TakeruK

I did my MSc at Queen's (but not in History) but if you have questions about the school, send me a PM!

I don't understand why you are giving up now -- it is worth at least one more attempt to contact him now that the new year/term has started. If you don't think it's healthy for you to continuing pursuing this, then fine, but don't "tell [other schools] that the last recommender is having medical issues" !! You aren't in a position to diagnose him and it will just make your application be more strange.

This is a good point. But, I still would advocate for keeping XYZ a "secret" until all funding/admission decisions are made. This is because, personally, I wouldn't necessarily NEED to be in a department where 100% of the professors are supportive of XYZ. If it's only a small fraction, I could avoid working with them or having them on my committee. However, during the application process, we have no idea who is influential. If all of them happen to be on the committee that year, or the subgroup assigned to review our application is biased against XYZ, then it could hurt our application. By waiting until all decisions are made (I'd wait until the visit weekend, when we are the ones making the decision!) then we can use XYZ as a way to filter out programs/schools instead of them using XYZ to filter us. It also allows us to provide more context to XYZ (if necessary) and basically, more control over how XYZ affects us. The visit is also a good time to determine whether there are even people who are against XYZ and whether they would make up the majority (or hold influential positions) in the department. This might not be a valid idea everywhere, but I'm speaking from experience in programs where your supervisor (and to a smaller extent, your thesis committee) is really the only faculty member that has a big impact on your life over the entire 5+ years. Even if the prof down the hall does not like me because of XYZ, I will probably never be in a position where he or she has a chance to do negative things to me based on XYZ (as long as I don't put them on my committee).

Definitely agree that the things that matter are, in order: the individual student, the advisor's ability to advise/mentor, the advisor/department's reputation, then lastly the University's reputation. Just also wanted to add some advice I got when I was deciding on schools. Many have told me (but this might be specific to astronomy/physical sciences) that a PhD at a (North) American university is more likely to lead to a North American post-doc than a PhD from a European university. Due to high costs of travel (for conferences or doing talk circuits during job application), the exposure of most students are limited to their continent. For example, during your last year of your PhD, you can do talk circuits at all the places where you want a job (or places where you know referees for that post-doc fellowship work) so that people know who you are and what you do. (However, I've also learned that not all fields do this type of stuff). In addition, the shorter length of the PhD in the UK/Europe might mean you have less time to get publications out (and less talks/conferences to present) so the advice I got was to plan to do a first post-doc in Europe/UK if I wanted to go back to North American eventually.

I think it's pretty silly for a prof to try to tell the other school's adcomm what he thinks YOU want to do! I don't think reasonable admissions committee will read your prof's letter and decide that your prof knows better than you about your own future! So, I think they will probably just ignore that part / read between the lines and infer that this prof is being selfish because he wants to keep you. I still think it's a bad thing for your own supervisor to do, since it creates a weird situation but I don't think it's an automatic deal-breaker! While applying to grad school, I learned that there could be a lot of history between professors at different schools. Imagine how the prof at the other school would feel when he reads your supervisor's letter about how he was "wrong". I think it was unprofessional of your supervisor to have potentially used your LOR as a means to make an attack on someone else. The right/professional thing to do, if your supervisor had misgivings about your application to Boston was to talk to you about it in person, privately, before you submitted the application. Maybe even let you know that he cannot write you a good letter. But, the best thing for a supervisor/mentor to do is to act like an (academic) "parent" and support you in your own career decisions. Just my thoughts!

Thanks for clarifying, but you didn't have to I wasn't trying to accuse you of making the wrong choices for LORs or whatever. Sorry to hear about your January deadlines though I agree, 1 month is the perfect time for a LOR notice. I had thought you were giving them 3 months (notifying in Nov, but not due until Feb) and I wanted to point out that most busy people will tend to de-prioritize things that won't take a lot of time (e.g. a LOR) and aren't due for months (especially after the "hump" of end-of-fall-term). Hope you will get your letters for February deadlines!!

I'll second the "get an credit card with rewards points" idea. However, if New York is like California, it's was a bit of a challenge to get a credit card in the US since my Canadian credit history is not transferrable to the US I managed to get one from Citi banks though, it's a student card so the rewards are not that great but it's better than nothing. In addition, I used to think getting a credit card with reward miles/points was the best way to go but now I'm not so sure anymore. I think "cash back" (usually it's 0.5% to 1%) can give you back more than reward miles/points. But if you have reward miles (or other loyalty points through the travel carrier), you should try to also use the same carrier for personal travel as well as work travel. Then, you can use the benefits/points earned through work travel (which is reimbursed) to help pay for personal travel! For airlines, I also tried to keep track of which days the airlines post their weekly sales. For example, back in Canada, I noticed that Air Canada has sales on Wednesdays and WestJet on Thursdays. Sometimes they even allow you to sign up for a fare alert if the fare drops below some value.

I know it's really frustrating but I wouldn't worry too much yet. Your deadlines are Feb 1, yet you asked for your LORs to be in by Dec 1? I actually think that's pretty unreasonable!! It's great that you asked your recommenders back in Nov for deadlines of Feb 1 and later. But in my experience, it is NOT the norm for profs to submit letters *two months* ahead of the deadline! I'm assuming that you registered your profs to submit the letters through the application's online system, which would have sent them the email with instructions on how to submit the LOR and tell them the deadline. I would assume that, being busy profs, something with a deadline 2+ months away is not a priority. Most profs also do not appreciate having their timeline dictated by others, especially not their students! They know when the deadline is, trust them to stick to it. In my experience, profs will usually submit their letters within the last few days of the deadline, if not on the deadline itself. So I wouldn't worry yet, but it would probably be a good idea to use the application's built-in reminder function (so that there will be a link to the LOR submission forms) about 2 weeks before the deadline and again a few days before the deadline. Good luck! Edit: While typing the above, I didn't see the OP's most recent post. Are you saying that all 7 of the people you asked are former employers, not professors? If so, I'll assume that you have good reasons for using LORs from non-faculty members (I don't even know what your field or what your work was)! So I guess my paragraphs above don't really apply here.

I got an email from my university last November regarding this fellowship. The relevant parts said: From that wording and the information on the linked pages, it does seem that you have to apply "directly" (which I interpret to mean applying directly to the funding agency, not through your University). However, it sounds like you cannot apply "independently", that is, it sounds like your advisor/university will have to fill out parts of your application too and their participation is required to finally submit your proposal. This fellowship is interesting to me since I think it is the only fellowship where non-Americans are eligible! But I'm going to wait until I have a fully defined thesis project before I apply. Any other useful information shared by anyone here would be really helpful though

Definitely don't lie if asked directly, but I don't think they will ask directly whether or not you're married, or have kids (or plan to have kids) etc in a formal interview. These questions are illegal in job interviews so I don't see why they would be okay in an admission interview. Of course, although technically admission isn't a "job", since most admissions go hand-in-hand with being hired as an TA or RA, I'd argue that the etiquette of job interviews should apply to admission interviews. Since the employer doesn't have a "right to know" whether or not you have a family/kids, then I don't think they can feel "duped" if it turns out you do have a family. But things don't always work as they should and if they do ask the question, it's probably better to be honest and gauge their reaction. But I can understand the circumstances where one might want to "deflect" by just mentioning personal circumstances without providing detail.

Don't want to be the negative voice, but I should pass along what I was told: sending more than the required number of letters is not always considered "something extra". For example, if you have 3 really super great letters and one good letter, it's better to just send the super great letters. Most of my programs that allowed more than 3 said that all letters will be treated / weighted equally, which means that a 4th sub-par letter will "dilute" the average. Other profs have said the same thing to me!

I would also agree with only "hiding" the kids until you feel it won't hurt your admission chances (e.g. after they give you an offer). I don't think being married is that uncommon. But I think bringing it up could be helpful after you get your offer. They will usually ask if you have questions, so it provides a good opening to ask as well. I would prefer to do it in person at the visit weekend! I found it helpful that my schools scheduled meetings with students who were married. We are also planning to have children during my PhD but I have not mentioned it officially to any faculty yet (although I'm not trying to hide it now -- there's just no reason to randomly announce these things!). I did bring this up when talking to the current grad students during the visit and they set up an extra meeting for me with students who have children so I can find out what it's like! It was really helpful and I learned a lot about what support systems were available and that was a big factor in our decision. So, if you want to find out these things but don't feel comfortable talking to the faculty directly, the students and also the administrative staff can be helpful too. There's no guarantee that the information won't make it back to the faculty eventually, but I feel like non-faculty members have a much higher chance of not having negative attitudes towards having children (I think most faculty members nowadays will not be this "old-fashioned" anyways, but the risk is still there). I really don't think being married is being considered as negatively as it once was. During visits/interviews, whenever schools asked how I felt about their school/city, I was honest and always added that although I was the one attending school, this is a big life decision for both my spouse and I so it was a decision we were going to make together. The schools were all very understanding and supportive. We asked one (nearby) school if both of us could attend the visit weekend and they were very accommodating. My spouse was included in all of the meet-and-greet/social type events and they even came up with suggestions for what she could do while I was in meetings with faculty.

I think it is rare to see an author published in a peer-reviewed journal without an affiliation but it's not necessarily rare for people to publish when they are not attending a school at all. For example, I know many people who take a year off between undergrad and graduate school and use that time to write up something they have previously worked on. Usually they do this by keeping in contact with whatever research group they were in before (or making a new connection) so that they are still affiliated with their former school. It might differ from field to field, but in the sciences it's rare that a student will publish a paper as a sole author, especially with only a Bachelor's degree. Whether it's fair or not, having a supervisor on as a co-author will help your credibility to the editors etc. In addition, without any affiliation, you would have very little resources. For example, if you are no longer a student, you might not be able to use your library's database/subscription to find articles, etc. Some journals also charge fees for publication and/or colour pages. I think it's common and a good idea for people who are taking a "gap year" to try to publish since it should help your applications. But, I would recommend talking to someone you know at your current/former school and showing them your idea. They could "hire" you as a research assistant (or volunteer) so that you can use the resources of the school and so they might be able to use any grant/funding they have on the project as necessary too. They can also help you with the development of the manuscript -- maybe you are already an expert at writing for journals, but I would think most people would benefit from mentorship of someone more experienced.

I also usually do not answer the phone when it's an unrecognized number, especially when I was in Canada and it was a US unrecognized number (most of them are scammers anyways) but I broke that rule during applications! They definitely do not try to get an answer from you on the spot! Most graduate programs have agreed to the April 15 deadline thing (although this is not a binding convention) so like amlobo said, they will mostly tell you about their program, and info on funding they have and inform you if there is an upcoming visit weekend! I was really shocked to get the acceptance phone call (it was later in the day due to time zone differences and my wife and I were just about to leave for a dinner) that I mostly sat in stunned silence as the prof told me about their program. I must have sounded really unexcited and lame even though it was one of my top choices!! I also hate talking on the phone! It might be better to "prepare yourself" for a phone call, but I think that would make it so much worse when a rejection came. Also, you never know when it would come, so that would have only increased anxiety for me. Letting it go to voicemail is probably a good idea -- it could also give you a chance to refresh yourself about that program so that you can come in with questions!

I think email was the most common way I was notified. 2 schools did call me before emailing (1 couldn't reach me since I was in class) but the phone call was just so they could say it in a more personal way, I guess? Of course, they asked if I had any questions about the program, but it's not like many people will be able to instantly have questions literally moments after getting the news. Email and snail mail would be the most important things to check, I think. Even the phone call that got through to me was followed by an email with a PDF of the official letter, and actual details about the offer. Sometimes the admissions page might give you some "in-between" steps and it's useful to check to make sure they got all of your documents. All emailed offers also came via snail mail, weeks later. Sometimes they come with a glossy pamphlet too! I got rejections on very nice letterhead via snail mail as well. In my experience, snail mail without any prior emails ended up being rejection letters! Also, big envelopes tend to be good things while the small #10 white envelopes tend to be bad news. Of course, this "analysis" was done on very small sample sizes and through the haze of application anxiety and paranoia. I'd say don't freak out about it, but I know I was constantly checking all three, at least once a day during these months!

I agree with the reservations/worries about discrimination against parents, which is why I think it's much better to ask these questions after you get an offer! I think it would depend on the visit offers. Usually, you will get an email that says "congratulations, you have been accepted" and perhaps a mention of a visit. Then, someone who is in charge of visiting might get in touch with you about arranging the details. I think that would be a good time to bring it up. I would say something like I have an infant that would need to travel with me and I think I would just ask very nicely if it was possible that travel expenses for your child would be covered too. In addition, sometimes they will house visiting students with current students, or have you share a hotel room with another visiting student, so this is something that you and the visit organizer (usually an administrative staff member by the way) would have to work together to figure out something that works for everyone. The people organizing the students' visits are usually the same people who organize travel arrangements for visiting profs, researchers, people giving talks at your department etc. So they probably have had some experience with unique situations. They would be the ones who would know about other on-campus resources etc. Many universities have a daycare for the children of their faculty and staff (and students too, but the waitlists tend to outlast most students). If they have a "visitors program" then the administrative staff person would know about it! However, I would not think it would be too strange for your child to accompany you on tours of the campus or labs (provided that it's safe) and during meetings/interviews if you are not able to find suitable childcare. I don't think there are any rules (other than safety related ones) about having a child on campus, and if a professor refuses to talk to you because you have an infant with you then that might also tell you something! For other things, like lactation rooms, etc. it's a good idea to ask other grad students too. Sometimes when organizing the visit, the organizer might ask if you have specific requests of who to speak to. You can ask them if there are other graduate student parents in the department. My wife and I are planning to have a child while I'm in my PhD so that meeting was one of the biggest deciding factors for me.

I think you can ask them outright whether or not it's a recruitment interview or not. Sometimes when a visit/recruitment weekend is set up, the profs in charge of whatever labs/groups you're interested in will tend to connect you and their students via email. If you really want to know but don't want to talk to the department directly, look up the students in the labs from the website and email them to say how you have applied and are visiting etc. From what you've said, since it's paid for and there doesn't seem to be time for "interviews", I wouldn't think that it would be very competitive, unless you know your field is generally very competitive. They have not yet given official acceptance though, so I wouldn't assume you're in yet, either. There could be very good reasons why they are willing to spend money to woo you but have not given official word yet. For example, perhaps your funding packages are not ready/finalized yet. Or, like someone else said, they might be ready to accept most of you but just want to make sure you're sane. Either way, it won't hurt to be prepared, but keep in mind that while you might be competing with the other visiting students, having a "competitive" mindset might affect your interactions with the other visiting students, who might be your colleagues in the future! Finally, it might be "competitive" in the sense that most of you will be accepted into the school but you are competing for specific lab spots. It sounds like you are applying to a Canadian school, and some departments will only accept grad students if a prof is willing to take them into the group for sure. For example, my Canadian MSc acceptance letters said something like "you are admitted to work with Prof X or Y" etc.

I think it's okay to ask more than one lab in the same program/department. It matters how you do it though -- don't tell p1 that his/her lab is your dream lab and then go and tell the other profs the same thing! I usually wrote things like I am interested in working with you, and Profs X and Y, etc. I know that many schools I applied to really discouraged us from putting all our eggs in one basket. You aren't expected to apply to one school only so it's reasonable to be applying to several labs in the same program.

I think some "ergonomic chairs" found online are at an extreme end of "ergonomicalness" (or whatever you call it) as I remember my previous searches turning up prices of $700+ !! I agree with rising_star about spending good money on a chair (and also a bed). We spend almost all of our time in one or the other! Before, I used a chair from Staples but I don't remember the model/name since I sold it when I moved to my PhD school. Now, I am using this chair from IKEA: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30212487/ . However, I spend almost all of my working time in the office, so I probably only use that chair for a few hours a week (mostly doing homework on my desk at home).

Last year, I applied to US schools with a MSc from Canada and I had some of the same questions, since we don't usually take the GRE and our grading scheme seems to be a little bit different. Here's my experience, but keep in mind that I'm from a science field. 1. I will defer this question to someone else in your field! 2. Don't use / pay money for companies to convert your GPA. A lot of my applications allowed me to enter my GPA in whatever units my own schools uses. That is, the field is usually ___ / ___, so I can write e.g. 3.5/4.0 or 80%/100% etc. My schools provided percentages mostly but they also gave a letter grade so I used those to try to convert to Grade Points (e.g. an A is 4.0, B is 3.0 etc.). To convert them, you do a weighted average (weighted with # of credits or units) of all your marks. The easiest way, I think, is to use a spreadsheet, just make a column of all your grades in the 4.0 or 4.3 or whatever scale you want. Then have another column be the # of credits. Have the third column be the product of the first two. Then, sum up the entire third column and divide by the sum of the entire second column. However, I learned that an A in Canada might mean something different than an A in the US. Whenever schools provided a conversion chart, I used it. But whenever I asked the department about converting grades, they always told me to give the GPA in my "native" units (i.e. percentages) and they will do the conversion themselves. 3. I think it's worthwhile to email prospective departments to ask what would happen to your MA credits. I found that sometimes you can find the information by digging deep into their policy pages. But, if your field is like mine, you should expect very little to "transfer". I saw a range of 0 credits transferred (they might allow me to not take a certain course if I have already taken it during my Masters, but I would have to replace it with another elective course) to the waiver of a "minor concentration" requirement, which was equivalent to 1 semester of coursework (however that school had the most coursework required, so even with that waiver, there was still more required coursework than most other schools!). In addition, many of them will say that these credits are awarded on a case-by-case basis and they will try to defer the discussion until you are actually a student. After receiving a few offers and trying to decide between schools, I tried to press them further by asking for written confirmation on which of my credits will transfer but they keep saying that stuff is decided by a meeting of the academic committee with me on the first week of school. Still, I think this varies a lot case-by-case so it's definitely worth asking about.

I'm not sure how to vote since I often combine multiple methods that you've listed! Emails is the most simplest I think, but it's not always very efficient (important things might be lost in long email threads). But it's simple and when I worked in larger groups, I would write my findings in an email, with a description of what I did and what I found to others. I found that process helped me as well because it forced me to take a step back and look at the big picture. It also helps to keep track of what I'm doing. The other members would then respond to whatever questions I might have had or assign me more things to do. For more complicated things, we might have a teleconference or Skype or in-person meeting, depending on our locations. For assigning tasks/keeping track of progress, maybe someone will be writing on a whiteboard, or someone might have a computer and type it up, projected on the screen, or maybe someone will be taking meeting minutes and emailed to us later, or, most commonly, we all keep track of our own notes/task lists. Recently, I've been in groups that use online shared resources. I think this is very effective and hope more people will move to this method! For example, one group has a group private wiki where we keep track of what's happening as well as our methods (so it's easy to figure out how you do X). For another group, we have a sizeable dataset that we are working together to analyse so we have a shared Google Spreadsheet that gets filled in when the analysis is completed. It also serves as an up to date reference of what we know about our data for those of us doing further analysis as well! I've found that when working with other students or younger faculty members, we seem to be more likely to use something like Google Docs or wikis. I think this is a great way to efficiently share and synchronize data when combined with some kind of regular meeting too. I think there are some concerns about what Google can potentially do with the data we store on Google Docs, so I wouldn't use it if I somehow had data that had to be kept confidential (e.g. human research subject data?).

You can also consider hiring a tutor if you think having in-person interaction would help you learn some concepts. As a college and grad student, I've tutored people of all ages for the math sections of many tests like the GRE. You could try looking up the Math, Physics, or Chemistry department websites of local universities and see if they have a list of their grad students who are working as private tutors. Sometimes we would get a department-wide email from the department administrative person forwarding a tutor request from someone outside of the school. In undergrad, I charged $20-$25/hr and in grad school, I charged $30/hr but it may depend on where you live as well. It's not super cheap but cheaper than some official courses. Of course, you have to hope you get a good tutor (ask for references if you really want to be sure) but at least you can just try it once or twice and stop if you decide that you are not making progress (might not be able to do that with some of the courses!).

In addition to what fuzzy said, some Canadian schools do not ask for one long essay that is typically the SOP at American schools. For example, at UBC Physics, the grad application in 2010 consisted of ~5 questions that required paragraph responses. The 5 questions were the points that one typically makes in a SOP (e.g. what's your background, what you want to study, why UBC etc.) Just something else to keep in mind too, because the questions can be misleading (sometimes the prompt is followed just by a text box, not an upload file thing). Until I checked, I was going to answer "What do you want to study in grad school?" with just "Astronomy" (thinking it was just like "what program do you want to apply to?" even though that question was already asked earlier in application).

Some schools allowed my wife to visit with me, so I think it would not hurt to ask about your child. By springtime, the decisions will have been made, so you have the balance of power now. You can use the school's reaction to this information to help you make your decision on where to go too! Not all schools will be able to fly an addition person out but at least there's not going to be extra costs like food, hotel etc. But the way they say no might provide useful information too. Some schools are very supportive of students who are parents. Some schools increase your stipend if you have dependents (by way of benefits usually) and I know my department has a lactation room for staff, faculty and students who may need to breastfeed during working hours. I think if you wait until the school already made a decision on you, then it can't hurt you too much if you mention this special case and see what they say. You might end up doing a "virtual visit" but it doesn't hurt to ask. If you do want to travel with your child, they might even be able to help you out partially or fully.

Wow, and here I thought a department of 20-30 faculty is "big", lol. 10-15 out of 50-100 is roughly equivalent to 3-4 out of 20-30, I think. Sorry if my post came off as an attack -- I didn't mean it that way and the reasoning I used was based on the wrong assumption (in your case) that 10-15 profs would make up a majority of the department! I was just trying to convey the idea that one should only name names if they are significantly narrowing down their fields of interest!