TakeruK

I can understand where you're coming from. I also would mostly go to the TA first for any questions and as a TA, I preferred it when students came directly to me for questions as well (generally the prof would redirect the questions to me anyways). If it was not for the very small class sizes in undergrad (<10 students/class), I probably would not get to know profs in my department very well. Even so, the profs that I knew the best were always the ones I worked with! So, my first tip in order to get to know more profs, especially for LOR purposes, is to do research with them! This advice might be field-dependent, but I think this is the perfect time to start planning what you want to do this summer. If you want to do grad school, the best thing is probably a research assistantship or internship. Find some profs who do research that interest you and maybe start emailing them to ask to talk about potential for summer research work. Maybe you can wait until after the holidays to do this though. Hopefully your department has some kind of support structure for students who wants to do summer research -- many departments host an info session, or have scholarship/fellowships for this, or have a website where profs recruit undergrad researchers. Additionally, speaking to other students might lead you towards a research project as well (i.e. someone could say "Well I worked for Prof. X last year and she said she wanted a student to work on Project Y this summer"). LORs from profs you did research with are the best LORs anyways, so this will help you get a strong LOR as well as increasing the number of academics you know well (and could possibly mentor/guide you in the future). My second tip is to try to manage shyness a little bit. I was very shy when I was younger so I know it's not very productive to say something that might sound like "get over it". What worked for me was realising that the overwhelming shyness can severely affect my life so it gave me the motivation and courage to get out of my comfort zone. I don't know what will work for you. But I think it's really important to be able to "sell yourself" in academia. Beyond undergrad, you cannot just do well and hope people notice you. You have to seek out your own opportunities and make your own contacts. For example, you will probably have to network a little bit and get to know other researchers at conferences. You don't have to be the most charismatic social butterfly though. But it's important to be able to take a deep breath and step out of your comfort zone when it really matters. I think right now, when trying to get another research position for the upcoming summer, is an instance of where it really matters. Thirdly, if you are worried about bothering professors by asking about their research, I don't think you have to worry too much. From what I've seen, it's rare that an undergrad is actually interested in the professor's work (depending on program/school I guess). Most students see professors as instructors that assign too much homework and grade unfairly. It would probably be refreshing for a prof to be able to talk to a student who is interested about their research. Remember that professors have worked since they were our age to get to where they are -- research is definitely their passion. Good luck! Hope that was helpful!

I think it is a very bad idea because of the practical reasons bamafan pointed out (i.e. you're removing the advantage of being able to use "your" voice in the SOP). But maybe even more importantly, I am pretty sure that by submitting an application, you have to certify that everything submitted is both true and written by you. If you ever got found out, they might revoke your admission (I don't even want to speculate on what could happen if they find out after you've already started your program or if you've graduated). So the risk is really high! Not worth it, in my opinion.

I think it definitely depends on both discipline and individual conference/meeting. So it's best to check with the submission guidelines. Just to provide another perspective: I've found that in my discipline, conference abstracts are rarely published so you are allowed to submit the same/similar abstracts to many different meetings. Of course, you wouldn't want to do this too much since if the same people see your same talk over and over again, it's not very interesting! I often see the same talk presented at different meetings on the CVs of some students. In astronomy, people might sometimes present a talk at a very general meeting for all astronomers and then later that year, present a more focused version of their work at a smaller meeting for their subfield. I've found that meetings that will publish a proceedings will usually require you to certify that the material isn't published elsewhere. But in astronomy, I get the sense that conferences are used to just let the community know about your work and to get feedback (perhaps just as you are preparing your manuscript for journal submission). So many people will opt out of publishing in the proceedings because they would rather publish the work in a traditional journal instead. I know that conference publications are more valued in other fields though! In addition, I know many senior, about-to-graduate PhD students to present their work at as many meetings as possible in their final year in order to get their name and work known as they are applying to post-doc positions. Also, sometimes an oral presentation slot at a conference is really hard to get, so it might not be wise to only submit to one conference if you were hoping to give a talk about your work. I think that your advisor and other people in your department/field (other profs or senior students) can help you figure out what is the norm for your discipline!

From counting the names on this page: http://www.fulbright.ca/programs/canadian-students/2012-2013-canadian-fulbright-students.html, there were 15 awards finally given. The only information I got on number of applications forwarded is "the Committee recommends more candidates in any given competition than we can realistically fund".

My schools asked for me to send them as soon as they were available (my undergrad school does not finalize them until June). My PhD school gave a deadline of July 31 but since my MSc transcript won't show my graduation until November (since I finished in August), they said I can take as long as Dec 31 (i.e. after the first semester of grad school). But it depends on your school! However, as others said, as long as you still get the degree that you said you would in the application then they won't really care if your GPA dropped (and one semester can't really make a huge difference anyways). It might hurt you in applying to future fellowships though.

Many schools I applied to said directly that the financial information does not factor in the admissions decision. If you have an external fellowship, like NSF, NDSEG, etc. then it should help your admissions. Applying for funding from the school itself shouldn't hurt you since the school probably expects to have to pay for all its students. If you have an outside fellowship, then it's just a bonus. I think most schools expect students to pick one that meets their needs the most (whether it's funding, support for dependents, etc.) so they will try to make their offers as appealing as they can afford to.

I think JISNEGRO answered your original question ("how will this be scored?"). It sounds like your first essay is a 0 and your second essay is a NS. But I don't think anyone can really answer the other part of your question, which is will your university count this as "all sections completed". If the University said that you can score a zero on the writing and it won't matter, that's one thing. But if they said "we do not have any requirements on the writing score" or "there is no minimum cutoff writing score", that doesn't really equal "you can score zero or skip it". I think the best thing is to contact the University and ask them if a score of "0" or "NS" will be accepted. If not, then you should probably redo it and ask permission to submit more scores later. If it is accepted, then you're fine and don't have to worry about it anymore

I agree with this assessment -- at the schools "where applications are forwarded to individual professors and they get to pick" (mostly Canadian ones), this would mean that the application was forwarded to all profs in the cognitive area and they have about a month to decide either way. At many schools, usually the official acceptance by the graduate school does not happen until you accept the department's offer and it's basically just a formality (i.e. the official graduate school requirements are much lower than the competitive requirements of any department).

For grad school applications -- probably not. You will get a conditional offer usually dependent on the fact that you will complete your degree, so as long as you meet your undergrad requirements, it's all good. However, you may still need your undergrad marks in future applications. For example, if you apply to fellowships or scholarships next year, they will want to see all of your undergrad marks. So, if these things have some requirement on the number of hours per term, then it might matter (although if 12 hours is enough for full time status, then it probably should be okay). In any case, it will probably be more important that you do well in these last few courses than the number of courses you take.

If I'm not sure what someone's rank means and if the website doesn't give clues (i.e. sometimes their website or CVs list students that they advised in the past/currently advising), then I usually wrote them a short email saying that I'm interested in applying to their program and if they would take students in the following year, etc.

Some schools also notify you by snail mail (most places do email first then mail you a letter, but some places that rejected me only sent me a snail mail letter). Some schools might also never get back to you, which is sucky

I'm not too familiar with how grad school works in film, but I think it doesn't work this way in most other fields. Even if a prof gave you a copy of their letter for your records, you can't submit that again in a future application. For most graduate school, fellowship, and academic job applications, they usually want a letter directly from the prof, usually through an electronic means! In addition, not waiving your rights doesn't mean you automatically get to see the letter, as the others said, you have to go through an official process to request to see your files.

Even though a majority of a population (e.g. international students) share a particular trait, it's not fair/right to assume that all members of that population share that trait. The world doesn't always work this way and I also find myself making these generalizations from time to time. But, it's something I strive to change for. I agree with SANDIEGO -- most people who do this are doing it innocently. But some people use this to harrass others so when we let it go by, it appears that this behaviour is the norm and is socially acceptable. At my MSc school, in Canada, I was living in a university town with a population that was over 95% Caucasian, so almost everyone who looks different was a student. Many people assume that I was an international student, based on my visual appearance. People talked to me as if I did not understand English (e.g. really loud, slowly and exaggerated). It does not feel nice when you realise that you are being treated differently because of your appearance. Here in the US, I sometimes get the international student = cannot speak English label too, and that does not feel nice either. I agree that there is nothing wrong with stating the fact that "International Students" is a valid way to group students and the fact that "the majority of international students are not native English speakers". However, in my opinion, it is not okay to use the "international student" label to treat an individual member of that group differently. I think it is dehumanizing because I no longer feel like an individual, but as a "member of the group" instead. Instead of being TakeruK, I am now seen as "an International student". So this is why I think you (I mean everyone in general, not Eigen specifically even though his post is quoted above) should not treat International students any different (in this example we are talking about presumption of English proficiency) until you learn that they are indeed different. For example, speak to us as if you were speaking to any other student. Don't treat us differently unless we ask for it or show obvious signs that we do not understand. Similarly, comments like "Omg, this person writes like an International Student", or "oh, it looks like our TA/prof is International, I guess we aren't going to be able to understand his/her accent" are not okay. I think this is pretty obvious to most people though. To the OP, I got this a lot during my MSc and a little here in California too. It makes me feel pretty crappy about myself and sometimes it makes me feel like an outsider. But, for me, "hate" is a pretty strong feeling and I wouldn't say it goes that far. It's not bad enough for me to want to react violently -- I can always find better people to spend my time with. But, it's enough for me to speak out about it and try to prevent it from happening if I witness it. However, when it happens to me, sometimes I am too shocked that it actually just happened (even though it's not that rare) for me to react properly and I often wish I had spoken up earlier.

Also, usually admission letters state a funding offer as well. In many Canadian schools, this becomes a commitment/contract as well. Some of my letters state something like Your stipend will be $X with Y hours of TA commitment if you have no scholarship, a SSHRC, or a OGS (with different values of X and Y for each scenario).

Asking for clarification would be the best bet. But I would agree with the others in this thread that pointed out that academic probation for bad grades isn't a "disciplinary action". In my interpretation, a "disciplinary action" involves some kind of hearing or meeting with profs/officials -- e.g. plagiarism drinking while underaged etc. Academic probation for failing or not meeting a minimum GPA is generally an automatic thing and I wouldn't say it's discipline (which usually involve breaking a regulation or law, not simply performing poorly).

I think the OP's situation is a little bit different -- the issue is that the other students do not necessarily know him that well yet. However, even though you know someone to be a "good person", that doesn't mean they are capable of hiding secrets. For a rather extreme and high profile example, consider http://en.wikipedia....ussell_Williams : he was a well decorated Canadian officer, etc. The people that knew him well had no idea. So I'd say that you never could really know anyone. I definitely agree that most people make decisions based on their view of what is "right". And I agree that it's not logical to automatically assume that everyone is out to get you. I also agree that even those convicted of crimes are people and while they should be punished for their crimes if convicted, we should remember that they are still humans, like us, too. However, I think as academics, we should remember that it is not always reasonable to apply logic to the everyday world. In academia, it is important to be objective, look at all sides equally, and make all decisions based on logic. In "real life", I don't think that applies. In an ideal world where everyone acts logically and objectively, then this would work. But we don't live in an ideal world, and many people are not objective. So, I think it's completely reasonable to do things that you know aren't logical (i.e. assume every person you meet on a dark street could potentially hurt you) when the stakes are high enough. I do this in my life too -- for example, when I drive, I assume that every other driver could potentially run a red light, not yield the right of way, or could do something dangerous at any minute. So, I drive defensively. Obviously, logic would say that the majority of drivers are not bad drivers (otherwise we would have even more accidents) but the risk of a car accident is too high -- I rather be defensive and safe than get hurt. I can understand this caution when people are wary of others in a dating scenario. I think it's reasonable to take precautions when you first date someone you don't know very well -- i.e. public places, watch your drink, maybe go out as a group etc. So, when it's someone you don't know very well AND there are scary rumours that may or may not be true, the risks are so much higher. So I agree with kateausten -- self-preservation trumps fairness. I think the OP and others in similar situations should follow the advice of this thread and try to distance themselves from the topic and not bring it up. However, I think people in this situation should accept the reality that they will probably be treated unfairly about this topic. It is unjust and I feel bad when I judge people like this, but I rather feel bad than put myself in danger.

I am not actually sure what you are talking about when you say an "unusual use of images". In my MSc thesis, I included about 12 MPEG files (i.e. movies). They weren't especially creative though -- it was just an animation of plots to show the motion and evolution of particles. The school allowed for uploading supplementary files (including movie, audio, and many other formats) for theses so I took advantage of that. In my thesis text, I provided a couple of still frames as a placeholder and a note for the thesis committee to go online to view the movie. However, it turns out that none of them (other than my supervisor) actually did that (I asked them after the defense). I think a lot of schools now allow for more than just a PDF thesis submission. I don't know if that's what you were looking for though! As for the "episodic" nature, a lot of schools will also accept "manuscript" theses instead of "traditional" theses. These theses (lol) are usually something like 3 peer reviewed paper published by the student that are somewhat related "stapled" together and handed in. Sometimes you need to write a intro/summary wrapper to make it flow a bit better. So, if a student did e.g. 3 loosely connected projects, studies, or experiments, it might be able to write a thesis in this way.

It depends on the school -- some places only allow you to submit to just one program. Other places only allow you to submit to one program but there is a question that is like "do you want to be considered for another program at this school?". Some other places let you simultaneously submit to two programs at once and other programs have no restrictions -- but you have to submit (and pay the fees twice) separate applications. Usually there is an entity that oversees all of graduate studies (e.g. "School of Graduate Studies") and applications actually go there, so they are likely to be able to see that you applied to more than one program. I think the best thing to do is to talk to the programs you want to apply to and let them know your intentions.

I had thought/worried about the same thing but I decided to not worry about it in the end because I don't think a school is going to turn away a good student because the school thinks that they are not the student's first choice. Even if you are a middle-ranked school that get a lot of applications from top students using them as safeties, why wouldn't you want to snag/recruit a top student? Hmmm, that's an interesting point -- I've never thought about it that way before. I think this really depends on how funding is allocated for each school. I don't know how my current school works yet since I'm pretty new, but I know that the Canadian school system doesn't work that way. Students do not cost the department any money unless they accept the offer -- generally the graduate school or the University provides each department with some base level of funding. Then the department uses its own funds to top up this funding in order to make a competitive offer. Based on how much money (and how many current students) the department has, they make a number of offers equal to how much they can fund and put others on a waitlist -- if someone declines, then they can make offers off the waitlist. Sometimes, if there is a student that they really want but they have exceeded the quota, or if it's an international student that costs more money, the department might have a reserve fund put aside for this situation.

I agreed that it's a huge bummer. My scores did the same, and it was a 6 months difference (I wrote the GRE just before the Revised GRE came out, so they published a new concordance table). However, it's justified. Nothing YOU did change, but everyone else did. Percentiles are not about how well you scored (that's what scaled scores are for), they are about how well your score compares with everyone else's scores. ETS computes the percentiles based on the last 5 years of tests, so every year, the oldest test scores are thrown out, and percentiles are recomputed with the latest years' scores. If the scores required for a certain percentile has moved up, it means that the most recent year's test takers have scored higher than the test takes 6 years ago. This is why I don't think percentile ranks are not really that meaningful in minute detail. They're useful to tell that a student in the 85th percentile range is better than say 60th percentile, but how can you really distinguish e.g. 73rd vs. 70th. In addition, almost every school that has published a "cutoff" publishes a scaled score (e.g out of 800 or out of 170), not a percentile. And it's important to remember that the percentile is your ranking amongst ALL GRE takers. You are not competing against everyone who wrote the GRE for a grad school spot -- you are just competing with the other people who applied to the same program! So it's likely that the department will instead compare your scaled scores with one another.

My first conference presentation was actually at a conference organized by and for other undergraduate students in my field in Canada. So while it was pretty scary, it was at least comforting to know that everyone else was also a student and we were mostly all doing this for our first times too. I still cringe when I think about that first presentation. I used flashy slide transitions (thought they were so cool! lol), put red text on blue backgrounds (unreadable!!) and talked so fast that I finished my 12 minute talk in 7 minutes. I was unfortunate enough to be scheduled at 8pm, after dinner, on the last big day of talks, so only a handful of people were present (mostly other people scheduled in the same time slot!) But I guess that was a good thing after all -- fewer people saw that embarrassment! Shortly afterwards, I presented the same thing at a "real" conference (i.e. attended mostly by faculty members) and that was really scary. But I think my previous experience was helpful. I kept presenting at student conferences to build up my skills and confidence. Student conferences usually have faculty member "judges" that actually provide valuable constructive criticism afterwards and I found that to be very helpful. I think I am a competent presenter now, definitely have come a long way since that first undergrad talk. Now, I am not nervous at all about an upcoming talk until the person just before me is speaking!! What I found worked really well for me is to find a friend you can practice in front of. If you're attending a conference with a roommate, you can practice with each other. Better still, you can find out if anyone else in your program is presenting and interested in giving a practice talk. During my undergrad, we got the dozen or so students who were going to present to get together and have a mini conference session of our own. It's easier to present in front of your friends and this also allowed us to see our friends' talks, so that if there was another interesting talk scheduled at the same time during the real conference, we could go see that one instead. For my graduate school level talk, I usually go over the slides with my supervisor to make sure I didn't make silly errors. I honestly think practice is the best way to gain confidence. I don't know the extent of your social anxiety but I know public speaking was a big challenge for me to overcome to get to where I am today. I used to break out in tears when I had to talk in front of my class in elementary school. Fortunately, that has not yet happened to me at a conference yet!

It depends on the school, although none of my official offers mentioned anything about raises. However, at my MSc school, TAs were unionized so the Collective Agreement stipulates a ~1.5% raise each year in our TA funding (which is a few hundred dollars a year overall). Some schools are sneaky and they cut back other funding as they raise TA or RA funding though. My current school just bumped everyone up $2000/year starting Fall 2012 (so the new students already started on the higher rate while older students just got a raise). According to the older students, this was not promised to them when they started, it just happened. I think schools generally avoid making monetary promises whenever possible. Another school didn't mention this in the letter of offer but during the grad visit, the department said the policy was to give grad students a ~$3000 / year raise once they have finished their comps (and it also comes with a "promotion" from "Graduate Assistant" to "Graduate Associate"). Perhaps this is a reflection on the lower tuition costs that the department has to pay for you once you finished your courses! A lot of my offers did guarantee that the stipend won't decrease though. But I don't think you should count on a stipend increase unless it is promised in writing to you personally (i.e. in a letter). Department policies can change from year to year!

I estimate my hours per week because I have a regular "start" and "end" time each day at the office. I subtract hours for non-work things (e.g. like what I am doing right now) but I include the 1 hour for lunch (since all other jobs include it). Then I add any extra hours I might do at home -- this is usually strictly scheduled because I don't really want to be doing work at home, but when I'm in classes, my work load goes up to about 60 hours a week and I don't want to spend 60 hours in the office a week. So I try to do things like homework at home and that helps me focus on getting some progress on research while at school. I might also do some reading at home too. Working from home is usually possible for me since I don't work in a lab. I usually only work at home when it's convenient to do so -- e.g. I need to be home because a contractor is coming to fix something, or if I have to do an errand in the middle of the day, etc. Other than homework, I try to view working from home as an exception rather than the norm. One of the things I try to do is to NOT think about work when I'm not on the clock. I think this might ultimately make me an "unsuccessful" scientist, as defined by the email/letter above! But I don't love science (or anything) so much that I want to do it all the time. If I suddenly come upon an inspiration, I'd jot the idea down for the next day but I wouldn't try to think it through in my head if I'm "off". If it's just a random thought that doesn't seem to have promise, I'd just push it aside. There are too many other things I'd rather be doing (or need to be doing to stay sane)! If I allow science/work to always prioritize my energy, then the rest of my life is going to suffer. After all, I am doing science to have a career that will support the life I want, so it doesn't make sense to prioritize work all the time -- the 50-60 hours I put in is enough. Balance is important! As for working from home in general (i.e. in all "industries"), allowing employees to work from home is a good thing only if there are still ways for employees to "clock" their hours AND choose their own hours. I think it would be a detriment to the life of most workers if they were expected to be working on and off all day. I know from my own experience as well as those close to me that even a rotating fixed schedule (i.e. still fixed hours but the shifts change every 2 weeks) is pretty disruptive to life outside of work. A flexible work schedule is sometimes nice but the drawbacks is that you won't know when you will be working, so you always have to make plans with "as long as I don't have to work" in mind.

I think technically, once you are a student at the school, you have the right to inspect everything in your student record/file. This includes everything related to your admissions -- anything that went into your official file! So no, it's unlikely you would be able to see the letter before the application season is over, but generally you should waive the right so that you can *never* see it. I also think this means that even though you waived the right, it doesn't mean that the school isn't allowed to eventually release the letters to you anyways. Someone I know recently graduated and they were given their student file, including admissions related materials (e.g. LORs).

I agree -- I think it's an example of how "privacy laws" that are supposed to protect us can end up hurting us because of poor implementation. I am assuming that while it would be useful, there is probably something preventing the application forms from stating something like "you have to waive your rights or we won't take your letter as seriously" next to this checkbox! In addition, not checking this box doesn't help you at all. In the "fine print" at one school, they explained that the Freedom of Information Act (or whatever it's called) allows students to view their own files (including LORs) unless they have waived the right. However, at that school (and perhaps others), you are only considered a student (and thus have a "student file") only AFTER you've accepted their offer. So, if this is practiced at all schools, you can only see the letters if you do get in (and by then it wouldn't be very useful!)