you know ASAP. They are also aware that April 15 is fast approaching, and that a lot of people they have on their waitlist (e.g. you!) are good students and will likely have other offers and the closer they get to April 15, the less likely they will be able to get someone good off their waitlist. But since it probably doesn't really matter if you ask, then if it would help your stress/anxiety etc, then definitely go ahead and ask. I know how you feel! Personally, I try to not ask / hurry up decisions if knowing the info won't really make a difference (other than for my sanity) so I would probably try to wait until the end of this week (i.e. about a week before Apr 15) before checking in with them (by saying something like "I have to make a decision at [other school] in a week, any news?" etc. If you write them an email to ask, it likely won't hurt you and they will probably understand that Apr 15 is coming soon so people want to have information to make decisions! If you're worried about being pushy and do want to wait a few more days / a week, then maybe consider writing a draft email and just saving it until later this week. Last year, I found it sometimes helped me to be patient by just doing that and not sending it until a few days later!

If this is a regularly occuring conference (annual?) then the conference website (or the website of the organizing society, if there is one) might have pictures of past meetings which you can use to gauge what people have worn. The same website might also have info for first-time attendees/students, such as a page like this: http://dps.aas.org/meetings/attendees I actually think this page has a lot of useful tips that could apply to any conference, not just the annual DPS meetings! Also, I don't want to stereotype too much, but even within the same field, dress codes can vary between regions. I've attended schools and know people on both the east and west coasts and on average, the level of "dressy-up-ness" on the east coast is higher than the west coast. I grew up on the west coast and it was only until I went to school "out east" that I actually saw the majority of scientists regularly wearing things more dressed up than tshirt and jeans. At this point, I had also decided for myself that I wanted to replace most of my tshirts with polo shirts for everyday use. Now that I'm back on the west coast, I think I tend to be one of the more dressed up people at school each day. The people on my floor who are dressed up the nicest did their undergrads out east though! I guess that paragraph was a long winded example to say that even in Education (which sounds like more dressed up than sciences), there may be a difference out west (or maybe your experience has already told you this is not the case).

I had an OGS in the second year of my MSc at Queen's in 2011-2012 (i.e. under the old system). The reason for the hour limit is that if a grad student is meant to work, say, 40 hours per week, then the award (plus top-up, if any) is supposed to be paying for up to 30 hours per week (your prof may pay you an RA in addition to this as well), leaving you 10 hours per week to work as TA etc. 10 hours per week is actually the standard maximum TA load -- I know the Queen's Collective Bargaining Agreement stipulates a maximum of 10 hours per week, on average (so you could double TA in one year, or do all your TAing in one week if it's a field course etc.) Other awards, since as NSERC has the same maximum. I can think of at least two reasons why this limit is good. 1. The award is for you to do research. I am pretty sure there has to be a research component to your program to be eligible for the OGS. This limit prevents the department from forcing you to work too many TA hours. For my department, we also had a pretty generous minimum funding level, so since they could only give us a small number of TA hours per week, this means I got more "free money" (internal fellowships). If you want numbers, my contract was only 4.5 hours of TAing per week while non-scholarship students usually had 9 hours of TAing per week. Overall, a OGS student in the department got paid more money for doing less TA work. So it's a good thing if there is a minimum level. 2. The OGS isn't "free money", like I said above, you are expected to work for it through research. It's not fair for someone to win a competitive award and then spend most of their time working on a side project (whether it's a part time job or their own project/business, whatever). However, I think that if the side project (part time job, business, whatever) is on your own time, in addition to what you would have worked anyways, then it's none of OGS or your school's business and I wouldn't feel guilty about going over 10 hours a week. i.e. if you have something you really want to do, and you spend 40 hours a week being a grad student then 20 hours a week in evenings/weekends doing your own paid work, then that's all good. Just don't get caught, but as phalanges said, it's pretty hard to get caught! But if you choose to break the rules, just be aware that the consequences are pretty high and be sure that what you're doing is worth it! To address your final point though, I doubt the 10 hours per week condition will be lifted. Also like phalanges said, the school might impose its own limits on outside work anyways. But if you are worried about this max # of hours messing up your TA plans, then don't worry, schools are used to this and will have a way around it. 10 hours per week for the entire duration of the award (i.e. 1 year) is actually 520 hours that can be allocated in any way one would like. Usually there is no TAing in the summer, so you could even TA / work 20 hours per week in one semester then 10 hours per week in another. If your program doesn't fund you well enough to live on TA + OGS then you can do things like tutor privately as well. My department was very encouraging of this and even hosted a list of grad student tutors on the department website. All of these hours are undocumented so it's one way to make a bit of extra income without worrying about going over 10 hours per week.

That sounds like a pretty good set of circumstances for you But I would still recommend being patient. Don't want to be a downer, but realistically, there could still be other hurdles in your way of getting an acceptance. For example, once the above student declined, that might have opened up a spot for the entire department, not just for your advisor. So, your advisor may have to convince the committee/department that he should get the spot etc. It all depends on how the department works! In general, departments work on very long timescales so admitting zero Americanists this year might not be a big deal to them since it can just average out in later years. However, one week isn't a very long time at all! The department could be dying to get you that offer letter but like you said, it takes time to do the paperwork? Probably the grad school has to first process the original student's decline, then the department can make a new offer, then the grad school has to process that offer too and send you a letter/email! I would remain hopeful though -- it does sound like things are in your favour as much as possible to get into this school

I just want to chime in to say that my experience in Astronomy as well as Planetary Science is what rising_star described. The only times I've taken a full suit to a conference, it was only for the banquet dinner or other formal social event.

I grew up in Vancouver so when we moved to the other "coast" (only as far as Ontario, but everything east of Manitoba is "east coast" to us BC'ers lol), one huge difference we saw was the downpours that Kingston, Ontario received. We weren't prepared for it -- it was clear and sunny, then suddenly it felt like someone was dumping a bucket of water on us, then back to sun 20 minutes later! In Vancouver, this is pretty rare. The rain is usually steady and not very intense. The downside is that this means the sky is pretty almost always grey during the fall, winter, and most of spring. The upside is that the temperature is very mild -- there's no large fluctuations between summer and winter so you don't necessarily need to have vastly different wardrobes for each season (unless you want to ). For raingear, a good pair of rainboots is probably a good idea (for puddles / uneven paving causing rivers to flow on sidewalks). I also carried an extra pair of socks in my backpack because having wet socks can really ruin a day! Most of us in Vancouver don't carry an umbrella, but our jackets or sweaters have hoods. The rain is usually light enough that it was a small nuisance as we walked between buildings. Waiting for a bus to come can get you / your stuff wet, so if your backpack has something over the zipper to keep the water out, then it would keep your computer/books/notes dry!

It depends on the reason. If the reason is not a negative on the program you're declining then it should be okay to say. For example, if the other program is mostly doing research X while this program is doing research Y and you want to pursue research X, you can say something like "I am very interested in X so I think [other program] will be the best fit for me as in I am very excited about [something about what the other program is doing with X]". But if the reason is a criticism of the program you're declining, then it might not be a good idea to say why. For example, if you chose another program because you didn't like your stipend offer, your TA workload, the courseload, the city, the people, etc. then a quick explanation might be misinterpreted. In any case, it can't help you to say the reason and it could potentially hurt you. There was some programs where I declined because I didn't think the stipend was enough to live on or the course requirements. In these cases, I just said something about a better fit at another school and thanked them for the opportunity (and for hosting a visit if that was the case). I saved the criticisms for the semi-anonymous exit-survey that almost all schools ask you to fill out after you accept or decline. That way, if there is an actual problem with the school's program, they will get lots of rejections with similar comments and they could hopefully fix it for future students.

In my MSc program, I was one of five students admitted and here in my PhD program, I was also one of five students that attended. For me, it was really important to not be in a class of just one student so when I visited last year, I kept in contact with the other admitted students and we let each other know where we ended up. There is a good theory that at least in my current program, people either accept in a large group or no one shows up at all. In the last 4-5 years, the class sizes has either been 5+ students or 0 to 1 students. It was important for me to be in an incoming cohort with people I liked and got along with because I really need to be in a work environment that is friendly. I need to be able to work together on problem sets and coursework with my classmates for hours and enjoy it as much as you can enjoy problem sets. I like to be "social" at work, having lunch together with my classmates, walking into their offices when I'm frustrated at my research and having a chat over a tea or coffee etc. That kind of environment was important to me since that was what I had in undergrad and my MSc. For social support outside of work, my wife and I have our friends over once in awhile for dinner, or we would go out to movies or restaurants together but I think each of us in our cohort has a mixture of own our social lives and social events we all do together. I think it's a good balance! So personally, I would not attend a program where I was the only incoming student. I would not be happy at all! However, it is important to note that you are not just limited to people in the same year/class as you. I have friends in different years of grad school in both my current and MSc programs. In Canada, you take a few classes each year instead of all at once so there was even less of a difference between a 1st year and a 3rd year grad student, for example. But even here in the US, although I mostly spend my time with my classmates since we have a lot of classes in common, I feel like the older students are my friends too. So, maybe you can still get the social support you want from the older students (or students arriving a year later) even if you're the only student coming next Fall.

What do you mean? Generally your stipend is a paycheque (either a physical cheque or deposited into your bank account). It's your own money, like a salary paid for any other job. So, you can spend it any way you want!

If I ever get business cards, I would probably do manierata does and preface the card with something like "this might be really pretentious..." and hope that smooths over anyone who thinks the cards are stupid. But what do you mean by "non-grad students"? Do you mean post-docs and profs? Or do you mean people not in academia. If it's the former, then if you are really worried I would either do what manierata does, or wait until they ask for the card. Or you can leave the cards by a poster if you're presenting and let people decide whether or not to pick it up. I think it would be important to be smart on when to hand out your card. You wouldn't want to do it to everyone you meet, and I think it might put people in an uncomfortable situation if they don't want your card but feel like it would be impolite to refuse it. I would probably only hand them out at a conference if for example, someone comes up to me and we have a really interesting discussion about our research and we feel like we want to continue the conversation. So if it gets to the point where it wouldn't be weird to ask them for their email address, then it wouldn't be weird to offer them your card.