TakeruK

In Canada, there is the "Student Price Card" (costs $10/year) that gives nationwide discounts on things like katerific said. It's mostly student-oriented businesses too (e.g. subway, pizza places) so it's great! This card is available to students of all ages, from high school to graduate school! The Canadian Federation of Students also has a similar free card but it isn't as useful. Is there a similar student organization in the US (i.e. an advocacy organization for all college/graduate students in the US)? If so, maybe they also offer a card like this!

I agree with fuzzy -- if you have a spouse that wants to work, you should go for the J visa. Otherwise, there is no real benefit of J-1 over F-1. I'm actually not sure what you mean by the 18 months of work available on the J-1 visa. From my understanding, I can extend my J-1 status for an additional 3 years for a post-doc in the US, provided that I have one lined up before I graduate (which is usually the case). Actually, now that I read your sidebar, maybe post-docs don't exist in your field? I'll just leave this post here to clarify (for people in other fields) that J-1 status can have 3 years of post-doc after graduation or 18 months of other academic work.

I don't think there is such a thing as a surefire objective measure of a prof's success. Metrics like h-index and impact score are good ways to broadly divide profs into categories (e.g. famous, well known, unknown etc.) but as a google search of these metrics will tell you, there are some biases, especially against young, up and coming profs. I think these metrics are like GPAs and GRE scores -- they provide useful information but I wouldn't use these metrics to directly compare two people with similar scores. I would strongly rely on the subjective opinions of people you trust. Before making my decision, I met individually with several people I trusted (former advisors, senior students) and basically went through my top choices with them and asked their opinion. I wouldn't solely rely on the opinion of one person, so it's important to ask around and see what people have to say. I attended some conferences before and during application season so when you talk to other students at these events, the conversation usually turn to grad school applications when they find out that I'm applying to PhD programs. When I discussed the profs/programs I was considering, people generally share their thoughts about the profs and schools and I factor in those opinions too. However, I think one very important thing is not just how famous/well-known/successful the prof is, but how famous/well-known/successful the prof can make you! A superstar prof can be great at doing their work but terrible at advising. I would actually try to look up the papers that are coauthored by the prof in question and one of his/her grad students (ideally, the ones where the student is first author). Check these out -- is the writing quality good? Are they published in good journals? Are they interesting results? Do they have a lot of citations or does no one really care? Also if the prof is older, check for trends in his/her research -- did they start strong but have slowed down a lot in recent years? The advantage of having a superstar prof is that you want to do superstar research with him/her and get your name associated with theirs. But this is only possible if the prof is doing superstar level research WITH their students!

From my understanding, you need to show a return ticket for some short term visas (e.g. tourist visas). But, given that a PhD program is 5+ years, can you even book a return flight that far in the future? The page I linked kind of mentioned the difference between evaluating "intent" for a student in a long term program vs. a short stay tourist visa and thus implies, in my opinion, things like a return ticket for 5+ years in the future isn't necessary. However, obviously, we Gradcafers are immigration law experts and can only speak about the experiences we actually had (i.e. my wife and I entered with a one-way ticket and showed no other proof of return other than our word). I also know that it's up to the discretion of the border agent to ultimately decide whether or not to admit you. In my opinion, checking with your school's International Student/Scholar office is probably the best idea and if it's not too much extra work, it's probably worth it to have documentation to prove intent to leave the US. It might be hard to book roundtrip tickets without knowing your research/course/exam schedule though -- I find it pretty hard to make travel plans for anything beyond a few months from now!

This page might be useful -- it's instructions about how to interpret "intent" for F-1 (and other statues) visas: http://travel.state.gov/visa/laws/telegrams/telegrams_2734.html Some summary points: 1. They should only care about your intent at the time of application, not what might happen in the time you're here as a student. 2. They are supposed to understand that most students are young and do not really have a lot of ties. It should be enough that you have family in your home country that you could return to (they don't have to be old parents that require your care even). 3. They aren't supposed to worry about your feasibility of getting a job back in your own country, and while it would help, you don't need to have a job offer lined up (this is probably pretty tough to do). I think the most important thing, as fuzzy said, is to not say things like you want to move and stay in the US after graduation. Or, you probably shouldn't say something like you plan to meet a nice American person and get married to them to get resident status. All you really have to do, I think, is state that you plan on getting a good education here in the US but currently have no plans to stay in the US afterwards. It's perfectly okay if you do end up with a job offer before graduation or get married and end up changing status (e.g. to H1B) after graduation. They just don't want people to use F-1 status as a way to get into the country long term, even though it could happen sometimes. In addition, you can do things that "maintain ties" such as not closing your bank accounts in your home country, keeping membership in societies or professional associations in your home country, etc. It would also be good if you have family in your home country because you might need to provide a "permanent foreign address" to US Immigration (it's true in my case anyways), so you can use your parents' address for example. Owning property would be another strong proof but not everyone can do that so I don't think it's expected! I am on J-1 status, which has a slightly stricter requirement that I actually return to my home country for 2 years after my J-1 status ends before I can reenter the US on certain visa types. It might depend on your originating country, but for me, they basically just asked/confirmed that I knew about the 2-year return requirement and that I planned on doing so. I said yes and that was it, no proof asked. Being paranoid, I even had all that stuff ready but I guess it's better to be sure

I think that's the point of allowing you to apply for a P/CGS-M in the first year of your direct-to-PhD program, instead of forcing direct-to-PhD students to apply for the -D awards only. What I meant is that a direct-PhD student could apply directly for a P/CGS-D instead of the -M and only get 3 years of funding, while applying for the -M first and then the -D maximizes your funding, as if you followed the traditional (in Canada) route of MSc then PhD.

It also maximizes your funding -- you're allowed 4 years total of NSERC graduate support, so a 1-year CGS-M followed by a 3-year CGS-D in a direct to PhD program means the most support possible! Also, top-up awards for NSERC fellowships will be awarded twice since the M and D level awards are technically two separate awards

Dropbox! You get a lot more free space if you're a student (need to provide a .edu email address, but you can add this later, after creating your account or add to an existing account). I love Amazon Prime / Student so much! Back in Canada, Amazon.ca had very expensive and slow shipping so my textbooks didn't arrive until a month into the term (grad classes don't usually get things like textbook lists organized until the first week!). Now, I can get my books in two days and free shipping ! Maybe this is obvious, but many banks offer great student banking packages. You usually can get something like unlimited transactions per month without having to pay a monthly fee nor keep a minimum balance. Also maybe obvious -- I've found that the student health insurance plans are often much cheaper than other plans and have better coverage, but this depends on school. If you have coverage through e.g. your parent or a spouse, it still might be worth it to double up and get both insurance plans (your primary plan will apply first and then you can usually apply your second plan to the remaining co-pay). Depending on your situation, the cost of your school's insurance might be less than what you would have had to pay in co-pays! Grad students usually count as employees in the eyes of most companies (or they don't know any better), especially if you have a RA or TA pay stub. So, ask about student and/or corporate discounts with your phone provider, internet service provider, insurance company, etc. Once you actually become a student (i.e. have your school ID and all that) you can usually check out your school's IT department to see if you can get free software. Be careful to make sure that the license allows you to use them on your personal computer etc. My school ID gets me free Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), and the full version of Adobe Acrobat! In addition, free anti-virus software (and for personal use too!). You should also check out any employee benefits like discounted admission to nearby attractions. For example, buying tickets to some nearby theme parks is much cheaper through my school's bookstore page. This is great when you have guests coming and you want to do some touristy things with them. Also, check out your school's travel office. In some cases, you can use your school's corporate discount code when booking trains, renting cars, etc. Just make sure the corporate discount code is valid for non-school business as well as personal use. In my experience, some codes only work when you are traveling for work reasons while other codes work just because of your affiliation. However, it's often the case that seasonal/promotional rates might actually be better than the corporate rate, so be sure to check both. Finally, don't be afraid of asking about student discounts at businesses, especially those around the school. Sometimes restaurants, cafes, etc. will give you a 10% discount!

The criteria listed is for the award level you are applying to, NOT the level you're currently at. This is especially evident when you consider what would happen if a 4th year undergrad applied for NSERC -- they would be judged under the CGS M criteria (unless they were entering a direct-to-PhD program, then they might be evaluated under the CGS-D criteria).

You don't go to grad school to save up a ton of money, but it's not unreasonable for schools to pay grad students enough so that they can live a modest lifestyle and save up money. After all, we are skilled people, and we probably could make a lot more money than $25k-$30k/year instead of going to grad school. Getting a PhD isn't a labour of love and graduate students should not be expected to accept poor living conditions in order to learn. Graduate school is a job! Also, I don't think saying that there are other people living on much less is a valid argument. I'm not saying it's impossible to survive at what is basically below the poverty line. But why should graduate students live in poverty? In addition, saying that the stipend could be even lower is equivalent of arguing, for example, that we shouldn't complain about e.g. gender inequality in the North American workforce because it's so much worse in <insert a country of your choosing here>.

For F-1, you just need to prove that you can support yourself for the first year. Your I-20 form will show these numbers. For J-1 status, you do have to show support for all the years. This information came from my International Student Program office during our orientation session on immigration rules.

For the engineering and physical sciences, yes, the UC's definitely pay a much lower stipend amount. As guttata said, it's mostly because they don't have the money to pay higher stipends. But it's not just the UC's that pay this low -- my offer from U Washington (Seattle) was also really low -- $18,000 for 12 months. In the end, I got rejected from all the UC's I applied to, so I didn't have an actual number for me to compare to, but from talking to other successful applicants, the UC funding is about what you said too, give or take a few thousand a year. The stipend from Caltech -- a private school in southern California (i.e. similar cost of living) is significantly different! I would guesstimate the cost of living down here, for a single student, sharing a 2 bedroom place to be about $25000 per year. Our stipend is about $29,000 per year. But I think private schools have more resources to use to pay their students. However, I think the most important question to ask regarding stipend is whether or not it is enough for you to live the life you want and not worry about paying rent or buying food. From experience, I know that stressing about money is very detrimental to both your quality of life and quality of your work! So I wouldn't want to live in SoCal without a stipend of at least $25k/year. If that stipend is enough for you to live and not worry, then you could wonder whether or not the low stipend = a sign that the department is not well funded. I don't think the low offer you got from your UC school means anything more than pretty much all public California schools/programs are not well funded. I would think that it's definitely NOT the case that the department could afford to pay their grad students more but purposely choose not to. Thus, I wouldn't read anything more into the stipend value other than that science funding is sucky in a lot of places. Finally, I think there are two schools of thought regarding grad student stipend. If you think of grad school as mostly schooling, that is, an extension of undergrad, then being paid to go to school is pretty awesome! So, yes, something like $21,600 is a fine salary for going to school. But I would think that grad school is more than just school. It's the entry level position for a career (in research/teaching/industry/whatever). I would say that over the course of the entire degree, you will probably spend about 40 hours per week doing "actual research work" -- this number will be lower in the beginning because of courses but higher in later years when you are just doing your dissertation work. I would value the time of a science graduate student (based on skills and experience) to be worth about $15/hour on average. So, assuming a 50 week work-year and 40 hours of work per year, I would say the appropriate stipend that a science grad student should expect is about $30,000 per year. On websites like PhysicsGRE.com, applicant post their results and usually their stipend packages in their profiles and on average, across the country/cost of living, I would say most science PhD programs have funding packages in the $25k to $30k per year range. So, yes, the UC stipend is lower than the typical values that you might get from different schools! But I don't think it's intentionally low because they don't value graduate students, it's the best they can do probably. So if it's enough for you and the fit is good, I wouldn't worry too much about the stipend level.

I didn't mean to say you were discriminating! I think it's almost universal that pretty much everyone understands that some people prefer to live with a certain gender only! I don't think posting ads for a single gender is "illegal" in the sense that stealing is illegal, and it's mostly publications and schools that post ads have to protect themselves. I really do not think many people will frown upon you if you post an ad that shows a preference for female roommates. I just wanted to let you know so that you are not surprised if your ad doesn't appear the way you wrote it, or if you get contacted by males! Hope you will enjoy Vancouver and Canada

The funding us international student receive is usually the same as a domestic student. However, the actual cost "behind the scenes" (aka "overhead costs") is often much much higher. The main contributor to the extra cost is usually tuition -- I'm actually surprised that UC Irvine has the same rate as domestic (if that's what you're saying above), since I know at other UC schools, the tuition is much higher for international students! I also know that on average, a UC school has 10% of its graduate student be International, while a private school in California, e.g. Caltech, has a 40% international graduate student population. At Caltech and other private schools, the cost for international and domestic student is the almost the same, I think. Moving to another country is a tiring process and dealing with immigration laws is also a pain, especially if you're from a country that doesn't have such good ties with the US. Personally, since I had a good program I could go to in Canada, I only applied to the top programs in the US since I only wanted to deal with the extra hassle if it gives me some opportunities that a Canadian school couldn't. Many other international students might feel the same way, so that could be why there are much fewer international students at the schools outside of the "top X" rankings. I also think you're right about "fewer international students = fewer want to come" aspect. Even though being Canadian is pretty much as close as you can get to being American, I do feel like an outsider here sometimes. I still get excited when I find out another student is a Canadian. I also think that having a large number of international students make that school's International Student Program/Office much more influential. With a 40% international grad student population, Caltech's ISP offers us a lot of support! We had a special orientation and there's events every week! I don't think it really matters what country the other international students are from, it's nice to know that other people understand the extra hassles a non-American has to go through to get, e.g. a driver's license, travel outside of the US, etc. I also agree with the other things said (e.g. wanting to live in areas with large ethnic communities so that we can get ethnic groceries, etc.)

I just want to let you know that because of anti-discrimination laws in BC (I don't know about the rest of Canada), if you post a "roommate wanted" ad on something like a school newspaper or bulletin board, it usually comes with a disclaimer that "All references to a single gender in this ad should be read as either gender". This is to protect the publication from being penalized for discrimination. Ads (for jobs or housing) cannot discriminate against gender (or about a dozen other things) in BC. "Vegetarian" isn't though ! Some places might even edit your ad to remove the references to "girls only" but most will leave your text intact and just publish a disclaimer above it. I understand that some people might prefer to live with a certain gender and most other people will respect that. But I'm just letting you know to avoid a potential culture shock / misunderstanding if you post an ad and see that the text has changed or see that disclaimer, or if you get responses from male students! You still have the right to choose who you want to live with, of course, but it would probably be a good idea to not say something like "You're a male so I don't want to live with you" -- you should just politely decline them. I don't think you even need to give a reason -- but if you do, make sure you're not saying it is because of their gender or any of the other protected discrimination statuses by law! For example, you can't say "Girls Only", nor "Heterosexuals only", nor "No Chinese applicants". Good luck

Unfortunately I would have to agree with the others who said that this might not mean acceptance for two reasons: 1. If the OP was admitted, the wording would usually be "we have recommended you for acceptance....." instead of simply just saying that they have forwarded a decision to the graduate school. The Department must inform the Graduate School of both acceptances and rejections. This is why you might get a rejection twice -- a Department may immediately email the applicant to tell them the bad news when they forward that decision to the Graduate School. Then, a few days later, the decision from the Department is processed and the Graduate School does their rejection notification (i.e. they send their own email, or snail mail, or update the online status checker thingy). This is also part of the reason why it might take longer to hear bad news than good news (especially if the department decides to just let the Graduate School be the bearer of bad news). 2. I would be slightly more optimistic if the Graduate Director had just emailed the OP directly, instead of having the OP ask the question first! This sounds like the standard response they copy and paste for everyone who asks them this question before they are ready to reveal their decisions. I'm not saying that the email meant rejection, but I'm just not sure it's an informal acceptance! Like selecttext says, the graduate school approval is just a formality so usually an informal acceptance will be more congratulatory than this!

For MSc to PhD, we moved a really long distance and from Canada to the US (the customs paperwork is a pain: we had to make a shipping list that is as detailed as e.g. "8 forks, 8 knives, etc."). If we had sold everything and bought new in the US, we estimated it would have been about $500 cheaper than trying to ship our most valuable stuff. We decided that it was worth paying the extra $500 to save the hassle of having to sell everything (after all if we didn't end up selling everything, we might not have saved any money!) and then buying everything all over again on the other side, without a vehicle! Like wildviolet, we had got a nice bed when we first arrived for the MSc and the main motivation for using a shipping container was to keep that investment! Then, we just crammed the sofa and as many other things as we could in the remaining space (which was a lot!). The bed and something to sit on was our only real big ticket items. However, there were still a few pieces of IKEA furniture that we were unable to sell nor fit in the container, so we gave it to our friends who helped us move and/or donated to a charity garage sale.

I had to visit and make a choice on schools twice -- in 2010 for a MSc in Canada and in 2012 for a PhD program. In both cases, I did not get the feeling that everyone was 100% right. I don't think I have ever visited a school and instantly knew "this is the right place for me". I did get the feeling that "oh this place is pretty nice" and over the following days/weeks (and after visiting a few more places) did that feeling grow from "I guess this is the best choice out of the ones I have" to "yes, I am really excited to do this next fall!" It's always scary to start something new but you can't make progress without some risk/adventure. I'm not saying that everyone should go to grad school and that you should always take every risk. But, I think it's perfectly normal to not feel 100% sure / good about choosing a grad school / choosing to go to grad school!

I think in general, people use "PhD Student" until they meet their school's/department's candidacy requirements then they would use "PhD Candidate" (or you can continue using student). I'd use what Zabius wrote but probably also include my email and research website (I'd make this the most prominent part). If you want to save space, you could consider getting rid of the school name in favour of a school logo. You can also absorb your department into your title, e.g. "Planetary Sciences PhD Student". To answer your other question, I don't think they are a "necessity". I haven't met many students with cards -- usually we just trade emails but this is an effective way to do that! However, I think it's a good idea (but maybe later on in your grad student life, closer to the job search phase). I think in the "modern" world, with so many grad students, one can no longer afford to just do good work and let people notice you. You have to market yourself and get people to pay attention! So having a business card now when many others do not could help you stand out.

I'm sorry to hear about the rudeness! It's hard for strangers online to know enough to be helpful and you probably don't want to reveal all the relevant information to the entire world anyways! I think it might be a good idea to talk to someone at your school, maybe the DGS, or your grad student society's ombudsperson etc. too -- they might be able to help you figure out how to bring this up to your committee (if that's what you want)!

I think what you wrote here is great. Basically, tell them how much you want to attend but stress that you cannot attend without funding. You can then mention that Davis is offering you a package consisting of $X. Then you coud politely ask if they knew when funding information for their program would be released!

If you received information about the CGS resolution in your letter of offer, then yes, it does apply to you and that school, even if you're international. But see the next question: The resolution is not binding -- think of it like something all the schools listed agreed on doing. There are no real consequences for schools that break the agreement. There are also no governing body that makes sure schools follow the agreement. So yes, they can do it! However, usually, if you ask for more time, they will give it to you. This is to distinguish between offers of admission + financial support vs. unfunded programs (like MSc). So you should have until April 15th (but see the answer above). Yes, you are allowed to change your mind -- the CGS resolution even explains what should happen if you do change your mind. Remember, that accepting an admission offer is NOT LEGALLY BINDING in any way. You can always quit school at any time, even before school starts. You would lose whatever deposit you might have paid, but that's unlikely this early in the year. Obviously, there are certain terms that go with a fellowship offer (e.g. if you don't attend, you don't get the stipend) but I've never seen a fellowship offer that will require you to be penalized if you quit (other than paying back whatever stipend was paid to you).

In Canada, a full TAship is usually 10-12 hours per week. Students on fellowships do a half-TAship, which is about 4-6 hours per week, or no TAing at all. In rare cases, there are double TAships that might reach 20 hours per week. In addition, most Collective Bargaining Agreements will limit the amount of TA workload to that of a full TAship year-round (so some students might double-TA in one semester and not TA in another). I'm assuming that the OP is talking about programs in their signature, which are all Canadian schools! Still, getting clarification from the school is better than speculations of strangers like me on the Internet, but whether or not 10 hours per week is "full" or "half" is just a matter of terminology -- it's going to be the same amount of work either way!

Definitely go with the funded option. I think for most fields, it doesn't really matter that you won't do exactly what you were planning to do. If you are planning to do a PhD afterwards, then it pretty much doesn't matter since I'm assuming the masters program is still on the same/similar topic/field. Most people will not continue working on whatever they started in grad school -- grad school is just a place to develop the skills needed for whatever career path you want to have later. So, go with the funding!

I disagree that the department has a "right to know" that the OP has 5 kids. I'm not saying the OP shouldn't tell the department, but he/she should be able to choose whether or not to reveal this fact at the application stage and the school should not feel that they needed to know this information! To answer the OP's question, I'm not sure if mentioning the 5 kids will "scare them off" and/or unfairly assume that you won't do quality work. I personally would avoid mentioning it since it seems, to me, that it's more likely that schools will think this is a negative rather than a positive. Selectext also makes a very good point that some schools will be "more accommodating" so maybe you want to mention it so that you can filter out the schools that will look down upon you for having a family and focus only on the schools that will help you. In my SOP, I would only address things that are relevant to my professional/work life. So, maybe I would mention that I had to withdraw from school originally due to health issues but now it's under control (as evidenced by the achievements during the MA degree). You might not even need to discuss your family at all, unless you really feel that it would be a positive rather than be discriminated against. After all, if employers are not allowed to ask about your marital or family status, then there's no reason to tell grad schools about it unless it is only going to help you!